[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 51 (Tuesday, May 3, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        A MOM AND POP MANIFESTO

 Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, it was my privilege to serve for 6 
years in the House of Representatives with the distinguished 
Representative from Illinois, Henry Hyde. Throughout his nearly 20-year 
career in the House, Congressman Hyde has been one of the Nation's most 
eloquent and respected voices in defense of traditional family values.
  But Congressman Hyde has not just spoken out for family values. He 
has also put his beliefs into action. Perhaps his greatest achievement 
was the passage of the famous Hyde Amendment, which banned Federal 
funding of abortions under Medicaid, in 1977. The Hyde amendment has 
been passed again and again every year since then. Countless numbers of 
our fellow citizens owe their lives, in a very real sense, to Henry 
Hyde.
  Congressman Hyde's latest contribution to the cause of restoring 
those traditional family values that are essential to our Nation's 
moral renewal is an unusually insightful and lucid article in the 
spring 1994 edition of Policy Review. His article is entitled ``A Mom 
and Pop Manifesto: What the Pro-Family Movement Wants From Congress.'' 
I strongly recommend it to all of my colleagues.
  Mr. President, I ask for Congressman Hyde's article to be printed in 
the Record.
  The article follows:

                   [From Policy Review, Spring 1994]

   A Mom and Pop Manifesto--What the Pro-Family Movement Wants From 
                                Congress

                     (By Representative Henry Hyde)

       When Lenin, that architect of tyranny, asked his famous 
     question--``what is to be done?''--his response was to 
     overturn the foundations of civil society. Right question, 
     wrong answer. America, now the free world's most violent 
     nation, faces a historic moment of similar magnitude. What is 
     to be done, by us, to restore the family as the surest basis 
     of civil order, the strongest foundation for free enterprise, 
     the safest home of freedom?
       It is a question that official Washington seems incapable 
     of answering. Instead of acknowledging the role of the 
     traditional family in sustaining a democratic order, Congress 
     continues at best to ignore, and at worst to undermine, that 
     role in everything from education and health to aging and 
     crime. In addition, Congress has placed new financial 
     pressures on the family. Last year it repealed the Young 
     Child Tax Credit, a Bush-era innovation to provide low-income 
     households a refundable tax credit (about $500 per child) to 
     help them care for newborns and toddlers. Meanwhile, 
     President Clinton's tax hike--$255 billion over five years--
     will fall squarely on the American family, both in direct 
     levies and higher prices.


                        Abdication, Not Analysis

       It is now an oft-repeated truism that the problems of the 
     family transcend public policy and that their solutions must 
     therefore come primarily from outside government. That valid 
     observation is easily distorted, however, into the specious 
     assertion that there isn't much government can do to reverse 
     the downward spiral of family life in this nation.
       That is abdication, not analysis. The more we discover what 
     government has done to undermine family life over the last 
     three decades, the clearer it becomes that public policy must 
     have a central role in restoring to America a family order of 
     things.
       Theologians tell us that prudence is one of the four 
     cardinal virtues, the crucial good habits upon which all 
     others depend. Much will depend upon the prudence of the pro-
     family movement in the months ahead. It would be short-
     sighted for the movement to allow its current mode of 
     opposition, necessary as it is, to define its long-range 
     future. Instead, a pro-family agenda must aim to reconstruct 
     a now devastated mosaic of interrelationships, values, and 
     assumptions. Rather than losing ourselves amid the many 
     fragments, we can begin by setting in place the key pieces 
     that give coherence to the whole picture.


