Political Quotes

“when we voted on this matter a few days ago, I voted ``no.'' Today, I am going to vote for the conference report, and I wish to explain why I am taking that position. As I assessed the conference report, it seemed to me that we had basically two options. One option was to wait until there was a better point at which to commence and continue our effort at welfare reform and be prepared to accept the status quo until that second opportunity presented itself. I felt that was likely to be a long time from tonight. The second option is to accept a clearly less than perfect bill, I would say, accept a flawed bill, but one which represents a step in a multistep process leading toward a fundamental transition from a welfare system that has focused on providing for the needs of a dependent population to a welfare system that provides the ladder by which people can move from dependence to independence. I believe it is more appropriate to take that second road. I believe this is the time to take that leap of faith. To use some statistics from my State of Florida, 3 years ago, in 1993, we had an unemployment rate of 7 percent. We had 254,000 persons who were on the AFDC caseload. That is 254,000 families that were on AFDC. Today, in 1996, we have a 200,000 AFDC caseload, a reduction of 54,000 in 3 years. That says that we are in a period of a strong economy, creating jobs, providing people with the opportunity within the current system to get off welfare and to get a job.”