[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 53 (Wednesday, March 22, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H3530-H3531]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                             WELFARE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Wamp] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WAMP. Mr. Speaker, as we enter into this debate on welfare in 
this country, I think it is important to recognize that my colleague 
from west 
[[Page H3531]] Tennessee, the Honorable John Tanner, told me not long 
ago when I first got here that he really believed that neither party 
had an exclusive on integrity or ideas, and I agree with that 
Congressman. And this should not be a Republican or a Democrat issue. 
This should be an American issue.
  It is clear in my heart that this country wants this welfare system 
to change, not to be reformed but to be replaced. They want a working 
opportunity society. They do not want the continuance of the status quo 
with regard to welfare.
  The Washington Post this moring--we all know the tendency politically 
of the Washington Post--editorialized and said about welfare: 
``Besides, what's the choice? The existing approach has failed and the 
public has no appetite for vast new social programs even if there were 
evidence they worked, and there isn't.''
  You know an outstanding Tennessee Congressman, Colonel Davey Crockett 
on the very floor of this House said about welfare, ``We have the right 
as individuals to give away as much of our own money as we please as 
charity; but as Members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate 
a dollar of the public money'' for charity.
  Franklin Roosevelt said in 1935 about welfare: ``Continued dependence 
upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally 
destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to 
administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit.''
  There is a great article in this month's Reader's Digest. It is 
called ``True Faces of Welfare.'' In it is a case study of a welfare 
recipient whose story appeared. Her name is Denise B.

       ``Denise says she would like to work. But she would have to 
     earn a lot, she says, for it to be a better deal than 
     welfare.'' She talks about how she would have to go to 
     school, and work her way up to a higher salary. ```It's a lot 
     of work and I ain't guaranteed to get nothing.'...Welfare by 
     contrast, is guaranteed--(in her words) `until they cut it 
     out, until they say no more.' Denise knows politicians are 
     talking about that now and she does not believe they are 
     wrong.''
       ``Welfare,'' she offers, `is an enabler. It's not that you 
     want to be in that situation. But it's there. We always 
     know.''

  This has become a national attitude about this system, and it hurts 
children, and true compassion is what I want to discuss here tonight in 
my short time and as I rise to my feet to talk about welfare.
  In my home city a social worker who I will leave unnamed came to me 
several times in the last few years to tell me of a story in 
Chattanooga, TN, where multiple children were being born for one reason 
and one reason only, and that is financial, to gain more benefits.
  You know that system creates the worst form of child abuse 
imaginable, in my estimation, because children then are not born for 
the right reasons. They are not born because their parents want to love 
them and sacrifice for them and set aside their own ambitions, and give 
to them and nurture and educate them. They are born so that they can 
receive financial benefits. And the stories continue to roll in of how 
many situations we have like this across the country.
  The neglect that those children are suffering because this system 
promotes this kind of activity is what we need to focus on as we say 
listen. Everyone
 agrees, it is time to eliminate the welfare system and replace it with 
an opportunity society.

  In the last 30 years we have spent $5 trillion on welfare in this 
country, and we have got more illegitimacy, more poverty, more 
problems, more crime than you could ever buy with $5 trillion. It has 
not worked and it is time to move on. And I believe from the very core 
of my experience, Mr. Speaker, that true compassion means having the 
guts to replace welfare at this critical moment in America's history.

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