                       restore family prosperity

       The first piece is pro-family economic policy. That's not 
     because money is the most important element in family life, 
     but because government's appetite for the family's cash has 
     been a crucial factor in creating its current plight. Most of 
     us have heard the numbers. If today's personal exemption 
     accounted for the same proportion of family income as it did 
     in 1948, it would be about $8,000, not $2,350.
       That means government has moved from sheltering families to 
     crushing them. Despite all the talk about women having 
     choices in our newly egalitarian work place, the ugly reality 
     is that millions of American women have been ``put to work.'' 
     In Uncle Sam's new tax order, it's become the only way to 
     maintain a decent lifestyle for their families.
       Consider the cultural ripple effects of a dramatic increase 
     in the personal exemption. For example, how many moderate-
     income families might, for the first time, be able to choose 
     their children's schools? How many households would 
     reconsider the necessity of having two earners? How many 
     would pursue home schooling? How many parents, whether moms 
     or dads, would find more time to spend with the kids and less 
     to spend on the job?
       To open up these opportunities, two House freshmen, Rod 
     Grams and Tim Hutchinson, have introduced legislations to 
     provide an across-the-board tax credit of $500 per child, to 
     compensate in part for the erosion of the personal exemption. 
     Their bill also would establish a commission, along the lines 
     of Representative Dick Armey's successful Base-Closure 
     Commission, to present Congress with a take-it-or-leave-it 
     package of off-setting spending reductions.
       In tandem with dramatic tax relief for families, several 
     other steps should be taken. One, of course, is cutting the 
     capital gains tax and indexing it to inflation. That would be 
     a tremendous boost to business investment and job creation, 
     and millions of good new jobs are essential to the 
     restoration of family prosperity in this country. As part of 
     our capital gains package, conservatives should propose a 
     zero-rate for households with modest incomes and for small, 
     family-owned businesses. Let liberals oppose that one! As 
     Patrick Henry might say today, if this be wedge-politics, 
     make the most of it.
       Another small but important economic corrective will be to 
     repeal the regulations of the Department of Labor (DOL) that 
     have the effect of forbidding employers from paying what used 
     to be called a ``family wage.'' In other words, paying more 
     to a family breadwinner, in recognition of the fact that he 
     or she has responsibilities a single worker is less likely to 
     have. This used to be a commonplace practice, in the days 
     when children were looked upon as assets to the community 
     rather than as liabilities.
       Congress never legislated on the matter. But bureaucrats at 
     the Department of Labor came up with this remarkable bit of 
     ideological reasoning: 1) Congress banned pay discrimination 
     on the basis of gender. 2) Workers receiving a family wage 
     are most likely to be male. 3) Therefore, the family wage is 
     inherently discriminatory and is made illegal under DOL 
     regulations. But the discrimination issue is a red herring. 
     If an employer chooses to pay a salary differential to 
     breadwinners, both male and female, that should be the 
     business of nobody in the federal government.
       Another way to restore the family wage is to reduce a 
     worker's FICA tax if he or she has minor dependents. The 
     rationale is simple: The long-range future of Social Security 
     is in serious doubt. Part of the problem is that there will 
     be too few workers. Part of the solution is to assist today's 
     workers who are supporting children--and to give them 
     financial encouragement to have those children in the first 
     place. With most workers paying more in FICA taxes than in 
     income taxes, a family-based FICA would be another subtle, 
     political means of promoting more stable families.


                           pro-family budget

       The second broad priority for the pro-family movement is 
     the flip side of the first. Diversion of resources away from 
     government and back to the family inevitably entails dramatic 
     constriction of the public sector. That is an end in itself. 
     For the public sector feeds the premises of the Left, 
     supplies its financial resources, its breeding ground. And 
     only when the Left is structurally curbed can the American 
     family be secure.
       Let me state the obvious: The only reason there is a pro-
     family movement in this country is that there has long been 
     an anti-family movement. It's never called that, but there it 
     is. Its essential strategy, it seems, is to transfer 
     resources from what works--the two-parent family--to what 
     doesn't. Success must subsidize failure, not until failure 
     succeeds, but until success fails. This is why we have poured 
     tens of billions into programs under the Elementary and 
     Secondary Education Act without putting any of the money into 
     the hands of parents. It explains why welfare policy has 
     underwritten illegitimacy, and why all sorts of income-
     transfer entitlements kept pace with inflation while the 
     personal exemption for taxpayers with kids was frozen.
       Thus, the American Left, like the blossoming beastie in 
     ``The Little Shop of Horrors,'' has grown artificially, 
     unnaturally over the last three decades--fed from the family 
     dollars channelled by government to the millions of persons 
     whose income no longer has any connection with market forces. 
     But restore a pro-family tax code, enact pro-family budgets, 
     and the money slows down. Maximize daily decision-making by 
     households, minimize governmental favoritism, and you restore 
     the discipline of the free market--which is to say, the 
     public will--into all aspects of American life, especially 
     culture. This is the only way to undercut the public policy 
     prejudice against the traditional family and its values.


