John Shaw: “In 1996, this House embarked, I think, upon a huge social experiment. We, for the first time in decades, had changed the…”

“In 1996, this House embarked, I think, upon a huge social experiment. We, for the first time in decades, had changed the way or moved away, from the policy of rewarding people not to work, to have kids and not to marry. We changed the world; and as a result of that bill, and I remember it so well, we passed it three times out of here and it was vetoed twice by President Clinton, but on the third time, much to his credit, he came on television, right before the vote, I was watching it in the cloak room, and announced that he was going to sign the bill. As a result, we got good bipartisan support, and that was tremendously important; and it was important because it was a situation and it set the record really straight as far as the Congress of what we were trying to do which is to help people out of poverty, to help people take control of their lives, take control of their families, not to be dependent on some huge massive welfare that was suffocating them. We found there were people living in neighborhoods where nobody in the entire neighborhood worked, and the only people that they would ever see that were making a dollar were out in the street selling drugs. We have changed that. This social experiment has been, I think, one of the greatest steps forward since I have been in the Congress; and I am very, very proud to have been a part of it.”