[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 6 (Wednesday, January 10, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Page S132]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            THE PRESIDENT'S VETO OF THE WELFARE REFORM BILL

  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I agree with my friend from Mississippi that 
the recess probably will be important where we can, as the President 
said, take a deep breath, step back, and look at where we are.
  Mr. President, we talk about the veto by the President of the United 
States of the welfare reform bill. Well, I think the Democratic leader 
said very emphatically today that the 25-percent maintenance level 
where the Senate had voted 80 percent maintenance level by the State 
was an important factor that was changed.
  The President said when we passed the bill on welfare reform in the 
Senate that he would sign that bill. Well, I have been around here a 
few years and usually when you cannot get together and you find 
something that can be signed and you are not too far apart, then I 
think we can come back to the table and work it out.
  Instead of putting all the blame on one place--the Democrats in the 
House, the Democrats in the Senate, the Republicans in the Senate, are 
all in favor of one item; and we wind up that there is a group in the 
House that will not let us move forward. So I think that becomes the 
stumbling block.
  Even in the House an amendment was put on one of the bills where you 
were sending the block grants back to the States that none of this 
money could be used by the States to build roads. That gives you some 
idea. I happened to have been a Governor when we got an avalanche of 
money. President Nixon pigeonholed the money after we overrode his 
veto. Then they went to court, and the court released 2 years of 
appropriations. We were the beneficiary of that.
  I understand Federal money coming into States. I understand the 
matching money. I understand what the States can or cannot do. I also 
understand the pressure on a Governor in a State by his constituents 
and what they would like to have him do.
  We talk about big interstate highways. We call it, down in the 
States, get-to-it roads. The interstates are fine, but if you cannot 
get to it, then you cannot ride on it. So they want us to build get-to-
it roads. And so therefore there will be pressure to use this money to 
build get-to-it roads.

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