[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 48 (Thursday, April 28, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: April 28, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                          WORKING OFF WELFARE

  (Mr. REGULA asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join Congresswoman Woolsey 
in introducing the first bipartisan welfare reform bill called working 
off welfare. We hope that the committees of jurisdiction will consider 
our ideas along the many others embodied in various bills.
  We provide a commonsense approach to welfare reform, creating a more 
sensitive system of social, educational, and economic supports which 
would empower individuals on welfare to become permanently self-
sufficient.
  Through working off welfare we hope to reinstill the values of work, 
family, responsibility, individualism, and hope.
  Working off welfare encourages work by allowing the mother to keep 
more of her earnings when she gets a job. We make it possible for a 
poor family to receive child care and health benefits without entering 
the welfare system.
  We encourage families to stay together, eliminating the rules which 
discriminate against two-parent families in seeking AFDC assistance.
  We expand job training and education opportunities by tripling 
funding for the JOBS programs for AFDC families. We focus education and 
training on jobs which pay a family wage and nontraditional occupations 
for women.
  We strengthen the paternity system, making the IRS responsible for 
collecting and distributing child support moneys.
  Our goal is to help welfare recipients get the training they need to 
find jobs that provide a livable wage. If we succeed, we foster self-
esteem where there was despair, role models where there were few, and a 
generation of children with hope where there has been a cycle of 
dependency. We encourage those who believe that welfare reform does not 
have to come at the expense of compassion and reason to join with us.

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