[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 54 (Thursday, March 23, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H3707-H3708]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         WELFARE RESPONSIBILITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Gutknecht] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania.
  Mr. GREENWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I 
simply want to quickly respond to two previous speakers. The 
gentlewoman from Connecticut made reference to cuts in the School Lunch 
Program in her State. Actually under our proposal Connecticut will 
receive more than $3 million over what they received in this year's 
allotment.
  The gentlewoman from New York also referenced reductions. We will 
actually increase funding under the Republican proposal by $29.78 
million in the State of New York. So this discussion of cuts in the 
School Lunch Programs is pure mythology.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I would like to read a poem that I read 
earlier today, because we are hearing an awful lot about children in 
this discussion, and I think in some respects the children are being 
used in this debate as pawns in a much larger play.
  But I would like to read a poem from Bill Bennett's ``Book of 
Virtues.'' It is entitled ``The Bridge Builder.'' I read it earlier 
today, and would like to read it again.

     ``An old man, going a lone highway,
     Came, at the evening, cold and gray,
     To a chasm, vast, and deep, and wide,
     Through which was flowing a sullen tide.
     The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
     The sullen stream had no fears for him;
     But he turned, when safe on the other side,
     And built a bridge to span the tide.
     ``Old man,'' said a fellow pilgrim, near,
     ``You are wasting strength with building here;
     Your journey will end with the ending day;
     You never again must pass this way;
     You have crossed the chasm, deep and wide--
     Why build you the bridge at the eventide?''
     The builder lifted his old gray head:
     ``Good friend, in the path I have come,'' he said,
     ``There followeth after me today
     A youth, whose feet must pass this way.
     This chasm, that has been naught to me,
     To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
     He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
     Good friend, I am building the bridge for him.''''
  Mr. Speaker, when we talk about welfare reform, when we talk about 
reforming the way business has been done in Washington, when we talk 
about balancing the budget, what we are really talking about is saving 
the American dream for future generations. This is not some mean-
spirited accounting exercise. It is serious business. Because right now 
when we talk about the children, what we are doing to the children, the 
truth of the matter is, and I think everyone here knows this, we are 
saddling our kids with a debt that they will not be able to pay off. 
The President's own advisors last year said if the Congress does not do 

 [[Page H3708]] something about this, by the time our children reach 
middle age they will be confronted with a tax rate of 82 percent just 
to finance the debt and social programs. Since Congress did nothing 
last year, the President came forward this year and slipped under our 
desk a note that said we are now talking about 84 percent.
  So when we talk about what we are doing to the children, I think we 
also have to look at what we are doing to the children of the next 
generation when they become of age. It is just simply wrong.
  In 1994 as we were told earlier, President Lyndon Johnson declared 
war on poverty. I think it is time that we as a Congress take a look 
around and count the casualties. Fortunately, or unfortunately for us, 
we do not have to go very far from this Capitol to see many of the 
casualties. As a matter of fact, if you walk about 10 blocks in any 
direction from the U.S. Capitol, you will see those casualties. You 
will see the hopelessness. You will see the despair. You will see the 
ingrained poverty which we have created.
  I want to read a quote, and I think it is so good and it says so 
much.

       By intervening directly in depriving society of its 
     responsibility, the social assistance state leads to a loss 
     of human energies and an inordinate increase of public 
     agencies which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of 
     thinking than by concern for serving their clients and which 
     are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending.

  It was not me who said that, it was not Newt Gingrich who said that; 
it was Pope John Paul II, and he was absolutely right. The social 
welfare system created by Federal bureaucracies simply does not work. 
The tragedy of our welfare system in part is that it is costing too 
much money, and we are burdening our kids with a debt they will never 
be able to pay off.
  But the real tragedy of their inalienable rights to use their God-
given talents. We are with the perverse incentives of the welfare 
system today creating a system that creates dependency.
  We have perverse incentives within the system. Children raised in 
families who receive welfare are three times more likely to be on 
welfare when they become adults. This system just simply is broke, and 
tinkering around the edges is not going to solve it.
  Mr. Speaker, the American people are way out in front of us on this 
issue. They demand welfare reform. They want it this year. Thankfully, 
I think we are going to give it to them finally.

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