[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 41 (Monday, March 6, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H2657]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                   FUTURE OF AMERICA'S WELFARE SYSTEM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 1995, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Durbin] is recognized 
during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. Speaker, the Congress of the United States is 
involved in a very important debate on the future of America's welfare 
system. Both parties have come to the understanding and agreement that 
the current welfare system is, by and large, a failure. It is a system 
which is loathed not only by the people who are in the system, but 
certainly by taxpayers, who see a great deal of waste and misguided 
policy.
  Unfortunately, this debate took a bad turn on Capitol Hill several 
weeks ago when my Republican colleagues announced one of the first 
casualties in this debate would be the Federal nutrition programs, 
programs which have been tried and tested over decades and which have 
been proven to be dramatic successes.
  I went back to my district this last weekend and on Saturday had a 
town gathering in Quincy, IL, inviting people from the general area to 
come and tell me their experiences with three specific programs. I 
would like to share them with you this afternoon.
  I think these personal human stories tell a lot more about this 
welfare reform debate than all the books and statistics and all the 
high-flying political speeches that you are going to hear in the next 
several weeks.
  The first little fellow I met was named Reed. Reed was the cutest 
little 7-month-old you could imagine, 20 pounds, bouncing up and down, 
happiest kid I could ever remember seeing.
  His mom told the story about how Reed was not always this way, how he 
got off to a slow start in life. They could not find an infant formula 
that worked for him. Finally, they did. A pretty rare commercial infant 
formula which Reed could tolerate and, in fact, grow very well on.
  That formula was provided to that working mother, who is struggling 
to get by on a low-wage job, by the WIC Program, a Federal program that 
steps in with low-income families and gives them a helping hand. If you 
could have seen the smile on Reed's face and his mother's face as they 
told the story, you can understand that the concept of block-granting 
these programs and cutting funds for them will cut off children just 
like that, forcing the mothers of Reed and others across the country 
into a welfare system that we are trying to pare down.
  And then, of course, we had another young lady there, a mother of a 
little girl named Shay. She had three children. They were in day care 
homes. Now that is different from the day-care centers that you might 
drive by. In my part of the world, people have day-care services in 
their basements, in family rooms, and they are licensed by the State. 
They provide low-cost day care for mothers who otherwise could not work 
without it.
  Well, she had three children in day care. The Federal Government 
helps provide for those in day care about $4 a day to feed the kids, a 
little snack and a little lunch during the course of the day.
  One of the proposals before Congress is to eliminate that altogether. 
What this mother told me was that while she was off working 40 hours a 
week in a fast food restaurant, working several days a week just to pay 
for day care, she said $4 a day does not sound like much, but it is $15 
per week times 3 kids is 180 bucks per month. She said, ``Congressman, 
think about what I am earning for a living, $4 or $5 an hour is not 
much, and the impact it is going to have on me. I need to have 
affordable day care to stay out of welfare.''
  Finally, one of our school superintendents came in and told a story 
about school lunch. It is nothing short of amazing to me that our 
Republican friends now want to go after the school lunch program. I 
have been around here for a few years, and I cannot recall scandals, 
massive scandals, and waste in the bureaucracy. This is a program 
administered at the local level that works.
  A school superintendent came in to tell the story of a little boy 
about 10 years old. Several years ago his mother went out for groceries 
and never came back. That left him with his two brothers and his father 
alone. Because his father works long hours, it became his burden to 
basically raise his little brothers.
  They come to school each day, those three kids, and the 
superintendent told me, he said,

       Congressman, make no mistake about it, it is the best meal 
     of the day for them. It may look like just a plateful of 
     spaghetti and pizza to somebody walking through the 
     cafeteria, but these kids wolf it down. Sometimes we have to 
     bring them down to the cafeteria for crackers and milk to 
     keep them going.

  So let us not get caught up in all the statistical debate and forget 
the real people involved. We have got to keep good nutrition programs 
that are working in place doing their job. We cannot have a strong 
America without strong children and strong families.


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