[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 94 (Tuesday, July 19, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 19, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
  AGRICULTURAL, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND 
               RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1995

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.
  Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending 
Heflin amendment be set aside in order that I may propose an amendment 
at this time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 2305

     (Purpose: To strike a provision prohibiting the Secretary of 
    Agriculture from approving Food Stamp ``cash-out" demonstration 
                              initiatives)

  Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask 
for its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Arizona [Mr. McCain] for himself, Mr. 
     Kerrey, Mr. Dole, Mr. Brown, Mr. Durenberger, Mr. Kohl, Mr. 
     Exon, Mr. Packwood and Mr. Lieberman, proposes an amendment 
     numbered 2305.

  Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading 
of the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       At the end of the pending committee amendment add the 
     following:
       ``Provided further that the following Section of the bill 
     is null and void:
       `Provided further, That no funds provided herein shall be 
     available to provide food assistance in cash in any county 
     not covered by a demonstration project that received final 
     approval from the Secretary on or before July 1, 1994.'''

  Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I propose this amendment on behalf of 
myself, Senator Kerrey, Senator Dole, Senator Kohl, Senator 
Durenberger, Senator Brown, Senator Exon, Senator Packwood and Senator 
Lieberman.
  This amendment is strongly supported by the National Governors 
Association and the National Association of Counties. It is a simple 
amendment. The amendment would repeal a provision in the bill which 
prohibits the Secretary of Agriculture from empowering States to use 
food stamp money to demonstrate new and creative welfare reforms.
  Currently, 20 States are either implementing or have proposed food 
stamp conversion projects. Such initiatives include converting food 
stamp money to wage subsidies for the poor so they can go to work, 
learn a skill and earn a paycheck. In other instances, States want to 
provide direct cash benefits to poor families so they, rather than the 
Federal Government, can decide how the family budget will be spent. The 
20 States that are pursuing such projects include Alabama, Arizona, 
California, Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, 
Nebraska, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, 
Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
  Madam President, the Senate should embrace and encourage, rather than 
prohibit, State and local initiatives that will better serve needy 
Americans and help break the grinding cycle of poverty and dependence.
  The prohibition in the pending bill is a regressive and 
counterproductive restriction on the administration's discretionary 
authority, and it flies in the face of the obvious need to encourage 
innovation, flexibility and accountability in our stagnant welfare 
system. We have heard a lot of talk about welfare reform, much of it 
right here on the Senate floor.
  The American people are demanding fundamental change in a system that 
has failed its promise to restore economic independence to those in 
need. We are losing the war on poverty. It is time for new tactics and 
firmer resolve. Recognizing this reality during the 1992 campaign, 
President Clinton, as we all know, promised to end welfare as we know 
it.
  While we may argue whether the President can fulfill that pledge, the 
public's will is unmistakably clear. But it appears the Congress, 
rather than ending welfare as we know it, prefers to end welfare reform 
as we know it with a three-line provision in a spending bill.
  Fortunately, the States have taken to heart the national imperative 
to correct a system which has clearly failed to win the war on poverty. 
While 6 States operate food stamp conversion programs, 13 others are 
planning to implement demonstrations on their own, and more will follow 
suit. But such programs can only be implemented with the permission of 
the Federal Government.
  The Secretary of Agriculture currently has the discretion of whether 
to grant Federal permission, and this administration has done so on 
three occasions.
  In explaining the administration's position on this question, the 
Secretary of Agriculture, Mike Espy, could not be more clear about the 
importance of empowering State and local Governments to innovate. He 
said:

       The President and I feel strongly that States must have the 
     flexibility to experiment with innovative approaches to 
     welfare and food assistance. The rigorous evaluation, limited 
     duration and limited scope of any cash-out experiments will 
     allow USDA to keep a close eye on their operation.

  In Executive Order 12875, the President says that State and local 
governments ``should have more flexibility to design solutions to 
problems faced by citizens in this country without excessive 
micromanagement and unnecessary regulation from the Federal 
Government.''
  The administration's National Performance Review concludes that 
``State and local managers must have flexibility to waive rules that 
get in the way.''
  So, Madam President, the administration understands the need for 
innovation and flexibility; our Nation's Governors from Maine to 
California understand the need for innovation and flexibility; and, 
most importantly, taxpayers and welfare recipients understand the need 
for innovation and flexibility. So why are we now debating this on the 
Senate floor?
  I know that some advocates do not like the idea of ``cash outs'' and 
wage subsidies because they fear that poor families will not or cannot 
make the proper spending choices if empowered to do so. To me this is 
the kind of paternalism that is at the core of the problems of our 
troubled welfare system.
  In fact, most low-income families involved in food stamp conversion 
demonstrations prefer to receive a benefit check or paycheck because 
they can budget their monthly expenditures the same way other families 
budget their household spending, rather than having the Federal 
Government decide exactly how much money they should spend on food each 
month. And many of these families know that a job, made possible by a 
wage subsidy, can be a vital bridge to economic independence.
  Research cited by the National Governors' Association shows that food 
stamp conversion does not change the availability or adequacy of food 
to clients. In Alabama, for example, 80 percent of the families in the 
demonstration counties reported that they had enough to eat every 
month--the same percentage as the families in counties receiving food 
stamp coupons. Just 5 percent reported running out of resources for 
food, again the same percentage as in counties using food stamp 
coupons.
  Studies also show that recipients used additional cash on basic needs 
that are critical to their families' well-being--principally 
transportation, shelter, clothing, medical care, and education.
  In one of the demonstrations, researchers found that families that 
purchased food with cash got better food value than families using food 
stamp coupons because cash enabled them to buy from a wider array of 
more economical suppliers such as farmers' markets and cooperatives.
  Madam President, I know there are those who oppose flexibility, such 
as some large food retailers that enjoy a captive market with food 
coupons or those who believe the Federal Government can make better 
decisions about the family budget than the families themselves, and 
those who simply want the status quo. But I do not find their arguments 
compelling.
  I am sure there are criticisms, some perhaps valid, about some of the 
``cash out'' demonstrations, and I wish to be clear--I support work-
oriented reforms. But many projects have succeeded. And at the very 
least, we should allow the Secretary of Agriculture to use his judgment 
and discretion to determine whether an initiative is appropriate and 
useful rather than denying him that discretion entirely.
  Some may argue that taking away the Secretary's discretion today is 
of little consequence because Congress is considering major welfare 
reform legislation which is expected to deal comprehensively with these 
issues.
  The prospect of passing major welfare reform this year is not good. 
So the pending bill puts us in the absolutely absurd position of 
anticipating reform by eliminating what little reform and flexibility 
exists under the current system. If needed comprehensive welfare reform 
does not come this year, we will have taken a giant step backward by 
restricting existing opportunity for innovation, flexibility, and 
empowerment, the very elements that our worn and ineffective welfare 
system needs most.
  Madam President, I hope we will listen to our Nation's Governors on 
this issue. On July 19, 1994, our Nation's Governors, in the form of 
the National Governors' Association, issued an action alert on a food 
stamp vote, and I quote:

       The Senate will vote this afternoon on several different 
     proposals--

  That is today--

     To limit food stamp waivers to states as part of the fiscal 
     year 1995 Agriculture appropriations bill. The House has 
     already passed the bill and included in it a ban on any 
     waivers that allow states to convert food stamps to cash 
     benefits or to wage subsidies. The House ban would be 
     effective July 1, 1994, through September 30, 1995.
       The National Governors' Association strongly supports the 
     McCain-Kerrey amendment to strike from the bill the House 
     language banning these food stamp waivers. Governors should 
     make calls as soon as possible Tuesday morning to their 
     Senators to ask them to support the McCain-Kerrey amendment 
     and to oppose all other amendments on this issue. Key votes 
     could occur any time Tuesday afternoon. Calls from Governors' 
     staff to Senators' staff are also very important to ensure 
     that the message gets through before the vote.
       The National Governors' Association expects that there will 
     be at least two other amendments offered on this issue. These 
     amendments should be opposed because they would significantly 
     limit the ability of Governors to request food stamp waivers. 
     Even if the McCain-Kerrey amendment passes, states are likely 
     to face restrictions on food stamp waivers in the conference 
     agreement because the House bill already includes such 
     limits. If one of the other amendments limiting waivers 
     passes the Senate--instead of the McCain-Kerrey amendment 
     striking the House language--states will be at a significant 
     disadvantage going into the House conference on the bill.

  And it goes on to describe the other two amendments that may be 
forthcoming, one by Senator Kennedy and the other by Senator Conrad.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of that letter 
be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

        [From the National Governors Association, July 19, 1994]

                    Action Alert on Food Stamp Vote

       The Senate will vote this afternoon on several different 
     proposals to limit food stamp waivers to states as part of 
     the fiscal year 1995 agriculture appropriations bill. The 
     House has already passed the bill and included in it a ban on 
     any waivers that allow states to convert food stamps to cash 
     benefits or to wage subsidies. The House ban would be 
     effective July 1, 1994 through Sept. 30, 1995.
       NGA strongly supports the McCain-Kerrey amendment to strike 
     from the bill the House language banning these food stamp 
     waivers. (See attached letter and background information.) 
     Governors should make calls as soon as possible Tuesday 
     morning to their Senators to ask them to support the McCain-
     Kerrey amendment and to oppose all other amendments on this 
     issue. The key votes could occur anytime Tuesday afternoon. 
     Calls from Governors' staff to Senators' staff are also very 
     important to ensure that the message gets through before the 
     vote.
       NGA expects that there will be at least two other 
     amendments offered on this issue. These amendments should be 
     opposed because they would significantly limit the ability of 
     Governors to request food stamp waivers. Even if the McCain-
     Kerrey amendment passes, states are likely to face 
     restrictions on food stamp waivers in the conference 
     agreement because the House bill already includes such 
     limits. If one of the other amendments limiting waivers 
     passes the Senate--instead of the McCain-Kerrey amendment 
     striking the House language--states will be at a significant 
     disadvantage going into the House-Senate conference on the 
     bill.
       The other two amendments are as follows:
       Senator Kennedy (D-MA) will offer an amendment that allows 
     waivers to convert food stamps to wage subsidies but 
     prohibits waivers to convert food stamps to cash benefits. 
     This would prohibit waivers for the kinds of demonstrations 
     proposed or underway in a number of states, such as 
     California, Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, 
     Nebraska, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Utah, 
     Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin.
       Senator Conrad (D-ND) will offer an amendment that allows 
     waivers to convert food stamps to cash benefits or wage 
     subsidies only if the waiver request has been submitted by 
     September 1, 1994 and if the state agrees to monitor the 
     nutritional status of all the recipient children in the 
     affected households and meet certain other requirements.

  Mr. McCAIN. Yesterday, at its meeting in Boston, the executive 
committee for the National Governors' Association voted to oppose 
limits on State innovation in the food stamp program. The Governors are 
expected to overwhelmingly pass the resolution this morning. Let me 
quote from the executive committee's news release.

       We believe that this bipartisan statement opposing the food 
     stamp waiver ban reflects the strong support of all Governors 
     for continued State innovation and experimentation to reform 
     the welfare system. We call on the Senate to defeat this 
     proposal and to act to preserve State flexibility and 
     executive branch authority in this area.

