[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]


             WELFARE SLOWLY DESTROYS THE WILL TO PERSEVERE

  (Mr. HEFLEY asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Speaker, the welfare system has been called a waste, 
it has been called inefficient, it has been called a destroyer of 
families, and it has even been compared with slavery. I would argue 
that these criticisms are largely accurate.
  To those who would defend the current welfare system, I challenge 
them to go outside the Capitol Building and walk around the streets of 
the District of Columbia or almost any major city in America. Here one 
can see the results of the welfare culture. Crime, corruption, teenage 
pregnancy, children without fathers, poverty, unemployment, and on and 
on it goes. In other words, an almost complete breakdown of community.
  The problems that the District and other communities face are not 
because too little money is being spent on welfare. They exist because 
welfare creates a perverse set of incentives that suffocate the dignity 
of work and slowly destroy the will to persevere.
  Mr. Speaker, Republicans have promised to not only reform welfare, 
but to replace welfare. We are committed to the belief that people are 
more important than government and that strong children are better than 
strong bureaucracies.

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