Mr. Chairman, we have a lot of bipartisan agreement here as evidenced by the 8 Democrats and 11 Republicans on this committee that are sponsors of this legislation.
Today’s markup follows a subcommittee hearing on the issue of preventing sex trafficking for children in foster care in October, the posting of a draft bill for public comment in December, and the introduction of the bill before us in February by Human Resources Subcommittee Chairman Reichert, Chairman Camp, myself, and other Committee Members.
The Children’s Defense Fund has said that it “strengthens the child welfare system to help prevent children and youth in foster care from becoming victims of sex trafficking in the future."
However, I am very disappointed that the substitute that will be offered momentarily eliminates an important provision that would ensure that older children who are discharged from foster care are provided with important documents upon their release: a copy of their birth certificate, their social security card, and their medical records.
The children who this provision would assist are those who truly have the least in our society. They have been removed from their parents because of physical abuse or neglect-many of the cases are absolutely horrendous and some are lucky just to have survived. Then that child often gets passed around from one foster home to another.
They have no sense of stability or belonging to a family, school, or community. And then for most of those children who reach 18 in the foster system, they are told “you are on your own"-good luck, find a job, often in areas where youth unemployment is soaring. Is it any wonder that many young women in this situation prostitute themselves and become victims of sex traffickers? Is it any wonder that so many former foster youth are now in our criminal justice system?
Only about 2% of the children who age out of the foster system at 18 in San Antonio go on to college. Many do get a taxpayer subsidy in jails and prisons after they have harmed someone else. This bipartisan provision is just to provide the modest help of saying “here is a social security card, a birth certificate and your health records from the foster system so that you can be positioned to get a job rather than just get into trouble."
This modest requirement is being removed not because it isn’t worthy, not because it doesn’t have bipartisan support- I believe it was Senator Hatch who first advanced it, it is being removed for one and only one reason. A belated estimate came in that it costs just over $1 million per year because states can charge back part of the administrative costs to the federal government. Compared to the huge corporate tax breaks that this committee is approving today this is a pittance.
If you ever needed to see a concrete example of the tradeoffs between corporate welfare and support for the most vulnerable in our society, look no further. Again, this committee is refusing to include for this provision foster youth because it costs $12 million -that’s “million" with an “m"- over 10 years on the same day that we approve six bills that extend tax breaks for businesses that cumulatively cost more than $300 billion-that’s “billion" with an “b" - over 10 years.
Those tax breaks add up to more than $3 million every day. We can’t provide just the equivalent of four days of big business tax breaks to ensure scared, vulnerable kids across this country have just a portion of the bare minimum they need to survive for the next 10 years?
Even my home state of Texas, not known for its generosity in social services, appears to already be offering the modest help to foster youth that these documents represent. We should making sure that every foster child in the Nation receives the same treatment, not obsessively protecting four days of tax breaks for big businesses.
