[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 52 (Tuesday, March 21, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H3400-H3406]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                    AN ALTERNATIVE TO WELFARE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 1995, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens] is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, today we have completed the first segment of 
the debate on the welfare reform legislation. This legislation is a key 
part of the Contract With America, or the Contract Against America. But 
I would like to place it in the context of the evolving budget 
development process. More important than the Contract With America or 
the Contract Against America, whatever you want to call it, is the 
budget process that is now under way which really establishes the 
priorities for both parties. It really indicates the vision of America 
and where America should be going for both parties and for others 
within the parties.
  I would like to speak this evening as the chairman of the 
Congressional Black Caucus alternative budget task force. We are 
preparing an alternative budget to show a vision of America which will 
encompass all Americans, a vision of America which will speak for the 
caring majority in America, not just the people in need, but the people 
who have the good sense to understand that they have to respond to the 
need of the most unfortunate among us. The caring majority budget 
sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus would be an alternative to 
the budget that will be produced by the majority of the House of 
Representatives. That majority of the House of Representatives really 
represents the ideas and the interests of an elite minority. The elite 
oppressive minority has determined they want to prepare a revolutionary 
budget, a budget with far-reaching consequences, and they have begun 
that process already.
  Stage 1 in that process occurred last week when we passed the 
rescissions for 1995. It is an ugly word, rescission. Rescission means 
that for a year that is already in progress, a year that has begun 
already, a budget that has already begun, a budget that is a result of 
long deliberations, a budget that is the result of bills and laws 
passed in the authorizing committees, a budget that is a result of the 
actions of the last year's Appropriation Committee, Appropriation 
Committee of the 103d Congress, we went through a long process and a 
lot of man-hours went into the hearings and the preparation. Finally we 
voted on the floor the appropriations which went into the budget that 
began October 1, 1994. That budget was the product of long 
deliberations in the House and then, of course, the Senate had an 
equally deliberative process. Then we had to come together, the Senate 
and the House, long negotiations, a lot of man-hours of very talented 
people that went into the preparation of that budget. But now the new 
Committee on Appropriations recklessly come along and they reach into 
that budget that is in process now and they pull out more than $17 
billion in rescissions.
  The pattern of the rescissions shows clearly where the budget process 
will be going when it begins for the next year's budget. The 
rescissions affect the budget that is in effect right now, the 1995 
budget that started October 1 of 1994 and continues until September 30 
of 1995. The new budget that will take effect October 1, 1995, this 
year, that budget process has just begun.
  The way in which the rescissions budget was handled gives a key to 
what will happen in the budget development that will take place over 
the next 2 months for this budget year.
  The snapshot of where the current majority in this House of 
Representatives wants to go, the preview of coming attractions that is 
indicated by the controlling party, the Republicans who now control the 
House, the people who represent the interests of the elite oppressive 
minority, their preview is not just startling, it is a devastating 
statement about where they intend to go. It is a dangerous course that 
they have laid out.
  One cannot say that the oppressive elite minority that is in control, 
the people who are moving forward in the interest of a very small group 
of Americans, one cannot say that they are guilty of some kind of 
secret conspiracy. The conspiracy is not secret at all. It is right 
there in the open. You can see clearly where they are going. If you can 
see clearly, then the reaction for those of us who would be the victims 
has to be a more profound and a more energetic reaction in my opinion. 
I don't think we should sit still and throw figures and numbers around 
in a theoretical way.
  What the rescissions budget did that was passed last week with the 
Republican votes--they have the majority and they voted the rescissions 
budget that they had the numbers to put in place. What that statement 
that it made with $7 billion in cuts in HUD, housing programs, most of 
it aimed at low-income housing, most of it aimed clearly at low-income 
housing, $7 billion, the largest hunk that came out of the existing 
budget was housing, housing for poor people. That is a clear message 
that was sent.
  Did we have to, even if you wanted to reach a goal of $17 billion, 
you wanted to cut the budget by $17 billion, did you have to in such an 
overwhelming way take so much from one particular department or one 
particular function like housing? Did they have to do that?
  And then there are cuts in education which amount to almost $2 
billion, almost $2 billion from education, and most of the education 
programs that are cut are directed at the inner city poor, programs to 
help poor children.
