[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 36 (Friday, March 25, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 25, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                      WELFARE REFORM NEGOTIATIONS

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I want to share a few thoughts with the 
Chamber with regard to our welfare reform efforts.
  The President has indicated, from the first start of his campaign, 
that he was interested in welfare reform. Indeed, in his campaign he 
mentioned it often and, I thought, made strong points. The President is 
not a newcomer to the subject of welfare reform. He was active as a 
Governor, as all Members know. He was involved with it when the 1988 
welfare reform bill passed.
  I had an opportunity to work on that measure as the ranking member on 
the subcommittee that dealt with the subject in the House Ways and 
Means Committee. I was active in the conference committee that 
ultimately designed the final version of the bill. I have also been a 
sponsor of a number of measures that change welfare, both in the House 
and in the Senate. It is something that I offered amendments and bills 
on in 1990, 1991, 1992, and 1993. Again in 1994, I will be joining 
others to reform our welfare system.
  Our welfare system is a human tragedy that must be changed. The good 
men and women who wrote the laws regarding it, on behalf of the less 
fortunate among us, had goals that have not been met. If anyone had 
forecast what would have happened to the rate of illegitimate births in 
this country, nobody would have believed it or imagined it possible. It 
is not fair to attribute it only to the Federal programs. Clearly, many 
other factors are involved. But it is quite clear that the Federal 
programs have not met the expectations and the hopes that all of us 
would have.
  Far from helping many people, the welfare system has been an 
impediment to many families. I, for one, believe that there is ample 
room for both Republican and Democratic Members to agree on a welfare 
reform package. I think all are aware that the President has not been 
able to draft a package to send to Congress, even though this project 
has been underway for a year and a half.
  I, along with 18 other Republican Senators, introduced a welfare 
reform bill several months ago. I have joined Senator Kassebaum in her 
welfare reform bill, and I am talking with Senator Faircloth on another 
welfare reform bill with a different purpose.
  Mr. President, I think we have to address this subject. One of the 
things we have done is ask the President to join with Republicans to 
draft a bill so that we can move ahead quickly on a bipartisan measure. 
There is a lot to agree on.
  What can we agree on?
  One, I think we can agree to eliminate the prohibitions on referring 
people to jobs, a restriction which now stands in the current law. The 
1988 welfare reform bill included a tragic provision, a provision that 
literally made it illegal to refer welfare recipients to a job, even 
though they want the job and want to be referred to the job, and even 
though there was an opening. For them to be referred to a job, it had 
to be a job that involved a new position. It could not be a simple 
existing opening in a local agency. By restricting job referrals, we 
have dramatically restricted the ability to place welfare recipients 
into jobs where they can learn and earn and change their lives. This 
restriction simply must be repealed.
  Second, there is an enormous amount on which Republicans and 
Democrats that can agree in paternity establishment and child support 
enforcement. Our bill requires the welfare recipient mother to name a 
father. It involves strong sanctions if she is able to name the father 
and refuses.
  Why is there an insistence on identifying the father? We think it is 
a vital part of any welfare reform to insist that the father accept 
responsibility for his own child. By identifying the father, it is 
possible to insist that he help make payments to support the child. We 
think it is also a fundamental step in helping that father to take 
responsibility for the child he has played a part in bringing into this 
world. It is not simply the money, but the chance of ensuring 
attachment and responsibility, all of which can be lost if the father 
is not required to meet his responsibilities in this area.
  In addition to requiring the naming of the father, the measure 
includes very strong language to enhance the enforcement of child 
support payments. This, I think, is fundamental. Our bill addresses the 
problem of a father leaving the State, going to another State and 
simply dodging his responsibility to make child support payments--
partly because of the difficulty of enforcing child support orders 
across State lines.