  Madam President, I also ask unanimous consent to submit for the 
Record a letter in support of the amendment from the National 
Conference of State Legislatures and a letter from Governor Symington 
of Arizona.
  There being no objection, the letters were ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                               National Conference


                                        of State Legislatures,

                                    Washington, DC, July 12, 1994.
     Hon. John McCain,
     U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator McCain: The National Conference of State 
     Legislatures urges your support for a floor amendment to H.R. 
     4554, FY 1995 appropriations for agriculture, nutrition and 
     related programs. This amendment would delete a provision in 
     H.R. 4554 that would prohibit states, for one year, from 
     converting food stamp benefits to cash payments or wage 
     subsidies for beneficiaries. We strongly feel that this 
     provision should be deleted.
       Those states seeking to convert food stamp benefits would 
     do so only subsequent to a grant of waiver authority from the 
     federal government. Seven states have waivers pending; others 
     are contemplating applying for waivers. These waivers are 
     being sought as part of a larger strategy to strengthen 
     welfare systems and demonstrate alternative mechanisms for 
     providing benefits. The language in H.R. 4554 would have a 
     chilling effect on these requests.
       President Clinton asserts in Executive Order 12875 that 
     ``these (state and local) governments should have more 
     flexibility to design solutions to problems faced by citizens 
     in this country without excessive micromanagement and 
     unnecessary regulation from the Federal Government''. The 
     report on the National Performance Review concludes that 
     ``(state and local) managers must have flexibility to waive 
     rules that get in the way''. The language within H.R. 4554 
     discards flexibility and undermines the executive branch's 
     discretionary capacity to approve waiver requests.
       Many believe that the welfare and income security systems 
     we have now are inefficient or ineffective. The ``cash out'' 
     demonstrations sought by several states present perhaps a 
     more effective means for giving recipients more control of 
     and responsibility for their benefits. We will not know 
     whether this is an appropriate alternative if the waiver 
     process is stymied.
       We appreciate your consideration of our perspective on the 
     aforementioned language in H.R. 4554 and respectfully 
     encourage you to support an amendment to have it struck from 
     the legislation.
           Sincerely,
                                                 William T. Pound,
                                               Executive Director.
                                  ____

                                                 Executive Office,


                                             State of Arizona,

                                       Phoenix, AZ, July 11, 1994.
     Hon. John McCain,
     U.S. Senate, Russell Office Building, Washington, DC.
       Dear John: Thank you for expressing interest in sponsoring 
     an amendment on the floor of the Senate to remove language 
     from HR 4544, the agriculture appropriations bill, that 
     prohibits any future demonstration projects to ``cash out'' 
     food stamps.
       This issue is critical to Arizona because in the 
     legislative session that ended in April, as part of a 
     significant welfare reform package, the Arizona legislature 
     enacted SB 1456, known as the Arizona Full Employment 
     Demonstration Project. This legislation established a 3-year 
     demonstration project to provide employment to welfare 
     recipients by utilizing the cash equivalent of AFDC and food 
     stamp benefits to reimburse employers who have hired AFDC 
     recipients. A more detailed summary of SB 1456 is attached 
     for your convenience.
       In order to implement SB 1456, Arizona soon will be 
     submitting to the U.S. Department of Health and Human 
     Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture a Section 
     1115 waiver request to permit the cash out of AFDC and food 
     stamp benefits. If Arizona does not have the option of 
     cashing out the food stamp portion of the monthly AFDC and 
     food stamp benefits, the demonstration project in SB 1456 
     will have to be abandoned or additional state general fund 
     costs for the demonstration project will have to be greatly 
     increased.
       A few states have already received waivers to cash out food 
     stamps for welfare demonstration projects and many more 
     states are in the same process as Arizona and applying for 
     waivers. Those food stamp cash out demonstrations that have 
     been approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture have been 
     on a very careful and limited basis, and only with safeguards 
     to assure that the basic character of the food stamp program 
     remains intact. To hamper Arizona's and other states' ability 
     to utilize this option will severely limit state options to 
     design effective welfare reform programs and will send a 
     negative message about the willingness of Congress to support 
     further waivers and demonstrations.
       I know you support states' innovative efforts to improve 
     the welfare system by encouraging employment of welfare 
     recipients. Therefore, your leadership on this issue is 
     critically important.
       Thank you for your support in this matter. Please let me 
     know if you need any more information.
           Sincerely,
                                                   Fife Symington,
                                                         Governor.

  Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I hope that we will not take too long on 
this amendment. I think it is clear that we have a philosophical 
difference on this issue. One is whether the Congress of the United 
States and the Federal Government, although in this case the Secretary 
of Agriculture obviously is opposed to the bill as it is written--
whether the Governors and the State legislatures will be able to embark 
on what 20 States have already experimented with, and that is better 
ways of administering the Food Stamp Program in order to better serve 
the people of their respective States.
  There are those who believe that the Congress knows best. I happen to 
believe that the Governors and the State legislatures know best, since 
they are far closer to the problems than we are here in Washington, DC.
  The National Governors' Association, as we know, is made up of 
members of both parties, both Democrat and Republican. I hope that my 
colleagues will find it of interest that the National Governors' 
Association unanimously is in support of this amendment.
  I am very pleased to see my friend from Nebraska, Senator Kerrey, who 
has also been heavily involved in this issue. And I might say without 
fear of contradiction, Senator Kerrey of Nebraska, having served as the 
Governor of his State, I think is far better qualified than I am to 
know the importance of this amendment. As Governor of the State of 
Nebraska, where he did an obviously outstanding job, as we all know, 
Senator Kerrey had to grapple on a day-to-day basis with the mandates 
that flow from Washington, DC, which he is required to implement. And 
many times, our Governors are not able to address problems they know 
they can fix at their level because of the strictures that are placed 
on them by the Congress of the United States and the Federal 
Government.
  So, Madam President, I would ask for the yeas and nays on this 
amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The yeas and nays have been requested. Is 
there a sufficient second? There appears to be.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. KERREY. Madam President, I thank my distinguished colleague from 
Arizona for proposing this amendment. I am pleased to cosponsor it with 
him. As he has already pointed out, that the Governors' Association has 
unanimously--and I emphasize that--as urgently as they have, indicated 
we are about to make a serious mistake is an unusual situation.
  And for us, at a time when health care reform, welfare reform --there 
appears in this body to be general support for the idea that we should 
have national programs that are increasingly administered at the local 
level where they are more apt to know what works and what does not 
work, for us at this particular point in time to be saying, ``No. We 
have some States out there that will make it work. We want to stop that 
dead in its tracks,'' I think is a serious error. The distinguished 
Senator from Arizona, who has already spoken at the National Governors 
Association in opposition to ending the Cash-Out Program, is in support 
of this amendment.

  I know colleagues are going to hear many things said in opposition to 
this. But I just put that simple piece of evidence before colleagues 
who are thinking about voting against this amendment. They should 
resist the pleas of people who live in Washington who have drafts, 
charts, and all sorts of truth that it will not work. They should 
listen to people who are home, who are making this Cash-Out Program 
work, and who have responded, who are trusted, who are given the 
authority to make it work.
  The second thing I would add at the beginning of my own comments is 
to point out that not only have the Governors unanimously supported 
this but at this late hour we have a very quick response from the 
Public Welfare Association, people who are implementing the program, 
the caseworkers out there who are on a day-to-day basis with 
individuals who are in receipt of food stamps, who are on AFDC, who are 
on SSI, or for some other reason needing to go on welfare. People that 
are administering the welfare program are also in opposition to ending 
the Cash-Out Program.
  This is very unusual situation where the people that are 
administering the program on the front lines of the welfare workers and 
the Governors are saying, ``Don't end this option. Don't end it.'' All 
of a sudden, what we are going to hear from--I have already begun to 
hear it. People who live in Washington, people whose address is 
Washington, DC, people who come to talk to us on a regular basis have 
studies. They have reports. They have opinions. They are not out there 
trying to make it work. They are not out there on a day-to-day basis 
managing the case of somebody who is trying to get off welfare. No. 
They have a theory. They have an ideology. That is what drives them.
  I say with all due respect that this amendment ought to be relatively 
easily acceptable with that kind of backing. The underlying philosophy, 
the underlying effort of the Cash-Out Program strongly supported by my 
Governor and most of the people in the legislative body in the State of 
Nebraska is that we ought to be helping people get off of welfare; that 
the underlying premise here is that welfare recipients would prefer not 
to be on welfare.
  If you are trying to help somebody get off welfare, one of the things 
you need to do is convert them from an attitude of using a coupon to 
buy food to an attitude where they are using cash to buy food. That is 
the difficulty. When they go in the supermarket line, instead of going 
through the indignity of having somebody behind them say, ``Well, look 
at that welfare bum there buying cigarettes,'' they would be using 
cash. They are using cash to buy it.
  Well, that is not good enough for our intellectuals. That is not good 
enough for our people here in Washington. They have done studies that 
say, ``Well, they are not buying enough food when we give them the 
authority. Guess what these people do? They behave differently than 
what we want them to. They are not doing the right thing.''
  There is no demonstration; there is no analysis that has concluded 
that nutrition has declined as a consequence of this. The only concern 
that has been reflected thus far is that some people purchase a little 
less food. Madam President, as all of us know that means maybe they are 
buying a little more education. Maybe they are buying something else 
that is good.
  No. Our folks that live here in Washington decided that these people 
were spending the money wrong. They do not care if they are getting off 
welfare. They care little about the indignity that these individuals 
feel as they are shopping and paying with cash. That is not a concern 
to them, apparently. They are not influenced by the public welfare 
advocates who are on the street out there working with individuals. 
They do not care about what the Governors say. They are concerned with 
the administration of the program and the integrity of the program.
  No wonder American taxpayers are turning off to the idea that we can 
help people. The reason they get turned off to the idea is that when 
the people themselves decide this is the way they want to be helped, it 
offends people who have decided how somebody ought to be helped.
  I must say, Madam President, I am very appreciative of the fact that 
it sounds as if ending these cash-out programs would be a good idea. I 
can hear the argument and acknowledge that the arguments intellectually 
make sense. But I urge my colleagues again to consider that what makes 
sense for us very often does not make sense at all out there on the 
street. We have all experienced that. We have all experienced great 
ideas that we have had, and when we take them out there on the street 
people say, ``Where did you get that idea? Where did you come up with 
that notion that that would work? You need a reality check, Senator.'' 
They will say that to you. ``Where did you come up with a lamebrained 
idea like that?''
  Well, this is a very similar kind of situation where they say it 
makes sense to end this cash assistance program. We have some 
preliminary USDA studies that show that welfare recipients are 
purchasing less food. ``Oh, my gosh. We don't want them to purchase 
less food. They might be buying something else.'' Maybe they value 
something--maybe they are budgeting the money. ``Gosh. We do not want 
them to do that. We want them to be hooked on the voucher. We want them 
to take that piece of paper and stand in a supermarket line and 
exchange the piece of paper for food.''
  I happen to believe that it is in our interest to have human beings 
require the dignity that comes with budgeting their money, exchanging 
cash for merchandise, moving off of welfare. I say with great respect 
to those who believe that ending this Cash-Out Program is good policy 
let us in this case listen to the people who are governing the States 
who have unanimously said that this cash-out existing program should 
continue. Let us listen to the individuals who may have in all the 
Government the toughest jobs of all, other than the people who answer 
the phones in my office, the welfare caseworkers who are out there 
working on the line who are saying to us, ``Let us use this. We can 
make it work out.''
  It is a $20 billion-plus annual program, and from reading the paper 
yesterday, it is estimated that about 8 percent of the money is used 
fraudulently, which is a fair amount of change; $.6 or $.8 billion. It 
is not like the Federal Government has been doing a good job in 
operating this thing in an efficient fashion. Let the individuals out 
there who need the food have the cash make the decisions how they are 
going to do it. Not only in my judgment will be good for the 
individuals, but it will also be good for the taxpayers, and I think it 
will be good for us to learn that we sometimes do not have the best 
ideas. Sometimes the best ideas are hundreds of millions of Americans 
who are making the decisions constantly on a daily basis.
  I appreciate very much the distinguished Senator from Arizona taking 
the lead on this. I am pleased to join with him. I hope my colleagues, 
in spite of the arguments that are made that sound good that seem to 
make good sense, will listen to the Governors and the public welfare 
workers who are saying that that Cash-Out Program is in fact good for 
welfare recipients, and is good for the taxpayers and citizens of this 
country.
  Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I want to say to my friend from Nebraska 
that he makes a very strong and compelling argument and one that I can 
add very little to except perhaps to ask him a question about the issue 
that he referred to briefly about dignity.
  I believe it when I hear the people who are on welfare--and the 
Governors I know feel this way--goes through the line at the grocery 
store and hand in a coupon has a certain loss of dignity. When one goes 
through that experience, people will look at that individual and the 
others will who are scanning what is being purchased. And certainly it 
is not an exercise in self-respect. I believe that alone, that act 
physical act alone, is depriving what we are trying to restore to all 
of our citizens; and, that is, dignity.
  I wonder if the Senator from Nebraska had the same comment. Also, 
would the Senator elaborate as to why caseworkers, the people who are 
involved in this on a day-to-day basis, are advocating this 
flexibility? Because, clearly it makes their job a little bit more 
complicated than it would be just to issue coupons to people.
  Mr. KERREY. I think the answer to the question, I say to my friend 
from Arizona, is all of us have had people come up to us. I dare say 
that there is not a Member of this body who has not had a citizen come 
up and, say, ``You know, you have to do something about this Food Stamp 
Program. I see people in line in the grocery store. I see somebody 
doing this. Then they go out and get into a fancy Cadillac.'' That is 
the condemnation of the act of Lord knows. If that is being said to us, 
it is being said to the people who are using those food stamps, and 
they feel it. They know it. They do not like to stand in line knowing 
that the person behind them is making a negative judgment.
  If somebody who occasionally goes to supermarkets and has a rather 
odd eating habit--I know I am sometimes a little embarrassed to have 
people look at the sort of things that are in my shopping cart, and I 
would not want to add to that knowing that they are saying, well, I am 
some sort of low life because I am exchanging this receipt. I think the 
public welfare people I think I know--understand that.
  They understand, as well, I say to my friend from Arizona, that there 
is another element that is very important; that one of the things one 
has to do, as they are learning to live independent of welfare, is to 
budget their own income, budget whatever income they have. You do not 
budget food stamps. You can sort of allocate them somehow, but you do 
not budget them. Whereas, with cash, you budget that cash. So there is 
not only a question of dignity, I say to my friend from Arizona, but I 
also believe there is a question of acquiring the skills necessary in 
order to move out of welfare dependency.
  Mr. McCAIN. I thank my friend.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Senators Bond and 
Kassebaum be added as cosponsors.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that another 
letter from the National Governors Association and a letter from the 
National Association of Counties be printed in the Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                              National Governors' Association,

