Blake Moore: “I thank you so much, Mr. Cleaver. Mr. Chairman, prior to 1994, Congress acted to ensure that Americans had guaranteed…”

“I thank you so much, Mr. Cleaver. Mr. Chairman, prior to 1994, Congress acted to ensure that Americans had guaranteed support under the Social Security Act. It was a three- legged stool. The American social contract provided retirement security for retirees through Social Security, health coverage for elders with Medicare, dignified care for the infirm and disabled under Medicaid and sustenance for low-income families with children. Now, in 1994, on a bipartisan basis, this body breached the Social Security Act's contract with the people and ``ended welfare as we know it.'' Now, this Republican budget says that that is a model for what this budget should do. It recalls that victory, and I quote from the narrative under the Path to Prosperity, a blueprint for American Renewal: This budget completes the successful work of transforming welfare by reforming other areas of America's safety net to ensure that welfare does not entrap able-bodied citizens into lives of complacency and dependency. We've heard on this floor that we're going to make sure that the safety net does not become a hammock. So, in other words, Medicare and Medicare recipients are now welfare recipients. So what this budget does is it ends the guarantee of health care for retirees, turning it into a voucher program, and cuts $30 billion over the next decade.…”