  Then you have cuts like the zeroing out, complete wiping out of the 
summer youth employment program. Zero. An indication that not only are 
we going to take the money out of this year's budget, but zero for next 
year.
  Clearly the shotgun is aimed at the places where poor people live. 
Clearly 
[[Page H3401]] there is a demonization and there is a targeting of poor 
people to begin with. Then there is a more specific targeting of poor 
people who live in urban areas, people in the big cities who are the 
basic beneficiaries of public housing. People in the big cities are the 
basic beneficiaries of title I, which was cut. They are the basic 
beneficiaries of some of the other education programs like the drug-
free schools program that was cut. It is aimed at the inner city poor. 
The more specifically large numbers of the people who are the 
beneficiaries are minorities. Large numbers more specific than that are 
people of African decent, black people.
  It is no conspiracy that is in secret. It is clear for any student 
who knows basic arithmetic, it is clear who the target is, it is clear 
who the victims are already and who the victims will be in the bigger 
budget. It is quite clear.
  One is reminded of what Shakespeare put in the mouth of King Lear at 
a time when King Lear's two daughters, two of his three daughters had 
betrayed him, and King Lear states, ``Fool me not to bare it tamely. 
Touch me with noble anger.''
  That is Shakespeare's complicated way of saying,
   ``It's time to get mad.'' Anger is very much appropriate at this 
time. Anger is the order of the day. If you are a leader of people of 
African descent, if you are a leader of poor people, if you are a 
leader of people who live in the big cities, it is time to get angry, 
it is time to react, because what is happening is revolutionary. These 
are very large cuts.

  Public housing evolved over many years but in a few years it will be 
wiped out if we allow a $7 billion cut to take place in the rescission 
process. Then there is talk of wiping the whole department out, and 
also at the same time, probably actions generated by some of the 
targeting of the elite oppressive minority has influenced the White 
House. The Secretary of HUD, Housing and Urban Development, made a 
statement yesterday in connection with his reorganization of HUD. They 
are getting on the bandwagon in too many ways. They are proposing to 
phase out public housing as we know it, not change it, not reform it, 
but phase it out. Eventually you will have a system at the end of their 
process where there will only be vouchers. People will be given 
vouchers to go out and look for your own housing.

                              {time}  2200

  The problem with the vouchers is every year you will probably have a 
cut in the amount of the vouchers. The problem with most of the 
programs being offered by the Republicans who are in control of the 
budget-making process is that everything they set forth and offer as a 
set amount of money available for a particular function is subject to 
being cut in the future by the same reckless Appropriations Committee. 
The same appropriations process will whittle down the vouchers just as 
it will whittle down the School Lunch Programs and all the other block 
grant programs.
  So my point is, however, it is clear who is the target. It is clear 
that the 60 years of social programs that have benefited many different 
types of people but the programs that now benefit a great proportion of 
people of African-American decent, those programs are the ones they are 
targeting, starting with the welfare reform.
  The welfare reform, of course, I agree with you. You must have 
welfare reform. We must make adjustments and try to make the welfare 
program work for the people who are poor, the people who are the 
intended beneficiaries of the program, try to make it work and try to 
make it work with the least possible cost.
  I agree with the process of reform. Let us go forward with reform. 
There is not a single function of government or a single department of 
government or process of government that can't stand some reform. That 
is our business. We are here to provide oversight for all of the 
activities of the government. We are here to deal with reform. So 
welfare reform is very much an appropriate activity.
  The problem is that welfare has been under scrutiny for a long time. 
Welfare, as we call it, when we say welfare it is short for welfare for 
mothers and children, what in technical terms is called Aid to Families 
with Dependent Children.
  People refer to that as welfare, but it is really Aid to Families 
with Dependent Children, a part of the whole Social Security Act, a 
part of what started with Franklin Roosevelt. Aid to Families with 
Dependent Children is just that. It is money directed to children who 
have needs. And the mothers of those children are just the overseers of 
their welfare, and they are the recipients technically. So mothers and 
children are the recipients of what we call welfare.
  It is altogether fitting and proper that we should reform welfare, 
try to make it better, just as it is fitting and proper that we reform 
any other aspect of government, any other function of government, any 
other welfare that the government provides.