                                    Washington, DC, July 14, 1994.
       Dear Senator: We urge your support for the amendment that 
     will be offered by Senator John McCain and Senator Bob Kerrey 
     to H.R. 4554, FY 1995 appropriations for agriculture, 
     nutrition and related programs. This amendment would strike 
     from the bill a provision that would prohibit federal waivers 
     to allow states to convert food stamp benefits to cash 
     payments or to wage subsidies. Currently seven states have 
     waivers pending and a number of other states are preparing 
     waiver requests in this area (see attached list.)
       The Governors believe this provision is antithetical to 
     recent Congressional and administration proposals to increase 
     state flexibility to reform welfare, empower recipients by 
     increasing their personal responsibility and control, and 
     create jobs for recipients through wage subsidies. 
     Furthermore, we strongly object to such a significant shift 
     in federal welfare policy being adopted without Congressional 
     debate or discussion and in the context of a large 
     appropriations bill. This issue should be addressed as part 
     of a comprehensive debate on welfare reform.
       We are also very concerned about the precedent that would 
     be set by Congress acting to preempt state demonstration 
     initiatives that already must undergo a rigorous screening 
     process in the executive branch in order to be approved. 
     Supporting the amendment to strike the provision from this 
     bill would not mean that states would have carte blanche in 
     this area. Rather it would simply mean that the 
     administration would continue to have the discretion to 
     approve waiver requests that it deemed worthwhile and to deny 
     other requests. The existing provision would strip that 
     discretionary authority from the administration.
       Again, we ask for your support for continued state 
     flexibility and executive branch discretion in this area. 
     Please support the McCain-Kerrey amendment to strike the food 
     stamp ``cash out'' provision when the appropriations bill 
     comes to the Senate floor.
           Sincerely,
     Governor Tom Carper,
                                                 Co-Chair, Welfare
                                           Reform Leadership Team,
     Governor John Engler,
                                                 Co-Chair, Welfare
                                           Reform Leadership Team.
                                  ____


   List of States Implementing or Proposing Conversion of Food Stamp 
              Benefits to Wage Subsidies or Cash Benefits

       All of these states would be affected by a ban on food 
     stamp conversion waivers because even those that already have 
     waivers approved would be barred from renewing or expanding 
     the scope of those waivers. Six states are currently 
     operating food stamp conversion programs, which in total 
     affect about one percent of all food stamp recipients 
     nationally. Seven states have waivers pending.
       Alabama (implemented).
       Arizona (proposed).
       California (implemented).
       Colorado (implemented).
       Maryland (waiver pending).
       Michigan (waiver pending).
       Minnesota (implemented).
       Mississippi (waiver pending).
       Missouri (waiver approved, not yet implemented).
       Montana (waiver pending).
       Nebraska (proposed).
       New York (implemented).
       North Dakota (proposed).
       Ohio (waiver pending).
       Oregon (waiver pending).
       Pennsylvania (waiver pending).
       Rhode Island (proposed).
       Utah (implemented).
       Vermont (waiver denied).
       Virginia (waiver denied).
       West Virginia (proposed).
       Wisconsin (waiver approved, not yet implemented).


                             National Association of Counties,

                                                    July 18, 1994.
     Hon. John McCain,
     Senate Russell Office Bldg.,
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator McCain: Counties have been in the forefront of 
     welfare reform efforts, and many of these efforts include 
     food stamp conversion demonstrations as an integral 
     component. The ability to receive food stamp benefits as 
     either a check or as a wage subsidy gives low-income working 
     families more flexibility over their budget, encourages 
     personal responsibility, and provides an incentive to employ 
     welfare recipients.
       Research shows that the demonstration programs have not 
     changed the availability or adequacy of food. In survey of 
     demonstration counties in Alabama, for example, 80% of the 
     families reported that they had enough to eat every month, 
     and the percentage that reported running out of food 
     resources was the same as in those counties that were using 
     food coupons. In another demonstration, families using the 
     cash system were found to be getting a better value for their 
     food expenditures than families using coupons.
       For these reasons, the National Association of Counties 
     (NACo) strongly supports the amendment you plan to offer to 
     the Agriculture Appropriations bill that will strike the 
     prohibition on new waivers to convert food stamps to cash 
     benefits or wage subsidies. I am enclosing a copy of NACo's 
     policy supporting the food stamp cash out.
           Sincerely,
                                                      Larry Naake,
                                               Executive Director.
                                  ____


                 Resolution on Food Stamp Improvements

       Whereas, the Food Stamp Program was established to assist 
     low-income households in purchasing nutritious food; and
       Whereas, the 1990 reauthorization of the program did not 
     contain major program improvements; and
       Whereas, NACo continues to work with other government and 
     interest groups to recommend improvements in the program: 
     Therefore, be it
       Resolved, That NACo supports legislation to simplify Food 
     Stamp Program administration and to remove barriers to 
     participation; and alignment of Food Stamp Regulations with 
     AFDC; standardized benefits; eliminate client-cause 
     underissuance errors and error rates; cash out food stamp; 
     standard shelter allowance; and use of electronic benefit 
     transfers (EBT) including no interruption in approving EBT 
     projects.
       Adopted July 16, 1991.

  Mr. McCAIN. Briefly, I would like to quote from the National 
Governors Association letter. It says:

       The Governors believe this provision is antithetical to 
     recent Congressional and administration proposals to increase 
     State flexibility to reform welfare, empower recipients by 
     increasing their personal responsibility and control, and 
     create jobs for recipients through wage subsidies. 
     Furthermore, we strongly object to such a significant shift 
     in Federal welfare policy being adopted without Congressional 
     debate or discussion and in the context of a large 
     appropriations bill. This issue should be addressed as part 
     of a comprehensive debate on welfare reform.
       We are also very concerned about the precedent that would 
     be set by Congress acting to preempt State demonstration 
     initiatives that already must undergo a rigorous screening 
     process in the executive branch in order to be approved. 
     Supporting the amendment to strike the provision from this 
     bill would not mean that States would have carte blanche in 
     this area. Rather it would simply mean that the 
     administration would continue to have a discretion to approve 
     waiver requests that it deemed worthwhile and to deny other 
     requests. The existing provision would strip that 
     discretionary authority from the administration.

  Madam President, the National Association of Counties has said in 
their letter:

       Counties have been in the forefront of welfare reform 
     efforts, and many of these efforts include food stamp 
     conversion demonstrations as an integral component. The 
     ability to receive food stamp benefits as either a check or 
     as a wage subsidy gives low-income working families more 
     flexibility over their budgets, encourages personal 
     responsibility, and provides an incentive to employ welfare 
     recipients.
       For these reasons, the National Association of Counties 
     strongly supports the amendment you plan to offer to the 
     Agriculture Appropriations bill that will strike the 
     prohibition on new waivers to convert food stamps to cash 
     benefits or wage subsidies.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. Madam President, I rise today as a cosponsor of Senator 
McCain's amendment to strike the provision restricting the ability of 
the administration to grant Federal welfare waivers dealing with food 
stamp cashouts. This type of restriction binds not only the 
administration's hands, but the States hands as well.
  States are the laboratories of the Nation. It is the States where 
innovative ideas are found. States know what their residents need 
better than anyone else. They also know what will work and what won't 
work.
  My State of Oregon is one of the most successful States when it comes 
to welfare reform because it has been given the flexibility to try new, 
innovative ideas. Let me mention just a few things Oregon has been able 
to accomplish because they have been given waivers in the past.
  Oregon is the only Western State to see a reduction in its welfare 
caseload. This is not because of declining need but because the State 
has acted aggressively to provide its residents with the ability to 
train and find a job so that they are no longer dependent on the 
Government. Oregon has a 31-percent participation rate in job training, 
twice the Federal requirement. Not only is Oregon one of the few States 
which has drawn down its full share of Federal matching dollars, it has 
contributed an additional $10 million of its own money. This is the 
kind of thing that we, the Government should be promoting, not 
restricting and limiting.
  Oregon has continued its search to help welfare recipients by 
applying for a waiver that would combine a recipients food stamps and 
AFDC money and use the money to subsidize a private sector job. While 
no recipient will receive less than they would have on welfare, many 
will receive more.
  While Oregon has already received approval for the agriculture 
portion of its waiver, it is still waiting for approval by the 
Department of Health and Human Services.
  So, while this provision will not hurt Oregon, I feel it sets a 
dangerous precedent. States deserve the chance to test what programs 
are effective in their States. Provisions like this bind the States 
ability to attempt programs that foster independence from the welfare 
system.
  Madam President, I am somewhat caught between applauding and 
criticizing the administration. While I applaud the administration for 
saying they support State flexibility and State innovation, I am afraid 
their words haven't translated into action.
  Oregon has been waiting approval for its waiver for over 8 months. I 
have received numerous assurances that the administration is looking at 
the waiver and is finalizing details. A few weeks ago, President 
Clinton wrote me a letter about Oregon's waiver. In the letter he says 
he is pleased to report that Oregon's waiver request is in the final 
stages and the details of Oregon's waiver will be finished in a few 
weeks. Well, that letter was dated July 1, 1994 so I guess he has just 
under a week to deliver.
  States, like Oregon, which strive to make the system work better 
should be applauded and not bound by endless delays and restrictions by 
the Federal Government.
  Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I am aware, because I have been briefed, 
that there is a technical change needed in the amendment. I send a 
modification to the desk and ask unanimous consent that the amendment 
be so modified.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the amendment will be so 
modified.
  The amendment (No. 2305) as modified, is as follows:

       On page 64, lines 2-6, strike the following:

     ``Provided further, That no funds provided herein shall be 
     available to provide food assistance in cash in any county 
     not covered by a demonstration project that received final 
     approval from the Secretary on or before July 1, 1994.''

  Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I have been briefed that now the 
opponents of this amendment will come forward with studies, with 
inside-the-beltway reports, with the certain knowledge that those who 
dwell and work inside the beltway, and very seldom have encounters with 
people who are out there on the day-to-day basis trying to struggle out 
of welfare, and who have enormously benefited in 6 States, and if 
allowed to do so, in 13 more will benefit from it.
  I think the issue is clear here. Whether the States should have the 
flexibility to do what they think is best for their people in their 
States--and in this case the respective counties--or whether we will 
again bow to the universal and omniscient knowledge of those who dwell 
and live here in the policymaking, rarefied environment of our Nation's 
capital. I think the issue is clear, and I suggest that the trend in 
America is certainly to allow Governors, counties, cities, and States, 
the flexibility to do what they think is best with their tax dollars, 
which they send to Washington and are sent back to them. So I urge the 
adoption of the amendment.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Madam President, I support the McCain amendment. It 
seems to me that a review of the language in the bill before the Senate 
shows that the House language that was inserted when the committee in 
the other body had this measure before it would most likely affect only 
those applications for waivers that are now pending before the 
Department of Agriculture. Prior to the July 1, 1944 cutoff date in the 
House provision, there were several States which had passed legislation 
to experiment with welfare reform initiatives. And their applications 
for waivers of the food stamp law, insofar as it would permit a cash-
out of the food stamp benefit to accommodate these welfare reform 
initiatives, had been submitted to the Department of Agriculture. Those 
States included Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Ohio, Oregon 
and Pennsylvania.
  The distinguished Senator from Arizona, in his statement in support 
of his amendment, mentioned several other States that had undertaken 
welfare reform initiatives, and there are many others which have. But 
insofar as the language of this provision in the bill is concerned it 
primarily affects pending waiver requests. It would probably not affect 
the welfare reform initiatives of those States which have not yet 
submitted waiver applications. The language of the bill simply 
prohibits the use of any funds appropriated in this act for the purpose 
of granting any waiver that did not receive final approval by the 
Department of Agriculture on or before July 1, 1994. It would not 
prohibit States from submitting waiver applications or the Department 
of Agriculture from considering these applications. It would simply 
prohibit the Secretary from finalizing waiver requests.
  One other thing that ought to be noted in this connection is that 
whatever provision is approved in conference, or in the final version 
of the bill, would have effect only during the next fiscal year. So 
this prohibition has a life of only 1 year. It is an annual 
appropriations bill, so it is not a permanent change in the law.
  So what the House language would do would be only to suspend the 
power of the Department of Agriculture to provide waivers in response 
to requests for waivers that are now pending at the Department. One 
other observation is that one State whose waiver application was 
pending has now been approved. The State of Oregon's application for a 
waiver of this provision was approved by the Secretary of Agriculture 
on July 1 of this year. So it is no longer pending. And any prohibition 
would not affect the waiver application of the State of Oregon.
  Having said those things, I want to concur with the remarks of the 
Senator from Arizona insofar as they relate to the importance of the 
Congress to go on record as encouraging welfare reform initiatives on 
the part of the States. As a matter of fact, the administration has 
stated that it is one of the goals of the administration to end welfare 
as we know it, and there are proposals for welfare reform initiatives 
that are being discussed and introduced in both Houses of the Congress.
  What this relates to is simply preserving the powers that the States 
now have to petition the Federal Government for waivers of certain 
provisions of Federal law to permit them to have demonstration 
projects, embark upon pilot programs to see how initiatives at the 
State and local level will work, to try to bring a greater degree of 
individual responsibility or help establish self-sufficiency, all of 
which are worthy goals. And a bipartisan leadership here in the 
Congress as well as the administration seems to support those goals.
  One letter that I received is from the American Public Welfare 
Association asking for an amendment of this kind so that States can 
continue to consider and embark upon initiatives that are designed to 
achieve these goals. The letter is dated July 6, and it is signed by 
Sidney Johnson III, executive director of the American Public Welfare 
Association.
  I ask unanimous consent that the text of the letter be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                           American Public Welfare


