[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 47 (Tuesday, April 26, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: April 26, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                             WELFARE REFORM

  Mrs. MEYERS of Kansas. Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk today about 
the subject of welfare reform. I have a bill that I have introduced, 
which is H.R. 1293. I would like to start out by telling you all a 
statistic which I think is a startling statistic. At least it amazed 
me.
  By the year 2000, 80 percent of minority children and 40 percent of 
all children will be born illegitimate in the United States.
  I would like to tell you another statistic which I think is 
significant. If you graduate from high school, if you get married, and 
you do not have your first child until you are 20, of that group, only 
8 percent live in poverty. But if you do not graduate from high school, 
if you do not get married, and if you have your first child as a teen, 
80 percent of that group live in poverty.
  Now, our policies I think in this country have encouraged 
illegitimacy and have encouraged poverty. These policies were enacted 
with the best of intentions. They were enacted to assist people, to 
help people. But it did not work out that way. And I think it is time 
to admit that we are doing something very, very wrong in this country 
and change the way that we are doing things.
  Now, a number of us have thought about this a great deal. To have a 
good welfare reform bill, it should cost less, not more. If someone 
tells you that they have a welfare reform idea but it is going to cost 
another $10 billion, it is probably not welfare reform. It is probably 
more of the same.
  A good welfare reform bill should end the entitlement nature of AFDC. 
Now, I think most of the people who are listening probably are aware 
that an entitlement is a program where we describe certain parameters 
in the law. Then if you fit into those parameters, you are considered 
entitled to money.
  There are three large entitlements in the AFDC welfare program: AFDC, 
food stamps, and Medicaid. Another large program, housing, is not an 
entitlement. So there are three large entitlements and the housing 
program that cost significant money with the AFDC population.
  I think to have a good welfare reform program we have to end the 
entitlement nature of AFDC, because with an entitlement, the money just 
flows. We do not even appropriate specific amounts in Congress. It is 
just such sums as may be necessary, and the money just flows. So you 
can say we are going to have a program and there will be sanctions if 
AFDC recipients do not live up to the terms of this program. But if the 
money just flows anyway, somehow sanctions never really fall. Also a 
good welfare reform program should address the problem of teenage 
pregnancy, and it should address the problem of paternal 
identification.
  I am going to tell you what my bill does, and then talk a little bit 
more generally about the problem.
  My bill would freeze AFDC right where it is. That ends the 
entitlement nature of AFDC. It would return AFDC in block grants to the 
States and give the States absolutely maximum flexibility in what they 
do, because all of the good things that are happening in welfare, all 
of the good ideas, are coming from the States.
  We ought to give this block of money to the States and give them 
maximum flexibility with only two mandates. Those mandates would be no 
AFDC unless and until both parents are 18, and no AFDC at any age 
unless the father is absolutely identified.

                              {time}  1430

  And that does not mean, I guess it was Bill Jones. That means William 
J. Jones, born January 20, 1978, with a Social Security number or an 
address, so that we absolutely know who that person is.
  What we have been saying to young women, and the reason I say no AFDC 
until both parents are 18, is because what we have been saying to young 
women in this country with our policies for a great many years is, if 
you will have two children with no man in the house, we will give you 
$500 a month AFDC, $300 a month food stamps. We will pay all your 
medical bills. We will find you a place to live and pay for it for 
about a third of you. We will send you to a college or a training 
school to help get you off welfare. We will give you $200 a month child 
care while you are taking that college or training school, and we will 
give you $25 a month transportation round trip.
  Now, if you are a mature person, you know that that is not a lot of 
money and it is not going to be a great life, although it is $18,000 a 
year. But if you are 14 and you want to get out of the house and you 
are under some boyfriend pressure and some peer pressure and you wanted 
something to love, you are liable to take that offer and by 15 you are 
pregnant and by 16 you are caught in that welfare trap for the rest of 
your life.

