Political Quotes

“the structure of this bill establishes objectives that States are to meet, particularly in the area of placement of people in work, 25 percent in 1996 rising to 50 percent in the year 2000. Those are laudable objectives. There are also some very serious sanctions against States that do not meet those objectives. A State is subject, for instance, to losing 5 percent of its Federal grant if in any year it fails to meet the standard that has been set. What is the problem? The problem is that we are distributing to States wildly different amounts of Federal resources in which to meet those consistent objectives. We are telling, for instance, the State of Mississippi that it will have to use 88 percent of its Federal money in order to meet the mandates of this bill. Other States will be able to meet the mandates for less than 35 percent of the Federal money that will be made available. That seems inherently unfair, to have 50 States, each of which has a much different position at the starting line in terms of the kind of support they are going to meet but then say that each one has to get to the finish line at exactly the same point and, if they fail to do so, be subject to significant financial personality.”