Date: 2003-02-12
Speaker: MARIO DIAZ-BALART (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Flor

ida. Mr. Speaker. one of the things that my dear friend and colleague. the honorable gentleman from Florida. central Florida. and. if I may add. a wonderful part of the State. that is a free plug while I can. stated something that is very true. The poor who are stuck in this cycle of dependence to this horrendous system that we had before. the old welfare system. did not want to be that way. We have to be very clear about this. Poor people that were on welfare did not want to be dependent on government. Unlike what some would like to believe. that these are people that did not want to work. that were just there because that was their choice. that was their number one choice. no. these are good people. These were people that wanted to work. but all they needed was an opportunity. and yet they were stuck in this system that forced them to stay in that system. They could not save money to buy a piece of property because they would lose their benefits. So. therefore. they had to stay in the system. That is the cruelty of this sad joke that was the old welfare system. And the people that really hurt. yes. the taxpayers had to pay a lot of money for this broken system. but the people that were really hurt were those that were forced into the cycle of dependence. dependence on government. So now. where are those people? Where are they? Millions of them. millions of Americans. are now working. They are earning a living in the free marketplace. It is not easy. it is tough. Hey. life is difficult. They have got to work hard. We know that. But they are working hard. and they are proud of it. They are paying taxes and they are leading by example. So. yes. this is wonderftl for the taxpayers. but let me just say that it was even more wonderful for those millions of Americans that were finally allowed to break out of this vicious cycle of dependence and of poverty. That is the untold story. I think. in this wonderful experiment that was called welfare reform. that I think worked better than any of us ever suspected. We knew that the system was broken. In Florida. we knew that the old system was broken. I did not expect the results to be so dramatic. so unbelievably dramatic. Imagine if in the rest of government we could get increased performance by 75 percent. or close to 75 percent. as we did in Florida of people getting off welfare and getting to work. That would be a miracle in government. We would all be ecstatic. That happened in welfare reform. And the true recipients of this wonderful experiment. the ones that broke out of the cycle of poverty. are those poor people. poor decent Americans that for a generation were told that they would always be there. My colleagues may well recall the naysayers. The gentleman just pointed out a couple of those naysayers. saying this is going to destroy the country. that it was going to destroy the poor people. No. It helped more than anybody else those poor people who are now working. earning a living. and are a part of the American Dream. It helped the taxpayers by giving them a little bit of relief. and it was a wonderful thing for the country. And as my colleague. the gentleman from Florida . just said a little while ago. I am so proud first to have been a part of it in Florida when the United States Congress and the leadership of the United States Congress gave our State the opportunity to participate and break the dependence on government and that cycle of poverty for millions of people. hundreds of thousands of people in the State of Florida. I am also so proud to now be here. and. hopefully. we will be a small part in making sure that this wonderful reform moves forward so that we can continue to help those that are truly needy. those that really need the help. and. yes. also create a system that breaks that cycle of dependency and of poverty.