  The Republican welfare reform measure, which I believe will receive 
strong Democratic support, at least in many areas, enhances our ability 
to obtain enforcement of child support orders across State lines. That 
has several impacts. One of the impacts is to ensure that costs are 
reduced, that fathers who are able to pay will indeed pay. That has a 
significant impact on the cost of welfare. However, much more important 
than that, I believe it also helps ensure that the father continues to 
have a responsibility to that child. The fact that they make payments 
makes it much more likely that they will continue their responsibility 
to the child in other areas.

  So identifying the father, enforcing child support orders across 
State lines, and repealing the prohibitions on work, all are factors 
that I think can achieve bipartisan support and make a great deal of 
difference.
  There are also strong new measures to break the cycle of poverty 
included in the bill. One of the more significant of these is an effort 
to deal with the problem and the phenomenon of children having 
children--when a 14- or 15- or 16-year-old child has a child out of 
wedlock. Under our current system, sometimes these children have been 
able to establish their own households and get their own food stamps, 
their own AFDC payments, and their own section 8 housing.
  Of the 78 need-based programs we have on the books, many are 
available in this circumstance. What we are literally saying to 
children is: if you have a child out of wedlock, you can leave home, 
you can get your own apartment, you can get your own food stamps, you 
can get your own AFDC payment, and you can leave the problems at the 
household where you are, and also leave whatever discipline you may 
have at home.
  Mr. President, what this policy has done is break up families. The 
Republican welfare bill changes that. It suggests that in the future 
children who have children will have their options restricted. They 
will be required to live at home under parental supervision. If for 
some reason that is inappropriate and, of course, we can imagine 
circumstances where that could be the case, for example, where there is 
abuse of the child in the home or other personal tragedy, the teen 
would have to live in supervised housing. Supervision, we believe, 
particularly for a troubled child, is a vitally important factor. We 
must institute policies helping them, rather than simply throwing them 
out in the world without supervision and with the series of welfare 
checks that lets them avoid facing the reality of their acts.
  The fact is that for far too long our system has encouraged and 
rewarded behavior which we ought to discourage. This is one change we 
think worthy of bipartisan support and one we think the President will 
ultimately endorse.
  We think fundamental change in welfare must occur through changing 
the chemistry that makes it so difficult for people to leave welfare. 
One way the Brown/Dole bill proposes to help welfare recipients change 
their lives is a voucher program. The voucher works this way. It says 
to the welfare recipient if you wish as an option, only as an option, 
to take a voucher for next month's welfare payments--food stamps and 
AFDC--you may. We will give your voucher for next month's benefits in 
advance. You may take it to an employer and you can trade it to the 
employer for a job. The employer literally gets the money from the 
voucher, and the employee or the welfare recipient gets a job. That job 
has to be a real job and it has to pay double the amount of the 
voucher. But it means opening up doors to welfare recipients to get 
real training and real jobs.
  What is the fiscal impact? The welfare recipient is significantly 
better off. They receive double the amount of their welfare payments in 
a paycheck. Many of you will note that the paycheck is diminished by 
taxes. Yes, indeed, that is true. There are Social Security taxes, 
unemployment taxes, and others. But the bottom line is the welfare 
recipient is significantly better off than with their welfare benefits.
  The employer is better off because while they have an employee that 
they might not have hired otherwise, the employer has some assistance 
for training that person; reimbursement for training that person comes 
from the voucher. So the employer has a real incentive to give them a 
chance, give them an opportunity, and a portion of the costs of 
training them is taken care of.
  What about the Government? The Government is, indeed, out the cost of 
the voucher, but the Government was going to pay the welfare payments 
in any case. In reality, the Government is better off as well. While 
the Government has put out the money for the voucher, which they would 
have put out anyway, they have gained some revenue from the variety of 
taxes that are paid, the Social Security taxes that are generated, the 
income taxes that are paid, unemployment taxes that are paid, and a 
variety of others.
  We literally have a situation where all three parties to the 
transaction are better off and the cost to the Government is reduced.
