[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 75 (Wednesday, June 15, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 15, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
     PRESIDENT'S WELFARE PLAN ENCOURAGES WELFARE, FAILS TO ADDRESS 
                              ILLEGITIMACY

  (Mr. LINDER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, imagine being 23 years old and learning 
yesterday that you are not required to work for the rest of your life. 
Either you hold the winning lottery ticket or you have just been 
grandfathered in under the administration's welfare plan.
  Welfare reform was a principal tenet of the Clinton campaign in 1992. 
But that promise--to end welfare as we know it--has become an empty 
one. We all agree that those who are able should work. Incredibly, the 
President agrees that people should be required to work unless they 
were born prior to 1972. This provision would be laughable if the 
problem were not so serious.
  Moreover, the President does not attack the principal social 
pathology of our time--illegitimacy. He has said ``We can't justify a 
system that makes welfare more attractive than work.'' I would add that 
we can no longer justify a system that makes illegitimacy more 
profitable than family.
  And you thought he said he would end welfare as we know it. Maybe he 
said he would defend welfare as we know it.

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