  I think the other mandate, no AFDC unless the father is absolutely 
identified, is because what we say now to young men is, and what we 
have been saying for many years, is go ahead, walk away from this 
program. We will take care of this for you. And with my bill, what we 
would be saying is, if you have no money, we will help this woman and 
this child. But we know exactly who you are and when you are earning 
$15,000 or $20,000 or $5000 a year, we are going to have a part of that 
for every child that you have fathered.
  I think this is not a harsh bill. It is a bill that attempts to get 
people to take responsibility for their own children. Again, let me 
repeat what it does, because some people have said it sounds harsh.
  It freezes one of the entitlements. Does not cut it, freezes it. It 
says that the States will have maximum flexibility to design their own 
programs. It says, no AFDC unless both parents are 18. It does not take 
away food stamps, does not take away Medicaid. And it says, no AFDC at 
any age until we absolutely know who the father is. And I do not think 
it is a harsh bill at all. I think it is a bill that will allow a great 
many people, 5 million families in the United States, it will allow a 
great many people to have a better life and to create a better 
environment in which to raise their children.
  Now, you are going to hear a great deal from the President about, let 
us make people work and 2 years and out and that sounds very good. And 
you have heard that it takes a while to explain my program, but I have 
noticed if you say to a room full of people, let us make people work, 
everybody thinks that sounds so good and they applaud. But the truth 
is, we have tried this once. And it did not work.
  In 1988, we fashioned a welfare bill that said we will have a work 
training program, a job readiness program, a job search program. We 
will pay child care. We will pay transportation. And everybody will go 
to work. And I waited and I watched for 5 years.
  It was supposed to cost $3 billion. We predicted in 1988, it would 
cost $3 billion. And it cost $13 billion. And less than 1 percent of 
the welfare population is working. And now the President is talking 
about doing exactly this same thing again.
  He says it would cost $10 billion over the next 5 years. And he is 
talking about funding it in a variety of ways. He talked about a 
gambling tax, and he talked about a tax on annuities. And he talked 
about taking away veterans' benefits. He has talked about taking away 
benefits from higher income farmers. He has talked about a variety of 
ways. The thing is, he is taking benefits away from working people in 
most of these instances in order to pay $10 billion more for a program 
that we know has failed.
  In 1988, we predicted this program is going to be successful. And at 
the end of 1998, we will have 5 million families on welfare. We hit 
that goal in early 1993. When you make the program better, when you add 
something to it, people flood onto the program. They came onto the 
program infinitely faster than we thought they would. They took all the 
programs and no one went to work.
  My bill would save $6 billion to $8 billion over the next 5 years. 
The President's would cost $10 billion over the next 5 years. That is a 
$16 to $18 billion difference that I think we could use in a variety of 
ways in this country and ways that would help people in a much more 
meaningful way than a work program that has failed once before.
  Now, I strongly believe in work programs. I come from the Midwest. We 
have a very strong work ethic there. But we have proved already that 
Federal work programs do not work. And the State statistics show that 
our federally-mandated plan does not work.
  Why? We live in a huge diverse country, and one of the reasons why a 
federally-mandated program does not work, I think, is because what 
works in New Jersey does not necessarily work in Kansas. Just think 
about the difference between Miami, FL and Billings, MT. I mean, it is 
a tremendous difference in this country. And when we try to overlay two 
huge, new entitlements, a work program and a day care program, on the 
country, it does not work very well.
  The second reason a federally mandated program does not work is 
because I believe you have to end the entitlement nature of AFDC in 
order to have any program work. Because as long as the money just 
continues to flow, no matter what you say, the sanctions never fall. 
The money just continues to flow, and that is what happened in 1988.
  I think a third reason why State programs work much better than 
Federal programs is because the States can target these programs 
better. We know where the problems are in Kansas. We know the areas 
where there are jobs available, but we might need training programs to 
get people fitted for those jobs. We know where there are areas of high 
teenage pregnancy, and we do not so much need work programs as we need 
teenage pregnancy programs. We know where there are areas where maybe 
there are not jobs available, and you have to work with city or county 
governments and get people to work at jobs that the city and the 
country needs done and that they would be willing to assist in paying 
for them, working in the State.

                              {time}  1440

  I think it is time that we changed the way that we are doing things 
currently, that we not reauthorize a failed work program and day care 
program, and that we end the entitlement nature of AFDC, give more 
flexibility to the States, say no AFDC unless and until both parents 
are 18, and no AFDC at any age until the father is absolutely 
identified.
  Why is this important to all of us? Why is this important to my 
constituents? I think it is terribly important because you are paying 
for it in so many ways. You are paying for it in more ways than you 
probably realize. All studies show that AFDC children, welfare 
children, have lower test scores, are more involved in crime, and have 
more physical illnesses. I am not saying in any way that AFDC children 
are inherently bad. Certainly they are not. I am not saying that a 
great many of them are not successful. Many of them are.
  I am saying that studies show that these children are much more 
subject to lower test scores, to being involved in crime, and to 
physical illnesses. This is a great cost to society.
  In addition to that, I would like to tell the Members about the total 
cost of this program. These are only Federal figures, and two of the 
programs are matching Federal and State, so this is by no means the 
total cost. However, AFDC itself is $16 billion. The AFDC population is 
responsible for 20 percent of Medicaid. The rest goes to low income 
families and to the elderly in the nursing homes. The AFDC population 
is responsible for 20 percent of Medicaid, for 55 percent of food 
stamps, for 30 percent of housing, for virtually all of a number of 
smaller programs: Head Start and WIC.
  When we put all of that together, the annual cost to the U.S. 
taxpaying citizens is $70 billion. The cost of welfare is not going to 
go away, I don't care what we do, and certainly we want to help people, 
I want to help people that need help, but the program is a runaway 
program. We have to stop it and get some kind of control of it.
  I ask Members to think, if we only reduce that $70 billion cost by 10 
percent a year, we would have an extra $7 billion that we could utilize 
to help people in much more meaningful ways. In addition to that, we 
would not be reauthorizing a work program and a day care program that 
we know has failed and that would cost $10 billion.
  I think it is time to change the way we are doing things. I hope that 
all of my colleagues who are listening today will support and cosponsor 
H. R. 1293.

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