  The government also provides other forms of welfare. Nobody ever 
calls it welfare, but when it is money being given to either victims, 
poor people who are victims of the economy and can't find jobs or 
victims of family breakdowns, many times as a result of the facts that 
the male can't find jobs, the family does break down.
  Poor people are victims. Victims of hurricanes are recipients, also 
victims of floods, victims of earthquakes. They are all recipients of 
government help because they are victims.
  Then there are other people who are recipients of government help who 
are not victims. They are recipients of government help because a 
system has been developed which has made them dependent. You know, 
welfare for the farmers, for example. Farm welfare, welfare for rich 
farmers, is an atrocious mutilation of a program that started with the 
New Deal to help poor farmers.
  Poor farmers were helped by the government in many ways. Agriculture 
is one of our most successful industries as a result of the government 
helping, but the whole thing has gotten out of hand, and for years now 
we have had welfare for the farmers which is as great as the legitimate 
welfare that goes to mothers and children.
  I think the illegitimate swindle of welfare that goes to the farmers 
is what we should be also taking a close look at what we should be 
scrutinizing very carefully. But that has never happened. Welfare for 
the farmers is an untouchable in the budget.
  You may be interested in knowing that welfare for the farmers in the 
form of the price supports, just that one form of subsidy is about the 
same amount of money that is spent for welfare for mothers and 
children, $16 billion--$16 billion goes to farmers not to grow grain. 
It goes to farmers, and many of those farmers are very well off. A 
large proportion of them are not farmers at all in the sense of 
individuals who are farming. They are people who are on corporate 
boards of corporations that are agribusinesses.
  Most of our farming is done these days by agribusiness. In case you 
didn't know it, only 2 percent, 2 percent of the population now is 
involved with farming, only 2 percent. So the $16 billion that goes to 
the agribusinesses in the name of helping farmers is not going to help 
large numbers of individuals out there. It is going to help 
corporations. It is a check that they got. It is a socialist 
intervention into the farming industry. They are smothered with 
socialism.
  The agricultural industry is probably the most successful industry in 
the history of America. As a result of government intervention years 
and years ago, it is successful. If it is so successful, why do we have 
to continue to provide a government welfare check to farmers or to 
agribusinesses? That $16 billion there in the budget could go for 
something else. But they have not targeted, my point is they have not 
targeted agriculture subsidies.
  In the $17 billion rescission budget you won't see any large cuts of 
agricultural programs. They are not taking a heavy hit like housing or 
education for the poor or job programs for the poor, summer youth 
programs. You won't find anything zeroed out for agriculture in the 
rescission budget.
  This is very important to take note of this. Why
is it that an activity which involves only 2 percent of the population 
is an untouchable activity? How is it that the farm welfare system go 
on and on? Nobody is talking about ending farm welfare as we know it? 
How is it that this happens?
  [[Page H3402]] The American people ought to take a very close look at 
the power of the farm lobbyists. We talked a lot about lobbying. We 
talked about special interests. You should take a close look at how it 
is done, how 2 percent of the population can go on and on, as long as 
they want to go, control a whole system of subsidies.
  And I have only mentioned $16 billion worth. The Washington Post told 
us last year that another aspect of the welfare program for farmers, 
called the Farmers Home Loan Mortgages, $11.8 billion, billion, in 
loans to farmers was forgiven over a 5-year period. We are not 
discussing reform in that area.
  That appeared on the front page of the Washington Post. There was 
some scurrying around for a while. There was talk of a committee 
dealing with that. It didn't happen in any significant way.
  Then we know, of course, we failed to reform the savings and loans 
system. Instead of reforming the savings and loan system, we 
deregulated it. So the savings and loans program, which said that the 
government stood behind all of the people who have deposited their 
money in the savings and loans banks up to $100,000, that collapsed 
completely, not completely, it collapsed overwhelmingly. And it is 
costing the American taxpayers as much as $200 billion.
  But we are not laboring to reform a program that has cost you $200 
billion. You can't even get a good report as to where it is right now. 
It is still going forward.
  They are still trying to salvage the money that was lost via the 
savings and loan swindle. And there are still people running around who 
pocketed millions of dollars who have not been even called and 
interrogated, many others who have been interrogated who have never 
been prosecuted, and many others who have been prosecuted and they 
never paid a dime, many others who have spent some time, a few weeks in 
prison, but never paid a dime also. They come out and were millionaires 
still.
