[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 62 (Wednesday, May 15, 2002)]
[House]
[Page H2478]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   SUPPORT COMMONSENSE WELFARE REFORM

  (Mr. HAYWORTH asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, our President speaks often about changing 
the tone in Washington. To help him do that, we, with commonsense 
control of the Congress, were able to change some policies in 
Washington. For the better part of a half century, the Federal 
Government evaluated success by the number of people who were added to 
the welfare rolls. We said, that has fundamentally got to change, that 
true compassion is making sure people find jobs, that at the end of the 
day when all is said and done, the best social program for any American 
is a job. Welfare reform, enacted over a half decade ago, has put us on 
the road to that commonsense measure, where the real measure of 
compassion is the number of people who leave the welfare rolls and find 
work, where honest compassion is providing educational opportunity and 
child care opportunities to enable people to leave welfare and go to 
work.
  And despite some of the mean-spirited catcalls of over a half decade 
ago about children being thrown into the streets and all sorts of other 
things that I will not repeat because they are so beneath the dignity 
of this House, we have restored the basic dignity to millions of 
Americans who now derive satisfaction from a day's work and a day's 
pay. We need to continue this battle and continue welfare reform.
  I ask my colleagues to join with me on a bipartisan basis with that 
type of vote today in this House in favor of continuing commonsense 
welfare reform.

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