On the recordDecember 15, 2011
I yield the gentleman an additional minute. Mr. McDERMOTT. Only one out of every five poor children in America receives any direct assistance from this program we're talking about today, and those few who do get helped receive very little. As more and more people lose their unemployment benefits, this hole in the TANF safety net is going to get bigger and bigger and bigger. We ought to start repairing that hole rather than ignoring it as it grows. We are crushing the middle class in this country with our social policy at this point. The data show that our social safety net works but that the real problem is that we don't fund it and that we haven't kept it up to date with what the modern economy is doing. People used to go unemployed, and then in a while the job came back. The jobs are not coming back anymore. Technology is changing it all. I support extending TANF, but today's bill is a Band-Aid of underfunding an outdated policy that hasn't kept up with the problems that struggling Americans are facing every day. We must do better by the middle class in this country--or Occupy Wall Street is going to be everywhere.