                                                   Assocation,

                                     Washington, DC, July 6, 1994.
       Dear Senator: I write today to ask your urgent support for 
     a legislative change that is vital to the continued success 
     of state innovations in reforming welfare and moving low-
     income families toward self-sufficiency. The House and Senate 
     Agriculture Appropriations bills contain language in Title 
     IV, ``Food Stamp Program,'' that would prohibit any future 
     demonstration projects to ``cash out'' food stamps. The 
     Senate bill is likely to come up for a floor vote in the 
     immediate future. I urge you to introduce an amendment to 
     remove this language so that states can continue to go 
     forward with innovative welfare reforms.
       State human service agencies have long been leaders in the 
     effort to transform the focus of public assistance. One of 
     their chief means in recent years has been the flexibility 
     allowed them under current law to develop welfare-to-work 
     demonstrations, including those where food stamps are 
     provided in cash so that a portion of that benefit can be 
     utilized as a wage subsidy. States' ability to carry out 
     these important demonstrations has had strong bipartisan 
     support. To hamper this ability will severely limit state 
     options to design effective welfare reform programs and will 
     send a negative message about the willingness of Congress to 
     support further waivers and demonstrations.
       The Department of Agriculture has approved food stamp cash 
     out demonstrations only on a very careful and limited basis, 
     and only with safeguards to assure that the basic character 
     of the Food Stamp Program remains intact.
       If I can assist you in any way please contact me at once at 
     (202) 682-0100.
           Best regards,
                                            A. Sidney Johnson III,
                                             Executive Director.  

  In part the letter says:

       I write today to ask your urgent support for a legislative 
     change that is vital to the continued success of State 
     innovations in reforming welfare and moving low-income 
     families towards self-sufficiency.

  The letter further states that:

       One of their chief means in recent years has been the 
     flexibility allowed the States to develop welfare-to-work 
     demonstrations, including those where food stamps are 
     provided in cash so that a portion of that benefit can be 
     utilized as a wage subsidy.

  That is one of the reasons waivers are requested. As in the case in 
our State, the welfare reform initiative, which is pending now for 
review before the Department of Agriculture and the Department of 
Health and Human Services, utilizes that as one of the key elements.
  So if the Congress legislates away the right to get a waiver if the 
waiver is otherwise appropriate to be granted by the Department, then 
it has severely and adversely affected the ability of our State to 
proceed in the way the State legislature has already determined would 
be appropriate. And the same is true not only in our State of 
Mississippi, but in these other States: Maryland, Michigan, Montana, 
Ohio, and Pennsylvania. So it is these States that are most seriously 
affected unless we do act to approve this amendment.
  In most cases, the States have done a great deal of research, 
bringing in all the interests which are involved, those who are 
advocates of the welfare recipient's rights, to try to make sure that 
those rights are protected. And a great deal of work has gone into, I 
know, the development of the proposal in our State.
  This amendment, if it is enacted, will not require the Department of 
Agriculture to approve any waiver. And that point ought to be made very 
clear. We are not trying to substitute the decision of the Congress or 
the Senate and say to the Department of Agriculture, ``You must approve 
each application for a waiver you receive.'' That is not what this 
amendment does.
  It simply permits, under current law, the Department to exercise its 
discretion within the parameters of the law as it exists now. Right now 
the Department of Agriculture has to review these applications and so 
does the Department of Health and Human Services. This amendment does 
not direct or mandate that they do anything. It simply permits current 
law to continue in force and effect.
  The Food Stamp Act provides that certain conditions have to be met 
before any waiver can be approved. What the House committee did was put 
language in the bill that suspends the power of the Department to make 
that kind of determination. It, in effect, repealed for this next 
fiscal year the power of the Department to make any waivers.
  We have heard about how legislation can be included in appropriations 
bills when you do not have hearings and you do not have debate of the 
issue. This is an unfortunate way to legislate. Well, my view is, here 
is a clear and classic example of legislation without the benefit of 
the usual processes being followed.
  The House has sent that bill over here, and it is contained in the 
bill as it is now pending in the Senate, and that is why we are seeking 
to amend it, and this amendment would amend it. We hope the Senate will 
go along with it.
  To clarify the record in our State of Mississippi and its common 
causes with a waiver possibility, I ask unanimous consent, Madam 
President, to have printed in the Record letters addressed to the 
Mississippi Department of Human Services and to the Governor of 
Mississippi by both the Department of Agriculture and the Department of 
Health and Human Services.
  There being no objection, the letters were ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                        Department of Agriculture,


                                      Office of the Secretary,

                                    Washington, DC, March 1, 1994.
     Mr. Gregg A. Phillips,
     Executive Director, Mississippi Department of Human Services, 
         Jackson, MI.
       Dear Mr. Phillips: We have received your application for 
     waivers under Section 17(b) of the Food Stamp Act of 1977, as 
     amended, for the Work First Demonstration Project. We support 
     your goal of promoting the self-sufficiency of Mississippi's 
     welfare and food stamp recipients, and are very interested in 
     providing whatever support we can to the Work First 
     Demonstration Project, while ensuring the provision of food 
     assistance to the needy.
       As proposed, funds normally used to issue Aid to Families 
     with Dependent Children (AFDC) benefits and food stamps will 
     instead reimburse employers for wages paid to Work First 
     participants employed in on-the-job training positions in the 
     six demonstration counties.
       The Department of Agriculture approves, in concept, your 
     proposal to use food stamp benefits for wage supplementation, 
     under the conditions set forth below.
       The proposal must be consistent with our goals of advancing 
     self-sufficiency, achieving nationwide Electronic Benefits 
     Transfer (EBT, and promoting nutritional education. To these 
     ends the State would be expected to take immediate action to 
     ensure that EBT is implemented concurrently with the proposed 
     demonstration for those food stamp recipients not enrolled in 
     wage-supplemented jobs. In addition, since studies have shown 
     a reduction in food expenditures under cash out, a nutrition 
     education component would be required to help ensure that 
     nutritional status would not be eroded by the conversion of 
     benefits into cash.
       As always, a rigorous evaluation of the demonstration would 
     be required to test the effects of the approved waivers on 
     the demonstration participants.
       The Food Stamp Act, Section 17(b), requires that the food 
     stamp allotment, if issued in cash, must be increased to 
     compensate for any State or local sales tax on food, and that 
     the State agency pay for the increase. The State must provide 
     written assurances that it will compensate Work First wage 
     supplementation participation for the 7 percent 
     Mississippi sales tax on food purchases, as well as 
     provide an analysis of how it intends to go about paying 
     that compensation.
       We believe the State intends that the cash benefit, which 
     will be channeled through the employer to the Work First 
     participant as wages, will count toward eligibility for the 
     Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). The Food Stamp Act provides 
     that ``the value of benefits . . . whether through coupons, 
     access devices, or otherwise shall not be considered income 
     or resources for any purpose under any Federal, State, or 
     local laws, including, but not limited to, laws relating to 
     taxation . . .'' We are currently exploring the taxation 
     issue and whether or not the EITC is applicable to Federal 
     benefits issued in the form of cash or wages. We will inform 
     you as soon as these issues are resolved.
       The State is proposing to guarantee eligibility and benefit 
     levels for Work First participants, for as long as they 
     participate in the demonstration, to minimize contact between 
     the participant and the welfare office in order to emphasize 
     the employeer/employee relationship, and to assure that the 
     training period will not be interrupted. while we certainly 
     support strengthening the self-sufficiency and work awareness 
     of Work First households, we cannot endorse a situation in 
     which a household's income is allowed to grossly exceed 
     eligibility limits. We intend to negotiate further in order 
     to provide flexibility for continued eligibility, within 
     agreed upon income limits.
       We are willing to waive claims collections against 
     households participating in the demonstration, except for 
     fraud claims.
       The proposal to immediately suspend the household benefits 
     of participants who do not accept offered jobs is contrary to 
     the Food Stamp Act. We do not have the authority to 
     materially impair any statutory or regulatory rights of food 
     stamp recipients or to lower or further restrict their 
     benefit levels without due process. The State should explore 
     alternative actions.
       The State intends to issue food stamp benefits to cash form 
     to Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients in the six 
     demonstration counties. We do not believe that cash out for 
     SSI recipients has any direct relationship to the State's 
     welfare reform self-sufficiency plan and will not approve 
     this aspect of the State's proposal.
       This is not an official approval letter. We are currently 
     reviewing the waiver requests contained in your proposal and 
     expect to act on them as quickly as possible. Future 
     correspondence will be forwarded as part of the Department of 
     Health and Human Services' established welfare reform review 
     process. If you have any questions or comments, please call 
     Ellen Henigan, of the Food Stamp Program, at (703) 305-2519.
           Sincerely,

                                                   Ellen Haas,

                                           Assistant Secretary for
                                       Food and Consumer Services.
                                  ____

                                       The Secretary of Health and


                                               Human Services,

                                    Washington, DC, July 14, 1994.
     Hon. Kirk Fordice,
     Governor of Mississippi, Jackson, MS
       Dear Governor Fordice: Since the beginning of his 
     Administration, President Clinton has been committed to a 
     close partnership with the nation's Governors and to allowing 
     states the flexibility to develop and test innovative change 
     to their health and welfare programs. The Department of 
     Health and Human Services has worked very hard to foster this 
     intergovernmental relationship and has worked closely with 
     the National Governors' Association in developing a more 
     efficient and timely process for evaluating state proposals 
     for health care and welfare reform experiments. Many states, 
     including yours, have submitted waiver requests that are 
     being evaluated under our new waiver review procedures.
       As we have implemented our streamlined review procedures, 
     the number of state demonstration requests have increased 
     significantly. We are committed, however, to continue 
     responding to these requests as quickly as possible, while 
     maintaining the integrity and thoroughness of the review 
     process.
       I would like to take this opportunity to update you on the 
     status of your state's waiver request for the New Direction 
     Demonstration Program. The Administration for Children and 
     Families has been working with the Mississippi Department of 
     Human Resources (DHR) to resolve issues and concerns based on 
     a federal review of the waiver application. A significant 
     issue has arisen in Congress regarding the federal funding of 
     Food Stamp cash-outs in state demonstrations. Until Congress 
     resolves this question, we will continue to work with you to 
     address other non-Food Stamp cash-out issues.
       If you have any questions about our process or about the 
     status of your waiver proposal, please do not hesitate to 
     contact me or have your staff call John Monahan, Director of 
     Intergovernmental Affairs, at (202) 690-6060 or Ann 
     Rosewater, ACF, at (202) 401-5180.
           Sincerely,
                                                 Donna E. Shalala.

