Political Quotes

“I rise just to put the Senate on notice that this is not the only alternative to the formula that we will have an opportunity to consider during the debate on the welfare reform bill. There will be other amendments that will be offered by Senator Bumpers, others, and myself tomorrow which go to the more fundamental issue. That fundamental issue is that not only as the Presiding Officer has correctly pointed out have we changed the status quo by no longer requiring a local effort, and therefore continuing a formula whose numbers were predicated on that effort, is irrational. We go beyond that. We impose new obligations on the States, particularly in the areas of child care and preparation for work. We are going to be requiring essentially the same obligation from each of the 50 States with enormously different amounts of Federal resources in order to reach those obligations. There are some States that will have to spend over 80 percent of their Federal money in order to meet the new Federal mandates. Other States can reach those Federal mandates with 40 percent or less of the Federal money. So I suggest this is not just an issue of allocating money between Texas, California, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Florida, or the other States. It goes to the fundamental issue of: Can we achieve the result that this bill is intended to achieve, which is to assist people through appropriate State action to move from welfare dependency to the independence of work?”