Political Quotes

“I just suggest this really boils down to whether you really want to see dramatic reform or not and whether you want to see dramatic savings in the welfare system. Because, if you require States to keep 90 percent of maintenance of effort, what you will do is create a disincentive in an approach that was supposed to be the maximum incentive to welfare reform; to get welfare savings for the taxpayer--to do both. I think it is pretty clear this is sort of a moderating attempt to try to make welfare reform not as dramatic as it could be. I think that is unfortunate. I think what the public has demanded on the issue of welfare is that you cannot go too far in trying new things to get people off welfare, to get people on to work, to reduce the amount of expenditure that we have. I remind all Senators that, even under the Republican plan as it exists today, welfare spending will go up 70 percent--70 percent--over the next 7 years. It was scheduled to go up 77 percent. We have it go up only 70 percent. That is hardly dramatic, but it is something. It is a start in the right direction, at least, because we believe even though the Federal expenditures on welfare will go up 70 percent, we believe State expenditures will come down and come down dramatically.”