[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 41 (Monday, March 6, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H2659]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


          REAL REFORM THE ONLY TRULY COMPASSIONATE THING TO DO

  (Ms. DUNN of Washington asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks and include 
extraneous material.)
  Ms. DUNN of Washington. Mr. Speaker, let us talk about compassion, 
because some of our Members seem to have a distorted sense of what that 
term means when it comes to our Nation's failed welfare policies.
  Is it compassionate to continue with a status quo system that for 
three generations has stripped women of their dignity? Republicans say 
no. The current system limits the ability of poor women to seek gainful 
work and condemns those women and their children to a life of 
hopelessness caught up in the welfare cycle.
  That is not compassion, Mr. Speaker. It is destructive to women, to 
children, and to families.
  In fact, because of the disincentives that exist in the current 
system, many welfare mothers will never be married.
  Mr. Speaker, let us not defend the status quo. Instead, let us end a 
system that traps children in lives of higher rates of domestic abuse 
and violent crime and inadequate educational opportunities. Let us 
transform welfare and redefine compassion to mean stronger families, 
domestic tranquility, and good jobs.

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