The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“WELFARE AND MEDICAID REFORM ACT OF 1996” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Agriculture was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H7745-H7762 on July 17, 1996.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
WELFARE AND MEDICAID REFORM ACT OF 1996
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of today and rule XXIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill, H.R. 3734.
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in the committee of the whole
Accordingly the House resolved itself into the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill (H.R. 3734) to provide for reconciliation pursuant to section 201(a)(1) of the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 1997, with Mr. Greene of Utah in the chair.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the order of the House of today, the bill is considered as having been read the first time.
The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich] and the gentleman from Minnesota
[Mr. Sabo], will each control 60 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich].
Mr. KASICH. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Chairman, today we have the beginning of a debate that really represents wonderful news for America. Frankly, the third time, they say in lore, is always a charm. Well, this is the third time we are going to bring to the floor, and we are going to pass, a welfare reform bill that ends welfare as we know it and provides a new level of opportunity for all Americans, opportunity for people who find themselves in need of assistance and opportunity for those folks who get up and go to work every morning and ask nothing from their government other than to have their level of taxation kept at a minimum and to have the maximum amount of personal liberty.
Now, Madam Chairman, this welfare bill that we are about to consider today is something that I think Americans have been asking for virtually all of my adult life. And let me tell my colleagues what it is about. If is founded on the basis of Judeo-Christianity. Judeo-
Christianity says it is a sin not to help people who need help, but it also says it is equally a sin to continue to help people who need to learn how to help themselves.
What we have in this bill is a generous amount of continued assistance for those people who find themselves in real need. I was born and raised in a community where we had a public housing development just down the street, and we always believed that it was necessary that people get the kind of help they need to lift themselves up by their bootstraps, to get the kind of help from those people in our society who have been successful, who have been blessed; and that from those people who are the most successful there is a need and a reason and, frankly, an ultimatum in some respects to make sure that we help those who, through no fault of their own, find themselves dependent.
Now, at the same time, we also believed in the community where I was born and raised that we need to give people an opportunity to be able to lift themselves out of these situations that make them dependent. I think we all recognize in this country that if we have a program that traps people in dependence, it is wrong.
In other words, we do not want to have created a welfare system in our country where people have learned to depend on it and not to be able to depend on themselves.
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Frankly, it is not fair to those folks. It is certainly not fair to their children who get raised in an environment where they seem to get confused about the issue of dependency and independence. I believe virtually everybody in this country wants to be independent from help from others. I believe that virtually everybody in this country wants to have a job. But I think that we have created some systems, including the current welfare system, that have provided too many of the wrong incentives for people to avoid work or to be lulled into a sense of dependency. It is wrong. It is wrong for the people on the system. It is wrong for their children.
So what we attempt to do in this welfare bill is to provide generous amounts of money so that the children of people on welfare can be taken care of while the people who are on welfare get trained and get a job. We say at the end of the day, you must go and find a job. We will train you. We will help you find a job. And at the end of the day, you are going to have to get off of welfare and you are going to have to go to work. I think that is what most people in this country want.
Second, however, it will not just be a victory for those who have found themselves trapped in the system that in some respects has robbed themselves and their children of the independence that they dream about. But this is a bill that in my judgment is a terrific victory for those who struggle every day to make ends meet.
There are the mothers and fathers who take their kids to day care. These are the mothers and fathers who on every paycheck sit down and try to figure out how they can make their ends meet. And these are people who do not get anything from the Government. They do not get food stamps. They do not get any form of welfare, any kind of subsidy from the Federal Government. These people get up and they go to work every day, and they struggle every day just to keep their heads above water. Frankly, they are the ones that are truly the American heroes in this country.
It is not the people who struck it rich and made a million dollars or in some cases made billions of dollars. It is not the NBA players who are signing contracts for $105 million. They are not our heroes. Our heroes are the mothers and fathers who fight their way off welfare. They are the mothers and fathers who have never been on it and work hard to stay off of it, and all they want to do is to raise their children in a God-fearing country with decent values and security.
This bill today represents a terrific victory for those people who get up every day and go to work. That is who we are passing this bill for, for those who find themselves stuck in a system that has not allowed them to become independent and, second, for those Americans who go to work every day, the real American heroes.
This bill is compassionate for those who really need the help. We recognize there are people in our society who, no matter what happens, are not ever going to get a job. Do you know what? We have got provisions that protect them. We recognize there are some people who will never become independent. That is a fact of life. We have got to deal with it. But we also recognize that, if we have a strong training, if we have a strong child care section and if we have a strong work requirement and we say to people, at some point you must go to work, we think that is also compassionate.
So, we think we have a welfare bill that is balanced. We think also we have a welfare bill that essentially speaks to what Americans all across this country have wanted, help those who need help, but force those who need to learn how to help themselves to go to work. That is what this bill does. It is reinventing welfare as we know it.
As the American people find out what is in this bill, and this bill will pass the House, it will pass the Senate, and it will be sent to the President, we hope and pray he will sign it. If he does, it is going to be a victory for everybody in this country, those concerned about those that cannot help themselves, those who need to learn to start helping themselves, and those who get up every day and work hard to make sure that they are independent.
This is a good bill for America. This is a great day for the House. Let us keep our fingers crossed because the third time can be a charm.
Madam Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Kansas [Mr. Roberts], chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, and I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Kansas be permitted to yield time to additional speakers.
The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Ohio?
There was no objection.
Mr. SABO. Madam Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to yield my first 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Roybal-Allard] and that she have the authority to yield time.
The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Minnesota?
There was no objection.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman from California [Ms. Roybal-Allard] is recognized for 30 minutes.
Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Pastor].
Mr. PASTOR. Madam Chairman, I want to thank my colleague for yielding the 2 minutes.
We heard the chairman of the Committee on the Budget talk about a victory for America as we debate this bill and the consequences of it. I have to tell my colleagues that they are going to hear some Members speak to inform us that this victory is not shared by all Americans. Americans who work hard, Americans who want to take care of the families, people who have been in this country for many years but because of their status as legal immigrants will not be able to share this victory.
There are a number of us who are concerned both on the substitute and also concerned with the base bill. We feel that the treatment of legal immigrants is very unfair. There is a misconception in this country, there is a misconception in this House that legal immigrants are people who recently came over and are here legally only for one reason, to get on public assistance. That is not the case. We will hear tonight that many of these people have been here for many, many years, have worked hard, have raised their children, and now, in many cases, will need the services and the opportunities that they have earned.
We will also hear that there will be many children that will be put in very hard situations by these bills. As adults, as Americans, as parents, as family members, we are concerned about the children that will not savor this taste of victory.
We will hear about other parts of the bills that will affect people on domestic violence, entitlements and will not savor the taste of victory.
So, Madam Chairman, we will rise in opposition to both bills.
Mr. ROBERTS. Madam Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Camp], a former member of the sometimes powerful House Committee on Agriculture, a current valued member of the Committee on Ways and Means.
(Mr. CAMP asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. CAMP. Madam Chairman, today Congress is again attempting to end welfare as we know it. Over the last 19 months, my colleagues and I have twice written, debated, and adopted welfare reform legislation only to have our efforts vetoed by the President. How many more families will be trapped in the current system while time wastes in Washington?
Our current welfare system has deprived hope, diminished opportunity and destroyed lives. After 30 years and billions and billions of dollars, I ask, has the Federal Government solved the problems of poverty and dependency?
Just spending more money on the Washington welfare system will not work. Just spending more money on the current system will not help children. We need to start over. The bill before us today is a fresh start. It accomplishes five important goals for welfare reform.
First, it requires work in exchange for benefits. It encourages independence and self-reliance for able-bodied people. To help those that work, the bill provides more child care funding than current law and more than the President's proposal for working families. We have a moral obligation to improve the lives of our children, and we must do all we can to change the culture of poverty that our current welfare laws have created.
Second, this legislation also time limits welfare benefits to 5 years. While the goal is to move all families from welfare to work, some families may need more time or more help. So we retain an effective safety net. Our bill allows a hardship exemption from the time limit for up to 20 percent of those on welfare. The hard-working families in the Fourth Congressional District of Michigan and across the country believe welfare should be a hand up, not a handout. They very much support the requirement that able-bodied welfare recipients work for the benefits so generously provided by the American taxpayer.
Third, we do not give welfare to felons and noncitizens. Many people are not aware, the Federal Government sends checks to convicted felons serving time in prison. Cannot these tax dollars be better spent helping those families truly in need? Also many noncitizens have a proud tradition of hard work and achievement. They come to America to share in the American dream, which does not and should not include welfare dependency.
Fourth, this legislation also provides States with the flexibility to meet the needs of its citizens. My State of Michigan, under the leadership of Gov. John Engler, and other States, have made tremendous strides in moving people from welfare to work. These accomplishments, however, have come in spite of the Federal Government and the current welfare laws.
For too long the Federal Government has maintained policies which have created a culture of poverty, dependence and despair. This bill brings control of welfare back to the people where it belongs.
It is important to remember what the Government's role in promoting independence should be. While legislators can design programs to help those struggling to gain financial security, the Government cannot make them succeed. Changing one's attitude is something that can only be accomplished by that individual.
Personal responsibility is the focus of this legislation. Individuals must accept responsibility for their actions and work with Government programs to improve their lives.
The current Washington-based welfare system demands no responsibility, no work ethic, no learning, no commitment and, in the end, no pride. Instead, it promotes illegitimacy, rewards irresponsibility and discourages self-esteem. Our families and our children deserve better.
I urge my colleagues to support the bill.
Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Madam Chairman, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes.
Madam Chairman, I, like other Members of this body, am in strong support of welfare reform. But I am not for reform regardless of the consequences. For that reason, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 3734.
This bill will have many unintended consequences to women, children and families in this country. One of those consequences is its impact on victims of domestic violence. Current studies reveal that 25 to 60 percent of participants in welfare-to-work programs are victims of domestic abuse. For these women, the welfare system is often the only hope they have for escape and survival. This bill will effectively shred that safety net.
By eliminating the guarantee status of AFDC and imposing inflexible time limits and work requirements, H.R. 3734 will force many battered women to stay with their batterers or return to them for financial support.
With the passage of the Violence Against Women Act, Congress has taken a strong stance against domestic violence. Let us not turn our backs on the victims of this deplorable crime. The lives of battered women and their children depend on it.
I hope that my colleagues will vote no on H.R. 3734.
Mr. ROBERTS. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Wamp].
Mr. WAMP. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding the time.
I want to just speak a moment to the separation of policy versus politics in this debate, because we know it is sound policy to address the welfare system in this country, replacing welfare with a working populous of able-bodied people. But there is also a political equation here. There has been for many months. We know that welfare reform has been passed twice by this Congress and vetoed both times. But our President, Bill Clinton, came into these chambers and delivered the State of the Union address in January, and he challenged us to send a clean welfare reform bill back to him.
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There were some politics associated with whether or not he might sign it, take the credit and all of that. I want to say that as a freshman Member of this body, many of us have been very unfortunately blamed for some of the misfires of the last few months. We have been called unreasonable, radical, extremist. We, many of us, went to the leadership of our side, our party, Members like the gentleman from Nevada [Mr. Ensign] myself, and said let us disconnect Medicaid, health care for the poor, from welfare and do what the President asked us to do and send a clean welfare reform bill, and as the gentleman from Ohio
[Mr. Kasich] articulated, the President is expected to sign this bill because we are sending him substantive welfare reform, effective and efficient welfare reform, but we are sending him the clean bill that he asked for. We did make that decision on this side of the aisle to disconnect the two so that he could not say I do not want Medicaid attached to this.
This comprehensive bill provides the job training, the child care, the career education, those components that we all believe should accompany a comprehensive welfare reform bill. This is going to be one of the greatest successes of this Congress. Yes, he will get credit, but we will get credit. We are doing the people's business.
Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Lofgren].
Ms. LOFGREN. Madam Chairman, I, until this Congress, was a member of the local government that had responsibility for administering the welfare program, and I felt, coming here, that there were a lot changes I want to make. There is no doubt that a lot of things need to be fixed in welfare programs in this country. We need to put people back to work, we need to have expectations for work, we need to pay attention to child care, we need to change the whole system. But what concerns me is that once again the bill that we will deal with goes too far.
As you know, I think, and I want to talk about legal immigrants, not illegal immigrants because they are eligible for nothing and should be eligible for nothing, but I want to talk about what is fair to taxpayers, and I will give my colleagues a couple of examples.
In my district there are large numbers of Vietnamese freedom fighters, people who fought communism who came to this country as originally refugees, ultimately became residents, and under the bill before us, if after paying taxes for years and years and years, 14 years, they get a stroke, they cannot get nursing home coverage.
