[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 52 (Tuesday, March 21, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H3341]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                              {time}  1445
   DEMOCRATS SEEK WELFARE REFORM THAT MOVES PEOPLE INTO THE WORKFORCE

  (Mr. FORD asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. FORD. Mr. Speaker, I want to respond to my Republican colleagues 
by saying that there is nothing in this welfare reform package of a 
Personal Responsibility Act that says that we are going to send people 
to work. What the Democrats have said all along in our debate in the 
subcommittee and full committee is that we want to link welfare to 
work. We want people to be able to work, and we want to have a program 
that will assist them and move them into the workforce. I say to my 
colleagues, ``You punish children, and you are just plain mean to 
children in this country, just for one purpose, and that is to say to 
the wealthiest of this Nation that we're going to pass you on a tax 
cut.'' It is wrong in the Personal Responsibility Act, for the 
Republicans to bring it to this floor, to be so cruel and to penalize 
children in this Nation at a time that we ought to be trying to protect 
our children because they will be the next generation that will carry 
this Nation forward.

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