Welfare Integrity Now for Children and Families Act of 2011

Floor Speech

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Ms. WATERS. Madam Speaker and Members, I came to the floor to address this issue. Despite the fact that I understand that it's kind of a good political issue in an election year where many people will use this to say I'm saving the government money and I'm keeping those folks on welfare who don't deserve government support anyway from using this money or this EBT card to have access in ways that will allow them to be in and take advantage of casinos and strip joints, et cetera, and it's a very sexy argument and it looks good and you'll get a lot of play off of it, so I understand that coming to the floor to protect the poor and the most vulnerable is not popular, but think about it, just think about it.

Many of you come from districts where there are liquor stores. These are small businesses, and most of these liquor stores now serve more other products than they do liquor. They have milk; they have juice; they have bread; they have meats. They have the kinds of things that many of these poor families need and they buy at liquor stores.

Why do they buy them at liquor stores? Because they're in these food deserts that you have heard the First Lady talk about, areas all over this country, whether it is rural or whether it is urban, where they don't have grocery stores. They don't have the big chains. All they have are these small business that are liquor stores who carry all of the products that a family could use to feed their family, not just liquor.

And so I would ask you to take a real close look at this and at least exclude the liquor stores. These small businesses are very important all over this country. Yes, they sell liquor. Many of us don't like the idea that even in some of these places there are problems, but the folks who go there don't have to buy liquor. If there are problems at any of these liquor stores, local law enforcement should do its job.

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Ms. WATERS. And so when you include liquor stores, all you're doing is attacking some small businesses who are providing foodstuffs--not just liquor, but foodstuffs; not only in inner cities, but in rural communities--that families need. So this is punishment, this is being very harsh on the most vulnerable people in our society to include liquor stores in this group of stores that you would not like to have the welfare recipients use.

Again, I could go along with strip joints; I could go along with casinos. But as I travel across the country, I cannot go along with excluding liquor stores from being able to provide food that's needed to these poor families that live in these food deserts where there are no grocery stores, no chains, no other place for them. And when they have transportation problems, it really does wreak havoc on them trying to get even to a place where they could buy food.

So if you would understand that and work to try to make sure that this doesn't stay in here, I would appreciate it.

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