Tim Hutchinson

Mr. HUTCHINSON

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HUTCHINSON

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I yield to the gentlewoman from Kansas.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. So, in the interests, Mr. Smith, of accuracy, funding for family planning actually increased during the----

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Once again I would say that the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Smith] just a few moments ago cited specific funds on how those funds increased under the Mexico City policy and that in fact there was not any decrease in family planning programs.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Reclaiming my time, I do not know where the gentlewoman is getting these figures. I heard the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Smith] just a moment ago cite very exact figures on where that funding has increased during those years in which the Mexico City policy----

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the amendment offered by the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Smith] and in opposition to the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from Kansas [Mrs. Meyers]. I will not take my full 5 minutes, but I simply want to state three reasons why I am supporting the Smith amendment and why I am opposing the amendment. I think what the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Smith] has done makes eminent sense. It restores a policy that worked, the Mexico City policy. That is all it is doing. It is going back to a policy from 1984 to 1993 that worked. We saw family planning funds increase during that time. It was a policy that was very much mainstream. Hundreds of organizations signed onto that. The 150 family planning organizations signed the Mexico City clauses, and so it is quite mainstream, it is quite common sense, to return to that policy. It was on June 22 in 1993 that President Clinton gave the green light to renewed funding for international organizations that perform and promote abortions. It is time that we return to that policy in the 1980's/early 1990's that was so successful. The second reason I am supporting the Smith amendment and opposing the Meyers amendment is that I believe what the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Smith] is attempting to do in this legislation, and this attempt is supported by the American people. While the American people are strongly, and very forcefully and emotionally divided on the abortion issue, they are overwhelmingly opposed to public financing, and what we have, and we have tried to kind of smoke the issue, cloud the issue; it is simply a matter of shifting funding, and so to talk about private funds being used and no taxpayers dollars being used is really quite disingenuous, I think. If I take taxpayer dollars with my left hand, and I perform abortions with my right hand, it does not really fool anybody. It is a shell game being played by these organizations, and the American people do not want their taxpayer dollars being used to promote, and to perform and to support abortion policies around the world. I think finally I would just say that it defends, it defunds, only the most radical pro-abortion organizations. Under the Mexico City policy, 350 family planning organizations signed it while only the most radical, pro-abortion organizations refused to sign that policy. It makes eminent good sense for us to return to a policy that worked. Therefore, I urge my colleagues to support the Smith amendment and oppose the Meyers amendment.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Reclaiming my time, I think everybody is ready to vote, and I just wanted to thank the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Smith] as many on both sides have expressed their admiration for him. I want to express my appreciation for his leadership on this issue, and I think we are going to take a very good step in the passage of the Smith amendment today in defunding these organizations that are doing so much wrong in the promotion of abortion policies around the world. I urge support for the Smith amendment.

Mr. HUTCHINSON

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 1565, bipartisan legislation to extend the priority health care program for veterans exposed to agent orange and ionizing radiation through December 31, 1997. I would like to thank Chairman Stump, along with full committee ranking member Montgomery and my subcommittee colleague, ranking member Chet Edwards, for their tireless efforts to ensure that this bill receives full consideration in an expeditious fashion. Furthermore, I wish to recognize Lane Evans, Joe Kennedy, Luis Gutierrez, and Jon Fox for their bipartisan work in fashioning compromise language when concerns were raised about the bill at the subcommittee level. Without the work of these veterans' advocates, this bill might have never come to the floor. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1565 would incorporate for a 2-year extension period the findings of the National Academy of Sciences, which provide rational scientific evidence on which determinations of eligibility for health care can be based. The bill is supportive of veterans and continues to give them every benefit of the doubt. It would authorize the VA to provide treatment for three broad categories of conditions identified by the NAS and would grandfather [[Page H 6321]] for continued care those veterans who have been previously treated at the VA but for which the NAS has found no association to exist between certain diseases and exposure to herbicides. Additionally, the bill would provide special eligibility in the case of radiation-exposed veterans for care of a long list of cancers as well as for any disease for which the VA determines there is credible evidence of a positive association between disease occurrence and radiation exposure. This bill also contains a generous grandfather clause for those veterans who have previously been treated at the VA for which no positive association between the disease occurrence and radiation exposure has been found. Under this bill both groups of veterans would receive substantially expanded outpatient services on a priority basis. Mr. Speaker, this legislation also takes into consideration the possibility of a lag time between NAS reports and the discovery of new credible evidence on agent orange. It would provide a mechanism to add additional diseases based on new research findings. H.R. 1565 would authorize the Secretary, based on recommendations of the Under Secretary for Health, to add to the list of covered conditions. A disease could be added based on peer-reviewed research published within 20 months of the most recent NAS report regarding agent orange. The addition of new diseases must meet the test of providing credible evidence suggestive of an association between that disease and exposure to agent orange. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1565 enjoys unanimous support from the Veterans' Affairs Committee. The bill passed at markup 29 to 0. Again, I would like to thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for their support and assistance in writing this legislation, and I urge Members to support the bill.

