[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 207 (Friday, December 22, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2452-E2453]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         PROBLEMS FOR THE POOR

                                 ______


                        HON. WILLIAM J. MARTINI

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, December 22, 1995

  Mr. MARTINI. Mr. Speaker, 30 years of ever-expanding and growing 
antipoverty programs have not erased poverty from our midst.
  We have spent $5 trillion trying to address this problem, yet the 
percentage of children living in poverty is unchanged from what it was 
in 1965.
  Worse, we have seen illegitimate births more than quadruple, and have 
subsidized the rise of the single parent family in our country.
  Today, nearly 30 percent of all births in our Nation are 
illegitimate.
  In 1992, the Federal Government alone spent $305 billion on 79 
overlapping means-tested social welfare programs.
  If we had spent just one-third of that in direct transfer payments to 
the poor, it would have been enough to lift each and every impoverished 
family over the poverty line.
  But our problems still persist.
  Some in Congress and the bureaucracy in Washington continue to insist 
that they know what the poor in our communities need.
  For years they have been beholden to the ill-conceived notion that we 
can only consider ourselves a compassionate nation if Washington 
prescribes solutions to societal problems.
  The resulting system has done worse than fail us.
  It has betrayed us.
  Something needs to change, but for years this body has been unwilling 
to address welfare reform.
  And I understand why, Mr. Speaker.
  Some Democrats in this Chamber have spent their careers constructing 
the American welfare state.
  They have continually told us that more and more government will make 
it all better.
  Now that it is obvious that their polices have failed, pride of 
authorship prohibits them from making the tough but necessary decisions 
to dismantle the system.
  This is only natural, but it cannot be the excuse not to move this 
body forward.
  Finally, Congress will send to the President that promised to ``end 
welfare as we know it'' a real, credible plan to do just that.
  No longer will we entice illegal aliens across our borders with 
easily received welfare benefits.
  No longer will the taxpayers pay to support addiction.
  An no longer will Washington bureaucrats impose top-down solutions to 
problems they don't understand.
  We will put an end to the big-government compassion that kills, and 
return a sense of responsibility, a sense of right and wrong, to the 
American social safety net.
  I look forward to supporting the conference report on H.R. 4, and I 
urge every Member from both sides of the aisle to support it.

[[Page E2453]]


                      TRIBUTE TO OVETA CULP HOBBY

                                 ______


                       HON. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, December 22, 1995

  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise in 
remembrance of one of the great ladies of Texas, Mrs. Oveta Culp Hobby.
  Oveta Culp Hobby witnessed and shaped major events in modern U.S. 
history. Her accomplishments as a public servant and businesswoman have 
always been the reasons that I have looked up to her, but often these 
accomplishments have been overlooked. This Texan's achievements have 
spanned the decades, but are known to a relative few. Most people 
remember Oveta Culp Hobby as the head of a powerful newspaper family 
and the wife of a Governor and the mother of a Lieutenant Governor.
  Mrs. Hobby, however, was important in her own right. In an era where 
being a ``first'' was an unfair and unfortunate litmus test by which a 
woman's ability to succeed would be measured, she rose to the occasion 
by doing what she thought she should do--make her mark on the world.
  Despite her contributions and her considerable financial assets, 
Oveta Culp Hobby was reluctant to dub herself powerful. She made her 
mark on the world by doing what she thought was right. She will be 
remembered by those of us who have looked to her as a mentor and a role 
model.

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