[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 77 (Thursday, May 30, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H5654]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      CHANGE WELFARE AS WE KNOW IT

  (Mr. SMITH of Michigan asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, look, most of the American people 
know that our welfare programs are not working. They have been 
successful in transferring money, and in the process they have taken 
away the self-respect, in many cases they have taken away the eagerness 
for those individuals to get up every morning and go to work and be a 
contributor to society.
  Mr. Speaker, can we imagine any American family going to their young 
teenage daughter and saying, ``I want to talk to you about individual 
responsibility and pregnancy''; and then they say, ``If you get 
pregnant, we are going to increase your allowance by $500 a month, give 
you a separate place to live, and give you a food allowance''?
  We would never do that as individual families, yet our society does 
that. It has got to change. My Governor, John Engler, has come to this 
administration for waivers. Governor Thompson of Wisconsin has come in 
for waivers. Let us change welfare as we know it.

                          ____________________