  So if you want to reform a significant portion of the government, we 
should be looking at reform for the savings and loans program. We 
should be looking at reform for the agriculture welfare system.
  That kind of reform is not on anybody's mind. They would prefer 
instead to target the programs that are serving the poorest people. And 
programs that are serving the poorest people, unfortunately, 
disproportionately large numbers of African-Americans are in those 
programs.
  Now, if there is a 10th grader, a sophomore out there listening, the 
obvious question is why are so many African-Americans in these 
programs? Why are so many African-Americans poor? Why haven't African-
Americans made it? Why are they vulnerable so that we can be targeted 
by people who are powerful and that we can become victims again?
  African-Americans enjoyed prosperity for a very short period of time 
during the era of World War II and the 10 years following World War II, 
20 years following World War II. There were jobs. Jobs were available 
in the big cities. That is why you have so many African-Americans in 
the big cities.
  They weren't concentrated there before World War II. African-
Americans were spread out all over the country, and most of them were 
in the South, not all
 of them, but most of them were in the South.

  Why were they in the South? Because the South had the largest slave 
population. Why did they have the largest slave population? Because the 
South's primary commodity, its primary income crop, was cotton and a 
few other items that required a large amount of labor, cheap labor, and 
you had large concentrations of slaves in the South.
  They left the South during World War II, and they came north. They 
found jobs. And if you look at history, examine the period when they 
had jobs, African-Americans in the big cities had jobs. You will find 
that there was a relatively small amount of family disintegration, of 
family destabilization. There were few families with only one parent. 
There was work available, and when work was available it was possible 
to maintain stabilized, good families, stable families, and go forward.
  But that was only a brief period. The jobs that existed in 
Washington, DC, in New York, in Chicago, in all the big cities where 
African-Americans have accumulated, those jobs began to disappear as 
the economy was mismanaged more and more. And the people who were in 
charge of our economy gave away our economic base for manufacturing. 
They gave it away to Japan and to Germany and to Taiwan.
  And you know the jobs that would be there for people normally, even 
without a war and without defense production, were all gone because the 
entrepreneurs and the investors and the people who own the plants found 
that they do make greater profits by using cheap labor somewhere else 
in the world. And that is a pattern that started then. It started 20 
years after World War II. And it escalated, and now it is in full boom.
  It is the way to go if you are going to produce a product. You don't 
invest in America and manufacture in America. You find the cheapest 
source of labor somewhere in the world, and you bring the product back 
to America. So for that reason the jobs are not there. You have large 
numbers of African-Americans along with other poor people in the big 
cities where they came because there were jobs, and they are trapped 
there.
  And we have had an anticity policy. Part of the reason that the 
policy has been anticity is because there are large concentrations of 
African-Americans and Latinos, minorities who didn't have any political 
power, large numbers who could not fight for themselves because they 
didn't have political action committees. They didn't have big 
contributors.
  For many reasons, the kind of power you need in America is not 
present in the inner city communities of our big cities. So, steadily, 
from the time of Ronald Reagan's first year to the present, steadily 
there has been an assault on the big cities. Steadily, the Federal 
Government has taken away programs that benefited the cities.
  The savings and loan money that built the shopping malls and the 
condominiums and all of the failed projects in the Midwest and the 
West, most of that money came out of our big cities, by the way, 
because even in the big cities, with millions of depositors, they 
accumulated large amounts of money in our banks.
                              {time}  2215

  The poorest banks are rich in our big cities because the numbers of 
people who are depositing are so great. Their deposits were taken out 
and invested across the country in failed projects, and the savings and 
loan drain that benefited Texas and California, a large part of the 
dollars came from the big cities. You had war being made on our big 
cities, and that war has wrecked the black families, has wrecked 
teenagers' lives, lives of teenagers, and that war continues.
  Instead of the present oppressive elite minority trying to rebuild 
our cities, as they do across the world, most countries are proud of 
their cities, and they want to rebuild them, a decision has been made 
by the oppressive elite minority that they want to destroy our cities, 
that they are going to build an America where big cities do not count; 
the populations of big cities can be thrown overboard. There is a 
triage process that we will follow. After all, so many of them are 
black, so many are African-American.