                            empower parents

       Third, Congress must address two critical areas that demand 
     a reversal of government influence--education and welfare. 
     For the former, our task is already clear. We must 
     aggressively assert family rights wherever they are 
     threatened--not just in sex-education programs, but also in 
     biased curricula, propagandizing reading lists, and 
     ideological student counselling. Most of these battles will 
     be fought at the local level, not in Congress. But the 
     objective of the pro-family movement should be to array 
     federal authority--in law, regulation, and the courts--on the 
     side of parents.
       Vouchers will be a crucial lever to move education in the 
     right direction; while the most important progress in that 
     regard must come at the state level, the pro-family movement 
     can convince Congress to support parental vouchers, instead 
     of grants to school districts, to distribute federal 
     education funds.
       A Congress friendly to the family will dismantle the 
     apparatus of centralized government control currently 
     building in the Clinton Administration. That includes 
     mechanisms for setting, and eventually enforcing, national 
     ``opportunity-to-learn standards,'' a virtual invitation for 
     the federal courts to take control of the way states finance 
     education. Instead, Congress should work with the states to 
     launch pilot projects for altogether removing federal 
     authority from schooling. Let's see what several states can 
     do with their schools without any federal intervention apart 
     from enforcement of civil rights laws.
       In higher education, Congress can act most effectively by 
     acting indirectly. I want no federal hand, conservative or 
     liberal, on the nation's colleges and universities. But we 
     can guard against official favoritism in the awarding of 
     government grants and contracts. And we can, as much as 
     possible, restore market forces to academia. Only consumer 
     rights in education can correct the problems exposed by 
     Martin Anderson, Thomas Sowell, and other thoughtful 
     critics of today's leftist professoriate.
       The fourth pillar of the pro-family resurgence should be a 
     radical restructuring of welfare. Stop-gap measures have 
     their place, and I do not mean to disparage any of the 
     welfare reform proposals now in the policy limelight. But at 
     their best, they may make marginal improvements in a 
     fundamentally defective system because they do not focus on 
     the single most important factor in today's poverty equation: 
     illegitimacy.
       Will this or that welfare reform plan ``put people to 
     work''? Perhaps, but those people will still be the single 
     mothers of children headed for limited horizons. Whatever 
     progress is made in helping some individuals grow out of 
     dependency is likely to be more than offset by the growing 
     number of children without fathers.
       We still face the unanswered question: What must be done, 
     now or in the future, to deal with a welfare system that has 
     become the most destructive anti-family enterprise of the 
     federal government?
       My answers are tentative and open to correction. First, 
     Congress should remove decision-making responsibility 
     regarding welfare--beginning with Aid to Families with 
     Dependent Children--from Washington. However it is to be 
     financed, by federal block grants or some other mechanism, 
     control of public assistance must go back where it belongs, 
     to the state and local level. Only there can prudent 
     judgments be made, on a household-by-household basis, about 
     what might help families reach the mainstream of American 
     life. If some states botch the job, their taxpayers can take 
     corrective action. That will be a great improvement over the 
     status quo, in which voters can't even ascertain who is 
     responsible for the welfare mess--perhaps the major reason 
     why 1960s social planners wanted to centralize the system in 
     Washington.
       Once welfare is back in the hands of the public, it will be 
     easier to require under-age moms to live with their parents 
     as a condition of eligibility. That's already a popular idea. 
     I would go farther and maximize the role of religious 
     institutions in distributing assistance. Especially in the 
     inner city, churches should be made the primary channels for 
     federal nutrition programs, community health services, and 
     other programs. Many of them are already involved, of course, 
     but I am thinking of something on a grander scale.
       Congress should be aiming for the virtual replacement of 
     public-sector welfare agencies by those of the private 
     sector, especially religiously motivated groups that 
     are rooted in low-income communities. That does not mean 
     requiring church attendance; so long as no doctrinal 
     preferences are made as to which institutions can 
     participate, there should be no constitutional objections. 
     It does mean increasing exposure to constructive 
     influences on the part of those who most need it. Even 
     more important, it means interweaving into a larger caring 
     community those individuals--young mothers and their 
     fatherless children--who most need support systems, 
     counsel, and role models, as well as material aid. It 
     means more protective influences for the vulnerable, and a 
     better chance in life.
       Some will consider those changes inadequate and will want 
     to abolish AFDC altogether, not out of frugality but from 
     compassion, in the belief that the availability of welfare 
     only worsens the incidence of illegitimacy. They may be 
     right, but there are steps we should take in the short run as 
     we grapple with the challenge that Charles Murray and other 
     prophets have set before us.


