Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the bill before us today because Congress must ensure that work continues to be the centerpiece of the TANF welfare program, and I regret that we are here today debating the Obama administration's efforts to undermine work requirements. I think that my Democrat colleagues would agree that our time would be better spent discussing bipartisan improvements to TANF and other programs designed to help low-income parents find and go to work. I look forward to having those discussions and conversations as the chairman of the Ways and Means Human Resources Subcommittee. In fact, Mr. Speaker, bipartisan discussions were actually happening before the Obama administration announced they would waive work requirements for welfare recipients last summer. That announcement completely undermined bipartisan negotiations in our committee about ways to strengthen this program. Incredibly, administration officials knew about those negotiations and even had a draft of bipartisan legislation in hand before they announced their misguided waiver policy. Usually, if an administration wants to change the law, they must submit a legislative proposal for Congress to consider, but that's not what the Obama administration did with its proposal to waive the TANF work requirements.…”