Patrick Kennedy: “just hearing my colleague, the gentleman from Georgia, John Lewis, speak so passionately, I think should move anyone who…”

“just hearing my colleague, the gentleman from Georgia, John Lewis, speak so passionately, I think should move anyone who listened to his speech. Over 30 years ago it was John Lewis who was fighting against States rights, States rights meaning justice dependent on geography. How you were treated depended on what State you lived in. And yet our Republican friends who are offering this welfare reform, as they call it, are willing to embrace States rights; what their block grant plan means is that again justice will depend on geography. In my State of Rhode Island, over 40,000 kids in poverty are going to be put at a disadvantage under the block grant system because when you take away the money that is entitled to kids based upon their poverty, you leave it to the whim of the States. I can tell you, each State is under pressure to lower the bar so that you can squeeze people even more. This is wrong. When Mr. Shaw and Mr. Archer say that dollars will not do it alone, I want to ask the Republicans, what are they going to substitute when a poor child needs food, what are they going to substitute for the money that they are supposed to be providing through these programs?”