                             Paradigm Shift

       Reformation is critical not only in regards to welfare, 
     however. A deep cultural transformation is needed in the way 
     our society views the family. Admittedly, such a ``paradigm 
     shift'' must be prompted mainly by non-political factors--
     from William Bennett's Book of Virtues to a teencounseling 
     center at a local church. But even here, Congress has a 
     responsibility to help undo some of the damage inflicted on 
     the family through a long series of governmental decisions.
       One step would be to reaffirm our public allegiance to the 
     profound importance of the marriage commitment. Since 
     California's legislature launched the divorce revolution 
     in 1970, we have looked the other way as women and 
     children were reduced to the ranks of the ``new poor'' by 
     easy or unilateral dissolution of the marriage contract. 
     Now it is time to reassert the community's interest, both 
     economic and social, in fostering two-parent households.
       I am not proposing federal legislation, but rather the 
     drafting of a model law that state legislatures could use as 
     a starting point for their own initiatives. It might provide 
     for a cooling-off period (an increasingly popular concept 
     among family counsellors). It certainly should make divorce 
     more cumbersome in two cases: whenever children are involved, 
     and when either spouse opposes the action. And it should 
     reflect the British legal bias that bestows possession of 
     property upon whichever parent wins custody of the children.
       Another contentious issue for a pro-family Congress will be 
     the legal status of non-martial living arrangements, whether 
     heterosexual or homosexual, in federal programs ranging from 
     health and retirement benefits to the IRS code. Last year's 
     battle over homosexuals in the military is only a prelude to 
     the controversies that await us. I can understand why many of 
     my congressional colleagues would want to sidestep this 
     difficult matter, but the policy aggressiveness of homosexual 
     activists will eventually force the issue. However these 
     questions may be handled at the state and local level, 
     Congress must, for federal purposes, affirm the traditional 
     family created by ties of blood, marriage, or adoption. In a 
     more negative sense, Congress must ensure that no activities 
     of the federal government give legitimacy to lifestyles 
     inimical to the family.