Mr. HUTCHINSON

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Speaker, the House Committee on the Budget under the very capable leadership of John Kasich is to be commended and congratulated for producing for us and for the Nation a credible balanced budget plan. As the budget plan was released last week amid the howls of those who would defend the status quo, one could almost sense a collective nationwide sigh as it sank into the American people that at long last there is a Congress that is dead serious about balancing the budget and confronting our debt problem. The litany numbers had become all too familiar to millions of Americans: Seventeen percent of Federal revenues for interest on the debt; $200 billion deficits as far as the eye can see, $1 trillion of new debt in the next 5 years. We will pay more on interest than on national defense by 1997. The impending bankruptcy of Medicare is spelled out by President Clinton's own trustees; $18,000 in debt assumed by every new baby born in America. But there is a glimmer of hope in America this week as we prepare to vote on this budget plan. Oh, it is mixed with a lot of skepticism. Twenty-five years of deficit spending breeds a lot of skepticism. But there is a feeling that maybe, just maybe, this Congress means business. Under the GOP budget plan there will be a smaller, less intrusive and more efficient Government. It forces us to do what scores of corporations have had to do, and that is downsize and eliminate wasteful spending. It terminates 283 programs. As I talked about the budget in my district this past weekend, it was that line that received the most applause, above all others, 283 programs eliminated. It eliminates 14 agencies and 68 commissions. It makes real cuts in discretionary spending. And the squealing has already begun. We will hear from the ``Prince of Wails'' over and over this week as the defenders of the past wail ``You can't do this.'' not there. But that is the beauty of it. Nothing is excluded. Everyone will feel the squeeze. While Federal spending increases each year under the plan, it increases at a slower rate to allow revenues to catch up with spending, or, as William Safire wrote yesterday of the civil war general, who instructed a gunner to ``elevate them sights a little lower.'' Under the plan, power and money are shifted back to the States and local communities. In welfare, Medicaid, nutrition programs, and job training, there is consolidation, elimination of needless duplication, and block granting to the States. The budget plan would save Medicare from bankruptcy. On April 3d of this year, the Medicare trustees, three of whom are Clinton administration appointees, sounded the alarm with their warning that Medicare part A would run out of money in 2001. this budget plan puts a tourniquet on Medicare to stop the hemorrhaging while a task force develops long-term solutions. Meanwhile, the President has been unwilling to assist in finding those solutions. Here again, expect the fear mongers and the scare tacticians to be out in force. Under the Committee on the Budget assumption, spending on every Medicare beneficiary would actually increase, from an average of $4,684 now to almost $6,300 in the year 2002. But I believe that the most important feature of this budget plan is the tax relief for the hard-pressed American family. This budget plan provides for the full $500 per child tax credit. It provides for our correction of the marriage penalty. It allows the implementing of the adoption tax credit and the elder care credited. It allows for the raising of the earnings limit on Social Security recipients. These very meaningful pro-family policies will only be a reality if we pass the House GOP budget plan. It was Alan Greenspan who, in pointing out some of the benefits that would happen if we balanced the budget, said if our economy was not constrained by Federal deficits, the balanced budget would mean a lower interest rate, higher productivity, improved purchasing power, reduced inflation, and accelerated long-term economic growth. Paul Johnson, the noted historian, asserts that the legitimization of envy is that which a stable society should fear the most. And there are going to be repeated efforts to legitimize envy by pitting one group of Americans against another group of Americans. I think Thomas Jefferson, one of our Founding Fathers, said it best when he said, ``To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with public debt. We must make our choice between economy and liberty, or confusion and servitude.'' That is the choice that this Congress will face this week. I believe that most Americans know in their guts, most Americans know instinctively, that balancing the budget is the right thing to do, and we must do it for our children and for our grandchildren.

