[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 54 (Thursday, March 23, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H3722]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       CHANGES IN WELFARE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Fox] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I think the ladies and 
gentlemen of this House have to realize if you want real change the 
Republican proposal provides the real change.
  Able-bodied people who are on welfare want to be off welfare. In 
fact, under our proposal, they will have, through job counseling, job 
placement and job training, the opportunity to have real jobs that are 
meaningful to help their families.
  More than that, our food and nutrition programs, despite what you may 
have heard from those who would not tell all the facts, realize that in 
the next five years 4.5 percent per year food and nutrition programs 
will be increased for our students across the United States.
  What we are going to do is we are eliminating 15 percent of the 
administrative costs the Federal Government normally would expend. We 
are sending it to the States that can better administer the program, 
and we are capping their administrative costs at 5 percent.
  That 10 percent that would have gone to wasteful bureaucratic 
expenditure is going to feed more children more often all across these 
United States in every single State. This is a compassionate and caring 
program that the Republican majority has presented.
  In addition, we have a nationwide system for tracking the child 
enforcement. Under amendments we passed today that will, hopefully, 
will be adopted in the final bill, we will be able to make sure that we 
have more of the child support go to our children to make sure they are 
fed, to make sure they are clothed better than any other system we have 
had.
  In the State of Maine, they have made sure that they have the 
collection of child support where you have a parent in one case or 
another not paying the child support by making sure that we have a 
system that says, ``If you don't pay your child support, you are going 
to lose your driver's license.'' That threat of loss of a driver's 
license has made sure that the Maine system has really been a model for 
the country.
  Here we have a possibility to make meaningful change under the 
Republican proposals, a tax cut that is meaningful, a $500 tax cut for 
families with children. We are going to have deficit reduction more 
than we have ever had, and we are going to have spending reductions.
  We have had an out-of-control Congress up until this point, but this 
104th Congress has the opportunity in a bipartisan manner for real 
change.
  Beyond the line-item veto, beyond the balanced budget amendment and 
having the prohibition of unfunded mandates, we are going to have with 
welfare reform the first real opportunity to make sure we spend less on 
bureaucrats and we spend more on people.
  This is a compassionate Republican proposal which I believe will have 
bipartisan support, as most of our Contract items have. I think if 
people read through the rhetoric and move away from the scare tactics, 
they will realize that the welfare reform, that the reform for America 
in this Contract With America is the best plan possible and one that is 
meaningful.


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