                           human life agenda

       While seeking consensus, pro-family forces in Congress will 
     nonetheless have to grasp nettles of controversy. The most 
     obvious example is the abortion issue. The current line-up on 
     Capitol Hill is grossly out of sync with public opinion, 
     which splits on the continued legality of abortion but 
     overwhelmingly supports certain restrictions on it. A 
     Congress truly reflective of the public will on this matter 
     could, even without constitutional amendment or a Human Life 
     Bill, dramatically reduce the incidence of abortion.
       First, it can cut off the anti-life propaganda and lobbying 
     that flourishes on federal contracts and grants to 
     organizations that are part of the abortion industry. A case 
     in point is the federally controlled family planning program, 
     Title X, which should be removed from Washington's grasp and 
     converted to a state-controlled maternal and child health 
     initiative. This would put a host of controversial issues, 
     like school-based clinics, closer to local control and 
     accountability.
       Imagine, too, the impact if Congress were to mandate 
     inclusion of at least late-term abortions in the nation's 
     infant mortality statistics, or if the Department of 
     Transportation included pre-born children in its traffic 
     mortality numbers. Even while Roe vs. Wade stands, we can 
     enact a national feticide law, in the absence of which courts 
     have dismissed charges against persons who brutally attacked 
     pregnant women, causing the death of their unborn babies.
       Someone has observed that, in post-modern America, there 
     are two standards for determining the morality of something: 
     whether it's tax deductible, and whether it can be covered by 
     insurance. So be it. Let Congress deal with abortion under 
     both headings, barring it from any health insurance plan 
     touched by federal policy--just as we would not tolerate 
     racial discrimination in those plans.
       More positively, Congress can promote adoption by providing 
     a tax credit for its costs, which sometimes are quite heavy. 
     We can also require adoption counselling in federally funded 
     programs that assist pregnant women. We can work with state 
     and private-sector foster care agencies to reform procedures, 
     and rethink attitudes, that have left hundreds of thousands 
     of adoptable kids in temporary homes.


                           one-stop shopping

       A less obvious way to deepen our public commitment to the 
     unborn and the family in general is a proposal by Congressman 
     Tom Bliley--ignored by the current House majority--to 
     consolidate overlapping programs into one block grant to 
     promote maternal and child health. This would divert money 
     from bureaucracies to actual services, let states target the 
     special needs of their low-income households, and provide 
     ``one-stop shopping'' in health care for mothers and infants. 
     Mr. Bliley's plan could become the basis for a grassroots 
     crusade against infant mortality and child abuse--the kind of 
     initiative that will bring home to the public what the pro-
     family movement is truly about.
       Over time, the states will do the rest. They will enact 
     parental notification laws, require waiting periods, and ban 
     late-term abortions. As the stigma of abortion grows, as the 
     procedure becomes more difficult to obtain, as medical 
     schools limit training for it, as fewer physicians are 
     willing to perform it, and as consent laws and pregnancy aid 
     programs help women avoid it, the clout of the abortion 
     industry will diminish--to the point at which the nation will 
     definitively choose life.
       That choice, defining the core of our civilization, cannot 
     be left to the discretion of an unelected judiciary. The 
     judicial branch has, over the last half-century, done more 
     than its share to erode the rights of the family and to 
     create a secular culture hostile to it. It may be time, 
     therefore, to consider a constitutional amendment asserting 
     that the rights of the family, which are anterior and 
     superior to government, may not be abridged.
       Such a concept, of course, cries out for greater precision. 
     Moreover, changes to the federal constitution should not be 
     undertaken lightly. Fortunately, there is underway a related 
     effort with regard to state constitutions. It progress can 
     show us the merits, and possible pitfalls, of a 
     constitutional approach to protecting the family. If 
     successful, it may either obviate the need for action on the 
     federal level--or make it irresistible.


                          sheltering families

       On a wide range of issues, then, the pro-family movement 
     has much to say to the vast majority of Americans. Certainly, 
     one of the clearest lessons of the 20th century is that the 
     strength of government and the strength of the family often 
     have been countervailing forces, as if the two are perched on 
     opposite ends of a seesaw. Where the power of the state has 
     expanded, the power of the family has correspondingly 
     receded.
       In the century ahead, the best safeguard of personal 
     autonomy--and personal responsibility--will not be the 
     isolated individual, but the self-directed family. 
     Washington, with all its financial resources, programs, 
     agencies, and countless bureaucrats, cannot advance the cause 
     of liberty unless it allows generations of Americans to be 
     shaped and sheltered by families. The alternative is de facto 
     wardship to the state. That was the Leninist choice. It 
     cannot, it must not be ours.

                          ____________________