Mr. HUTCHINSON

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to recognize a personal friend and distinguished businessman from my district, Don Soderquist. Don is the chairman of the board of the International Mass Retail Association [IMRA], and vice chairman and chief operating officer of Wal-Mart Stores, and in both capacities has shown a tireless commitment to this country and the principles on which it was built. This month, Don is ending his term as chairman of the IMRA, the trade association that represents the vibrant mass-retailing industry. Don has been involved with discount and mass retailing since 1964, when he began his retailing career with Ben Franklin Stores. He joined Wal-Mart in 1980 as senior vice president. Throughout his career, he has exemplified the work ethic and entrepreneurial spirit. Don is characterized by the depth of his personal commitments to his family, his church, and his community. I ask all my colleagues to join me in saluting Don Soderquist as a devoted family man and dedicated business leader. While his leadership at IMRA will be missed, we wish him the best of luck at Wal-Mart and in his other endeavors.

Mr. HUTCHINSON

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to strongly support the rule and to strongly support the tax relief bill that the House will be debating. This, I think, is the most critical feature of the Contract With America, and there is nothing more important in this tax relief provision than what we offer the American family. We have told the American family time and time again ``Your time will come.'' Every study, every evaluation of the American family says we need to have a tax credit for children, and yet it has been delayed and delayed and delayed. Over 70 percent of the benefits of this tax cut will go to families making less than $75,000 a year who pay only 45.6 percent of all the income taxes. A mere 12\1/2\ percent will go to Americans who earn over $75,000, and they pay 54.4 percent of the income tax burden. This is an eminently fair provision. It is progressive. The contract's $500 per child tax credit treats all of America's children equally. That is the way they should be treated. We need to pass the rule today and we then need to give relief to the American family.

Mr. HUTCHINSON

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Chairman, I am glad to rise in support of the tax relief bill. It lowers capital gains, raises the earnings limit on Social Security, provides an adoption tax credit, an elder tax credit, IRA equity, a $500 tax credit for children. In short, it is a family-friendly tax relief bill. After all, the family is the fundamental unit of society. It is the guardian of our social fabric. It is the means by which our values are conveyed. Yet it is besieged, embattled. It is under attack by its own government. We could not have come up with a more anti-family public policy if we had sat down and devised such a plan. It is not too much to expect that government be the friend, not the foe, of the family, so one critical step in turning this around is the passage of the $500 per child tax credit. It would shift power and money from Washington bureaucrats and return it to the moms and dads of middle America. Families do not want more entitlements, they want empowerment. The American family is tired of high-sounding rhetoric and empty speeches about family values while policymakers insult them by saying ``We can't afford it now,'' as if it is our money. We cannot afford not to do it now. Our national security is intertwined with family security. Strong and secure families mean a strong and secure society. We need to reject the class warfare rhetoric and pass this bill.

