Rob Bishop: “In our discussion of this particular rule today, we have, as oftentimes is the case, wandered far and wide. I would…”

“In our discussion of this particular rule today, we have, as oftentimes is the case, wandered far and wide. I would point out to one of the speakers who was just up there saying that we should stay here doing the sequestration act, dealing with the sequestration issue, the House did. On May 10, we passed the Sequestration Replacement Act. Once again, it's sitting over in the Senate. To wait here until we do the middle class tax cuts, we did that in August. It's waiting over on the Senate to do something. We have issues that are significant in the two that are before us. If we're talking about welfare in some particular way, whether the rule that was made coming out of the executive branch was appropriate or not, we could go back and say why it was done. It is true the President, in 1997 and once again in 1998, said he would not have supported the legislation that created the system that we have. It's also true that in The Washington Post editorial, they made comments that said the Obama administration is waiving the Federal requirement that ensures a portion of able-bodied TANF recipients must engage in work activities. If this is not getting welfare reform, it's difficult to imagine what would be. But even if the substance of that was inaccurate, the fact that it was done by regulation, by rulemaking coming from the administrative branch, puts us in suspect category.…”