NAN A. S. HAYWORTH: “my colleagues, I salute my Committee on Ways and Means colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. Herger), for…”

“my colleagues, I salute my Committee on Ways and Means colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. Herger), for introducing the reauthorization of welfare reform; and as my friend from South Carolina just mentioned, this is an opportunity to build on a genuine success story. My friend from Kansas came to the well earlier and he spoke of our great former President Ronald Reagan who had the right instincts when President Reagan said, Success in terms of helping people needs to be defined not by the numbers of people added to the welfare rolls, but by the numbers of people who depart those rolls and who go out and get jobs. What we started in 1996, despite the wailing and gnashing of teeth of some, was something truly remarkable and truly constructive. When we reaffirm the dignity of work and the reality instead of just the rhetoric that the best program in the United States is not a social program, it is a job, to reaffirm individual self-worth, to reaffirm the dignity of work and the pride and personhood. That is the challenge that confronts us as we reauthorize landmark welfare reform.”