Let me talk about another example. An immigrant who comes in with her husband, and her husband works for 50 years and dies, and then as she is an old person, she is 65, she has a stroke, and she is not eligible to get the kind of nursing home care that the widow of every other taxpayer in America can look to get.
Now, I do not think that is fair. There are some abuses among immigrant groups, and there are necessary steps that need to be taken, and in fact the Deal bill earlier this year did deal with those. But this is unfair. I think when we look at our taxpayers, if they are legal residents or citizens, we ought to make sure that people who have worked hard and paid their taxes are treated fairly, and this so-called reform bill fails in that regard.
Mr. ROBERTS. Madam Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Goodlatte] and take the House's time to thank him for his contributions in increasing the trafficking penalties and bringing integrity to the food stamp reforms that we have passed in the Committee on Agriculture and hope to pass on the House floor.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Chairman, I thank the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture for his kind words.
Madam Chairman, I rise in support of the welfare reform bill under consideration today, especially the reforms to the Food Stamp Program. The Food Stamp Program provides benefits to more than 27 million people each month at a cost this year of more than $26 billion. It is growing out of control and badly in need of reform.
The Committee on Agriculture held eight hearings during the 104th Congress to review the Food Stamp Program, and many of the reforms included in this bill are based on the testimony received in these hearings. Witnesses appearing before the committee and the subcommittee on department operations, nutrition and foreign agriculture represented a wide variety of organizations. They included the administration, the General Accounting Office, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of Inspector General, the United States Secret Service, Governors, State and local welfare administrators. Representatives from organizations providing direct food assistance to needy families testified. Testimony was also received from grocers, agricultural organizations, churches and advocacy groups.
The following principles guided the committee in formulating the reforms to the Food Stamp Program. The Food Stamp Program is retained as a safety net. With other programs returned to the States in block grants, it is essential to be able to provide food as a basic need while States are undergoing the transition to State-designed welfare programs. States are permitted to use one set of rules for families applying for food stamps and AFDC. This provides one-stop service, making it more efficient. Therefore, the programs can become more taxpayer friendly by eliminating redtape.
The Food Stamp Program is taken off automatic pilot. All automatic spending increases are ended except annual increases in food benefits. Able-bodied individuals without dependents must work. In keeping with the effort to encourage private sector employment and help people regain their independence, able-bodied people who are from 18 to 50 years old with no dependents would be eligible for food stamps for a limited period of time and then must work or participate in a workfare or training program in order to receive food stamps.
States are permitted to establish programs to encourage employers to participate in an improved wage supplementation program so that welfare recipients have the opportunity to work in real jobs. This means practical work experience in the real world.
Forfeiture-of-property legislation, using forfeiture proceeds to reimburse law enforcement officials, is authorized. We want to stop criminals from profiting from the Food Stamp Program. Penalties for violating food stamp requirements are doubled, and the rules governing participation by retail and wholesale food stores have been tightened.
Under certain circumstances States may operate their own Food Stamp Program. Once a State has implemented an electronic benefits transfer, EBT system on a Statewide basis, reduces rates of error to acceptable levels or pays that part of the food stamp error over acceptable levels, the State will have the option of operating a Food Stamp Program under a block grant.
Madam Chairman, I urge my colleague to support this bill. The welfare system, including the Food Stamp Program, needs significant reform, and it is accomplished in this bill.
Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee).
(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Madam Chairman, I want real welfare reform. All of us have tried to work to respond to those who would come in good faith. But I want to simply appeal to the women of America, the families of America. This Republican bill cuts some almost $60 billion from individuals across this Nation who, each time we ask them, they say I would like to work, I would like to get off welfare, and, yes, as an American I want to contribute to what America has to offer.
But these children are the ones that we are speaking about, children who may not have the child care necessary for their parents to transition from welfare to work because we lessen the opportunity for those families to have transitional child care. If the money runs out in the State, folks, if the bucket is empty, then they do not have an opportunity to go to work if the children are not cared for.
And then when we look at Medicaid, we find that Medicaid will not be available for a period of time for those families. Medicaid equals health care. It is important to recognize that we are concerned about those families when we have a 5-year limit cutoff whether they will have the inability to carry Medicaid to insure good health for their children and for themselves.
This is a bad bill. The Republican bill is a repeat, a deja vu, of cutting billions of dollars, but yet not responding to the fact that we all can compromise together insuring that families have child care and job training and, yes, work. This is short on work, and then when it is short on work, it is short on opportunity to protect our children. We do not give them good health care, we do not provide safe and warm places for them to stay while those parents, those mothers, are going out to work.
I am reminded that my constituents to a one want welfare reform. I have voted for good welfare reform. Let us go back to the table and not cut $60 billion just to make us feel good. Let us make sure that we work for the American people, who want real welfare reform.
Madam Chairman, I rise today to speak on H.R. 3734, the Republican welfare budget reconciliation, because of my concerns regarding some of the reform provisions.
While this effort at welfare reform contains both a few improvements and some further steps backward, it still poses dangers to children. This bill will abandon the basic Federal assurances of aid for poor children and families, make deep cuts in food stamp and SSI benefits. This bill would cause older children to lose their AFDC benefits, and provide inadequate child care funding for parents who are required to work, and it would eliminate almost all help for legal immigrants in need.
Welfare reform is synonymous with women and children which means that the $53 billion in spending cuts over 6 years will hurt them disproportionately. This bill will reduce food stamps by $23.2 billion, it will reduce Supplemental Security Income [SSI] by $9.6 billion and aid to legal immigrants by $17.1 billion.
In the State of Texas alone, 137,641 children would be denied aid by the year 2005 because of the federally mandated 5 year limit on receiving welfare benefits. There will be 46,986 babies in Texas who would be denied aid in the next 4 years because they were born in families already on welfare, and another 89,327 children in Texas would be denied aid if the State froze its spending on cash assistance at the 1994 levels.
This bill would lead another 60,000 Texas children into poverty.
This legislation is decidedly more mean spirited in its methods than any I have seen to date. It narrows the definition of disability for poor children seeking to qualify for Supplemental Security Income
[SSI]. This bill would withhold vital cash aid for children with a wide range of serious disabilities including mental retardation, tuberculosis, autism, serious mental illness, head injuries, and arthritis.
Food stamp benefits would be cut severely, and the Federal guarantee of food aid could be eliminated on the State level as an option given to them by this legislation. The cuts to the Food Stamp Program would hurt 14 million children.
The victims of domestic violence and their children would still have no assurance that, if they escape the violence, they could at least survive with cash assistance until they are able to find work. This would cause many women and their children being forced by harsh economic realities back into the abusive environment they were attempting to escape.
I would like to caution my colleagues to carefully consider their vote on this bill. I will continue to be committed to working for compassionate and fair welfare reform.
Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Madam Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California [Mr. Torres].
Mr. TORRES. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding this time to me.
I was struck by the message that the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich], the distinguished chairman of the Committee on the Budget, talked about the parables of sin and that it is sinful not to help. At the same time, he said it is a sin not to help one's self, and he talked about his community and where he was born and raised and how he grew up and how that community pulled itself up by the bootstraps. And that is well and good; that is the story of our country.
But what about when we have bad times? What about when we have depressions? What about my community when I was growing up, where I was born, when we had a Great Depression?
My father was deported because he was from the other side of the border and he was working here as a copper miner. My mother was left alone with my brother and I. We were on welfare, we were on relief. We suffered, we were hungry. I wore corduroy pants. My colleagues remember that, those that remember the Depression. I wore those corduroy tennis shoes. We stood in lines for food.
Thank heavens for relief or welfare, what it was called then, and, yes, we want to change welfare as we know it today, we want to reform the ills of people who exploit and cheat on welfare. But what about the people that cannot find jobs? What about the incapacitated?
What about the homeless who have lost their jobs and because of that they have lost their homes and had to move and live out of their vehicles or live in parks?
What about the elderly, who, as was mentioned here earlier, are legal immigrants who came here many, many years ago and worked hard and paid taxes and sent their sons and daughters to war to defend this Nation, and here they are in their time of need, elderly, widowed, alone, will not be given the kind of assistance because they are legal immigrants.
What a shame, what a shame of this country. We cannot tolerate this.
What about the children, the millions of children that will be put on the street because they will be pushed into poverty by this ill-
thought-of, ill-conceived Republican bill? In 70 percent of these families one of the parents is probably already working, but yet those children will be denied. What about the children of immigrants in this country, children who were born here or have the fault, if my colleagues will, of choosing the wrong parents and will be denied Medicaid or food stamps, or disabled children who will be denied SSI benefits all because, as I said, they made the mistake of choosing their parents?
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This is unconscionable. We need to come back to the table and negotiate a welfare bill that is right for this country in these times. We need to send the President a bill that he can sign. I simply say we need to work harder at this. We cannot allow this bill to be passed.
Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Madam Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Waters].
Ms. WATERS. Madam Chairman, this is not welfare reform, this is welfare bashing. Welfare reform has become the political football in this election year. Children and families are going to be hurt if this bill is signed into law. Poor children in families will be hungrier and they will be poorer. Yes, some politicians will use this bill to get reelected, rather than spend their time to produce credible, sensible, welfare reform.
Madam Chairman, I believe in welfare reform and I believe we can do a better job. This bill gets rid of all the entitlements. That means you can have a family who has worked hard, mother and father worked hard for the last 20 years and all of a sudden they are downsized on the job, they lose their job, the job exported somewhere to a Third World country for cheap labor. They could go in for welfare benefits and, because there is no entitlement, they can say I am sorry, I cannot give it to you. Money has run out. Sorry, there is none left for you. That does not make good sense.
It puts a 5-year limit on the time that you can receive benefits. That does not make good sense. There are some people who could get off welfare in 6 months or a year, and some who may have college education and all they need to do is just get back into the workplace with a little assistance, a little experience. There are others who dropped out of school a long time ago, who may be illiterate. It is going to take them a longer time. They need to be job trained, they need to have their GEDs, they need to get some experience, they need to be helped to get back into the workplace.
It does not make good sense, Madam Chairman, to treat everybody the same. We must assess each individual and determine where their strengths are, where their weaknesses are. Most welfare recipients want to be independent. They do not like being on welfare. We need to have credible child care, we need to have credible job training programs. They will get off.
If politicians would simply use their time and their talent to create credible welfare reform for this country we could get people off welfare, but this is welfare bashing. This no entitlements, everybody off at the same time, this does nothing to deal with real welfare reform. Members are going to starve some children, they are going to take food stamps from a family of three that only makes about $6,200 a year, they are going to take food out of the mouths of hungry children in this election year, having people believing that they are protecting their taxpayer dollars.
I want to tell the Members, nobody is going to be protected. What we are going to have is more desperate families out there, more desperate mothers and fathers who will say, ``I am not going to allow these children to be hungry, I am not going to allow them to be treated this way. I have done everything that I could. I worked hard every day.
``When I went to the welfare office after having worked 20 years, you told me there are no more entitlements. I cannot get any help.'' Is that fair? No.
I will tell the Members what is fair. It is fair to have entitlements and equal application of the law. I ask my colleagues in the House to reject this non-credible nonsensical welfare bill.
Mr. ROBERTS. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston].
Mr. KINGSTON. Madam Chairman, I have been listening to them, about children and so forth. This is the same rhetoric we heard from the same group when we passed welfare reform, when we tried to change some of the other entitlement programs, to not have a complete overhaul but to target the areas that are wasting money, to try to reduce the bureaucracy of Washington. Yet, we hear from the same people. To my knowledge, we have not heard from one Democrat who has ever supported a welfare reform bill on the floor of the House.
Madam Chairman, I think what we are really hearing is people who are against welfare reform. I am a father of four children. I do not want to see any kids starving out on the street. I do not want to throw any elderly out. I am hearing people debate a bill that is not even on the floor of the House.
I think it is time to get back to the fact that we are increasing food stamps. The school lunch program was mentioned. We are not even affecting the school lunch program by this bill. Madam Chairman, this Congress is concerned with a government policy that has spent over $5 trillion fighting poverty, and it has failed. It has not moved us down the road. I would hope that these folks would say, listen, it is time to say welfare should not be a way of life; that able-bodied people should be required to work in order to get public assistance.
One of the gentlemen earlier talked about coming to this country during the Depression. The FDR-type programs all had a work requirement. That gives people self-esteem. I heard President Clinton say one of the best things about people getting off of welfare is when the 12-year-old child at school, when he is asked ``What does your Momma do?'' instead of saying ``She is on welfare,'' they can say,
``She works. Here is where she works.''
That is what we want to do. We want to get the poor independent instead of keeping them dependent so bureaucrat after bureaucrat in Washington can benefit from a government poverty program. They are poverty brokers in Washington, they are not people who want to make the recipients independent.
Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Madam Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Waters].