Mr. HUTCHINSON

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to appear before the committee today to discuss the importance of family tax relief. Let me say at the outset, Mr. Speaker, how must I appreciate your personal commitment to the American family and your leadership in promoting legislation which strengthens and empowers American families. The intact family is our country's most effective government--the most effective department of housing, the most effective department of education, the most effective department of human services, and the most effective department of labor. The family is the fundamental unit of society, the guardian of our social fabric and primary conveyor of values. Yet it has been under attack by an unsympathetic government. We could not have devised more antifamily public policy--to the end of undermining the traditional American family--than if we had sat down and consciously designed such a plan. We have taxed them until both parents have to work in the job market, regardless if one wishes to stay at home and rear the children. The average family of four now spends 38 percent of its income on taxes-- more than it spends on food, clothing, housing and recreation combined. We have allowed the value of the dependent exemption to erode over time until it is worth only a fraction of what it was 40 years ago. In effect we have said that children and families are of less value than they were in the last generation. We have allowed a marriage penalty to exist in our tax law that sends the undeniable signal to our citizens that marriage isn't really all that important. We have codified inequitable IRA tax provisions that say a spouse in the marketplace is more valuable to society than one in the home. We have created a costly and bureaucratic adoption system that leaves thousands of adoptable children in less stable and secure environments than they could be enjoying. subsidies to unmarried teen-age mothers. Why are we than surprised when family break-up becomes commonplace, dysfunctional families are routine and 1 out of 3 children born in America are born out of wedlock? If it were a foreign government that had imposed these policies, it would be regarded as an act of war. It is not too much to expect that government be the friend, not the foe, of the family. One critical step toward that goal is the passage of the $500 per-child tax credit. Seventy-four percent of this tax relief would go to families with incomes under 75,000. it is progressive and would be worth a lot more to the cuy with a lunch bucket than to the corporate executive in the country club dining room. This $500 per-child tax credit would shift power and money from Washington bureaucrats and return it to the moms and dads of middle America. For a middle class family of four that $1,000 could mean the difference in whether both parents have to work, it could mean the difference in whether health care premiums can be paid, it could mean clothing costs for an entire year, it could mean the down payment for the cost of a collage education or it could mean a trip to the pizza parlor once a week, but it should be the families' choice not ours. Please remember family tax relief is not a new spending program, not a new entitlement, not a give away from the Government. It is simply allowing the American family to keep something that already belongs to them--more of their earned income. The time for family tax relief is now. Forty-five million American families making less than $75,000 a year would receive meaningful relief from the heavy burden of taxation. The American family is tired of high sounding rhetoric and empty speeches about family values while policy makers kick them in the teeth again by saying ``we can't afford it now.'' We can't afford not to do it now. Our national security is intertwined with family security. Strong and secure families mean a strong and secure society.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I am referring specifically to the $500 tax provision, the tax break we offer for the children. I think it is clear that someone in the middle and low income is going to benefit a lot more than someone eating in the corporate dining room.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I am glad to yield to the gentleman from Michigan.

Mr. HUTCHINSON

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Chairman, I want to join my colleagues in commending the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Inglis] for his very strong leadership on this issue and the fact that we have come this far in having an open and recorded vote on one of the most important issues facing the American people. I think it is a credit to Mr. Inglis' leadership, and I thank him for yielding this time to me. It has amazed me, as we hear over and over again 70 to 80 percent of the American people support term limits, to hear the critics of term limits to say that somehow term limits are going to impede the will of the American people and prevent them from exercising their will every 2 years. Not at all. The fact is that it is the clear choice of the American people to have term limitations, and only if this Congress refuses to submit a term limitation amendment to the people and to the States for ratification have we thwarted their will, and to that extent we will do that. But I want to address one particular criticism of term limitations, and that is that term limits will create an environment where professional bureaucrats will run the Federal Government, and that is simply not the case. Bureaucrats enjoy the current system of professional politicians with a very familiar and cozy relationship that they build with those politicians that results in too little accountability and, oftentimes, too little results. I attended a conference, a southern legislators conference, a few years ago. They had a seminar on term limitations. There were a number of bureaucrats there, there were a number of elected officials there, and they asked us to hold up our hands if we were in favor of term limits. Out of the entire body there was one. That was myself. The fact is that roomful of bureaucrats felt very comfortable with a system in which they had a relationship built with career politicians who defended the status quo. It is time that we give the States and the people term limitations.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Hilleary] for yielding this time to me, and I want to compliment and commend the freshman class for their initiative and for the good work they have done on the term limits proposal before us. I believe in term limits. I have supported it in the Arkansas Legislature. I think that we have come a long, long ways in the last 2 years in the House of Representatives. I say to my colleagues, I can remember 2 years ago, when you could only get a handful of cosponsors for term limits legislation. I can remember when we couldn't get a hearing, we couldn't get a committee to take this proposal seriously. We have come a long way. Twenty-two States have adopted it, and, Mr. Chairman, where the States have it it is working. It has brought healthy change, and the question ought not be before us: Well, how many good public servants are we going to lose if we have term limits? The question ought to be: How many great public servants will we never give an opportunity to serve in the House of Representatives because we do not have term limits? Mr. Chairman, the Hilleary amendment, I think, is a good approach. It establishes a 12-year ceiling. It respects the rights of States to be more restrictive. In my home State of Arkansas the people, by more than a 60-percent vote, established a 6-year term limit. What right do we have up here to double that by passing a 12-year without allowing them to have more restrictive laws and honoring what they have done? Politicians are like cookies. They get stale, and term limits will freshen this place up. One of my colleagues said term limits are for losers, and I suggest to my colleagues that it is that very attitude that has fueled the term limits movement. It is not for losers. Eighty percent of the American people support it, and there is wisdom in the common sense of mainstream America who says we need to have term limits. It is a How can we deny the people, through their State legislatures, the right to debate and, if they so desire, to ratify an amendment to the Constitution that would limit the terms of their elected Congressmen, a proposal supported by almost 80 percent of the American people?

