[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 72 (Tuesday, May 21, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H5310]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            PRESIDENT'S WELFARE STRATEGY LEADS A DOUBLE LIFE

  (Mr. CHRISTENSEN asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, Bill Clinton and the Washington liberal 
groups are leading a double life. They claim that they want to end 
welfare as we know it, yet fight it and veto every plan we put forward.
  They say they want to increase the earnings of working Americans, but 
yet they are pushing to hike the minimum wage, which kills low-wage 
jobs. To add injury to insult, they denounce tax relief for working 
families and job creation which would help accomplish both those goals.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, Bill Clinton's strategy undercuts both getting 
people off the welfare rolls and letting them keep more of what they 
earn. Studies show that hiking the minimum wage swells the welfare 
rolls. That is because increasing the minimum wage will cut out over 
400,000 entry-level jobs, the very jobs needed to get people off of 
welfare in the first place.
  If Bill Clinton truly cares about the working poor, he will end his 
double life. He will stop vetoing plans to spring people from the 
welfare trap, he will stop pushing the minimum wage, rusting the 
welfare trap shut, and he will certainly stop vetoing the tax relief 
that he himself has promised.
  It is time for Bill Clinton to stop living a double life.

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