Jennifer Dunn: “I would like to talk about welfare spending. Welfare spending is so huge it is tough to comprehend. One way to put it…”

“I would like to talk about welfare spending. Welfare spending is so huge it is tough to comprehend. One way to put it, though, is this. On average the cost of the welfare system amounted to $3,300 for each household that paid Federal income tax in the year 1993. That means the first $3,300 of taxes from that household went into the welfare system black hole. I am sorry, but that is a lot of money for a Federal bureaucracy that has simply failed every American. Mr. Chairman, some studies show that for every dollar that is spent in the current welfare system, 70 cents of that dollar is wasted on the Federal Government bureaucracy. That is not compassion, I would argue. The money in our Federal welfare system needs to go to those folks who really need it, not a bureaucrat inside the beltway. Let us talk a moment about compassion, because many of the liberal Members seem to have a distorted sense of what that term means when it comes to our Nation's failed welfare policies. More taxes do not equal more compassion. Is it compassionate to continue with the status quo that for the last three generations has only served to strip women and children of their dignity? I do not think so. Is it compassionate to prolong a system that encourages destructive behavior and greater illegitimacy plus little incentive to go to work? I do not think so.”