[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 38 (Wednesday, March 1, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H2396]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           WELFARE--A COLOSSAL FAILURE IN THE WAR ON POVERTY

  (Mr. BALLENGER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. BALLENGER. Mr. Speaker, with all the distortion, deceit, and 
deception coming from the other side of the aisle on the issue of 
welfare reform, I think it is time to remind my Democrat colleagues 
that welfare has been a colossal failure.
  Since 1965, we have spent $5 trillion on welfare, an amount greater 
than our total national debt. An amount greater than the cost of 
winning World War II--even in constant, inflation-adjusted dollars.
  But far from winning the War on Poverty, we have spent $5 trillion 
and poverty has won, or at least is winning.
  Consider the sad facts. Since the end of World War II, poverty in 
America had been declining at a rapid and steady rate. But as welfare 
spending increased in the late 1960's and early 1970's, the poverty 
rate leveled off and began climbing, reversing a decades long trend in 
the other direction.
  So why do the Democrats fight so hard to preserve a system that has 
been such a failure? Why do they want to perpetuate a system that has 
trapped so many in a cycle of dependency? Why are they so wedded to the 
old order?


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