  Mr. BUMPERS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Boxer). The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I am really saddened that this 
amendment has been offered. I could not disagree with it more strongly.
  The House had a provision in their bill that said any State that has 
not been approved for this program by July 1, 1994, will not be 
eligible for it. Now, the House did not do that whimsically. They did 
it because they studied the issue very carefully and said, ``This 
program is not working. Let's don't go any further with it.''
  It is true, as the proponents of the amendment have said, the 
Department of Agriculture has discretion. Any State that wants to can 
submit an application for the so-called cash-out program.
  Now, let me tell you what it is. I have heard three speeches so far 
this morning, but I have not heard anybody describe what it is. Here is 
what it is.
  It says that instead of the Federal Government sending the States 
money which they will use to provide eligible people with food stamps, 
we will send the money to the States, and the States, instead of 
sending food stamps, will send the cash to those eligible people.
  You will hear people say, ``Well, this is a great idea, because it 
removes the stigma of food stamps.''
  Let me tell you what study after study after study has shown. It 
shows that when you give people money instead of food stamps, their 
purchases of food drop 20 percent. One of the reasons it drops is 
because they spend the money on other things.
  Now, Madam President, we should make one thing crystal clear. What is 
the purpose of food stamps? Why did we adopt a food stamp program 25 
years ago? Because the U.S. Congress, overwhelmingly supported by the 
American people, said, ``We do not want to see hungry children. We do 
not want to see anybody hungry, but we especially do not want children 
to go hungry.''
  So, after all of these years of sending food stamps to people so that 
they could redeem them at the grocery store for nutritious food for 
their children, we are going to send them money.
  I am not suggesting just because somebody is on food stamps they are 
going to buy dope, but if they want to, they can.
  In one demonstration, I believe it was Alabama or Florida--or both--
it showed conclusively that sales in grocery stores that did an 
inordinate amount of business in food stamps declined precipitously 
because people were spending for other things the money that we 
intended for food for their children.
  The Senator from Nebraska said, ``Give them a choice. If they want to 
spend it on education, let them.'' This is not an education program, it 
is a nutrition program. God knows we spend billions on student loans; 
elementary/secondary education; chapter 11 for poor children. We have 
education programs galore for poor people. This is a food program. It 
is not for education. It is not for rent. It is not for car payments. 
It is not to pay utility bills. It is to make sure people eat.
  Do you know what else the studies show? Not only do they show that 
these people are using money, cash, for things other than nutritious 
food, they also show that after 2 weeks the long line at the TEFAP 
center, which provides emergency food, begins to appear. They run out 
of food in 2 weeks and then they go to where they are giving out free 
commodities and say, ``My children are hungry.''
  In two or three of the States where this cash-out program has gone 
into effect, the demand for free commodities doubled, according to 
TEFAP officials. The Senator from Arizona ridiculed the studies. But if 
you do not use GAO, the Congressional Budget Office, or other people 
who know a lot more about the subject than we do, we are just flying by 
the seat of our pants.
  The studies also show that food stamp recipients buy twice as much 
nutritious food with a dollar as the low-income households who are not 
eligible for food stamps buy with that same dollar. The program is 
doing what it is intended to do--provide nutritious food to the needy.
  Talk about welfare reform--with this program, you are going 
backwards. There is no welfare reform in sending people money. If you 
want to talk about what taxpayers like and what they do not like; they 
do not mind seeing poor people get food stamps, knowing they can feed 
their children. What they object to is sending them a check. They do 
not like that.
  Some people say, ``Well, it removes the stigma of food stamps.'' I 
recognize that may be a small problem. I do not denigrate it. We have a 
reform program in the works on food stamps. Do you know what it is? Put 
a credit card reader in every grocery store and send that food stamp 
beneficiary a credit card every month. If a recipient is eligible for 
$200, he can use the card up to $200. This system takes a lot of 
the administrative burden off the States. It shows the balance in an 
account every time the card is used. I do not even get that on my Visa 
card. I just hope I do not run over. I have done that once and it is 
pretty embarrassing, is it not, for the waitress or waiter to come back 
and say, ``You've exceeded your balance.''

  But let me tell you some other things that people do not think about 
on this. In my State, where the sales tax is almost 5 percent, food is 
not excluded. If you buy food with food stamps, you pay no sales tax. 
If you buy food with cash, you pay 5 percent in sales taxes. So 
recipients lose in States where they charge sales tax on food. Of 
course Governors love it. If you send $100 million into a State and if 
it all goes for food, the increase in sales tax revenues is like a bird 
nest on the ground.
  I used to be a Governor, Madam President. We would go to those 
Governors conferences, and we would draft those long resolutions 
telling Congress how to run its business. We would all get up and we 
would rail against Congress and we would rail against Washington, and 
we would talk about ``inside the beltway.'' Some of it was legitimate. 
Some of it was pure politics.
  The Senator from Nebraska said the program is mismanaged. If it is, 
it is the States who are doing the mismanagement. All we do is send 
them the money. They are the ones who manage the program. If there is 
fraud in it, look to the States.
  In San Diego, which has this cash-out program, two out of every five 
people who cashed a check had to pay to get their checks cashed. So 
they pay to get their checks cashed, they pay sales tax, and then we 
hope they are not buying crack with the rest of it.
  Madam President, let me just list some objections to the program: 
sales tax on food purchases; check-cashing fees; nutrition going down 
as much as 20 percent in families where they get money instead of food 
stamps; the TEFAP Program being overrun with people by the first of the 
month because people have spent their money and they do not have any 
food in the house.
  You tell me: Why are we doing this? I will tell you why: because of a 
resolution the Nation's Governors passed. Ask some of the proponents, 
and they will say, ``Well, my Governor called me.'' I have a great 
Governor and I listen to him. But if he would call me about this, I 
would disagree with him.
  There are about eight States who have applications pending to 
implement the cash-out program. Our bill says you cannot grant those 
applications because the studies show conclusively, as I have just 
pointed out, it is not a good idea.
  I think the idea of using a credit card for food purchases is a good 
idea. But I am not wedded to that. I am not going to swear even that is 
a great idea because there may be some hidden problems in it that I 
cannot think of right now. But I can tell you this cash out is a bad 
idea. It is regressive. And you are going to lose support in this 
Nation for the whole food stamp program by canceling out food stamps 
and giving people money to spend for whatever they want.
  You cannot think of a single condition that poor people regularly 
experience that Congress does not try to address. We have Medicaid 
health care for the poorest of the poor. We have low-rent housing for 
people who cannot afford rent. We have low-cost housing for people who 
cannot afford a big down payment to buy a house. We have AFDC payments 
for poor women who have children. We have the WIC Program for poor 
pregnant women to make sure they get a nutritious diet when they are 
pregnant, the greatest cost/benefit of any program we have. If you give 
a pregnant woman a decent diet, she is much more likely to have a baby 
with a lot more brain cells than the pregnant mother who does not get a 
decent diet. And she is more likely to have a healthy baby instead of a 
defective baby who could cost us $5 million over the life of that 
child.
  All I am saying is, that when people say, give these people an 
option, let them spend the money for whatever they want, my response 
is what is more important than a healthy child who goes to school well-
nourished and ready to learn?

  If you really care about children getting a nutritious diet and 
growing up, maybe deprived culturally and socially but at least not 
nutritionally, oppose the amendment of the Senator from Arizona and the 
Senator from Nebraska. I promise, we are going to regret it if we adopt 
this amendment. We may do it, but I am not going to vote for it. I 
think it is a disaster in the making.
  I yield the floor.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Will the Senator yield for just a moment?
  Mr. BOND. I will be happy to yield to the chairman.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote 
on this amendment occur immediately following the vote at 2:30 on the 
first committee amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  Mr. LEAHY. Will the Senator from Missouri yield for one other 
question?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Will the Senator yield to the Senator from 
Vermont?
  Mr. BOND. I yield for a question.
  Mr. LEAHY. If I can ask a question of the floor manager--it will be a 
very brief one--if I can have the attention of the floor manager, Madam 
President, would it be possible--the Senator from Indiana, the ranking 
member of the Agriculture Committee is also here--would there be a time 
possible to offer an amendment which we have that will be done under a 
very short time agreement, but there is a point at which we can do that 
before lunch?
  Mr. BUMPERS. Is the Senator talking about a second-degree amendment 
or a separate amendment?
  Mr. LEAHY. A separate amendment.
  Mr. BUMPERS. I cannot vouch for that. I do not want to cut off 
debate. I know the Senator from Texas wishes to speak on an unrelated 
subject. I assume the Senator from Indiana and the Senator from 
Missouri wish to speak on this amendment. Does the Senator wish to 
speak on this amendment?
  Mr. LUGAR. On the Leahy amendment.
  Mr. BUMPERS. On the amendment he is referring to.
  Mr. LUGAR. Right.
  Mr. LEAHY. If we can have an agreement to go before noontime, we can 
complete it for before the conference.
  Mr. COCHRAN. If the Senator will yield, I am told on our side there 
is a possible second-degree amendment to the Leahy amendment. There is 
opposition to it. I would not be in a position to recommend that we 
accept the amendment. So that may keep it from being processed as 
quickly as the chairman might like.
  Mr. GRAMM. Will the Senator from Missouri yield?
  Mr. BOND. I will be happy to yield to straighten out this procedural 
problem.
  Mr. GRAMM. I was on the floor earlier. It is my desire to speak. I 
will be willing to step aside if this amendment could be presented and 
debated briefly for, say, 10 minutes so I might get the last 10 minutes 
of the session just to make a statement on an unrelated issue. That way 
this amendment could be raised; you could have the initial debate and 
then, after lunch, if someone wanted to come and offer a second-degree 
amendment, they could do it. If not, at that point, then it would be 
open for further debate. I will be glad to try to do that to help my 
colleagues.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri has the floor.
  Mr. BUMPERS. I am not at liberty to cut off debate. If the Senator 
will yield.
  Mr. BOND. I yield to the chairman.
  Mr. BUMPERS. I am not at liberty to stop debate on the Kerrey-McCain 
or McCain-Kerrey amendment. I will be happy to ask the distinguished 
ranking member of the subcommittee if he knows of any other speakers on 
that amendment. I am willing to move this show along. How long does the 
Senator from Missouri intend to take?
  Mr. BOND. Madam President, I have less than 10 minutes to discuss the 
current amendment before us. Might I suggest to my colleagues that 
perhaps during my brief remarks, discussions can be held as to the 
appropriate means of handling the proposed amendments and the time 
agreement; then we would not have to take up the time of this Chamber 
as we discuss the procedural activities?
  If I see no objection from the distinguished floor managers, I will 
proceed to address the amendment which is before us and one other for 
less than 10 minutes with the assurance that I should be finished by 
11:45. And at that point, there should be time to straighten out any 
arrangements that are needed without taking up floor time.

  Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I think the Senator from Missouri is 
probably on the right track. Let him commence and we will just see 
where we wind up on this. I do ask unanimous consent that no second-
degree amendments be in order on the McCain amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. COCHRAN. Reserving the right to object, Madam President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair advises the McCain amendment is a 
motion to strike.
  Mr. BUMPERS. That no amendments be in order to the language proposed 
to be stricken by Senator McCain. It is a committee amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered. The Senator from Missouri at last has the floor.
  Mr. BOND. Madam President, I rise to speak, with great respect for my 
distinguished chairman of the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee. 
I join him in high commendation for the Women, Infants, and Children 
Feeding Program. His subcommittee has done an excellent job in 
providing assistance for that program.
  I also share his enthusiasm for the experiments with food stamps to 
enable more efficient administrative handling. But as he himself said, 
we are not sure that that program is going to work properly. As a 
former Governor, as is my distinguished colleague from Arkansas, I 
believe that those experiments can best go on in the States. I, too, 
joined with the distinguished senior Senator from Arkansas when we were 
members of the National Governors' Association. We attacked the 
Congress and the Federal Government generally for being unwilling to 
allow State experimentation.
  I made those speeches when I was a colleague of the distinguished 
senior Senator from Arkansas in the National Governors' Association; I 
was a colleague of the junior Senator from Arkansas when he was 
Governor, and I was a colleague of the President when he was a member 
of the National Governors' Association. Time after time after time, we 
emphasized that the people who carried out these programs, who had the 
responsibility for administering them at the State level, were often 
the ones who had the best ideas on how to improve the programs.
  I have a quotation from a letter of the National Conference of State 
Legislatures from the former Governor of Arkansas, who is now our 
President, and the letter quotes him as saying that:

       State and local governments should have more flexibility to 
     design solutions to problems faced by citizens in this 
     country without excessive micromanagement and unnecessary 
     regulation from the Federal Government.

