Herb Kohl: “I would like to emphasize to my colleagues that the House, which passed a very small welfare reform bill, which in many…”

“I would like to emphasize to my colleagues that the House, which passed a very small welfare reform bill, which in many respects is really good, took a look at food stamps. They decided that the country could not afford, from a humanitarian and social point of view, to block grant food stamps at all. Now we have decided we should block grant food stamps. I agree that for the population that we are attempting to move from welfare into work we should block grant food stamps and be very different how we parcel out food stamps. But when we talk about children, the disabled, and the elderly, to block grant food stamps, it seems to me, is not what welfare reform is all about and not what we are trying to accomplish here. And that is why I am arguing that this population should be exempt from having their food stamps block granted and ultimately rationed out to them when that is not the intention of what this welfare reform bill is to accomplish.”