Ms. WATERS. Madam Chairman, I think it is very important that we put the facts on the floor and that we not get so carried away with our rhetoric that we mischaracterize what has taken place here.
Every Democrat has voted for a welfare bill. Remember the Deal bill? I am sure the gentleman is familiar with that. It had tougher work requirements in it. If the gentleman would like to correct the record, I know the gentleman does not want to go on the record misquoted or misunderstood. The gentleman just said we had never voted for welfare reform. I think the gentleman needs to correct that.
Mr. KINGSTON. Madam Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?
Ms. WATERS. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.
Mr. KINGSTON. Madam Chairman, here is what I hear from Democrat after Democrat: We want welfare reform, but we----
Ms. WATERS. The gentleman needs to correct the record.
Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentlewoman would yield time, we can talk about it.
Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Madam Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Payne], chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.
(Mr. PAYNE of New Jersey asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. PAYNE of New Jersey. Madam Chairman, I rise in opposition to H.R. 3734. ``End welfare as we know it'' was what was said during the last campaign. Let us take a look at this question of ending welfare as we know it.
On June 27, 1996, the Committee on the Budget released the Republican vision, and I use that word loosely, of welfare reform; and some of the details that have surfaced, they certainly need to be looked at more closely.
Currently the welfare system in this country is one that in some cases does foster cycles of dependency. Many times an individual cannot get off of welfare rolls because she cannot get a job that will provide a living wage for herself or her family, get quality child care for her family, get adequate housing for her family, get adequate health care for her family.
If we are going to end welfare as we know it, does this bill help to accomplish those things? The answer is definitely no. Providing jobs and job security will change this type of system to promote one that encourages self-sufficiency. However, we are unwilling and we are unable to invest the necessary resources in our families.
However, without the adequate support in places, opportunity for employment, opportunity for day care, opportunity for an adequate salary, and to promote and encourage self-sufficiency, taking this punitive approach to drop people from the welfare rolls will certainly do more harm.
In our subcommittee a resolution that was brought up to say that if a person cannot find a job when the time expires, will they be able to continue to have benefits, and the Republican Members of the committee all voted no, throw the children out.
So because we are not addressing the root causes, the lack of adequate jobs, the underlying conditions of the problem will continue to exist. An experiment conducted in my home State of New Jersey and also in Illinois found that 80 percent of welfare recipients who found jobs were able to break the cycle of poverty. It was very simple. They were able to work their way out. Yet, only 2 percent of those that had to depend on the system were able to break the cycle of poverty. The answer is jobs.
We had 100 jobs available in the city of Newark. Fourteen hundred people started to get in line at 6 a.m. for those 100 jobs. It was not even 100. They said possibly up to 100, but maybe 50. Fourteen hundred people went and waited for hours and hours to apply for the jobs. So the answer is certainly there. Remember, there are 9 million children who receive welfare, which is about 65 percent of the welfare rolls. Today there are over 14 million children living in poverty. One out of five children go hungry every day. Let us defeat H.R. 3734.
Mr. ROBERTS. Madam Chairman, it is a pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Ganske], a gentleman whose testimony before the Committee on Ways and Means helped shape the reform bill that is now on the House floor.
Mr. GANSKE. Madam Chairman, before coming to Congress I was a physician in Des Moines, IA. My wife is a family physician. My wife has helped 13-year-old girls deliver their babies. I have taken care of 15-
years-olds who have gunshot wounds to the head, and 17-year-olds who have needle track infections up and down their arms and probably have AIDS because of it.
I took care of 15-year-old young women who would bring their babies into my office with a cleft lip, a cleft palate, a hand deformity, and there would almost never be a dad there with them. My heart would go out to them because they had a hard road ahead of them. It is one thing to take care of a little baby who is 2 years old as a single parent. It is quite another thing to take care of a 15-year-old boy who has never had the advantage of a dad, who gets involved with a gang, and then ends up shooting himself or somebody else.
We have to do something about the illegitimacy problem. In Iowa alone there were 9,000 illegitimate births last year. Next to my office, in neighborhoods close to where I practiced, there was a 60-percent illegitimacy rate in Des Moines, IA. That is why I testified before the Committee on Ways and Means in February 1995. I advocated offering States an incentive to reduce their illegitimacy rates. Increase their block grant if they are successful.
I am happy that such a proposal was in our reform bill. It was twice vetoed by the President, but it is in the current bill. Starting in 1988, this bill increases a State's grants by 5 percent for lowering the illegitimacy rate by 1 percent, and 10 percent for lowering the illegitimacy rate by 2 percent below the 1995 level.
This legislation is needed. We need to give States the incentives to address the illegitimacy problem. It is a two-person problem. It is not a problem with the young women. That is why in this bill there are strong provisions to make the young fathers responsible economically for their children. We need to pass this bill.
Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Madam Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Richardson].
(Mr. RICHARDSON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. RICHARDSON. Madam Chairman, I would hope that we stop personalizing and politicizing this bill. All I seem to hear is Democrats, Republicans, do this. I want to talk to Members about people. I want to talk to Members about legal immigrants, men and women who are here legally, pay their taxes, serve in the military, but are taking the biggest hit in all of the bills we are debating today.
The bill that is the centerpiece of the majority retains very harsh and uncompromising language. While we all support the strengthening of requirements and the sponsors of legal immigrants applying for either SSI, food stamps, or AFDC, the bill bans SSI and food stamps for virtually all legal immigrants and imposes a 5-year ban on all other Federal programs, including nonemergency Medicaid; imagine that, nonemergency Medicaid, for new legal immigrants. These bans would also cover legal immigrants who become disabled after entering the country, families with children, and current recipients.
Madam Chairman, .3 million immigrant children, .3 million, are affected. That is not right. that is not the traditions of this country.
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Madam Chairman, this bill unfairly shifts costs to States with high numbers of legal immigrants. The bill requires virtually all Federal, State and local benefits programs to verify recipients' citizenship or alien status These are new unfunded mandates for State, local, and nonprofit service providers and barriers to participation for citizens.
Again, let us look at the facts. First of all, legal immigrants work hard and pay taxes. That has been documented. The foreign-born are more likely to work than the native-born, 77 to 74 percent.
In 1992, Business Week estimates legal immigrants work and earn at least $240 billion a year and they pay over $90 billion in taxes.
Legal immigrants are a net benefit to the economy. A new Urban Institute study: For every increase of 100 people in the native population, employment grew by 26 jobs; and for every increase of 100 in the immigrant population, employment grew by 46 jobs.
Research shows that immigrants actually complement native workers rather than substitute for native workers.
If no Mexican immigration had occurred between 1970 and 1980, 53,000 production jobs, 12,000 high-paying nonproduction jobs, and 25,000 jobs in related industries would have been lost. Again, this is the respected, bipartisan Urban Institute.
Last, welfare among legal immigrants is low. Among nonrefugee immigrants of working age who entered during the 1980's, 2 percent report welfare incomes versus 3.7 percent of working age natives.
Nonrefugee immigrants of working age are less prone to welfare use than natives according to a CATO study.
Madam Chairman, all of us here want welfare reform. It is not true that these gentleman on this side and others on that side have not voted for welfare reform. That is the number one issue among our constituents. What we are doing now is targeting illegal and legal immigrants indiscriminately. What we are doing is turning the clock back to a darker time when people in America, but only certain people in America, lived and worked under the shadow of second-class status. There is no justification for targeting immigrants who do not abuse the welfare system, who work hard, who play by the rules, who pay taxes, and who serve in the military at America's calling. Most immigrants are long-term residents who have lived in this country and have paid taxes for 10 years or more. Immigrants do not come to this country to take advantage of our welfare system.
So, Madam Chairman, here we face a number of welfare reform bills, substitutes. Let me say that legal immigrants take a hit in all bills. So as a Hispanic American whose mother is Mexican and as many in this body that have an ethnic background that is not a pure American, I do not think there is one native American in this body--there is in the Senate--what we have and what we are doing is wrong, it should be rejected, and we should stand behind the best traditions of this country.
Mr. ROBERTS. Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Nebraska [Mr. Barrett], chairman of the Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities of the Committee on Agriculture.
Mr. BARRETT of Nebraska. I thank the chairman for yielding this time.
Madam Chairman, despite having invested more than $1 trillion, the Federal Government's 30-year war on poverty has instead created a war of poverty. Along with giving States and communities more flexibility in designing welfare programs, H.R. 3734 will provide welfare recipients with a better coordinated system of child care. The bill will provide $4.5 billion more for child care than is currently available and it will consolidate 7 separate programs that have often left child care providers, and families, confused and without assistance.
The bill is tough on getting welfare recipients back to work but without these improvements in child care assistance, welfare families may not be able to afford work and pay for child care at the same time.
Madam Chairman, while the bill provides more funds for child care, it will make other needed reforms that should save $53 billion by 2002. I would encourage the House to support the bill and help end a way of poverty that has permeated our Nation's welfare system for more than 30 years.
Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Madam Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Hawaii [Mrs. Mink].
Mrs. MINK of Hawaii. Madam Chairman, I thank my colleague from California for yielding me this time.
Madam Chairman, it grieves me to be here this evening to see the end of a period of almost 60 years in which this country's beliefs in its responsibility to the poor is going to be shattered. I speak of that element in our Aid to Dependent Children's program which is referred to as the entitlement. It was the safety net, it was the guarantee that all children, no matter where they lived, whatever region of this country they came from, whatever their ethnic background, that they would have the assurance of a Federal program which allowed them the eligibility to participate. No political situation, no situation on a local level, no Governor, no State could alter that eligibility which the Federal Government assured that child.
What we are debating here is a destruction of that very basic guarantee. If we destroy that guarantee, it will be 100 years from now before it ever can be restored. It was the genius of this country, as in the words of the chair of the Committee on the Budget, to understand that it was a sin not to provide for those less fortunate in our society that gave birth to this program. What is honored was the mothers of this country that found themselves without the necessary means to raise their children, and this country rose up to the responsibility and provided an entitlement program which said
``Children everywhere in America, you will have this assurance,'' and we are about to break that guarantee by destroying that entitlement and putting the money simply into the State coffers without that guarantee. It is the destruction of that entitlement that troubles me the most.
We started on this debate with an effort to try to reform welfare. Every single Democrat joined in that when we voted for the Deal bill. No one should leave this floor with a belief that Democrats are not interested in improving the welfare system, because we all voted for it. But now we see a bill coming from the majority which takes about 50 percent of the cuts in this program from the hides of noncitizens of the United States. Is that fair?
The Chairman of the Committee on the Budget also said that this is a victory for everyone in America. It is not a victory for the children that will be left out of this program, and it is certainly not a victory for legal residents of this country who came to America with the promise of liberty and equal treatment, and they are going to find themselves now without the protections if they become disabled, without the protections if they should become impoverished, as every other American. That is what is wrong. This is not welfare reform. It is destruction of the basic guarantees of our democracy.
Mr. ROBERTS. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Nevada [Mr. Ensign], a valued member of the Committee on Ways and Means.
Mr. ENSIGN. Madam Chairman, we have to ask ourselves a few questions here. First of all, does the current welfare system help children as the last speaker talked about? She talked about a safety net. Is the current welfare system a safety net or has it become a spider web that just absolutely grabs onto people and creates a dependency cycle that destroys families? Is the current welfare system compassionate? The answers to all of these questions are an obvious no, the current welfare system is not compassionate and it does destroy families.
What effect has our welfare system has on out-of-wedlock births? What effect has it had on crime rates? What effect has it had on the work ethic in America? Our bill gets people off welfare and into work. That is true compassion.
Our bill does stop noncitizens from receiving welfare benefits. I am sorry. I believe that welfare benefits should only be reserved for citizens of the United States. It is currently law in the United States that if you are a noncitizen that comes here and you go on the Government dole, that is grounds for deportation, has been the law, at least during this century. That is grounds for deportation here. We are an opportunity society. We want to attract people from around the world to come here to better their own lives and to better this country at the same time.
My mom when my parents were divorced when I was about 3 years of age would have made more money going on welfare because she had no child support. She had three kids to raise. But I saw my mom each and every single day get up and go to work, and that taught me a work ethic that we are robbing from welfare families today. The children of welfare families are losing that. That is not compassion. We want to be an opportunity society that takes people and provides them opportunities.
Our bill provides money for child care, $2 billion more than the President, and also transitional health care for children in the time that these welfare moms and welfare families are getting off of welfare and into work.
Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Madam Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from California [Mr. Becerra]
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from California is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. BECERRA. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman from California for yielding me this time.
Madam Chairman, let me begin by first thanking many of my colleagues and the folks within my own leadership in the Democratic caucus of the House for the time and effort that has been spent with many of us who have had concerns about welfare and meaningful reform of welfare. I want to thank those who took the time to hear us out. Unlike some of the folks on the other side of the aisle, there has been a great deal of effort on the part of our leadership and many of the members of our caucus, from both sides of the spectrum, to try to address issues of grave concern to us all.