  Mr. President, I cannot help but think that this will have bipartisan 
support. Many, many welfare recipients want to turn they lives around. 
They want an opportunity to change. They do not want to stay on welfare 
year after year after year. They do not want to surrender their 
potential for moving up the ladder of success. Part of what keeps them 
down and keeps them in poverty is the fact that they are forced into a 
circumstance where they simply cannot afford to leave welfare where the 
amount they might get for a bottom-rung job is less in aftertax dollars 
than what they get under welfare. It does not mean they are getting 
rich under welfare. They are not. It does mean that to take a job at 
the bottom rung to get started up the ladder of success sometimes 
causes them to take less in aftertax pay than they would receive in 
welfare benefits.
  Is that their fault? Well, perhaps in a way it is. But it is also our 
fault, too. We should be smart enough to figure out a system where you 
are better off working in America than if you are not working. I think 
that this option for welfare recipients, not a mandate but an option 
for them, is one that will generate bipartisan support as well.
  My hope is that we will also change welfare to expand the State 
options in dealing with welfare. This is an avenue Senator Kassebaum 
deals with in her bill, and it is a superb bill. It may well be the 
best bill that is brought before this Congress. What the Senator from 
Kansas says is we will pay for Medicaid and we will give the top three 
welfare programs back to the States in terms of a dollar exchange. The 
dollars are about the same, it is about even-Steven. What it does do is 
give the States full control over the three programs, and let the 
States design their own way of dealing with them. It is a way around 
the maze of Federal red tape that so encumbers our effort to help the 
poor among us.
  The Brown-Dole bill does not do that, although I am a great admirer 
of the Kassebaum bill and am a cosponsor. What the Brown-Dole bill does 
do is provide our States with broad new discretionary ability to deal 
with welfare programs. It gives them broad discretion in designing 
their own programs, and in waiving federal rules and regulations. It, I 
think, offers bright hope to the creativity on the State level that can 
come into play in terms of changing people's lives.
  As one looks through at the various features of the welfare system, 
there is near universal accord that what we are doing now simply does 
not work.
  I want to pay tribute to the President of the United States for what 
he has done in terms of granting waivers to the States. As a 
Republican, I must admit that President Bush did not grant waivers when 
he should have. I think the Members of this Chamber can take pride in 
the fact that President Clinton has begun to grant waivers that are not 
only justified under the law but I think are very helpful.
  I hope we will expand that power, and that is part of the Brown-Dole 
bill. Our welfare reform expands the ability of the States to design 
their own programs. Will they always do everything right? No. Will 
everything they do be perfect? No. But, I think ultimately we are much 
more likely to see programs designed to help people if we grant that 
discretionary power to the States. I think this is a fundamental part 
of welfare reform.
  Mr. President, there is another part of welfare reform that I think 
is crucial, perhaps more important than the dollar signs that we deal 
with, or the outlays, or the pages of legislation. It is the process of 
caring about people, of helping people turn their lives around.
  We have created a bureaucratic nightmare that deals with people in an 
impersonal way. We have set up stiff bureaucracies and strict rules and 
regulatory guidelines. Sometimes this Nation in its zeal to help those 
less fortunate has put in effect a very impersonal, uncaring, 
unsupportive system. Of all things we must accomplish, we must change 
the incentives in the system so that men and women who find themselves 
down and out, who are in need, will find not only financial resources 
to help them turn their lives around but a system that helps them find 
caring friends that will help them change their lives as well.
  This is one of the reasons I feel so strongly about the voucher 
program. One of the things that the businesses across this country can 
do is reach out to help people who are unemployed and on welfare to 
change their lives. I believe the voucher system will encourage people 
to do it. It is more than simply offering a job. It is offering a 
caring hand. Business that says we care about you, not just because you 
will fill a job, but because you are a human being we want to invest 
in, a human being we are convinced can make it.
