Political Quotes

“I want to respond to the speeches about the Work First Act. This is, from what I can tell, an 800-page amendment that has been submitted without giving anyone on the other side a preview of that amendment, or any kind of opportunity to review an 800-page document. We were handed a background brief which is on one side of the paper. I think it is five or six pages of one-sided paper with fairly big type. It is not much information. There are, in fact, a lot of questions about the exemptions that are provided for to the rules that sound very good but like previous bills that I have seen come from the Democratic leader, while the appearance, the facade, looks nice, there are a lot of holes in the floor for the people to drop through and stay in the current system, and, in fact, in the end the current system is alive and well after we have gone through great effort to pass something. This bill does, from what I have seen--at least what they admit to in this background brief; I think 'brief' is probably the applicable word here--there are essentially no time limits left. Under the Republican bill, under the bill that passed the U.S. Senate last year 87 to 12, there is a time limit on welfare. After 5 years, you are off AFDC; you had your time to, in a sense, get an education, get training, do job search, work, get that experience, and after 5 years the social contract was, in a sense, at an end.”