[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 63 (Thursday, May 16, 2002)]
[House]
[Page H2517]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       BIPARTISAN WELFARE REFORM

  (Mr. ROEMER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. ROEMER. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to have voted for a successful 
bipartisan welfare reform in 1996. That bill has worked to get people 
off of welfare roles into work, and many of them out of poverty.
  Now we have a Republican bill that is coming to the floor later today 
that threatens that very success because it omits three important 
things. One, instead of emphasizing work it emphasizes simply knocking 
people off the welfare roles. We want to give a credit to States to get 
people into jobs, not just off welfare.
  Secondly, we need to emphasize child care. I support more work for 
welfare families. If they are going to work more, their children are 
going to need more child care. We have 12,757 children on the waiting 
list today in Indiana for child care.
  Thirdly, we emphasized mothers, single mothers and welfare reform in 
1996. We largely left out fathers. We should be able to offer an 
amendment to make fathers, noncustodial parents get back into the 
workplace. Let us work with that much maligned body on the other side 
to get real reform that continues the bipartisan success of 1996.

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