As President Clinton has said, the current welfare system is broken and must be replaced. This is true for the sake of the people who are trapped by it as well as for the taxpayers who pay for it.
But when we began to consider reforming welfare, discussions centered on providing sufficient child care to enable recipients to leave welfare for work, on rewarding States for placing people in jobs, on restoring the guarantee of health coverage for poor families, on requiring States to maintain their stake in moving people from welfare to work, and on protecting States and families in the event of economic recession and population growth. But this House bill has failed miserably in achieving these goals.
Instead, it relies on catchy slogans and soundbites of setting time limits so you are off if you do not make it, if you do not cut it. We block grant in this bill, give you a lump sum of money which looks good but never is enough to cover your needs in the States. And we talk about, as we have heard some of the Members on the other side of the aisle say, the noncitizen alien, and they use as graphic a term as they can to try to describe these human beings who are in this country, one, legally; are in this country, two, paying taxes; are in this country, three, willing and ready and obligated to serve in time of war, as many have, and are prepared to die, as many have, for this country even though they have yet not become U.S. citizens.
The effect of this bill, well, it is weak on work. They force people off of welfare, but they do not help them get into work. It will shove more children into poverty, and we know that from many of the studies, and everyone across the board says that.
Let me focus finally for the rest of my time on this one last issue: The hidden tax that you do not hear many people talk about. There is a tax in this bill. Let us go ahead and disclose it now.
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Thirty billion dollars of the so-called savings that amount to $60 billion comes from a particular population of people, not because they are lazy and do not work, not because they have come into this country without documents. These are folks who happen to be immigrants; they haven't yet reached the stage of becoming citizens. But this population of legal residents in this country who are entitled to be here because this country has granted them permission has now been told you are going to pay a tax of about $2,000 per person, about $30 billion is being extracted from the hides of people who are entitled to be here, who are working and paying taxes.
Why? Well, they do not vote. They do not have a say in this place and chances are they are not going to contribute money to the coffers, campaign coffers of people who are hitting them. So there is no stake here or negative stake here in going after the legal immigrant.
So what we see is that these individuals are being told, and their children are being told, no, you have worked 5 years, 10 years, 15 years and now all of a sudden you have been hit by a car and you need some assistance with the medical bills because you cannot pay them all yourself, sorry. You happen to not yet have become a citizen, even though you have worked here for quite some time and paid taxes, and that hidden tax will cost those individuals about $2,000 per person, and if you exclude children, it is a much heavier hit for the adults.
More than 200 years ago we had some folks toss some tea over a harbor because of the issue of taxation without representation, yet we see it being done here today but in a very concealed way.
Finally, let me close by saying the following things: For some reason this Congress this session has decided it wants to hit my family in virtually everything I have to come up here to discuss, and in committee as well. It seems that I am having to defend my parents or my relatives. My parents who migrated to Sacramento, CA, would face many of the situations that are in this bill that would deny them services, even though my parents have worked hard in this country for decades. I am not sure why I have to constantly try to explain to my father that the Congress of the United States and this noble country is out to get them. They are fortunately now citizens, so they will not be impacted. But isn't it ironic just because they happen to have that day been able to become citizens things have changed?
It is a hidden tax. It is an unfair tax and that must change. We need meaningful reform. Let's change welfare as we know it, as the President said, but let us do it in a way that includes all Americans.
Mr. ROBERTS. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Chairman, I think it is obvious that we all know that welfare reform is a front-burner topic, not only on this floor in this town, but certainly all throughout the Nation, and the American people want change.
I think the House of Representatives has responded to the American public. I believe that real welfare reform is represented in the bill that is being considered today. This bill represents real change.
I want to congratulate the members on the Committee on Agriculture and all Members who have worked so diligently on reforming the Food Stamp Program. That is the part of welfare reform for which the Committee on Agriculture is responsible. The very first hearing held by me and my Republican majority in the committee was on enforcement in the Food Stamp Program, and following that hearing, the chairman of the subcommittee, our late and beloved colleague, Mr. Bill Emerson, held four hearings on the Food Stamp Program. Bill was an expert in regard to the Food Stamp Program.
From the testimony received in these hearings, the committee formulated the principles that really guided our reform. The bill being debated today simply reflects those principles.
First, keep the Food Stamp Program, that was a tough fight, as a safety sunset so that food can be provided as a basic need while States are undergoing the transition to State-designated welfare programs.
Second, second principle, to harmonize welfare and the Food Stamp Program for families receiving benefits from both programs, not on a separate track. We streamlined that.
Third, take the Food Stamp Program off of automatic pilot. Started out 12 years ago at about $12 billion, went up to $27 billion and was ever increasing.
Fourth, able-bodied participants, able-bodied participants without dependents must work in private sector jobs.
Lastly, tighten controls on waste and abuse. Out of the $27 billion in the Food Stamp Program, estimated by the new Inspector General at the Department of Agriculture, anywhere from $3 billion to $5 billion is now going to fraud and abuse. So we are tightening those controls, and we curb the trafficking with increased penalties.
Now that is real reform. It is essentially the same bill that was approved by the House on December 21, last year, by a vote of 245 to 178. One significant exception, the food stamp funding cap is eliminated.
Now, that cap was eliminated as a concession to and at the request of the National Governors' Association, the Clinton administration, and the Secretary of Agriculture. We sat down and we worked with all of these folks. Food stamp reforms still include measures to control the cost of the Food Stamp Program, however.
The bill represents sound policy. The program is retained as a Federal safety net. States are allowed to harmonize their AFDC and Food Stamp programs. As I indicated, the food stamps are taken off of automatic pilot, except for the annual food benefit increases; able-
bodied persons without dependents must work; and there are increased penalties for trafficking and fraud.
It is a good package. Through the reforms in this bill, the committee will meet its target under the 1997 budget resolution. But, first and foremost, we reform the program.
Last April, the Clinton administration submitted its welfare reform bill. There are many similarities between the two bills, since we adopted many of the USDA proposals and they in turn adopted many of ours. A review indicates that 55 percent of the provisions are identical; 72 percent are either identical or very similar--72 percent in agreement with the USDA and the Clinton administration. We worked hard to do that.
There are some differences. We take the Food Stamp Program off of automatic pilot for all but annual food increases. If needed, we can come back in; we can appropriate the funds, and the administration bill does not.
We have a strong work requirement. We expect able-bodies persons, no dependents, between the ages of 18 and 50 to work or be in a training program after 4 months of food stamp benefits. The administration's work requirement, as far as I am concerned, is very weak. We allow States to operate work supplementation programs and the administration does not.
This program now provides benefits to an average of 27 million people each month at an annual cost of more than $26 billion. Everybody should agree that for the most part these benefits go to families in need of help and are used to buy food. There is no question in my mind that the Food Stamp Program helps poor people and those who have temporary fallen on hard times. However, there is also no question in my mind that the program is in need of real reform.
As I have indicated, this bill reflects the principle that the Food Stamp Program should remain a Federal program. States will be undergoing a transition to State-designed welfare programs. During this period, this Food Stamp Program will remain as a safety net and be able to provide food as a basic need. The program will remain at the Federal level and equal access to food for every American in need is still ensured.
Now, I mentioned we had taken the program off of automatic pilot except for the annual increases. The food stamp deductions are kept at the current levels instead of being adjusted automatically. Food stamp benefits will increase to reflect the increases in the cost of food. Food stamp spending will no longer grow out of control. Out of control: 1984, $12.4 billion, 232.4 million people participating; 1996, $26.4 billion, 27.5. Under this bill, 1997, $26 billion; by the year 2002,
$30.4 billion. It increases, does not decrease.
It is a transition, but we stop that annual growth increase. If the economy goes down, food stamps went up. If the economy went up, food stamp spending went up and the participants went up.
The food stamp deductions, as I have indicated, are kept at the current levels, and as I have indicated, the spending will certainly no longer grow out of control. Oversight from the Committee on Agriculture is essential so that when reforms are needed, why, the committee will act.
I want to talk about the strong work program. Again, able-bodied persons between the ages of 18 and 50 years, no dependents, will be able to receive food stamps for 4 months. Eligibility will cease at the end of this period if they are not working at least 20 hours per week in a regular job. The rule will not apply to those who are in training programs such as approved by a Governor of a State.
A State may request a waiver of these rules if the unemployment rates are high or there is a lack of jobs in the area. Please remember that. We are not heartless. We just expect able-bodied people between 18 and 50 who have no one relying upon them to work at least half the time if they want to continue to receive the food stamps.
It is essential to begin to restore integrity to the program. Incidences of fraud and abuse and losses are steadily increasing. The public has lost confidence in the program. There are frequent reports in the press and on national television in regard to abuse. We held the hearing in the House Committee on Agriculture. The Inspector General of the Department, the new Inspector General, Roger Viadero, came down from the Department, showed on television the massive fraud in many food centers that were not food centers, they were trafficking centers for organized crime.
Abuse of the program usually occurs in three ways: Fraudulent receipt of benefits by recipients; street trafficking in food stamps by recipients; and trafficking offenses made by retail and wholesale grocers. We double the disqualification periods for food stamp participants who intentionally defraud the program. First offense, the period is changed to 1 year. Second offense, the disqualification period is changed to 2 years. And then if you are convicted of trafficking food stamps with a value over $500, adios, you are permanently disqualified.
As I have indicated, the trafficking by unethical wholesale and retail food stores is a serious problem, had it on tape, national television, sickened the American public, not fair to the recipient, not fair to the taxpayer. Also, benefits Congress appropriates for needy families are going to others who are making money from the program. Therefore, the bill limits the authorization period for stores and provides the Secretary of Agriculture with other means to ensure that only those stores abiding by the rules are authorized to accept food stamps. It is amazing that that was not changed before.
Finally, the bill includes a provision that all property used to traffic in food stamps and the proceeds traceable to any property used to traffic in food stamps will be subject to criminal forfeiture. They have to give it up.
This bill and the Committee on Agriculture's contribution to the bill, I think, represents good policy. We have kept the Food Stamp Program as a safety net for families in need of food. We have taken the program off of automatic pilot. We save $23 billion. Congress is back in control of spending on food stamps. States are provided with an option to harmonize food stamps with their new AFDC programs. We take steps to restore integrity to the Food Stamp Program by giving law enforcement and the Department additional means to curtail fraud and abuse. We encourage and facilitate the EBT programs. We begin a strong work program, again, so that able-bodied people, no dependents, between the ages of 18 and 50 years can receive food stamps for a limited amount of time without working.
This represents good food stamp policy and reform. I hope all Members will agree with me and support this bill.
Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. SABO. Madam Chairman, how much time remains on both sides?
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Sabo] has 30 minutes remaining, and the gentleman from Kansas [Mr. Roberts] has 2\1/4\ minutes remaining.
Mr. SABO. Madam Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute and 30 seconds.
Madam Chairman, as a State legislator in the 1970's, I regularly came to Washington to participate in meetings on welfare reform. It is something we have understood that needed to be done for many, many years, but there is a right way to do it and there is a wrong way to do it. Unfortunately, the majority Republican plan is one that does it the wrong way. It is weak on work and it punishes children.
Tomorrow we will have an opportunity to vote for a better alternative. The Castle-Tanner substitute, a genuine effort by some Democrats to work with some Members of the Republican side to develop a truly bipartisan plan. It is a plan that is fairer to children, tougher in requiring people to go to work, understands the diversity of this country, requires States to maintain their efforts, rather than allowing the States to pull billions of dollars out of the program, as the Republican plan does.
Madam Chairman, this country would be well-served if tomorrow a majority of this House in a bipartisan fashion would vote for the bipartisan substitute amendment that is going to be offered.
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Mr. SABO. Madam Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to yield the remainder of my time to the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Stenholm, and that Mr. Stenholm have authority to yield to other Members.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Greene of Utah). Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Texas?
There was no objection.
Mr. STENHOLM. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Chairman, it has been stated numerous times already tonight that the House now has a historic opportunity to move toward enactment of meaningful welfare reform legislation, discouraging the cycle of dependency and moving welfare recipients into work. I could not agree more. But I believe the legislation I am supporting is the best way for the House to realize that opportunity.
There is a bipartisan welfare reform alternative that can be supported by a strong majority of members on both sides of the aisle and can be signed into law. That's how historic opportunities are realized.
My objections to the Majority bill come down to two simple concerns: I believe their proposal is weak on work and tough on kids. In my book, that's a bad equation that is fixed by the Castle-Tanner substitute.