  That is why I join in strong support of the McCain-Kerrey amendment, 
because we have found that by obtaining waivers from the Federal 
Government when it is the considered judgment of the elected officials 
of the State that there are better ways to carry out the broad social 
policies encompassed in Federal legislation passed by Congress, we 
ought to try. The States may be right, the States may be wrong; but the 
best way to find out is to experiment.
  I am also advised that waivers for food stamps now affect 
approximately 1 percent of the food stamps in the United States. One 
county in Missouri has been granted a waiver to use a cash out of the 
food stamps in part as a means of getting welfare recipients off the 
rolls of welfare and into work.
  One of the great disincentives that now exists for moving off welfare 
is the significant loss of benefits that occurs when someone takes a 
job.
  Madam President, the objective of these programs--and there are many 
objectives--all come down to one thing: We want to make those families 
self-sufficient. We want to provide them the means and the 
encouragement and the incentives to get a job in the private sector so 
they can be working, productive providers for their families.
  I happen to believe that one of the best ways to achieve those goals 
is to provide the States the flexibility. That is why the National 
Governors' Association has recently written saying that the McCain-
Kerrey amendment is absolutely necessary to increase State flexibility 
to reform welfare, to empower recipients by increasing their personal 
responsibility and control, and to create jobs for recipients through 
wage subsidies. That is the whole purpose of this amendment.
  The food stamp program is not an end in itself. It is a means to an 
end, and that end is to encourage more families to get jobs, become 
economically productive, and to become good providers for their 
families.
  I have recently introduced, with the distinguished Senator from Iowa 
[Mr. Harkin], a welfare reform proposal built on successful State 
experiments in Utah, Iowa, and Missouri. Our welfare to self-
sufficiency program requires that welfare recipients, AFDC recipients 
sign agreements committing themselves to give good health care to their 
children--to take them for immunizations, to get them to the services 
they need, to provide training for the adults, and not only to take job 
searches but to take jobs.
  One of the ways we would do this is by allowing the States, as a 
condition of the fulfillment of the agreement to take a job, to be able 
to cash out the food stamps for a limited period of time so that the 
person who takes a job in the private sector would not be faced with a 
shock in the cut off of existing benefits so their economic well-being 
would be lessened by taking a job.
  Unfortunately, the language of the House denying the right of the 
Secretary of Agriculture, after due consideration of a State's request 
to grant a cash out of welfare, to grant a waiver, would be to limit 
the experimentation that is so necessary. Justice Douglas spoke of the 
States as being the laboratories for social experimentation, and I can 
tell you, Madam President, as I have had experience in State government 
and Washington, I will take my chances on the States making those 
experiments. Some may fail, yes, but some may show us the way to 
achieve the goals of family self-sufficiency and do a better job than 
our trying to mandate one size fits all.
  Under the Food Stamp Program, the waivers are extremely important. As 
Governor of Missouri, I obtained a waiver for health care for Medicaid 
recipients in Jackson County. We went to a capitation program that 
turned out to be very successful, ensuring that people got primary and 
preventive care, got the better care in the less expensive settings in 
clinics and doctors' offices. This is just one example.
  Now, my State, with a Democratic Governor, is pursuing reforms in 
welfare which include using the cash out of food stamps to make sure 
that welfare recipients are no worse off. I do not believe it is wise 
at this point, as we are on the brink of some meaningful reforms of the 
welfare system, which everyone--Republican, Democrat, liberal, 
conservative, radical, and moderate--agrees I believe needs to be 
addressed, to put an end to the ability of the Secretary of Agriculture 
to grant the waivers as this provision in the bill would do.
  I would thus argue very strongly that my colleagues should support 
the McCain-Kerrey amendment.
  I will not be able to address this body prior to the vote on the 
Market Promotion Program. I wish to add my very strong support. The 
distinguished senior Senator from Mississippi, the ranking Republican 
on this measure, has already talked about MPP. This is a GATT-legal 
program which has assisted us in increasing our exports of agriculture 
products. In 1987, U.S. red meat exports were $1.4 billion. Thanks to 
the MPP, the export values in 1993 reached an all-time high of $3.3 
billion. In 1992, the equivalent of 1.9 million cattle were slaughtered 
and 5.8 percent of domestic beef production was shipped overseas.
  I hope also my colleagues would support the Market Promotion Program.
  It is with great respect for the chairman of the subcommittee that I 
disagree with him on the waivers. But having served as Governor, having 
known about the importance of developing programs through the people 
who are responsible on hand, on-site dealing one on one with the 
recipients, I believe we would be ill-advised to cut off the 
experimentation by putting on a blanket prohibition so that we could 
not expand from 1 to 2 percent of the food stamps now cashed out to 
experiment with the cash out under the waivers granted by the Secretary 
of Agriculture.
  I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.
  Mr. BUMPERS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Just a two-sentence statement.
  Several Senators have alluded to the fact that exports went up by 
several billion dollars between two periods, 1988 to 1992 or 1986 to 
1992. But the GAO report on the Market Promotion Program says there is 
absolutely no proof of any correlation between the Market Promotion 
Program and the increase in those exports.
  Now, Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote on or in 
relation to the McCain amendment occur immediately after the vote at 
2:30 on the Bryan amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? The Chair hears none, and 
it so ordered.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
Senator from Vermont [Mr. Leahy], and the Senator from Indiana [Mr. 
Lugar], have 20 minutes in which to present their amendment, after 
which the Senator from Texas [Mr. Gramm], be recognized for 10 minutes 
to speak on an unrelated subject, after which the Leahy amendment will 
become the pending business until the hour of 2:15, at which time we go 
back on the Bryan amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? The Chair hears none, and 
it is so ordered.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I was incorrectly informed. It is not 
the Bryan amendment. It is the vote on the first committee amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. LEAHY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I am very concerned about the amendment 
to strike language in this bill prohibiting further cash outs of food 
stamps. I support Senator Bumpers on this issue--the Food Stamp Program 
should provide food to needy families--not cash.
  Providing cash instead of coupons will increase the number of hungry 
children in America. Over 80 percent of food stamp benefits go to 
families with children. Providing cash undermines the character of food 
stamps as a nutrition program.
  If taxpayers are going to spend money on the Food Stamp Program, they 
do not want to see families with hungry children lining up at TEFAP 
sites and soup kitchens--they expect the program to buy food.
  Pilot projects have already tested the merits of food stamp cash out 
and they have shown that the result is hunger. In Alabama, spending on 
food dropped almost 20 percent when recipients received cash instead of 
food stamps. In Washington State, households receiving cash instead of 
coupons used less food, and as a result had access to less protein and 
other key nutrients than did food stamps households.
  Researchers found reductions in purchases of meat and meat 
alternatives, milk and other dairy products, vegetables and fruits, and 
grain products. Cash out does not just hurt needy families, it also 
hurts America's farmers and grocers.
  In three of the four pilots conducted by USDA, households receiving 
cash instead of food stamps showed up more often at emergency feeding 
sites requesting government commodities. In one pilot, the proportion 
of households seeking emergency food through TEFAP was more than twice 
as high among households receiving cash than those receiving food 
stamps.
  It is not the families who are at fault--the Food Stamp Program 
targets the neediest Americans. These families need money for shoes or 
clothing for their children, for rent or medical expenses, and for the 
hundreds of necessities of life.
  However, the Food Stamp Program is designed to reduce hunger--its 
benefits are meant to be spent on food.
  I am worried that food stamp cash out will leave poor families even 
poorer. I am worried that landlords will just raise rents, knowing that 
their tenants have additional cash. I want to stop further cash outs of 
the Food Stamp Program unless these projects are part of a 
comprehensive welfare reform effort handled in other legislation.
  Many States are considering cashing out food stamps as part of a 
larger plan to move recipients off of welfare and into jobs. Very 
limited cash outs to permit a transition to employment, if designed 
properly, could be an effective part of welfare reform. But we should 
leave that to the larger discussion of welfare reform.
  Congress needs to carefully look at this issue and determine if and 
when cash out should be allowed. In the meantime, I do not believe that 
any additional food stamp cash out waivers should be approved.
  The more cash-out projects are approved, the more the Food Stamp 
Program looses its link to nutrition. That undermines the basic purpose 
of the program. The best way to ensure that food stamps are used by 
families to purchase food is to provide benefits as coupons, not cash. 
We should continue to do so.
  I am also concerned that an amendment might be offered requiring food 
stamp recipients to participate in workfare programs. Such a policy 
would be misguided and wasteful.
  States, and even counties, currently have the option to require food 
stamp recipients to work. They have had that option since the 1970's 
and in 1985 Federal reimbursements were increased as an added 
incentive. Yet only seven States choose to require food stamp 
recipients to work.
  Twenty percent of food stamp households already work. And half of all 
food stamp recipients stay on for less than 6 months. Most able-bodied, 
nonworking food stamp recipients currently participate in job search 
activities through the Food Stamp Employment and Training Program.
  States know that it is more effective for recipients to participate 
in job search activities than to simply work off their benefits. In 
fact, given how rapidly food stamp recipients find jobs on their own, 
requiring them to waste time in Workfare might actually keep them from 
finding real jobs and getting off food stamps. Workfare in the Food 
Stamp Program is now a State option. Most States opt out. We should not 
turn this option into one more Federal mandate imposed on States.


                           amendment no. 2306

  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, now I would send an amendment to the desk 
on behalf of myself and Senator Lugar to H.R. 4554, and I ask unanimous 
consent that the pending amendment be set aside.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Clerk will report.
  The assistant legislation clerk read as follows:
       The Senator from Vermont [Mr. Leahy], for himself and Mr. 
     Lugar, proposes an amendment numbered 2306:

  The amendment is as follows:

       At the end of the section of the bill entitled 
     ``Agricultural Research Service'' add the following 
     ``Provided further, the Secretary may exercise his authority 
     to close the research locations specified for closure in the 
     President's 1995 budget.''


                amendment no. 2307 to Amendment No. 2306

  Mr. LUGAR addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. LUGAR. Madam President, I send to the desk a second-degree 
amendment and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the second-degree 
amendment.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Indiana [Mr. Lugar] proposes an amendment 
     numbered 2307 to amendment numbered 2306:

  The amendment is as follows:

       At the end of amendment add the following: ``for the 
     Department of Agriculture.''

