[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 12 (Friday, January 20, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H450-H452]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                       REMARKS ON WELFARE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Martinez] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MARTINEZ. Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Committee on Economic 
and Educational Opportunities, formerly the Education and Labor 
Committee, and one who has chaired a subcommittee with jurisdiction 
over the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Program, I have spent much 
of my congressional career dealing with the issue of welfare and the 
various means this body and that committee has considered for reforming 
that system.
  The welfare system in this country is clearly not achieving the 
purposes for which it was designed.
  When it was originally designed, it was a program designed to protect 
children from the ravages of poverty that are likely outcomes of the 
death of the family breadwinner--which in 1935 meant the father.
  Since the mid 1960's, when it was reformed under President Lyndon 
Baines Johnson, it has been extended to cover the children of those 
whose personal circumstances--whether as a result of a death of the 
breadwinner, a family breakup or desertion of the family by the 
breadwinner, the lack of jobs for any adult in the family, or because 
of an out-of-wedlock birth--prevented them from being economically 
self-sufficient.
  The object was, and continues to be, the children, who are our 
future.
  Welfare in the form of Aid to Families With Dependent Children is 
based on the belief that our children are our future, and caring for 
those children so that they can reach adulthood with the necessary 
education, nurturing, and social skills that will enable them to become 
productive members of society.
  [[Page H451]] Welfare systems, whether private charities or 
government support programs, cannot eradicate poverty solely through 
making monthly payments to poor people.
  The eradication of poverty has confounded leaders since before the 
time of Christ.
  Even Christ admitted ``You will always have the poor with you.''
   But, while I do not believe that we will ever totally eradicate 
poverty, that is no reason to give up on the fight to make the lives of 
poor children safe and supportive.

  And that is why I believe in the Federal Government's role in the 
welfare system, because it is our national duty to ensure that programs 
are truly supportive of children and that related programs, including 
nutrition, employment and training, education, child care and housing 
act in concert with welfare programs to provide the hand up to those in 
poverty that will enable them to achieve a better life.
  There are those who say that our welfare system is not working, and I 
wholeheartedly agree with that assessment.
  Clearly our welfare system needs reform.
  I believe that there are a number of things about welfare reform and 
the current issues being debated in the context of welfare reform on 
which we can all agree--and I would like to list some of those:
  First, the fact that 15 million people in 5 million families have to 
rely on Aid to Families With Dependent Children is a national disgrace.
  Second, most of the recipients of Aid to Families With Dependent 
Children--in fact 9.6 of the 15 million recipients, have no alternative 
to AFDC on their own--because they are children.
  Third, one of the major failings of the welfare system is that it 
rewards behavior that it wishes to change, and provides significant 
barriers to change for the better.
  These are things that I see printed in speeches and pronouncements by 
my colleagues of all political persuasions.
  These are what we can agree on.
  What I am afraid we do not have as much agreement about is the basic 
question of how we solve the problems inherent in the system.
  H.R. 4, the Personal Responsibility Act, is, I am told, the 
Republican welfare reform that was promised in the Contract With 
America.
  Well, I have read this bill, and I find absolutely nothing in it that 
addresses the causes for welfare dependency, nothing that deals with 
the lack of skills, inadequate education, or other barriers that 
prevent the welfare parent from achieving economic self sufficiency.
  In fact, title 1--dealing with illegitimacy, is even worse.
  After determining that the cause for this problem is the breakup of 
the family and the lack of moral values in society, some of which I can 
support, we find that the solution is not to deal with preventing these 
out-of-wedlock births, but rather is to deny benefits to the children 
produced by these unions.
  That is something like arresting the victim because she was robbed.
  We must look at the causes for behavior, not the outcomes of that 
behavior, in fashioning solutions.
  This bill does not do that.
  I am also interested in the various proposals to pay for this 
reform--and, of course, achieve deficit reduction at the same time.
  Title 4--denying Federal program access to legal aliens--now there is 
an interesting idea.
  After all, these people who pay their taxes, keep up their homes, 
educate their children, and live next door--in short act like nearly 
all Americans.
  But they suffer from a really serious lack--they are not citizens 
and, consequently, do not vote to elect the Members of this body.