This substitute achieves $53 billion in savings in welfare programs as required by the Majority-approved budget, while protecting children and providing States with the resources that CBO says they need to put welfare recipients to work.
Let me repeat. CBO says they need. How many times have we in this body heard unfunded Federal mandates. I would ask my friends on the other side of the aisle to take a good hard look at their language because CBO says it falls short regarding the very States we are attempting to work with. In fact, the Castle-Tanner substitute is the only proposal that has real work requirements that the Congressional Budget Office says States will be able to implement to move welfare recipients to work.
Madam Chairman, over the last two years, I have solicited the views of welfare providers, recipients, and local citizens in my district on what Congress should do to allow local communities to implement effective welfare reform. The citizens in my district expressed a very strong desire for local flexibility and adequate funding to design a workable welfare delivery system that would more efficiently and effectively move welfare recipients from welfare to work.
I am proud of the work performed by my constituents. They invested their time and energy, they engaged in dialogue with individuals of a different perspective, they developed common goals, and they promoted concrete suggestions for improvements. They did the work I asked of them and now it's my turn to do my part here in Washington. That is precisely how I ended up one of the strongest supporters of the Castle-
Tanner substitute. It is the only welfare reform alternative that provides local communities with the support they need to move welfare recipients to work.
The welfare reform bill proposed by the majority falls well short of giving state and local governments that flexibility or the resources they need to implement welfare reform proposals. The National Governors Association adopted a resolution yesterday expressing ``concerns about restrictions on states flexibility and unfunded costs'' in the work requirements of H.R. 3734.'' That is the Governors' Association. The Republican bill rejects the NGA recommendations for state flexibility in developing work programs appropriate for local communities and does not provide any additional funds for states to meet the increased work requirements.
CBO has estimated that the Republican bill would fall $12.9 billion short of the funding for work programs necessary to meet the work requirements in the bill, and $800 million short of the costs of providing child care assistance to individuals required to work. The CBO report accompanying the Republican bill states:
CBO * * * concludes that most states would fail to meet these [work] requirements * * * most states would simply accept the penalties rather than implement the requirements.
That is CBO. The same CBO we talk about day in and days out that we need to pay attention to. The Castle-Tanner substitute ensures that states would be able to meet the work requirements in the bill by providing $3 billion in additional mandatory funds that states can access in order to meet the costs of moving welfare recipients to work. In addition, Castle-Tanner adopts the recommendations of the National Governors Association regarding state flexibility in meeting work requirements.
Rhetoric about tough work requirements is either an empty promise or the greatest unfunded mandate Congress ever imposed if it is not backed up with funding for states and local governments to meet the work requirements. Welfare reform will fail to meet the goal of ending the cycle of dependency and moving welfare recipients to work if states do not have sufficient resources to operate work programs. As the CBO report makes abundantly clear, the work requirements in H.R. 3734 are illusory because states will not be able to implement them. If you support breaking the cycle of dependency and actually moving welfare recipients into work instead of just talking about it, vote for the Castle-Tanner substitute.
The Castle-Tanner substitute proves that it is possible to dramatically reform the welfare system in this country without harming children, while still achieving substantial budgetary savings.
As we said, we do have an historic opportunity to reform our failed welfare system. We cannot afford to waste this opportunity. The House can take a tremendous step toward ending the political gridlock and finding a bipartisan solution to the problems of our welfare system by passing the Castle-Tanner bill tomorrow. I urge my colleagues to vote for the bipartisan Castle-Tanner substitute.
Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. ROBERTS. Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. Fowler].
(Mrs. FOWLER asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)
Mrs. FOWLER. Madam Chairman, I have a few questions for the defenders of the present welfare system.
Is there compassion in a system run by Washington bureaucrats?
Is there compassion in a system that encourages illegitimacy and undermines traditional values like work and family?
Is it compassionate for generation after generation to be trapped in dependency and despair?
The answer is: No. Compassion is not measured by dollar signs. For thirty years, we have poured trillions of dollars into a system that does not work. It destroys families: devastates women; and crushes the hopes and dreams of children. There is nothing compassionate about our current welfare system.
The bill we are considering today replaces Washington bureaucrats with caring social workers at the State and local level. It gives States flexibility to develop their own solutions for helping the needy. It provides child care for welfare mothers who want to work. It rewards work while retaining a safety net for those who fall on hard times, and it provides for comprehensive child support enforcement.
I strongly encourage my colleagues to support this measure, because I believe it will save lives, restore hope, and help those who want to experience the American dream.
Mr. ROBERTS. Madam Chairman, I yield the remainder of my time to the gentlewoman from Kansas [Mrs. Meyers], the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Small Business, the original author of welfare reform, and I ask unanimous consent that she be authorized to yield additional time to other Members.
Mr. CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Kansas?
There was no objection.
Mr. STENHOLM. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Payne].
Mr. PAYNE of Virginia. Madam Chairman, I thank my colleague from Texas for yielding me this time.
Madam Chairman, Republicans and Democrats all agree that the current welfare system does not work. Instead of requiring work, it punishes those who go to work; instead of instilling personal responsibility, it encourages dependence on the Government; and instead of encouraging marriage and family stability, it penalizes two-parent families and rewards teenage pregnancies. We all agree that welfare must be dramatically reformed, and that welfare should only offer transitional assistance leading to work, not a way of life. Real welfare reform must be about replacing a welfare check with a paycheck. Tomorrow we will have two choices before us, the Republican welfare bill, and the Castle-Tanner bipartisan substitute. The bipartisan bill is the bill that will ensure that welfare reform really works.
The bipartisan bill gets people into the workforce as quickly as possible, while providing money for work requirements to be effective. It includes the provisions that are necessary to make transition to work a reality and not just rhetoric. The Castle-Tanner bipartisan bill provides $3 billion in supplemental funds for states to meet the costs of work programs for welfare recipients. This is money in the bank, not just an authorization backed by a hope that someday we might actually find this money.
The bipartisan bill requires individual responsibility, by requiring welfare recipients to sign a contract with their State which outlines the individual's responsibility to move to private sector employment.
The Castle-Tanner bill requires community responsibility as well, by requiring the States to certify that local governments have been involved in developing the State plan, and that no unfunded mandates to local government will result from its implementation.
The Castle-Tanner bipartisan bill provides real welfare reform that really works. I urge my colleagues to support it tomorrow.
Mrs. MEYERS of Kansas. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Chairman, I rise in strong support of this legislation to reform welfare. Let me talk for a minute about what this bill is based on and why I think it takes us in the right direction to achieve really meaningful welfare reform.
First of all, we need to admit that Washington does not have all the answers. We have tried that. During most of the 30 years the answer to every problem and the meaning of every reform by Congress was to create another Federal program and today we have literally hundreds of Federal programs intended to help people of limited incomes with separate regulations, separate applications, separate eligibility rules, and separate reporting.
In this bill we return power and flexibility to the States to create welfare systems that work best in their States. What works best in Kansas will not be identical to what works best in New York. This bill recognizes that. At the same time as we give States flexibility, we hold them accountable in the two most important areas for reducing welfare dependency, increasing work and reducing out-of-wedlock births.
Let me just say that some people have tried to claim that our emphasis on reducing out-of-wedlock births puts the blame only on the mothers. That is not true.
This bill has very strong paternity establishment and child support enforcement provisions, provisions that are long overdue. Fathers must and will be held accountable. But it is also true that we must stop sending conflicting signals.
I have met in my district with young women on welfare. We are not serving these young women well. We say that they should stay in school and not have a child until they are married and have a degree. Then we turn around and offer them money if they do exactly the opposite. We all know which part of that message a lot of young women hear.
I am pleased that in this bill reducing out-of-wedlock births is recognized as an important and essential part of reducing welfare dependence. I am pleased that the Subcommittee on Procurement, Exports, and Business Opportunities has helped to craft the very strong work requirements in this bill, and I hope that we do not hear any claim in this debate that this bill is weak on work. Any such claim is simply untrue.
The bill calls for more people in work than any other proposal that has been offered this year, including the President's, and under this bill the emphasis is on real work. It is clear from experience and studies that the best way to move from dependence to independence through work is to get work experience, a real job, and that is the emphasis of this bill.
I am also pleased that the Subcommittee on Procurement, Exports, and Business Opportunities portion of the bill makes major critical reforms in Federal support for child care. We address the current maze of child care programs. We have multiple child care programs and each one has its own eligibility rules. Under this bill there would be a single child care program so that our expenditures for child care can be an important help rather than an obstacle to independence from welfare.
We increase the amount of money for child care. That is the second false claim I hope we do not hear in this debate, that the bill is short on child care. We have $4.5 billion more than the current law and almost $2 billion more in guaranteed money for child care than does the President's plan.
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So I hope we do not hear any claims from the other side that the bill is short on child care. Let me talk about two other parts of the bill that were reported by the Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities. One is the child protection block grant. Child abuse is a terrible problem in this country. Despite the fact that there have been a lot of programs set up at the Federal level, our efforts at preventing child abuse have not been very effective in large part because it is made up of numerous small disparate single-purpose grant programs. The bill consolidates six of those programs into a block grant with increased funding.
In addition, instead of keeping most of the money in Washington, the bill sends most of the money to the States, which, of course, are the ones who actually deal with the problems of broken families and broken homes.
Finally, let me address the child nutrition area. We make no changes in reimbursements for school lunches or breakfasts. Our bill saves money in the child nutrition area, primarily by means testing the family day care food program. This is currently the only child nutrition program which is not income tested, meaning that we currently pay the same full subsidy to buy lunches and breakfasts for children of millionaires as we do for the children of the poorest families. This is long overdue reform that is included in this legislation.
Madam Chairman, no issue is more important for us to address than is welfare reform. That is why we are determined to give the American people welfare reform despite President Clinton's vetoes of our earlier bills. He has no more excuses to oppose welfare reform. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I urge the President to sign welfare reform so that we can at long last begin to fill a well-
intentioned but too often destructive system.
Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. STENHOLM. Madam Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Wynn].
Mr. WYNN. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding me the time.
I agree, the current welfare system does not work. It should be changed. As a result of the current welfare system, its recipients have lost self-respect. We have a created a system of dependency and put welfare recipients outside the mainstream of American society. If all we were talking about was putting able-bodies people to work and solving food stamp fraud, we would not have much of a debate.
The fact is today that the Republican bill is seriously flawed. It lacks compassion. It hurts children. And it reflects a continued pattern of extremism.
Let us talk about the children. Children are going to be harmed by this bill because it makes no provision for the reality that, when benefits run out or their parents are put out of the program, these children still have to eat. There are no vouchers. I am here today to support the Tanner-Castle alternative because I believe it does contain compassion in that it provides for these circumstances by requiring States to offer vouchers when benefits run out so that children are not harmed.
Let me be blunt. I do not believe we should target legal immigrants, but I am pressed with the Tanner-Castle bill, Tanner-Castle amendment, excuse me, because it addresses the concerns of immigrant children. Under the Republican plan, 300,000 immigrant children will be hurt. They will starve because they will be denied food assistance. This problem is corrected under the Tanner-Castle alternative. Those children will be able to get food assistance under that program. Disabled immigrant children will also be able to get assistance under the Tanner-Castle substitute.
Also under the Republican plan, 1.2 million women and children will lose Medicaid coverage as they transition from welfare to work. This problem is also corrected by the Tanner-Castle proposal, which extends Medicaid benefits during this transition period.
The Republican plan is flawed on a second count. It provides inadequate work programs. There is no support for work, only a lot of rhetoric. The CBO, their favorite source, says that the bill is $12 billion short of what is needed for work requirements. This creates a large unfunded mandate, something they also say they abhor because States will have to bear the burden. Tanner-Castle again responds to this concern by being the only bill that provides additional funds to States so that they can implement work requirements. That is why we say the Republicans are weak on work.
The Republicans also are inadequate in child care. Again CBO says they are $800 million short of the child care assistance necessary to provide for real transition to work.
The problem is they are not serious about putting people to work. The Tanner-Castle substitute on the alternative provides sufficient child care assistance, an additional $2 billion for child care assistance to ensure that people who want to go to work and have children can do so.
CBO concludes that under the Republican bill, rather, States would fail to meet their work requirements.
Reject false welfare reform. Adopt a realistic and sound alternative.
Mrs. MEYERS of Kansas. Madam Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Cunningham].
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Madam Chairman, many have spoken about the destruction of the welfare system. I think Republicans and Democrats alike can view this as not destruction but the rebirth of a failed system. Ninety percent of the American people believe that the current system has failed, and we need to work on it.
Republicans do not have a key on the welfare system plan. We produced in the House of Representatives a bipartisan plan. It passed this House. In the Senate, Senator Dole worked and passed a bipartisan welfare plan. They did that twice, bipartisan. And both times the President vetoed it.