  The company I worked for 11 years before I ran for Congress had such 
a program. They had it, not because it helped the bottom line, although 
I cannot help but think that it must have had rewards, but because the 
head of the company cared about people.
  Every month the company made it a policy to reach out and hire 
someone who was an ex-convict, someone who had violated the law, 
oftentimes serious offenses, but who had paid their debt to society, at 
least in terms of prison time, and now needed a job.
  Oftentimes these people, who had the most desire to work and the most 
reasons to want to turn their lives around, found it the most difficult 
to get anyone to take a chance on them. So what the company did was 
pretty basic.
  They not only would give them a chance with a job, but they would 
assign someone who would, in effect, be their big brother or their big 
sister. They were the ones in the first months who would watch to see 
if they would come to work, if they had the kind of utensils and 
equipment that they needed, if they were in the kind of shape they 
needed to be in to do the job. It was more than being someone's 
supervisor. It was a matter of calling them and getting them out of bed 
if they did not show up for work. It was a matter of leaving work and 
going over to the house and shaking them by the shoulder and getting 
them to work. It was more than just going the extra mile. It was 
assigning someone who cared about you and took an interest in you.
  We will be on the way to solving the welfare problem if we find a way 
to tap the energy and the caring and the love that Americans have for 
each other.
  I do not know if the voucher system is the right way to do it, but I 
know it is worth trying. I know that the key to success is not simply a 
bureaucracy that thinks you are a number or a form to fill out. The key 
to success is involving volunteers across this Nation in every job and 
work center in the country. People who care about the people they deal 
with and feel some identity with them and believe in their ability to 
pull themselves out of welfare and out of dependency upon others.
  The reality is most welfare recipients have a good attitude and they 
want to change their lives. A good number of people on welfare get off 
of welfare. It is true that a substantial number of the people on 
welfare stay on for 8 years or more. But the majority of the people on 
welfare at any one time cycle and turn over and often turn over fairly 
rapidly. For them the system works as it should; that is, temporary 
help when they need a helping hand to get back on their feet and then 
they go on to be self-supporting.
  But for those who welfare has become a way of life, we have to change 
things. We have to help them find a system that brings out the best in 
them; help them find a system that develops their own ability; help 
them find a system that gets them started on the ladder of success, 
instead of blocking them from moving up.
  One thing is for sure. Keeping people on welfare generation after 
generation after generation is not a sign of caring for them. It is a 
sign of callousness. It is a sign of disregard. It is a sign of a lack 
of faith in them and their abilities and their opportunities. It is a 
way of making them dependent on Government instead of helping them 
realize their abilities and their dreams and their independence.
  We have to do better, and I am convinced we can do better. But we 
cannot do better if we do not change the system.
  Mr. President, I confess I am deeply disappointed that it has taken 
so long for the administration to come up with a plan. I understand the 
difficulties. I have been through the process, as well. But I hope it 
will be a top priority for the administration to move forward with.
  We may not be able to agree on a comprehensive welfare reform bill. 
We may not be able to agree on a comprehensive health reform bill. But 
we have to try.
  The tragedy of welfare, as it is now structured, affects millions of 
Americans and darkens their future. I know this Congress, both 
Democrats and Republicans, has a lot to agree on which can help them 
turn their lives around and make them independent. I know that if we 
will set our minds to it, we can move forward.
  My hope has been that the Finance Committee would move forward by 
themselves without waiting for the administration to consider the many 
fine ideas being put forth by both Democratic and Republican Members in 
this Chamber. I remain convinced that we can reach an accord that lets 
every Member of this body say with pride that he or she voted for 
meaningful welfare reform.
  To hold up the welfare reform measure for an administration bill that 
may be months and months in coming I think is a mistake. I would like 
to see us move on with the project and move on with it quickly
  Mr. President, I see my colleague from Oklahoma is here in the 
Chamber and I yield the floor
  Mr. NICKLES addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Oklahoma [Mr. Nickles].