  Mr. LEAHY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, for several years the Senator from 
Indiana and I have been working on the fact that the Department of 
Agriculture needs to be both restructured and downsized. This has 
spanned two administrations, Republican and Democrat. The Senator from 
Indiana is recognized throughout the country as the leader in this 
regard.
  Anybody who carries the roles that we have as the Democrat and 
Republican leader of the Agriculture Committee knows in just 
researching what we have to look at each year with the budget, this 
Department has grown way beyond what it should be, and the taxpayers 
are paying the price. This is not an era when 50 or 60 percent of the 
American people are in agriculture. It is 3 or 4 percent now. But the 
Department we had back when we were at 50 or 60 percent of America 
related to agriculture is a tiny fraction of the Department we have 
today with less than 5 percent related to it. And in fact, the Senate 
agrees with us on this. We had a major USDA reorganization bill before 
the Senate. It was in April. In fact, it was April 13. And it passed 
the rollcall vote 98 to 1. Some have said we are prepared to do deficit 
reduction in the abstract, and taxpayer increase spending in the 
specific. That sometimes is what is happening here. We have a bill that 
we are going to cut, again in the abstract, but second, because of the 
specific we want to stop the cuts.
  The bill before us would keep open 10 of the 19 facilities the 
President said we could not afford. We are immediately moving to stop 
what we voted for in reorganization. The second is we say yes, but now 
we have all agreed in the abstract that we want to cut spending. The 
second we say in the specific we will cut it, we suddenly find, 
``whoops,'' cannot do that. You cannot have it both ways.
  To keep these facilities open will cost the American taxpayer 
approximately $17.5 million per year. If we cannot just cut 10 totally 
outdated research facilities, how are we ever going to cut into the 
$300 billion-plus deficit? How are we going to make the $3 billion in 
cuts which are necessary in the Department of Agriculture?
  In fact, let me just give you one graphic example. Just one of the 
research facilities we are talking about cutting. One of the facilities 
the President proposes to close has five scientists. It has 89 separate 
buildings. Each scientist gets 18 buildings. It does not make any 
sense. It is one of the reasons it is on the hit list.
  We are spending far more money to repair some of these worn out 
buildings than we are on research. If we are going to spend money, let 
us spend it on science and research. But what we are trying to do with 
this is get rid of the money we spend just on repairing and keeping 
open old buildings where we spend far more to do that than we do to do 
research. Many of these facilities are underutilized, are falling 
apart, and are not equipped to carry out what we should do. If we spend 
a dollar on research, we are spending 50 cents just to keep the 
buildings from falling apart.
  That does not make much sense at all. In fact, if anybody thinks it 
is a radical proposal, in 1988 we had the Users Advisory Board 
recommendation. This was set up by USDA representatives, not only 
researchers but people who use that research. And they recommend they 
close 20 of these facilities in fiscal year 1989, and 20 more in fiscal 
year 1990. What we are talking about is just closing half of those.
  So I would hope that people are realizing we are trying to save 
money. The Senator from Indiana and I are not capriciously trying to 
see places close but we are trying to save billions of dollars in the 
USDA budget. Unless we are able to take these modest steps, Lord knows 
how we will ever take it seriously.
  Mr. LUGAR addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. LUGAR. Madam President, it is a privilege to join with the 
distinguished chairman of the Agriculture Committee, Senator Leahy, in 
offering this amendment to make clear the right of the Secretary of 
Agriculture to close Federal agricultural research facilities that he 
has identified as low priority. The amendment is sound budgetary and 
scientific policy.
  There has long been a recognition, as Senator Leahy has pointed out, 
that we need to consolidate Federal agricultural research at fewer 
locations in order to prevent duplication of research and to make more 
effective use of the Agricultural Research Service's physical and human 
resources.
  The Agriculture Committee heard testimony in support of such 
consolidation during the consideration of the 1990 farm bill. Under 
Secretary Madigan's direction, the Department of Agriculture in 1992 
undertook an evaluation of ARS research facilities, considering such 
factors as the impact of research and the physical conditions of the 
facilities. Building on this initiative, Secretary Espy has now 
conducted an extensive analysis of ARS facilities which yielded a 
recommendation of closing 19 of those which he determined to be the 
lowest priority. According to the Department, the closures would avoid 
nearly $20 million in major modernization costs at those locations.
  (Mr. BREAUX assumed the Chair.)
  Yet, the Senate Appropriations Committee report on the bill before us 
recommends the continued funding of 10 of those 19 facilities, a step 
that flies in the face of the proposal to reorganize and streamline the 
Department of Agriculture, which this body passed overwhelmingly by a 
vote of 98 to 1 just 3 months ago.
  As one example, the committee report recommends continued funding for 
a facility which has been estimated would cost five times more to 
renovate than it receives in annual research funding from ARS.
  Another example of a facility that would be continued is one that 
funds research in support of the blueberry and cranberry industries. 
And according to USDA, the original objectives of this research--
breeding blueberries and reducing disease problems in blueberries and 
cranberries--have largely been met. Clearly, we have to do a better job 
of concentrating our research dollars on efforts of high priority, 
broader scope, and not duplicated by other ARS facilities. A vote for 
our amendment will help ensure that our limited research dollars are 
spent as responsibly and productively as possible.
  Let me just point out for Members who have followed this debate that 
there are 120 ARS research facilities altogether. The Secretary of 
Agriculture has chosen to close 19, among the lowest priority of the 
120. We are talking about substantial money. Closing the 10 facilities 
recommended for continuation in this bill could save $7.5 million in 
direct costs. In addition, closing the facilities would result in the 
cost avoidance for routine operating costs, with a total of 
approximately $50 million being saved over a 5-year period of time.
  I suppose even more importantly, this is the first time that the body 
has had a chance to take hold of the recommendations made for 
reorganization. We voted 98 to 1 in behalf of Secretary Espy's plan. I 
would point out that implied in that plan is the potential closure of 
1,200 to 1,300 field offices of various branches of the U.S. Department 
of Agriculture, out of over 7,000 that are out in the field.
  President Clinton has counted on those savings in his budget 
submission. Vice President Al Gore in his ``reinventing'' statement has 
counted on those savings already.
  Mr. President, we come, however, to the moment of truth. And for some 
reason 10 of these agricultural research facilities reappear with 
Senators asserting that they must continue despite low priority by 
every criteria imaginable.
  Selection by the two Secretaries, Madigan and Espy, has not been 
capricious. In fact, they have looked very carefully on point totals to 
try to take a look at precisely the services being offered, the costs 
of those services, the proximity of the users in this field, and in all 
other agricultural services.
  But we finally come to the fact that the Nation wants some action on 
reorganization. As Senators consider this amendment, they must consider 
the fact that a vote to retain those 10 ARS stations is a vote to roll 
back reorganization, to retain every single vestige of USDA activity, 
however low priority, however little warranted.
  Mr. President, at this first instance, if we lose the battle on these 
10 stations of negligible value, but with potentially $50 million of 
cost savings, how in the world will the billions of dollars that are 
prophesied to come from savings in the USDA in the next 5 years ever 
occur? How can reinventing Government even start?
  Mr. President, the amendment that Senator Leahy and I have offered is 
modest. It says simply, give the Secretary the opportunity to close 
these 10 stations. He is not mandated to do that, but he almost has to 
in order to fulfill the budget of his President and the dictates of 
this Senate. Mr. President, to roll that back means an unraveling that 
is very serious. And that is why the distinguished chairman and I take 
time to make this point as clearly as we can.
  A vote for the Leahy-Lugar amendment is a vote for a beginning of 
organization of the USDA in a more modern form, consistent with what 
taxpayers want. A vote against our amendment is to continue business in 
the same old way: spending money willy-nilly because a few Senators 
have come on the floor and said ``save our station,'' whatever is 
occurring out there, how negligible the efforts, how incidental the 
situation.
  That kind of sloppiness will not work. Mr. President, a vote for this 
amendment, I believe, is imperative for those who really want 
reinvention of Government, a sound budget, as well as more solid 
agricultural research.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. JOHNSTON. Mr. President, I strongly support the committee's 
recommendation to restore funds for the Houma, LA, Sugarcane Research 
Station and several other agricultural research service facilities.
  When the fiscal year 1995 budget proposal was submitted, for obvious 
reasons I paid close attention to the proposal to eliminate funding for 
the Houma Sugarcane Research Unit. This spring, I posed several 
questions to ARS in the subcommittee's hearings on this proposal and 
was told that the criteria used to select facilities for closure 
included:

       Such factors as location research mission and completion of 
     original research objectives, magnitude of industry problems 
     requiring additional research, and age and condition of 
     facilities.

  As to the first criterion, the mission of the Houma Sugarcane 
Research Unit which was established in 1924 is to conduct basic and 
applied research to increase sugarcane production efficiency. This 
research is not complete, and is even more important now in the new 
global environment Louisiana's sugar producers are facing in light of 
NAFTA, and under the proposed GATT agreement. Ongoing programs include 
the development of improved sugarcane germplasm and cultivars--
varieties--to combine high yield of sugarcane per unit area and sugar 
per ton of cane, with pest resistance, cold tolerance, stubble 
longevity, and suitability to mechanical harvesting. The Houma unit is 
the largest of USDA's 3 mainland facilities which conduct this 
research; the only USDA scientists working in sugarcane cytology--the 
study of the formation, structure, and function of cells--are assigned 
to the Houma unit, as are the only USDA weed-control scientists working 
in cane.
  Variety development is particularly critical. All varieties 
eventually suffer from yield decline and most of major importance peak 
in acreage before 10 years of age. The two varieties used in some 75 
percent of the sugar acreage in Louisiana today were released in 1973 
and 1978 and are among the oldest varieties being grown. They are 
already past their peak and it is critical that new varieties be 
released soon for the industry to survive. The varieties produced in 
Houma are also used in Texas and provide breeding material for other 
domestic and international sugar industries located in more tropical 
areas. These areas have distinct soil and climatic conditions and are 
not now served by the other USDA facilities.
  In addition, the Houma station is developing environmentally sound, 
integrated sugarcane production systems using cultural practices and 
improved weed, disease, and insect control methods. The emphasis at 
Houma is on research using cultural and biological measures as 
alternatives to chemical controls--which is important to production 
throughout the United States and to the American public generally. Very 
little weed control research is performed at either the Florida or 
Texas stations, although information developed at Houma has been 
modified to fit the different weed spectra and growing conditions in 
both Texas and Florida.

  As to the magnitude of problems facing the sugar industry, these 
problems have been intensified as a result of new global trading 
arrangements. The passage of NAFTA last year, and the possibility of a 
new GATT arrangement soon, have made it more imperative then ever that 
we renew our efforts to increase production efficiency to compete with 
other nations which have lower wage rates, lower environmental 
standards, and lower, less costly, worker protection laws. Dismantling 
the Houma station would severely hamper efforts to increase production 
efficiency and enable U.S. producers in Louisiana and elsewhere to 
compete in this global setting.
  I was surprised to discover that no attention was paid by the 
Department to contributions by industry or States to the ARS 
facilities. Louisiana contributes over $170,000 to the Houma research 
efforts and in addition has provided at no cost 107 acres of land for 
additional research property near Houma and 300 acres offstation for 
experiments under commercial production practices along with the 
equipment, supplies, and labor for these off-station efforts. This 
public-private partnership developed as a result of the location of an 
ARS sugar research facility in Louisiana.
  Nationwide, the U.S. sugarcane industry generates approximately $2 
billion annually in direct sales, with an economic value to the four 
cane-producing States of around $6 billion. In Louisiana, cane is grown 
in some 19 parishes in Louisiana, and in many of these there are not 
feasible or suitable alternatives. Cane is an important part of my 
State's economy, and is especially important to south Louisiana. The 
future health of this important part of our economy depends on a strong 
research program, which would be placed at risk if the Houma facility 
were closed. Obviously, this could have negative economic impacts in 
the future.
  I urge that the amendments by the Senators from Indiana and Vermont 
be rejected, and that the committee amendment be approved.
  Mr. SASSER. Mr. President, I oppose the Leahy/Lugar amendment because 
I know it will eliminate research efforts that are extremely important 
to not only my State of Tennessee, but to States throughout the 
Southeast. You see, Mr. President, nematology research and screening 
conducted at the West Tennessee Research Station in Jackson, TN, is 
aimed at solving the No. 1 problem for soybean producers in all 
Southeastern States--damage from the soybean cyst nematode.
  The soybean cyst nematode is, in fact, the most serious soybean pest 
in the entire country. I have heard from quite a number of soybean 
producers who have stressed to me the importance of controlling this 
highly destructive pest. Soybean cyst nematodes cause millions of 
dollars in soybean yield losses each year and yet the cost of the 
Federal nematology program is a very modest $164,000.
  Among other things, the West Tennessee Research Station of the 
Agricultural Research Service is working to develop a cyst nematode 
resistant variety of soybean. Researchers at Jackson are participating 
in a national project on molecular mapping and diagnostic probes for 
soybean cyst nematode resistant genes. The benefit-to-cost ratio of 
this research is estimated at 300-to-1. Clearly, this is a sound 
investment in our future food-producing capability.
  The research done at the Jackson research station is used in southern 
soybean producing States by both private and public institutions. I 
believe it would be penny wise and pound foolish to eliminate this 
vital research.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the Leahy-
Lugar amendment to cut funding for 10 agricultural research stations 
[ARS] across the Nation. One of those ten facilities is located in my 
State. And I know that the work done there is vital to the health of 
the Nation's blueberry industry. The Chatsworth, NJ ARS station 
conducts and disseminates research so that growers can produce 
consistently reliable yields of high-quality blueberries and 
cranberries. Additionally, one of the major goals of the facility is to 
find ways to increase production in environmentally acceptable ways. 
The work done at this facility has helped, for example, reduce 
pesticide use while maintaining production levels.
  The blueberry and cranberry industries are important to both the 
Nation and to New Jersey. Together, they inject some $800 million into 
the national economy. Reducing spending by a little over $500,000 
sounds superficially appealing--but it also is a little silly not to 
make an investment of $500,000 to support an $800 million industry. The 
withdrawal of Federal funding for the Chatsworth ARS facility would 
leave the blueberry and cranberry industry vulnerable to a variety of 
diseases and terminate research and development of varieties resistant 
to these diseases. We are being penny wise and pound foolish.
  Instead of cutting programs that actually produce something of value 
and are consistent with our national agricultural policy, I'd like to 
see us eliminate the real waste in agricultural spending: the subsidies 
that support western water, deficiency payments that distort market 
mechanisms, and other programs which I identified in a bill I have 
introduced. In addition, Mr. President, I note that the Senate has 
restored $7 million cut by the House for tobacco-related research. Now 
that, Mr. President, is the real waste and I hope, before we conclude 
action on this bill, that the House position will prevail.
  Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the amendment 
offered by Senators Leahy and Lugar regarding the Secretary of 
Agriculture's discretion over the future of 10 Agriculture Research 
Service units which USDA has identified for closure.
  My opposition to this amendment comes not from a philosophical 
disagreement over whether this administration--or any administration--
should have reasonable discretion in running the Government. As a 
former Governor, I vote for enhanced State autonomy whenever I can, as 
I did to preserve the State waiver process for Food Stamp cashouts 
earlier this afternoon.
  I oppose this amendment, Mr. President, because I believe strongly 
that the rationale for moving the production and protection research 
activities for Virginia-type peanuts from Suffolk, VA, to Dawson, GA, 
is not defensible. And I believe that the Congress should have the 
ability to express its opposition on a policy basis to decisions that 
affect our States and our Nation.
  After the Department of Agriculture announced that the USDA Peanut 
Production, Disease, and Harvesting Unit in Suffolk would be closed, 
along with 18 other ARS research units, the Department of Agriculture 
advised some members of the Virginia delegation that,

       We intend for ARS to continue research on peanut production 
     and protection at Dawson, Georgia, and on postharvest quality 
     and handling of Virginia-type peanuts at Raleigh, North 
     Carolina. Research results from these locations will continue 
     to be available for, and applicable to, the Virginia peanut 
     industry.