  Why not go the whole way and say to these people who we invite to 
come to America and to continue to build our country as immigrants have 
done for over 300 years--fine join us, but if you do not choose to 
become a citizen--go back home--and then deport them.
  The fact that they decide to stay and do not elect to become citizens 
means that they do not wish to become fully American.
  That, I suppose, is reason enough to say--``pay the freight but don't 
take the ride.''
  Then, why not deny Federal program benefits to all Americans who 
failed to vote in the last two elections?
  Sixty five percent of the electorate failed to vote last November, we 
are told.
  If they do not care enough to vote--if they do not care enough to 
become a citizen--they do not deserve to participate in these programs.
  It is not like they will vote us out of office.
  That makes about as much sense and is about as defensible.
  Then we come to title five--which certainly represents a variation on 
enlightened thinking--nutrition programs should be combined into a one 
size fits all block grant.
  Just last week in the Economic and Educational Opportunities 
Committee, we heard witnesses talking about our labor laws and 
assailing the Congress and the Labor Department for failing to 
recognize that different size businesses have different problems and 
needs and our one-size-fits-all labor policies need to be changed.
  But this week we learn that it would be better to develop a one-size-
fits-all nutrition program.
  Let us review some of the programs that would be lumped into this 
block grant:
  The Women, Infants and Children Nutrition Program came about because 
of a national policy to ensure that our children, who are our future, 
receive the kind of nutrition that starts them on the healthy road of 
life, ensures that they are not hungry in school, and enables them to 
learn.
  The National School Lunch Program provides nutritious meals at low or 
no cost to needy children--not just AFDC recipients but also the 
children of the working poor.
  The Older American Act, in its title III nutrition programs, ensures 
that older Americans, especially those who are economically dependent 
or otherwise unable to cope with the difficulty of making their own 
meals can receive nutrition in either a congregate setting, at senior 
centers, or through a home delivered program, regardless of their 
status as welfare recipients.
  These and the other programs that would be lumped into this gigantic 
block grant have their separate identities because the nutritional 
needs of these populations are different and the methods of meeting 
those needs are different.
  Yet, the drafters of H.R. 4 would lump them all into one program.
  And then they would allow the States to use the funds for purposes 
which have nothing to do with nutrition--to fund jobs under the so-
called work program for the welfare parent, and provide a bounty of 
$20-per-head for every one the State does put into these programs.
  I see no merit in that proposal.
  Beyond what is contained in the bill that would allegedly solve the 
welfare problem, let me speak briefly about what is not in the program.
  First--there are no jobs.
  Parents on welfare are required to go to work--but there are no 
provisions that would stimulate jobs either in the public or private 
sector.
  Thirty-seven percent of the people on welfare are there because of 
unemployment.
  Does that not indicate that jobs must be there if those people are to 
get back into productive employment?
  Even if welfare mom finds a job, there are no provisions for child 
care.
  In hearings I conducted in the 103d Congress, witnesses stated 
categorically that the single most important barrier to seeking, 
finding and keeping a job was the lack of safe, affordable, and 
relatively stable child care.
  One member of the Economic and Educational Opportunities Committee, 
the Honorable Lynn Woolsey of California, a former welfare mother 
herself, has told us that, in the first year that she returned to the 
work force, she had 13 separate child care situations.
  And the situation is worse now than it was then.
  Nearly one-half of the women on welfare in 1991 were there not 
because of the presence of an illegitimate child--they were there 
because of the breakdown of a marriage and the failure or inability of 
the father to pay child support.
  Yet this bill contains nothing in the way of child support 
enforcement.
  And child support enforcement could raise, we are told by HHS, $32 
billion in 1 year.
  [[Page H452]] Oh, I know that the Republicans have another bill that 
addresses this issue--but why not include it in the right context--
welfare reform?
  Yes, I have read the Personal Responsibility Act, and I find it 
wanting.
  I hope that the entire House, on both sides of the aisle, will 
consider the plight of the welfare mother, and the welfare father as 
well, not as a pest that is to be eradicated, but as a symptom of our 
failure to provide the hand up that will enable them to get that job 
and raise their children in dignity and safety.


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