  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I had the pleasure of listening to part 
of the comments by my friend and colleague, the Senator from Colorado. 
I wish to compliment him. His statement concluded talking about welfare 
reform. He has done yeoman's work in the area of welfare reform and I 
congratulate him for it.
  I hope, Mr. President, that welfare reform is one issue that we can 
work together on in a bipartisan fashion. I think Democrats and 
Republicans alike would agree that the present welfare system that we 
have has not been a success. In many cases, it has been a dismal 
failure.
  We have spent, I think, since the inception of a lot of the Great 
Society programs, in welfare about $5 trillion. It is interesting to 
note we have the same percentage of the population defined as welfare 
or under the poverty level today as we did in 1965. So we spent a lot 
of money. Unfortunately, we have not had a lot of success.
  It is also troubling to me to find that we have actually many 
families that have become so dependent on welfare.
  Again, I compliment my friend and colleague, Senator Brown from 
Colorado, for his leadership. I really do hope that this would be one 
area that we would take heed of the President's words when he said he 
wanted to end welfare as we know it. I hope that we do. I hope we 
change it.
  Let us give some real incentives for people to get off welfare to go 
to work. Let us restore this idea of pride in family and families 
taking care of those who are less fortunate. I think that would be very 
positive.
  Let us break this welfare dependency cycle, where you have generation 
after generation becoming welfare dependent and where we have children 
who are basically teenagers having babies out of wedlock. And that is 
becoming more prevalent all the time, and the percentages of that have 
become staggering.
  I remember at one of the prayer breakfasts that we had, one of our 
colleagues started giving statistics on how that has risen in all 
populations, in all groups. If I remember the statistic--and I am 
stretching my memory and I hope I am correct--but 20 years ago, in the 
Caucasian population, the number of children born with one parent or 
born out of wedlock with a single parent family, was around 5 percent. 
Today that figure is over 20 some percent.
  And in the number of minority youths, black youths, that were born in 
a single parent family, 20 years ago, it was around 20 percent; today 
it is almost two-thirds, right at 66 percent.
  That is frightening, staggering statistics. If you look at all the 
U.S. population, the percentage of children who were born in a single 
parent family and raised in a single parent family is around 30 
percent. And that figure is growing.
  That is a serious problem. Those kids have a serious, serious 
challenge to overcome. They need a two-parent family. They need the 
role models of fathers. And, unfortunately, there are too many families 
where the fathers are absent and not providing the role model that is 
so desperate and so needed today.
  So, again, I thank my friend for his leadership.
  I am hopeful that we will work together in Congress this session--
this session--to enact some needed reforms, needed reforms like 
workfare, where we really restore incentives and we tell people, ``Yes, 
if you are going to receive welfare, you have to do something.''
  Certainly, if they are able bodied and their kids are older, they can 
do something. Maybe, if it is an able-bodied man, they could do some 
work. Maybe it is cleaning up a park. Maybe it is cleaning up graffiti. 
If they are a female, maybe it is working in a day care center or maybe 
it is helping teach some other child to read.
  There also should be some requirements for them to receive the 
welfare. If they are going to receive a welfare check they should make 
sure their children are in school. That is one of the requirements we 
tried to push. We called it Learnfare. Let us make sure welfare 
recipients meet some obligations, and one of those obligations should 
be to make sure their children are in school.
  You hate to think it, but I find it to be the case. I even stopped 
off in some Government housing projects, low-income housing projects, 
and I went in and visited with a young single mother with three or four 
kids. The older kids were not in school and I said, Why?
  ``Well, I did not get around to get them in school.''
  I think that is an obligation and responsibility for which they 
should be held accountable. They should get their kids in school. They 
should make sure their kids get vaccinations. Again, that 
responsibility to take care of their kids. We should put in those 
requirements. I think it would be very positive. We should do a lot of 
things to help break this very terrible cycle of welfare dependency.

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