Political Quotes

“It is an honor to address this body, and I rise today to talk about H.R. 1469, the Welfare BRAC Act. Before going into the specifics of the bill, I would like to talk for a little bit about how we have arrived at a point of needing such a fundamental restructuring of our Nation's antipoverty programs. In 2015, the Federal Government spent $843 billion on welfare programs, means-tested welfare programs. By some estimates, we have spent more than $22 trillion on antipoverty programs over the past 50 years. Today, we have some 92 antipoverty programs run by the Federal Government, all supposedly with the same goal: to alleviate poverty. This chart to my left highlights those programs. If you look: 5, cash aid; 25, education and training; 2, for energy; 17, for food aid, and on goes the list. So how did we come here? Well, as Ronald Reagan said: ``Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this Earth.'' Why is that true? Well, it is true because touching some of these programs is very polarizing. So when you touch them, they all have a constituency. And the reality is, if the 15th food aid program worked well, then the 16th wouldn't be launched. So if you want to address a new problem, well, then you launch the 17th food aid program. What doesn't happen over the time is finding a way to get those programs to work together to be a coherent whole.…”