Then the Governors of this great country all got together. They said that if Congress cannot do it, let us have the Governors, that have got the direct responsibility in their States to take care of it, produce a plan. And they did so. In a bipartisan manner, Republican and Democrat Governors worked together, produced a plan and the President would still not sign that plan. Even today, the Governors are working, again, to come up with a plan.
I would say that I used to teach in Hinsdale. We had three great schools: Hinsdale, Evanston, and Newtrier. Just a few miles away there are miles and miles of Federal housing. I would say to my colleagues, those children do not carry books. They carry guns. Their ideologues and their role models are pimps and drug dealers. What chance, what opportunity, what portion or even the pursuit of happiness do those children have? next to none.
The pregnancy rate, I rode on an airplane with an African-American. And he told me, he said, ``Duke, our neighborhoods used to be proud neighborhoods. We had industry next to us. The people had jobs. They took pride in those neighborhoods, whether it was Harlem, whether it was Chicago, whether it was any of our major great cities.'' The welfare system, people started not working. Then what you had was a follow-on of generation and generation, where the person did not work and did not take the responsibility.
Pretty soon the businesses started moving out of those communities. So I think the biggest welfare reform is reestablishing, like Jack Kemp, one idea of the enterprise zones to bring the businesses back into the inner cities so that we can have those jobs for people to work. We can work on that together. The substitute, there is no reason why we cannot come together. I think we have a good bill. But education is another one.
Let me tell my colleagues in California how welfare and education and a lot of different things have been hindered. I have almost 800,000 illegals, K through 12; 800,000. Take just 400,000, half of that. At
$5,000 a child, that is $2 billion a year. Take 7 years. What we could not do with our school systems. I truly believe that education has a vital role in keeping people off of welfare. If you do not believe that, I think you are on the wrong tree.
Over half of the children born in Los Angeles are to illegals. Take the School Lunch Program that you fight for. My priority is the American citizen and the American children. The School Lunch Program at half the number we actually have, take two meals, not three at $1.90, that is $1.2 million a day for illegals keeping us from welfare reform in California.
We want the State to have the flexibility and we think that this reform bill is gentle to children and a rebirth.
Mr. STENHOLM. Madam Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from North Carolina [Mrs. Clayton].
Mrs. CLAYTON. Madam Chairman, we have a rare opportunity in this Congress, an opportunity to support a bill that is both bipartisan and bicameral. We must and we will have welfare reform. The question is, how will we have welfare reform?
But the bill the majority is putting forth, H.R. 3734, does not provide the kind of constructive changes found in the Castle-Tanner alternative that we will also consider. We need reform that makes a difference. We do not need reform that merely is different but makes a difference in lives.
Reform means improving, making better, perfecting. Reform of our welfare system should reflect our most basic values: the importance of work, the responsibility of parents to care and provide for their children, and nurturing the hope of a better life in their communities, both for their children and their parents.
That is why I believe Castle-Tanner is much preferred over H.R. 3734. Castle-Tanner gives us real reform and it also gives compassion.
For example, Castle-Tanner provides real protection for children.
If a family that has been on welfare for less than 5 years is removed by the State, Castle-Tanner requires that the State provide vouchers for the needs of the children of that family.
And, if a family that has been on welfare for more than 5 years is removed by the State, Castle-Tanner gives that State the option of also providing vouchers for the needs of the children of that family.
Castle-Tanner protects children.
If a family loses Medicaid coverage because of a time limit, Castle-
Tanner makes provision for continued Medicaid coverage.
And, while I believe the immigration provisions of Castle-Tanner need to be strengthened, I am encouraged that Castle-Tanner exempts immigrant children from food stamp and SSI bans and provides food assistance to thousands of immigrant children who would otherwise be denied under H.R. 3734.
In addition, Castle-Tanner makes clear that States must allow for appeals, with full due process protections, when individuals are denied welfare assistance.
And, the Secretary of Health and Human Services is given the power to enforce the appeal protections.
Castle-Tanner also protects children who are exposed by block grant funding when there is an economic downturn. This is done with the establishment of an uncapped contingency fund that States can use when there is a national or a severe regional recession.
More importantly, Castle-Tanner preserves the national food stamp safety net and rejects the optional food stamp block grant contained in H.R. 3734.
In addition, Castle-Tanner contains provisions that will give a realistic opportunity of welfare participants moving from welfare to work.
Castle-Tanner provides $3 billion in additional and mandatory funding that States can make use of in ensuring an effective transition from welfare to work.
And, Castle-Tanner contains sufficient funding for child care, a vital component if we truly expect mothers with dependent children to be able to go to work without jeopardizing the interests of the child.
There are many other strong points in Castle-Tanner when compared to H.R. 3734, such as the 85 percent mandatory State commitment level rather than 75 percent; the requirement that the Secretary of HHS must approve State plans, thereby ensuring a single standard; and the requirement that State plans do not impose unfunded mandates on local governments.
Castle-Tanner has support among Democrats and Republicans in the House and in the Senate.
We do need to discontinue our current system of welfare. But, we do not need to abandon our children. Castle-Tanner will give us change that improves the lives of all Americans, not just change that enriches the lives of some. The savings in the Castle-Tanner alternative meet the mandate of the budget resolution.
I urge all of my colleagues to support welfare reform that works, welfare reform that protects the children, welfare reform that gives us a better system.
Support Castle-Tanner. It will make a difference.
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Mrs. MEYERS of Kansas. Madam chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Smith].
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Madam Chairman, I thank my friend from Kansas, Mrs. Meyers, for yielding this time to me.
I would like to offer my strong support for H.R. 3734, the Personal Responsibility Act. Welfare hurts people. It hurts those who receive it by creating a culture of dependency that crimps people's desire to benefit themselves and improve their own lives.
American taxpayers are willing to help those who need it. But we have grown increasingly tired of footing the bill for those who will not help themselves.
Perhaps the most fundamental requirement of America's immigration policy is that immigrants be self-reliant, not dependent on the American taxpayers for support. Since 1882, for over 100 years, those who are likely to become public charges or participate in the welfare system have been inadmissible to our country. Since 1917 noncitizens who become public charges after they enter the United States have, in fact, been subject to deportation.
Many immigrants come to America for economic opportunity. In fact, most of them do. However, others come to live off the American taxpayer. Noncitizen welfare recipients of supplemental security income have increased 580 percent over the last 12 years. When all the major welfare programs are added together, studies show that immigrants receive $26 billion each year in welfare assistance.
Now, should not those funds rather be going to needy American citizens?
This bill complements the House immigration reform bill, H.R. 2202, which passed the House by a vote of 333 to 87. H.R. 2202 prevents illegal aliens from receiving public benefits, enforces the public charge exclusion and deportation provisions of current law and encourages immigrant sponsors to fulfill their financial obligations.
It is critical for Congress to send both H.R. 3424 and H.R. 2202 to the President this year. The American people are depending on us to reform America's welfare and immigration policies.
President Clinton, after promising to end welfare as we know it, has twice this year vetoed proposals to do just that. Let us hope the administration will finally keep its promise to the American people and sign this bill.
Mrs. MEYERS of Kansas. Madam Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Delaware [Mr. Castle].
Mr. CASTLE. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman from Kansas for yielding this time to me, and I thank those that said nice things about the bill I presented, I have sponsored with the distinguished gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Tanner], and I support both the Castle-Tanner proposal and the Republican welfare reform proposals, and I will speak probably of the Castle-Tanner more tomorrow.
But I would like to share with my colleagues my strong beliefs in the need to improve welfare, but also what I believe is tremendous hope and opportunity for people in America.
Now, I learned this from practical experience. When I was fortunate enough to be Governor of Delaware, I worked with the Governor of Arkansas at that time in 1988 with the Governors, heading up a group to work on welfare reform, and that was Bill Clinton, and from that came the Family Support Act. And I got into it, jumped in with both feet, and I said we are going to do this in Delaware, and we did something not many States had done at that time. We wrote letters to people in which we said, ``If you're going to continue to receive welfare, you're going to have to come to our classes,'' and I shuddered a little bit at some of those reactions, and I went to the first class after about 4 or 5 weeks. It was 18 women and 1 man, as a matter of fact, and I remember it vividly. But I was stunned by the fact that virtually everyone I spoke to, I think everyone I spoke to that day, said very positive things about the fact that we have given them opportunity. I expected them to be very upset and disconcerted by the fact that we had said that they would have to work.
And I found from that and then from going back to graduations and then from talking to many of these people who I saw on the street thereafter that this truly was opportunity for them. It truly lifted their self-esteem, it truly gave them family pride because their kids realize that they were given that opportunity, and they could go forward.
And I think it has made a difference in Delaware. About a third of the individuals in Delaware have now been able to go to work in some way or another.
I have a letter here today from a lady in Bridgeville, DE, and I am not going to read the whole thing. It might seem a little bit self-
serving, but she said: ``In 1992 I found myself on food stamps and thrust into your First Step program.'' She did not like it, I guess at that time.
When I graduated from First Step, I found myself on the stage with you at Del Tech, each giving our speech. To me it was perhaps the turning point in my life. Because of your faith in me and in humanity, I found myself enrolled in Delaware State University. I was fortunate to participate in several of the welfare reform panels, and that led to a most wonderful woman who saw my picture in the paper and who was my benefactor for books and school supplies for my college education.
An unusual story, but a story of an individual who is able to be educated and is now out in the workplace and is supporting her family. And this has happened on many occasions. It is not going to happen on every occasion. But our welfare reform bills, the ones we have before us, give that opportunity, and they tell people that they are going to go out and they are going to get a job, and I would just tell those who are concerned about this being draconian and hardhearted that I think it does provide a lot of opportunity.
On the other hand, these bills are not easy. We are going to change welfare. We are going to change it as we know it today. We are going to limit benefits for certain able-bodied adults to 2 years of assistance without work, and we are going to limit their lifetime benefits to a maximum of 5 years. People need to understand there is going to be change. But let me just make it clear that in both of these bills about 20 percent of those people would be accepted.
There are many other good aspects to it, but I would encourage all of us to consider welfare reform. It is in the best interests of this country.
Mr. STENHOLM. Madam Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Tanner], the other half of the Castle-Tanner team.
(Mr. TANNER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. TANNER. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Texas, and I want to publicly thank the gentleman from Delaware [Mr. Castle]. We have worked very had on the so-called Castle-Tanner bill. It is the only bipartisan, actually bicameral, bill that we have before the 104th Congress. This bill has been introduced specifically and in the same wording that we have in our bill in the Senate by Senator Biden and Senator Specter.
I want to compliment the Republicans for moving off of H.R. 4. The gentleman from Delaware [Mr. Castle] spoke to that. I am not yet ready to make that leap, but I want to commend some movement and some willingness to work on the part of the Republican majority, but I want to spend most of my time talking about what I think the Castle-Tanner bill is a better bill for the country and for the people that are both paying for the welfare system and those who are trapped or otherwise a part of it tonight. I want to speak more tomorrow about the differences, but let me just say this: Any system that we try to do in the Castle-Tanner bill is in some respects very much like the Republican bill. We are time limited, we give the States flexibility, we are interested in work, we require work and so forth, as the gentleman from Delaware suggested in his remarks. But there are three or four things that we do that we think will make it work better, and CBO happens to agree with us.
We have a stronger maintenance-of-effort factor in the Castle-Tanner bill. This is important because welfare reform must truly be, in our opinion, a Federal-State partnership, and we do not want to, it seems to me, give the States money and they do not match it and make welfare more a Federal program than it perhaps already is in the minds of some.
The other thing we do has to do with children. We restrict the transferability of these block grant funds that go to the States so that they must be used for child care. After all, if anybody gets unintentionally hurt by our best intentioned efforts to reform the welfare system and demand that able-bodied adults work, it is going to be children who have no other opportunity, who have no other means to support themselves than they came into the world and happen to be born to what some might consider deadbeat parents. This is our main concern, and Castle-Tanner, I think if my colleagues carefully read it, does a better job, even though the Republicans are trying to do better, a better job of trying to put that safety net in society for people who otherwise have no recourse and no opportunity or ability to help themselves.
Another area about the children is in the area of vouchers. The Republican bill, unfortunately, prohibits Federal involvement for vouchers for children whose parents have been cut off because they refuse to work or otherwise are not cooperating, refuses or prohibits using Federal money for vouchers after the 5-year cutoff time.
Now, I understood at the outset that we were trying to give the States flexibility, that we were trying to give to the States a block grant for them to fashion programs that were better than this one-size-
fits-all Federal program, and so we do that, and yet then we say,
``But, by the way, you cannot use Federal money to help kids after 5 years.'' I do not understand the logic of that proposal, but maybe we can continue to work on that. I hope so.
