[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 62 (Wednesday, May 15, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H2476-H2477]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     WELFARE REFORM IS ABOUT REAWAKENING SPIRIT OF AMERICAN FAMILY

  (Mr. REHBERG asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. REHBERG. Mr. Speaker, in 1996 Congress acted to fundamentally 
reform America's welfare system from the broken entitlement program it 
had become into the streamlined temporary assistance program we now 
have today.
  Since the historic Republican-led reforms of 1996, more than 3 
million children have been lifted out of the depths

[[Page H2477]]

of poverty and given the opportunity to achieve their fullest 
potential. Welfare rolls have been reduced by more than 60 percent 
nationally, and by more than 50 percent in my home State of Montana.
  There are those who argued 7 years ago that reforming welfare would 
put children out on the street. History has proven them wrong, and they 
are wrong now to use the same negative rhetoric. Welfare reform is 
about reawakening the spirit of the American family that has only known 
the disappointment of a government handout. Congress must act to keep 
the American entrepreneurial spirit alive, to invest in our children's 
future, and to secure the social and economic backbone of the great 
American experiment in democracy. I urge Members to vote yes on welfare 
reform.

                          ____________________