  Mr. President, Dawson, GA, is located 80 miles north of Florida.
  There are enormous differences between Suffolk, VA, and Dawson, GA--
differences in the varieties of peanuts predominately grown in the two 
regions, differences in the climate, the soil, the propensity of 
specific diseases, as well as differences in production practices.
  Peanuts grown in Virginia and North Carolina are large seeded 
Virginia-type--or ballpark--peanuts, Mr. President, while the majority 
of peanuts grown in the Southeast--Georgia, Florida, and Alabama--are 
runner-type peanuts. In fact, USDA is proposing to do production 
research on Virginia-type peanuts in a State where Virginia-type 
peanuts constitute just 2 percent of its peanut acreage.
  In addition, Virginia is located in the northernmost portion of the 
peanut belt and has a much shorter growing season than southwestern 
Georgia. Frost injury directly affects the flavor and quality of the 
finished product, and research is underway in Suffolk to develop an 
early maturing peanut variety. How can Virginia's climatic conditions 
be replicated in Georgia to continue this important research?
  Virginia soil is also much more susceptible than even North Carolina 
soil to a fungal disease called sclerotinia blight, which can devastate 
peanut yields. Georgia has absolutely no problem with sclerotinia 
blight.
  The Suffolk Unit is currently developing a Sclerotinia Blight 
Advisory Program, which is similar to the Virginia Leaf Spot Advisory 
Program, a computerized approached which, using weather condition data, 
assists farmers in determining the optimal time to spray to prevent 
diseases. These advisory programs make the Suffolk Unit a leader in 
reducing pesticide and chemical use in treating serious diseases. How 
can this be replicated in Georgia soil?
  I do not believe, Mr. President, that research on peanut and 
protection of Virginia-type peanuts that is applicable to producers in 
the Commonwealth of Virginia can be effectively conducted in Dawson, 
GA.
  For this reason, I will vote against this amendment--and I yield the 
floor.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I wholeheartedly concur with the Senator 
from Indiana. When we started doing the idea of reorganization in the 
Department of Agriculture, we knew the only way you do it is to cut. We 
knew we were starting with a department where too much money is being 
spent and we are going to have to cut. So I went down through and saw 
where cuts would occur. And in the package we passed in the Senate--
which we are hoping the other body will soon pass--it was obvious to me 
there were going to be cuts in the State of Vermont and cuts in the 
State of Indiana and cuts in the State of Louisiana and cuts in every 
other State represented here. But it is the only way you can do it. It 
cannot be the ``don't cut you, don't cut me, cut the guy behind the 
tree,'' to paraphrase the expression often used by the Presiding 
Officer's distinguished predecessor in this body.
  All of us on basically a resolution, or an overall piece of 
legislation that says let us cut money out of the Department of 
Agriculture, let us go for a streamlined Department, we all vote for 
it. In fact, we are voting 98-1 that way. The rub comes when we go to 
the specifics. And there will be specifics that we will feel in every 
single State. But it is the only way we are going to do it.
  You cannot have a situation where we all stand up and say we want to 
cut the deficit--and, of course, we do--but when it comes to specifics, 
I want to keep the money in there. It does not work that way. You have 
to do it. It might be painful, but you have to do it. In this case, it 
should not be all that painful. You have cases where you are spending 
more money to repair old, useless buildings than we are on research, 
where the costs to the taxpayers, under any objective criteria, are 
just not justified. So I hope that we will adopt the amendment by the 
Senator from Indiana and myself.
  I would like to say that we have had debate in here on cash-out of 
food stamps. I must say, as chairman of the Senate Agriculture 
Committee, I am very, very concerned with the amendment of the Senator 
from Arizona [Mr. McCain], to strike language prohibiting further cash-
outs of food stamps. As chairman of the authorizing committee, I 
strongly urge my colleagues to support the chairman of the 
appropriations subcommittee, Senator Bumpers, on this.
  The Food Stamp Program should provide food to needy families, not 
cash. If we are not going to provide food with it, then get rid of the 
program. But do not make it into something it is not. If you provide 
cash, you undermine the character of food stamps as a nutrition 
program.
  If taxpayers are going to spend money on the Food Stamp Program, they 
want to see people buying food. They do not want to see the money go 
elsewhere and then have to spend more money on TEFAP sites and food 
kitchens. Senator Bumpers pointed out that in Alabama spending on food 
dropped almost 20 percent where recipients received cash instead of 
food stamps. It is designed to reduce hunger, and its benefits are 
meant to be spent on food. I am worried that food stamp cash-outs are 
going to leave poor families even poorer. If landlords, for example, 
know tenants now have additional cash, they are not going to say, 
``Gee, take the money out and spend it on food''; they are going to 
say, ``Here is a chance to raise the rent and get it paid.'' Very 
limited cash-outs permit transition of employment if it is designed 
properly. That could be an effective part of welfare reform. But let us 
work that in when we do welfare reform.
  I am afraid that the more cash-out projects are approved, the more 
the Food Stamp Program loses its link to nutrition. That undermines the 
basic program.
  Mr. President, I am more concerned that we ignore what this is. The 
Food Stamp Program is designed to buy food, designed to give food to 
needy people. If we do not want the Food Stamp Program, then do away 
with it, but do not pretend we are feeding people by giving them cash, 
because there are going to be a lot of other demands on that cash.
  Mr. President, what is the parliamentary situation?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator from Vermont has 
expired.
  Under the previous order, the Senator from Texas is now recognized 
for 10 minutes.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I thank the Chair. Today the President is 
out traveling around the country promoting his health care plan. New 
polls are out today showing that support for the President's health 
care program has reached a new low. What I would like to do in the 10 
minutes I have here is simply talk about where we are on the health 
care debate and talk about that debate as it move closer to the floor 
of the Senate.
  I think the first indisputable point is that the President has had 
over a year to sell the American people on his health care plan. The 
President has not failed in that effort because he lacks a big 
megaphone. The truth is that the President has the largest megaphone in 
the world. The President has not failed to sell his health care plan 
because he is a bad salesman. The President is a great salesman. The 
First Lady is a better salesperson. The administration is full of great 
salesmen.
  The President has failed to sell his health care program to the 
American people because he has not been able to convince the American 
people that they want to turn over the running of the greatest health 
care system in the history of the world to the Government. A 
Government-run health care system is simply unacceptable to the 
American people, and I think the cold reality is that while Elvis may 
be out there alive somewhere, the President's health care plan is dead.
  It is dead for a lot of reasons. Most of all it is dead because it 
infringes on the freedom of the people.
  Despite the President's best efforts to convince people otherwise, 
the President's plan requires that unless you work for the Federal 
Government or unless you work for a huge employer with 5,000 or more 
employees that can ransom you out of the Government plan by paying 1 
percent of your salary to the Government in a new tax, your private 
health insurance is going to be canceled and you are going to have to 
buy health care through a Government-run cooperative controlled by a 
seven-member board in Washington, DC.
  The American people basically understand the loss of freedom and, as 
a result, they are rejecting the President's health care plan in 
overwhelming numbers.
  And, Mr. President, if the vote were occurring in America, I would be 
absolutely confident. The fact the vote is occurring in Washington, DC, 
makes me nervous. Despite the fact that the President's plan is clearly 
not going to pass--not one Democrat on the House Ways and Means 
Committee voted for it, and only half of the Democratic Members of the 
Senate have cosponsored it--that does not mean every bad idea in it is 
dead.
  A second point that I wanted to mention--given the comments of the 
Governors' Association today in the paper--is that clearly there is a 
second problem that is beginning to emerge, and that is, how are you 
going to pay for this health care plan?
  I thought it was more than just comical that Democratic Governors 
support all the President's benefits, but they oppose the way he funds 
the program. They want all the benefits of a Government-run system with 
a 9.6-percent payroll tax, but their message to the President is, 
``Don't impose a payroll tax to pay for it.''
  It was also interesting that Republican Governors support the basic 
tenets of the Dole plan, which basically reforms the system and 
reorders Medicaid in order to help the working poor buy private health 
insurance. But they oppose the Medicaid reforms and the Medicaid cuts 
that are needed to pay for the assistance program.
  In fact, one thing is very clear, and that is that when all of these 
programs are analyzed by the Congressional Budget Office and we know 
what they cost, they are all going to be massively underfunded.
  One of the few remnants of the old Gramm-Rudman law that exists is 
that if a bill comes to the floor that adds to the deficit, there is a 
60-vote point of order against that bill. I want to put our colleagues 
on notice that if any health care bill comes to the floor of the Senate 
and it is not paid for, I intend to raise a point of order against that 
bill and it is going to have to get 60 votes or that bill is going to 
die in the Senate.
  Second, I know that there will be an effort made to limit debate on 
health care. I want to debate health care. I am not interested in 
bringing other issues into the debate, but I want my colleagues to 
understand that to millions of Americans--and I am one of them--this is 
the most important issue that we have debated in Congress in the last 
15 years. I do not plan to give up any of my rights as a Member of the 
Senate on this health care debate. I am going to object to any 
unanimous consent request that limits anybody's ability to offer 
amendments, that limits anybody's ability to make points of order, and 
that seeks to impose anything on this debate other than the strict 
rules of the U.S. Senate.
  I believe that we have to take a long, hard look at limitations on 
the rights of a free people. I do not believe the American people 
support canceling private health insurance and forcing people to buy 
health care through a Government-run agency. I do not believe the 
American people want Government to write their health insurance policy 
for them, to impose coverage on them that they do not want themselves, 
or deny them access to coverage that they do want.
  I believe that the American people want to know how we are going to 
pay for this bill.
  I think people are going to be shocked when they discover that the 
Finance Committee bill that will come to the floor of the Senate--
barring a substitute by Senator Mitchell--I think people are going to 
be shocked that this bill seeks to have the Government funding for 
health care for 110 million Americans, almost half the population. I 
think people are going to be shocked when they discover that one of the 
ways that this is partially paid for is by taxing the health benefits 
that workers now receive.
  We do not yet have the Finance Committee bill costed out, but the 
benefits it provides are roughly equivalent to the Cooper bill, which 
raises taxes on 53 percent of all the workers in America by taxing 
their health insurance benefits. And 8.7 million Americans under that 
bill pay $500 or more per year in new taxes.
  These are things I want to have us debate in full. I want us to 
understand what is at stake here.
  Finally, I believe that there are things about the health care system 
that can be fixed, that should be fixed.
  I want insurance to be portable, so you can change jobs without 
losing it. I want insurance to be permanent, so it cannot be canceled 
if you get sick. I want to deal with medical liability. It makes no 
sense to spend up to 20 cents out of every $1 we spend on health care 
trying to keep people out of the courthouse instead of out of the 
grave. I want to reform this absurd system where if you do not work, 
you get Medicaid, you get good health insurance, but if you do work and 
make a modest income, you can't afford to buy private health insurance.
  I want to reform Medicaid, add a modest copayment, allow the States 
to run the Medicaid Program and use those savings to give a refundable 
tax credit to let working families keep more of what they earn so that 
they can buy good private health insurance.
  But in the final analysis, I do not want the Government to take over 
and run the health care system. If the President is going to say to the 
Congress, ``Do it my way or leave it,'' I believe Congress is going to 
leave it.
  My basic proposal is: Let us do what we agree on. Let us take all 
these bills. Let us take the areas where they overlap. Let us sit down 
on a bipartisan basis and let us legislate to fix those areas where 
there is a broad consensus. I believe we could pass a bill with 80 or 
90 votes in the Senate, and I think America would applaud that effort.
  Then the President can go to the American people, if he chooses, in 
the 1994 elections and say, ``If you want the Government to take over 
and run the health care system, then vote for people who support 
that.'' I would be perfectly happy to go to the same electorate and 
say, ``I don't want the Government to take over and run the health care 
system, and if you don't want it either, vote for people who oppose 
it.''
  That, I think, is the path we should follow, Mr. President.
  I thank you for the time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator from Texas has 
expired.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California, [Mrs. Feinstein].
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Thank you very much, Mr. President.

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