Mr. HUTCHINSON

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I thank the gentleman from Florida for yielding this time to me. Mr. Chairman, I point out to my colleague, the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Meehan], that when you blame the Republicans for not passing term limits and just say, ``You have party discipline,'' I would remind him that, as best I know, we have 230 votes and it takes 290 on vote to pass a constitutional amendment. We simply cannot do it by ourselves. My home State of Arkansas has passed term limits. It has been a very positive development. It has meant new blood, it has meant fresh ideas. It has meant different perspectives. And it will mean the same thing for the U.S. House of Representatives. In Arkansas, it strengthened the political system by increasing responsiveness and accountability. It will Long-term tenure too often results in Members becoming allies of big government, not checks on big government. Members lose touch with their constituents. Members become arrogant and, too often, they become elitist when they stay here for long tenures. Mr. Chairman, since 1990, 22 States, including Arkansas, have passed laws respecting tenure of Federal legislators. Recent polls indicate that 70 to 80 percent of the American people support term limits. Critics say, ``Don't limit the choice the American people have by imposing limits.'' I say, don't thwart the choice of the American people by stopping term limits. That is their desire. We should pass it.

Mr. HUTCHINSON

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, the Deal substitute is as weak as water on the subject of work. They say that it is work first. It ought to be called job search first. If you listen closely, they keep talking about job search. They keep talking about work-related activity. Under the Deal substitute, a person could spend up to 2 years in job search without ever doing any real work. And, ladies and gentlemen, looking is not working. Then the Deal substitute has a loophole big enough for 500,000 welfare recipients to walk through. You see, caseload attrition counts as work participation. It is a kind of caseload revolving door. One person going on and off the rolls three times in a year would count as three people going to work. The Republican plan requires not only real work but a real net decrease in the caseload. The Deal substitute does virtually nothing on the subject of illegitimacy and out-of-wedlock births, though the President himself has admitted the clear link between welfare and out-of-wedlock births. Incredibly, the Deal substitute raises taxes on working moms with children, over $2 billion at the very time we are trying to provide tax relief for the American family. The Deal substitute has spending increases. It is going to cost $2 billion more over the next 5 years, while the GOP plan saves billions of dollars. It is tax and spend again and again, and the American people do not want a welfare reform plan that is going to cost more money.