And bottom line: I think we have a historic opportunity in this 104th Congress. I think we have an opportunity to change the system so that people are, as the gentleman from Delaware said, better off then they are now.
This system is broken, everybody knows it, nobody defends status quo, and we are trying to change it. If we could move the Castle-Tanner bill, if we could move toward it just a little bit more, I think we could get a bill that the President would sign and actually become law. That, I think, is the bottom line.
Let us quit throwing brickbats at each other and trying to threaten vetoes or not threatening vetoes or we are going to make this political statement, and try to come together as we have tried to do with 16 Democrats and 16 Republicans to seek an American solution to an American problem. I believe that is what our people that sent us here would like to see happen, and I think we have a chance to do that if we can continue to tweak this thing and work together.
I believe we have a historic opportunity.
Mrs. MEYERS of Kansas. Madam Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Talent].
Mr. TALENT. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding this time to me, and I want to speak in the same vein as my friend, the last speaker, the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Tanner]. I agree with one thing he said, certainly that we have a historic opportunity in this Congress, disagree with another thing he said, that nobody here is defending the existing system. I think that there are a lot of Members who quite sincerely are giving ground inch by inch, if at all, fighting furiously almost like a covered retreat to try and save as much of the system as they can, and I thought it would be useful to take a look at the system that we have created in this country over the last 30 years.
Madam Chairman, in the immediate postwar era, poverty in this country was 30 percent. It declined pretty steadily until it reached 15 percent in 1965 when the Federal Government declared war on poverty. In the last 30 years we have spent $5 trillion on means-tested entitlement programs, and the poverty rate is 15 percent.
Poverty has stayed the same. It is more intractable now, it is more ugly now, but it has not gone down. What we have gotten instead is a 6-
fold increase in illegitimacy, an illegitimacy rate of 32 percent compared with about 6 to 7 percent in 1965. That is the kind of system that we have now and that we need to change.
As my colleagues know, I could talk about statistics, about what that means for kids, about how much more likely they are to go to prison or to be on drugs. But I would rather talk about a story, the story of Eric Morris, a 5-year-old boy who was raised in a Chicago housing project. He was a good boy, had an older brother named Derrick. He refused to shoplift for kids who wanted him to steal candy, and so these older kids, these 10- and 11-year-old kids, lured him to a room in the 14th floor of that public housing project, dangled him out the window, and when his brother tried to help him, they fought his brother and they dropped him deliberately and killed him. And Eric died.
Madam Chairman, Eric Morris did not need the system that we have given him. He did not need individual employment plans. He did not need subsidized day care. He did not need counseling. He did not need all the other 78 programs that we are fighting over today.
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He needed a dad. That is what Eric Morse needed. That is what the other kids in his housing project needed. What our system has done is taken away the dads from these kids and given them government instead. Senator Moynihan said 30 years ago that a society that does that asks for and gets chaos.
It is time, and I agree with the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Tanner], to stop fighting, to stop engaging in politics, to stop defending this system, to change it, this system that is destroying the kids and the families and the neighborhoods of America. That is what this bill is designed to do. Let us pass it. Let us send it to the President. Let us urge him to sign it. Let us make sure there are no more Eric Morses.
Mrs. VUCANOVICH. Madam Chairman. I yield 2 minutes and 30 seconds to the gentleman from Arkansas [Mr. Hutchinson].
Mr. HUTCHINSON. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding time to me.
Madam Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Republican welfare reform plan. Some on the other side have complained that the work requirements contained in the Republican plan are too strong, and the States will not be able to meet them. What are those work requirements? It would require over a period of years, over the next 6 years, to have 50 percent of the caseload working. I suggest if we tell the American people that those standards are too tough, they will find that statement laughable. Most people say, why should it not even be tougher? Why only 50 percent?
One provision in the GOP welfare plan that I think is very good is the ability of the Governors to count the net reduction of the caseload toward their participation rates. In other words, if a State has 40,000 on welfare one year and they drop that caseload to 30,000 the next year, those 10,000 cases they have reduced on their welfare rolls can be counted towards their work participation rate. That is our goal, to see a net reduction, to see people permanently leaving the welfare rolls.
One of my concerns about the Castle-Tanner substitute, which I assume will be offered tomorrow, is that their approach would gut the idea of a net reduction in the caseload. They would allow the Governors to count routine caseload turnover toward the work participation rates, so any AFDC recipient who obtained work for a period of 6 months after leaving the rolls could be counted toward the participation requirement.
This would make the work requirements virtually a sham. There is always, there is always a regular turnover in AFDC caseload. Hundreds of thousands of recipients obtain jobs and leave AFDC every year, and an equal number, almost an equal number, enroll on our caseload every year.
By claiming credit for individuals who obtained a job and left AFDC, a Governor would automatically meet at least 10 percent of the participation requirement without in any way altering the existing welfare system. Nearly all States would be able to meet their requirements for the first and second years without the least change in the status quo.
I do not believe that is what the American people want. I do not believe the American people want a welfare reform system that says it is not really reform, it is just more of the status quo when it comes to work.
We have success in the drug war, not when we get people off drugs, but when we keep young people from ever getting on drugs. It is the same way in welfare reform. The greatest success is not just in turnover, getting them off and having them come back on. The greatest success in welfare is when we dissuade people from ever getting on welfare. That comes from real work requirements.
The President said: Give me a bill with real work requirements, tough work requirements that is good for children, and I will support it. We have such a bill. Let us pass this tomorrow. Let us not take a substitute.
Mr. STENHOLM. Madam Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. Thurman].
Mrs. THURMAN. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding me this time.
Madam Chairman, I honestly believe that tomorrow this is going to be one of the most important votes we take in this Congress, and maybe for some of us, in our careers. I think welfare changes make no sense if we deform, rather than reform, the current system. The only bill this House will have the opportunity to debate that actually reforms the system is the bipartisan Castle-Tanner bill.
Reforming welfare means assessing the policy impact of a proposal and considering what these changes will mean for real people, like our Nation's children. The best way for us to deform the system is to say you want to cut $60 billion, and then start cutting the vital programs that form our social safety net without any concern for who gets hurt. This is the key difference between Castle-Tanner and the majority's bill. In the Castle-Tanner bill, we worried about people. We made certain that innocent children would not be hurt. The majority worried about numbers and only numbers.
For example, when I raised the issue in the Committee on Agriculture about the leadership's freeze on the vehicle allowance for welfare recipients, something, by the way, that all States have asked for in their waivers, Members from the other side of the aisle seemed surprised and somewhat discouraged that this was in the bill. But they told me they could not do anything about it, because the freeze helped them reach their arbitrary budget target. The ability of welfare recipients to actually have transportation to get to work did not matter.
Let me remind many people here there are a lot of places that do not have mass transit or buses. What mattered, again, was how much money could be saved by ignoring this problem. Similarly, the majority's bill retains the excess shelter deduction cap which clearly disadvantages families with children who have high utility costs or high rent costs. Kicking children out of their homes may save some money, but you cannot call it responsible public policy.
Worst of all, among the food stamp programs in the majority's bill is the optional block grant. These poorly funded block grants will force children to lose their access to the food necessary to keep them healthy and alive. If we had allowed these block grants in 1990, 8.3 million children would not have received decent nutrition. Castle-
Tanner rejects block grants, but it still retains the same language for fraud and abuse.
The bottom line is not only how much money we save but how many people we successfully move from welfare to work. In Castle-Tanner we guarantee a strong nutritional safety net for families and children while successfully getting people into the job market.
Madam Chairman, we care about reform and we care about families. By the way, we also save $53 billion. Support Castle-Tanner. It is responsible welfare reform.
Mrs. VUCANOVICH. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Jersey [Mrs. Roukema].
(Mrs. ROUKEMA asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)
Mrs. ROUKEMA. Madam Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 3734, budget reconciliation legislation that contains a comprehensive welfare reform package.
Last April, I supported the initial House version of welfare reform legislation with some reservations. I was very pleased to see subsequently that the conference committee report on H.R. 4 last November included many significant improvements from the Senate-passed bill, which have properly been retained in the legislation before us now.
There should be no question that we must enact strong welfare reform legislation this year. The American people are demanding that we restore the notion of ``individual responsibility and self-reliance'' to a system that has run amok over the past 20 years.
Above all else, I want to stress my goal has always been to require self-reliance and responsibility, while ensuring that innocent children do not go hungry and homeless as a result of any Federal action--this bill meets that test, too.
Block grants can work as long as we establish maintenance of effort standards where the safety net and food stamps are protected. Block grants must not become a blank check for the Governors while still gaining the benefits of flexibility at the State level.
First, this bill requires welfare recipients to work--a big step in the right direction.
Second, this bill places times limits on welfare benefits--no longer will people be allowed to live their lives on welfare.
Third, this bill keeps the family cap in place, which means that mothers on welfare don't get extra cash benefits for having babies.
In other words, the United States will no longer be the only nation in the western world that pays young girls to have babies.
New Jersey already has this policy in place, and I am pleased to see that H.R. 3734 retains this worthwhile reform--I should mention that the New Jersey family-cap law was sponsored by a Democratic State legislator, and gained strong bi-partisan support and was ultimately signed into law by a Democratic Governor.
Fourth, they bill has a strong and effective child support enforcement reform title, which is something that I have worked on here in Congress for more than 10 years.
As I have long maintained, strong child support enforcement reforms must be an essential component of any true welfare reform plan, because improved child support enforcement is welfare prevention: One of primary reasons that so many mothers with children land on welfare rolls is that they are not receiving the child support payments they are legally and morally owed.
Failure to pay court-ordered child support is not a victimless crime. The children going with these payments are the first victims. But, the taxpayers who have to pick up the tab for deadbeat parents evading their obligations are the ultimate victims.
The core of these child support enforcement reforms is the absolute requirement for interstate enforcement of child support, because the current, State-based system is only as good as its weakest link.
Specifically, I want to note that the Roukema amendment on license revocation, which the House overwhelmingly approved last April, 426 to 5, has been included in this bill. It requires States to implement a license revocation program for deadbeat parents who have driver's licenses, professional licenses, occupational licenses, or recreational licenses.
This reform has worked very well in 19 States--the State of Maine, in particular, has been a leader--that already have it in place, and if license revocation is implemented nationwide I am convinced it will work even more successfully.
Later tonight, I will ask the Rules Committee to include a second child support enforcement proposal--a requirement that States enact criminal penalties of their own design for willful nonsupport of children--as part of the manager's amendment to H.R. 3734. I hope that the Rules Committee will do the right thing, and include this tough reform in the legislation we will vote on tomorrow.
Fifth, I believe that the legislation's reforms for nutrition programs represents significant progress in maintaining the safety net for those in our society who are unable to provide for themselves.
During both Opportunities Committee markup and floor debate on welfare reform last year, I repeatedly attempted to protect the current safety net for school lunches so that, during times of recession, when more families move toward or beyond the poverty level and become eligible to participate in the school lunch program, additional money would be available to provide nutrition services.
Thankfully, the Senate saved the House from itself with its decision to preserve the current Federal safety net for school lunches, and H.R. 3734 follows the Senate position on this issue, which I wholeheartedly support.
I have always preferred to see the school lunch program completely maintained at the Federal level, and this legislation correctly does just that!
I am also extremely pleased that the welfare reform package before us does not block grant nutrition services for WIC, the nutrition program serving low-income, postpartum women with children and infants.
Finally, I am gratified to see that this bill incorporates a ``Rainy Day Fund'' for those States that suffer a recession or economic downturn.
Last year, I repeatedly advocated that this kind of provision be included in any kind of welfare reform package that contains block grants in order to ensure that those who truly depend on our safety net programs can continue to rely on them during times of economic distress.
Earlier this spring, the National Governors Association called upon the Congress to put $2 billion of funding into the ``Rainy Day Fund'', and this legislation meets the goal--I enthusiastically support this provision.
We have been so close to passing meaningful welfare reform for so long. Let us today finally move that process forward one more step by passing this comprehensive welfare reform bill.
This is the bill. This is the time. The people of America should not have to wait any longer. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this important package.
Mrs. VUCANOVICH. Madam Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Weldon].
Mr. WELDON of Florida. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding time to me, and I rise in support of H.R. 3734, the Republican welfare reform bill.
In my opinion, Madam Chairman, our reform bill is a very good start. I think further reforms will probably be needed in the future to ultimately get the Federal Government out of the business of trying to help the poor, because the Federal Government is completely incompetent and incapable of helping the poor.
Indeed, I feel that the current system is almost criminal, and the victims are children. That point was very vividly driven home to me when I had the opportunity a few years ago to meet a businessman in my district who had recently relocated from Oklahoma. I remember him describing to me how he had taken part in a program in Oklahoma where he went into the inner city in Oklahoma and took part in a program where they would read books to these young children ages 5, 6, and 7, you can help improve their reading scores. We all know how important reading is to overall academic performance.
