The most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed there were 8.8 million job openings in the U.S. at the end of February — despite low unemployment — but Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Ill., told Newsmax on Wednesday that reforms to the welfare system could help fill that gap.
LaHood, chair of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Work and Welfare, held a field hearing Tuesday at a homeless shelter in Chicago about lifting individuals out of poverty through work. He told "The Record With Greta Van Susteren" the congressional hearing at the Pacific Garden Mission was the first to take place at a homeless shelter.
"What we focused on is what I think is the best social welfare program: a JOB, which is a job," LaHood said. "We had tremendous witnesses there yesterday, and we had a frank discussion about how do we incentivize work and how do we get people off welfare. Everything from stopping the welfare cliff, which is the TANF cliff, which is the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families [program] that has been abused in many ways.
"America should be there to help people that need help to get off of welfare. But it shouldn't be a hammock for people where generation after generation is reliant on government funding, and so our hearing yesterday was really instrumental in laying that out."
LaHood said this should be a bipartisan issue, the way a Republican-led Congress worked with the Clinton administration in the 1990s to enact welfare reforms.
"Remember what Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton did back in 1996 and the benefit that had for our country?" LaHood said. "This is really a win-win. If we can do this, it's a win for taxpayers because we're not spending [too much] on welfare, but we're giving people a good paying job.
"We heard anecdote after anecdote and story [after story] yesterday about what a job means to a family, what it means to the dignity of their life and getting them back on track."
LaHood said the government should be working with faith-based organizations, such as the Pacific Garden Mission, in helping people move off welfare and into the workforce.
"It’s essential and we heard that yesterday from [Pacific Garden Mission]," LaHood said. "They don't take any government funding there by the way. It is all privately funded and faith-based funded.
"The effect that they have on changing people's lives is all-encompassing. It involves faith, no doubt about it. Sometimes it involves mental health, behavioral health, helping people re-enter [the workforce] if they've had a criminal background, but working with them and helping them on the path to becoming a successful citizen and living the American dream."
He said what the committee learned during the hearing is that it can’t be done with checks from the government.
"That can be helpful to getting them back on their feet, but it can't be the dependency that it has been in the past," LaHood said. "That mentality involves faith in many ways, and we heard that in the success stories yesterday."
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Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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