Mr. HUTCHINSON

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Speaker, there are many, many important components in the Personal Responsibility Act: the block grants that provide the States greater flexibility, the tough work requirements they are going to require so that people would have to work in order to gain welfare payments. Mr. Speaker, ending the entitlement nature of welfare is essential so that we finally turn back these entitlement programs. But most fundamentally and essentially, it is a welfare reform package that for the first time begins to deal with illegitimacy's disastrous effects on our society. Out-of-wedlock birth is a certain predictor of poverty. The one- parent family is six times more likely to be poor than the two-parent family; children born outside of marriage are three times more likely to depend upon welfare themselves when they reach adulthood. The likelihood that a young male will engage in criminal activities doubles if he is raised without a father and tripled if he is raised or lives in a neighborhood with a high concentration of single-parent families. We end in this welfare reform bill the subsidy for illegitimacy for unwed moms under the age of 18. By targeting teenagers, we intend to stop the cycle of misery before it starts. We need to pass the Personal Responsibility Act.

Mr. HUTCHINSON

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Chairman, I just want to underscore how important this amendment is. It is critical for three reasons. The gentleman went over these, but I want to reiterate them. It is important that we replace the current symbolic requirements in which there are weak definitions of what work really is in which one could have job search being included as work with a real work definition, and this amendment harmonizes those definitions of what work is all about. So, it is very critical from that standpoint, that the very sections of this bill have a common definition of what work is all about. I think it is important, this amendment is important, because it cuts, rather than increases, total welfare spending by focusing those work requirements on mothers who need little day care. Too often in the past the jobs programs that have been included in welfare reform programs have only been an excuse to expand child welfare, child day care, and, as a result of that, it has become more and more expensive, and, instead of seeing welfare spending controlled, we have seen it exploding. So, by focusing on those who are most employable or upon those moms who are least in need of child care, we can cut total welfare spending. I think that this is a very critical amendment that the gentleman has brought forward. Work cannot just be symbolic. In the 1988 welfare reform bill there was great talk about workfare. There was great talk about putting those on welfare into the workplace, and it did not happen. The American people have become cynical about even the terminology of workfare, and if this bill is to be meaningful, and if it is to work, it must be more than just symbolism. Work must mean work, and those work requirements, in order to be best implemented, must focus on those who are most employable. It only makes sense that an AFDC recipient with older children should be required to get into the workplace. It only makes sense that a two-parent AFDC family ought to have one of those parents out in the workplace. So this amendment focuses, places the focus, where it should be. Work requirements should be implemented in the least expensive way, and this gives the States the kind of guidance to move them in the most productive way in meeting the work participation requirements. Time and time again I have heard two-parent families who are working hard, trying to make ends meet, trying to be productive members of society, and they come to me, as their Congressman, and say, Well, what about this couple, a man and a woman, on AFDC, able-bodied and yet drawing their package of benefits, drawing their welfare, neither one of them required to work under the current system. I do not blame the American people for being cynical. I do not blame them for resenting this kind of a system, and it is time that we change it. We have got an opportunity to strengthen a good bill by adopting this amendment.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, they have said that the Republican welfare reform bill is weak on work and hard on kids. It is neither. What is hard on kids is this existing system and it must be changed and indeed it is not weak on work at all. And this amendment toughens the work requirements even more. For those who want tough work requirements as I do, they want this amendment. It is total caseload figures that are used so they are real and they are meaningful and they are honest numbers. Three Governors in this country are already meeting these goals, and so in fact they are quite achievable. We not only provide tough work standards but we aim them and we target them at those who are most employable, one-parent families with older children and two-parent families on AFDC. This is a good amendment. It toughens it; it should satisfy those who have said that this bill is weak on work. In almost half of AFDC families the youngest child is over 5 years old. Those people ought to be working. I hear every day, every time I have a town meeting, the resentment of the working poor, the resentment of those who look at able-bodied welfare recipients who are receiving a very generous package of benefits while they go to work every day. If a person is able-bodied they ought to be required to work. It will help to solve the welfare dilemma and it is good not only for society, it is good for those individuals who heretofore have been required to go out and provide productive employment. Promoting a work ethic increases education aspirations and achievement and over 90 percent of the American people support that.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I thank the chairman, and I appreciate his leadership in bringing a very meaningful and comprehensive welfare reform bill to this House.