On the recordMay 9, 2018
We must reform our Nation's welfare programs. President Ronald Reagan once remarked: ``The Federal Government declared war on poverty, and poverty won.'' Unfortunately, his assessment remains all too accurate to this day. Over the past five decades, the United States Government has spent more than $22 trillion on welfare, only to see the poverty rate remain unchanged. Mr. Speaker, to solve this problem, we must first properly diagnose the cause. Too often, Washington's prescribed cure is yet another government program or increased spending on existing programs. However, we already have 13 Federal agencies running more than 80 Federal programs that provide food, housing, healthcare, job training, education, energy assistance, and cash to low-income Americans. And we should not gauge the success of our war on poverty by how much is spent, but on how many people are actually able to get out of poverty. That is the point. The root cause of the failed ``war on poverty'' is that the structure of our current welfare system entrenches a culture of dependency rather than promoting a path to self-sufficiency. Overwhelming evidence supports what should be a commonsense conclusion: that there is a direct correlation between work and poverty. For example, before Congress reformed the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program to incorporate a strict work requirement, there were 4.9 million families on the rolls of this program.…
