[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 52 (Tuesday, March 21, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H3330-H3331]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                   WELFARE REFORM IS ASSAULT ON POOR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 1995, the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Frank] is 
recognized during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I too hope that the Members 
today and this week will stand up for America, that they will stand up 
for an America that has a sense of responsibility and compassion and 
the wisdom not to panic.
  We have got some economic problems brought about by the changing 
nature of work which puts people without technological skills at 
something of a disadvantage, exacerbated by the increasing integration 
of the international economy. Those are things that we ought to be 
addressing.
  But what the public is being offered by the Republican Party is an 
alternative explanation for that. It is a form of scapegoating. Working 
Americans who have found their economic futures insecure are being told 
it is the fault of those poor people and those immigrants and those 
women who keep having children so they can make the few bucks you get 
on AFDC.
  In pursuit of that, what we will have this week brought forward by 
the Republican Party is an assault on people who are poor, who lack 
education, who lack skills, and most of all we will have an assault on 
children.
  What we get in American politics today is a very selective quoting of 
the Bible. The part that says you shall not visit the sins of the 
parents on the children apparently has been written out of the editions 
of many people, because we are being told that children who make the 
terrible mistake of being born in the wrong circumstance, children who 
make the bad judgment to have a mother who was not married, will pay 
for that. Those children will see basic sustenance denied to them. The 
answer of our Republican friends is, ``Oh, no, no, we're not going to 
cut that,'' although in fact they are cutting it ``What we are doing is 
returning it to the States.''
  Well, understand one very important point. When there is a program 
which is important to the Republican Party, they federalize it. When we 
are talking about issues that the Republican Party or its major 
constituencies in the corporate community feel strongly about, they 
bring them to the Federal level. Where we have an issue which is not 
one that they favor, it gets sent back to the States with less money 
and in circumstances that invite the States to reduce things further. 
There will be no safeguards, there will be no requirements.
  Today if you are a child born in those kind of circumstances, your 
lot is not going to be a happy one. The young child born to a single 
mother is those kind of circumstances will live a life that no child in 
America ought to live. And what is the response of the people on the 
other side? Let's make it worse. Let's penalize that family in the 
hopes that there will not be so many families like that in the future.
  That is why a very wide range of organizations, religious groups, 
advocacy groups of various sorts are so unhappy with this.
  Let's again be clear. The Republican Party says ``Oh, no, we're just 
returning it to the States.'' When it came to prisons and how to 
sentence criminals, 
[[Page H3331]] matters that have been State law since the beginning of 
this Constitution, they took it away from the States and gave them 
orders. When it came to lawsuits of any kind, not just manufactured 
products but automobile accidents, people slipping and falling on the 
stairs, the Republican Party put through an amendment that makes those 
matters of national concern. We are going to be debating term limits. I 
said to a couple of the Republicans, well, are we going to have uniform 
national standards?
  They said, ``Of course,'' some of the Republicans have said, ``We 
can't leave that up to the States. That's too important.''
e fate of poor children, that is not too important. And we know that 
the States are subjected to a competition among themselves for 
industry, industry which can decide whether it is from overseas or here 
where to move. They will tell a State, ``We don't think your taxes are 
low enough. We think your benefits are too high.'' So what we have is a 
deliberate dismantling of this safety net, sketchy as it now is, sent 
back to the States, and the absolute predictable conclusion is that 
poor 2- and 3- and 4-year-olds will be poorer and worse off in the 
  future.The same is true with the school lunch program and with other 
programs. The military budget will go up. The space budget will be 
protected. The House gym will stay open. We will be OK, but poor 
children will be the victims of an assault unlike any we have seen in a 
long time.
  I hope that the House will indeed stand up for America by saying that 
is not the kind of country we want to live in.


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