Examining the Growth of the Welfare State, Part I
House Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services
2025-02-11
Loading video...
Source: Congress.gov
Summary
No summary available.
Participants
Transcript
But due in part to these penalties, in 1960, around 5% of the children were born to unmarried women. Today, that number's around 40%. To anybody who cares about the next generation, these numbers should be deeply concerning. Marriage is the backbone of a stable society and is a force that encourages individuals to be responsible for their families. instead of having to rely on government assistance. Not only is marriage associated with better financial institutions, but it's also associated with better mental health for married couples and their children. While I personally know many single parents who've done an excellent job, studies have shown that children raised in single parent households are at heightened risk for substance abuse, crime, bad educational outcomes, depression, and other disorders. Given that federal policy should reflect the fact that children, well, it is time that federal policy be changed so we stop discouraging and penalizing people for simply getting married. To better understand why this is the case, we must go back to the creation of these programs. While some welfare programs began under Franklin Roosevelt, most were created or expanded under President Lyndon Johnson's so-called War on Poverty. President Johnson's stated goal in expanding the welfare state was to provide Americans with a chance to pull themselves out of poverty and reduce dependency. It was intended to enable Americans who had stumbled on hard times to make a comeback, but that's too often not the case of today's welfare system. Our current welfare system is designed to ensure dependence on government and penalizes marriage sadly the problems don't stop there many of the benefits paid for by taxpayer dollars are improperly going to illegal immigrants in 2023 the federal government spent 23 billion dollars on health care for legal immigrants and another 11.6 trillion on food stamps child nutrition and other welfare programs not only are we spending billions on illegal immigrants but also
But often welfare programs are among the most common targets for scammers and fraudsters. Last year, more than $100 billion in improper payments were made in programs like Medicaid, food stamps, and the income tax credit. This is bad for taxpayers, but bad for welfare recipients as well. If we continue our current path, it will be increasingly difficult to fund welfare programs, making it hard to justify the safety net for Americans. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today. and they will help us better understand the enormous growth of the welfare state. So we want to see what we can do to prevent government dependency and empower Americans. I should point out there have always been people who are hostile, outright hostile, to the idea of marriage. I know a lot of the radical feminists, Kate Millay and that crew in the 1960s, Did not want to have a man in the family. Of course, Karl Marx, for people who follow him, also felt the family was a negative impact on society and wanted to destroy it. So we don't want to have Kate Millay or Karl Marx get their way. Hence, we're having this hearing.
Now, I yield to Ranking Member Krista Morthy for his opening statement. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm looking forward to working with you on the important issues confronting our nation within the jurisdiction of this subcommittee. Particularly, I'm looking forward to addressing the continuing failures and costs of our broken healthcare system. I will confess that I hope that our first hearing together would have tackled one of those vital issues, such as PBM or healthcare insurance reform. Chairman Grothman, you and I have been working with Chairman Comer and the Democrats for years to try to rein in the abuses of pharmacy benefit managers. We have further worked on concerns about health insurance companies stopping payments for critical medical services, such as, for instance, anesthesia, that anesthesia rules limiting the use of anesthesia mid-operation that were about to be implemented this past winter. But sadly, this committee is focused today on antiquated debates about welfare. I know what I'm talking about when it comes to safety net programs because I have personal experience with SNAP's predecessor, the food stamp program. I came to this country with my family when I was three months old so my father could continue his education. and our family could embrace all the opportunities that America afforded it. But despite my family's best efforts, it wasn't always easy. Specifically, in the recession of 1973, my father lost his income. But thanks to the generosity of the people of the United States, its government, and the existence of these safety net programs, we were allowed to survive and flourish. Today, my father, who turned 86 today, it's his birthday, is an engineering professor emeritus, having retired after 40 years of teaching engineering at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. My brother is a doctor at the University of Chicago, and myself, I'm honored to represent the people of Illinois' eighth congressional district in my fifth term.
That's the American dream, the promise of a middle class life with the opportunity for your children to have an even better life than you did. That dream was possible for my family because of my parents' hard work and the possibilities and generosity of this country. However, it was also because the American people established programs like SNAP and public housing, so my family could temporarily sustain itself in times of severe need. For families like mine, access to public housing and SNAP served as a critical social safety net and allowed us to bounce back from financial adversity. It remains true today for tens of millions of struggling Americans.
Sign up for free to see the full transcript
Accounts help us prevent bots from abusing our site. Accounts are free and will allow you to access the full transcript.