He told me a story that totally amazed me. When he first started taking part in the program he would frequently ask these kids what they wanted to be and what they wanted to do when they grew up. A fairly high percentage of them said they wanted to be on welfare and they wanted to collect a check.
Contrary to what most children learn when they are growing up, that they want to either become a fireman or a policeman or a mother or a daddy and work, these kids had actually learned that they did not want to work. It has been said by many people, kids will frequently model what you do and not what you say.
The current system, I think all we need to do is go into our inner cities and see what is going on: The high crime rates, the high drug abuse rates that are very, very closely linked to our welfare system and the high incidence of fatherlessness. I believe that the Federal Government is completely incapable of helping these people, contrary to all the claims that are made by people on the other side of the aisle.
My colleague from California made a comment about making sure children are alive, well-fed, and healthy. We are certainly making sure they are alive in the current system, but we are certainly making sure they are not healthy. There is a tremendous spiritual poverty that goes with the current system, and I believe our bill, H.R. 3734, which has some serious work requirements and seriously tries to address the terrible issue of illegitimacy, is a good bill. It is a good start on dealing with the welfare disaster that currently exists today.
I encourage all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support the bill, and the President of the United States to do what he said he was going to do, and that is sign welfare reform.
Mr. STENHOLM. Madam Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Madam Chairman, I take this time to make a comment or two regarding some of the allegations about some of the statements that have been made from this side of the aisle. To the best of my knowledge this evening, no one on this side has suggested, by any other standard other than CBO or the National Governors Association, that the proposal of the majority has some problems with work. We did not make this up. The Congressional Budget Office has carefully analyzed their proposal and suggests that it is going to come up short regarding the work requirements.
Also, regarding the allegations on child care and children, we are not making this up. This is the Congressional Budget Office analysis of the proposal that is before us. This is why we say that the bipartisan attempt by the gentleman from Delaware [Mr. Castle] and the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Tanner] to address some of these concerns is worthy of serious consideration by both sides of the aisle. I want to make that point, Madam Chairman, so the rhetoric of this body does not overshadow the facts.
Madam Chairman, I would make a few other observations. Statements have been made by a few this evening about the vetoing of the welfare reform bill twice by the President. I think most reasonable citizens of the United States, when they look at the original bills that were vetoed by the President and compare them with the two bills we will be considering tomorrow, they will see the wisdom of those vetoes, because I think any fair-minded person on either side of the aisle will see that as a result of having to go back to the drawing board and take another look at how we might make welfare reform more workable, we will see that both proposals are significantly better than the proposal that was vetoed twice. That is progress, that is not a subject for criticism.
Madam Chairman, Castle-Tanner, as has been said many times, and I think it bears repeating, is bipartisan and bicameral. If we are truly serious about getting a bill, which we are, and let me make this observation, every single Member of the House of Representatives has voted with their name on the board, with a green light, for significant welfare reform. We have differences of opinion, and that is to be expected in a body of 435 as diverse as we are in the representation of the people of the 50 States of the United States.
But it is not a fair statement to say to anyone that anyone on either side of the aisle is not serious about welfare reform, because we are. Those of us who support very strongly the Castle-Tanner believe that it merits the support, merits the support because it is stronger on work, particularly by making certain that the mandate that we place on the States under the giving of the flexibility to the States, that we send the money with the mandate, rather than saying to the States, ``You do it, and by the way, if there is not enough money, that is your problem.''
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Clearly my people at home, my constituency have said, ``Please, no more unfunded Federal mandates.'' We believe a careful analysis of Tanner-Castle will show that it is superior.
The criticisms that we offer tonight are based on CBO, and that is my final comment to make tonight, whether it is talking about work funding, child care, who is tough and who is not tough, what works and what will not work, the shelter cap, for example, all of the other areas. We believe that CBO and their careful analysis should cause most Members to support the Castle-Tanner and we hope that that will be the verdict tomorrow.
If we can send that bill to the Senate and the Senate works their will and then a conference, there is no doubt in this Member's mind that we will have the most significant welfare reform bill that will meet the test of what all of our constituents want us to do. The current system is broken and it needs to be fixed. Castle-Tanner in our opinion does the best job of fixing it.
Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mrs. MEYERS of Kansas. Madam Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Madam Chairman, I would just like to comment that the work requirements in our bill are in fact very tough. States are going to have to work harder than they ever have in order to assist welfare recipients into work. Work requirements that are not challenging like the ones that are currently in place do nothing to really reform this system.
What the gentleman from Texas was referring to in terms of the CBO estimates, CBO assumes a 30- to 40-percent reduction in the welfare case load under our bill, but they do not factor that in in the cost of the work program. That is the discrepancy that I think the gentleman is referring to, and I do not understand it either.
I would like to just close by saying that if we make no changes in the way we handle welfare, Madam Chairman, by 2000, just 4 years from now, 80 percent of minority children and 40 percent of all children in this country are going to be born out of wedlock. That is because of Federal programs that were intended to be a help over a difficult spot in someone's lives and instead they have become an incentive that actually attracts people into the system, it pulls people into the system. Of course, with 40 percent of our children born out of wedlock, there is a tremendous dollar cost to this country, but more than that there is an enormous human cost. These children are born and raised in their early years without a father, without much structure in their life, sometimes without enough food and clothing. By the time they are old enough to go to school, they are already disadvantaged, many of them, in terms of their ability to learn and their health.
I think our bill resolves that problem. It ends the incentive nature that welfare has grown to be. I think our welfare programs were started with the best of intentions, but when you say to a young woman, if you will have two children with no man in the house, we will give you
$18,000 a year, that is more of an incentive than most of our teenagers can resist.
Our bill has more money for child care, it has more people in real work. I urge my colleagues to support the bill.
Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of H.R. 3437 the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act. This historic welfare reform bill will end welfare as we know it. During the past 30 years, taxpayers have spent $5 trillion on failed welfare programs. What kind of return have the taxpayers received on their investment? The rate of poverty has not decreased at all. Furthermore, the average length of stay on welfare is 13 years. Today's illegitimacy rate among welfare families is almost 50 percent and crime continues to run rampant. Current programs have encouraged dependency, trapped people in unsafe housing, and saddled the poor with rules that are anti-work and anti-family. Clearly, those trapped in poverty and the taxpayers deserve better.
This bill overhauls our broken welfare system. This plan makes sure welfare is not a way of life; stresses work not welfare; stops welfare to noncitizens and felons; restores power and flexibility to the States; and seeks to half the rise in illegitimacy.
By imposing a 5-year lifetime limit for collecting AFDC, this bill guarantees that welfare is a helping hand, not a lifetime handout. Recognizing the need for helping true hardship cases, States would be allowed to exempt up to 20 percent of their caseload from the 5-year limit. In addition, H.R. 3437 for the first time ever requires able bodied welfare recipients to work for their benefits. Those who can work must do so within 2 years or lose benefits. States will be required to have at least 50 percent of their welfare recipients working by 2002. To help families make the transition from welfare to work, the legislation provides $4.5 billion more than current law for child care to help parents who work.
Under this bill noncitizens will no longer be eligible for the major welfare programs. Felons will not be eligible for welfare benefits and State and local jails will be given incentives to report felons who are skirting the rules and receiving welfare benefits.
Our current system has proven that the one-size-fits-all welfare system does not work. H.R. 3437 will give more power and flexibility to the States by ending the entitlement status of numerous welfare programs by block granting the money to the states. No longer will States spend countless hours filling out the required bureaucratic forms hoping to receive a waiver from Washington to implement their welfare program. States will also be rewarded for moving families from welfare to work.
Finally and most importantly, this bill addresses illegitimacy by allowing States to limit cash benefits for teen mothers. States will be allowed to set family caps that would stop the practice of increasing welfare payments for every additional child a recipient has while on welfare. States can also stop payment to unmarried teens and make them conditional on the mother staying in school and living with an adult. This legislation seeks to reverse the increase in illegitimacy by also increasing efforts to establish paternity and crack down on deadbeat dads.
The sad state of our current welfare system and the cycles of poverty and hopelessness it perpetuates are of great concern to me. I believe this bill goes to the heart of reforming the welfare system by encouraging and helping individuals in need become responsible for themselves and their family. I wholeheartedly support this bill become it makes welfare a helping hand in times of trouble, not a handout that becomes a way of life. I truly believe that this reform will give taxpayers a better return on their investment in helping those in need.
Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, House Democrats and Republicans, Senate Democrats and Republicans, and President Clinton share a common goal--all agree that welfare reform is urgently needed. Reform is needed not only for the recipients of welfare, who many times are trapped in a cycle of poverty from which they cannot escape, but also for the American taxpayers who deserve a better return on their investment in our future.
Over the last year, the food stamp provisions in the various welfare reform proposals have come to look very much alike. We have reached agreement on dozens of provisions. Yet, there continues to be serious policy differences on several key issues. We must resolve these differences so that we will have real welfare reform that works for both low income families and American taxpayers. We want congressional passage of a bill that the President will sign.
Determining food stamp reform in the context of budget reconciliation causes us to loose sight of the people the Food Stamp Program is intended to serve. We must remember that our goal is to reform welfare in order to move people toward self-sufficiency. Reform by itself is a hollow word. Reform for reform's sake is meaningless. We aren't OMB, CBO, or GAO. We can't work in the vacuum of numbers only. We cannot let the bureaucrats with the green eye shades determine what path reform will take. We are Members of Congress. It is our responsibility to put faces with these numbers. We must interject the human element into the process in order to ensure that real need is addressed in welfare reform. We must ensure that our children and the aged and disabled are not left unprotected. We must remember that a dollar spent now can actually result in saving thousands of dollars later, if we help produce a future taxpaying citizen.
We must determine the policy that will move people toward self-
sufficiency. This must be a policy-driven bill, not one that is driven by empty, faceless numbers that are wrong as many times as they are right.
Our constituents don't want a handout. They want jobs. They want economic development. They want the American dream. These are the people we must help. These are the people for whom we must redesign these programs to help them achieve their desire of becoming successful citizens.
We are particularly concerned that this bill will jeopardize the nutritional status of millions of poor families because of a basic misunderstanding of how the program works. The perception is that this program is out of control, that hundreds of thousands of families are added to the food stamp rolls every month. The reality is something very different. Over the last year and a half, as the economy has improved, food stamp participation has actually dropped by over 1 million people. This vital program is clearly filling a very real need. If the need isn't there, the program doesn't continue to expand, but if the need is there, the program is there to meet it.
The block grant provisions in H.R. 3734 sets funding at levels well below that necessary to feed hungry families in times of recessions or if food prices increase. The total loss of food stamp funding to States that choose the block grant will be over $2.5 billion. If block grants had been chosen by all States in 1990, the Food Stamp Program would have served 8.3 million fewer children. Castle-Tanner does not include the block grant authority.
To assure adequate nutrition and the good health of our poor families, the calculation of food stamp benefits must take into account extremely high housing expenses. H.R. 3734 limits this calculation, leaving poor families with children who pay more than half of their income for housing with less money to buy food. This provision alone will reduce benefits to these families by over $4 billion over 6 years, resulting in more hungry children. Castle-Tanner does not include this harsh limitation.
We all want people on welfare to be self-sufficient--they want to be self-sufficient. But, the way to help people become self-sufficient is not to deny them food stamps after 4 months. Eighty percent of the able-bodied recipients between the ages of 18 and 50 receive food stamps on a temporary basis already, they leave the program within a year. H.R. 3734 will simply kick 700,000 people off the program each month, without a helping hand to find a job. What these people need most is the opportunity to work--job training, or a job slot. Castle-
Tanner will give them that helping hand if they are unable to find work on their own after 6 months.
The Castle-Tanner alternative achieves significant deficit reduction. The food stamp provisions save $20 billion over a 6-year period. The majority's bill last year was intended to achieve $16 billion over 7 years. Castle-Tanner goes well beyond that level of savings, and yet we have been accused of not supporting welfare reform.
The American people are not mean-spirited. They do not want children to be poor and hungry. We must remember that we are reforming the programs that impact the most vulnerable of our constituents. We must remember the faces of the poor and hungry of our Nation.
Let the record show that the minority strongly supports welfare reform, but not at the cost the Nation's poor families and children, not at the cost of the Nation's future.
The CHAIRMAN. All time for general debate has expired.
Under the previous order of the House of today, the Committee rises.
Accordingly the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr. Hayworth) having assumed the chair, Ms. Greene of Utah, Chairman of the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union, reported that that Committee, having had under consideration the bill (H.R. 3734) to provide for reconciliation pursuant to section 201(a)(1) of the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 1997, had come to no resolution thereon.
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