  And in case we do not complete the process with the budget, they have 
introduced affirmative action, an attack on that, assault on 
affirmative action to send the message even more clearly that we are 
targeting African Americans.
  The big cities have large accumulations of African Americans, and I 
would like to get back to the point I was making. Why are they there? I 
just told you. They went there seeking jobs. The jobs were there. The 
jobs have been taken away now. So they are there. They are vulnerable. 
They are poor.
  Why do they have to go to the big cities? Because the economy of the 
South where they were was even poorer. The wretchedness of black 
families was greater in the rural South before World War II than it is 
in any big city now. Starvation and hunger, exploitation, a state which 
was not too far removed from slavery existed for hundreds of thousands 
of African Americans, because slavery, getting back to 
[[Page H3403]] the topic that upsets so many people, slavery left a 
heritage.
  Why are so many African-Americans poor? Because they are victims of a 
process that never had any mercy in it. They are victims of a process 
that never offered any real aid until the Great Society programs, the 
New Deal and the Great Society programs came along. There was no aid of 
any kind. You had millions of African-Americans who were set free by 
the 13th amendment to the Constitution. And the Emancipation 
Proclamation set some free before, and upon achieving that freedom, 
they were empty-handed. They had nothing.
  If there are any sophomores still listening, remember that slavery 
existed for 200 years in America. Slavery existed for 400 years in this 
hemisphere. Slavery in South America and the Caribbean area started 
long before it started here. But slavery existed in American for 200 
years, and some people who says slavery was an institution, slavery was 
an industry. Slavery was an industry, a vile industry, but an industry.
  Slaves were recruited. Slaves were imported to make money. Slaves 
were brought and sold like property. They were bought and sold like 
machines for 200 years.
  For 200 years slaves were handled in a way which reminded them at 
every point that they were property. In order to accomplish this, 
slaves had to be treated in ways which obliterated their humanity.
  I used the word ``obliterated''; an attempt was made. I take it back. 
They did not succeed fortunately. But an attempt was made to obliterate 
any sense of humanness in the slave in order to make him a more 
productive machine, a more productive beast of burden.
  Their sense of humanity had to be wiped out. So slaves were bought 
and sold and deliberately families were not allowed to exist. You know, 
there might have been 1 or 2 percent of the slave owners who were kind 
enough to let families stay together or to respect the family unit, but 
basically, in the salve industry, it was counterproductive to have 
family attachments. So the slaves were for 200 years in a situation 
which discouraged any family. Any families which we have, any sense of 
family which we have, which is very strong in the black community, very 
strong in the African-Americans community, any sense of family is there 
despite all of the hardships. That sense of family is there because we 
the people of the African-Americans communities, the victims of 
slavery, held on to it, made it happen, and kept it happening. But for 
200 years there was an attempt made to make us forget all about family 
ties, forget all about our humanity in every respect, religion, family, 
art, culture, everything.
  If the sophomores are still listening, just try to imagine what it is 
like for a Mexican person who is very poor, owns very little, who comes 
across the border from Mexico to California as an immigrant; imagine an 
immigrant in a whole new world, does not speak the language, is poor, 
and was poor back home, and try to imagine what I am saying when I say 
that that immigrant, that poor immigrant coming across the border from 
Mexico to California, is a millionaire compared to a slave being dumped 
on a wharf somewhere in America and taken to the auction block. Because 
that poor Mexican has a village, a family, a culture, associates, 
people to go back to or to remember, reminisce about, to communicate 
with even after he arrives here.
  That poor Mexican probably has some friends or some associates or a 
community of people who might not know him individually but will 
receive him in California if he comes across the border.
  They are rich compared to what the slave had. The slaves were 
deliberately cut off from their culture, from their sense of family, 
from their societies that had been built up over hundreds of years. 
They were deliberately cut off, and right away they were put on board 
ships, and they were arranged in ways to separate slaves who came from 
the same places, even the same tribe or the same languages, and not 
allow them to be together, because there was fear of mutiny. They did 
not want them to have any sense of commonality.
  So the obliteration process for slaves started on the ship. It 
continued at the wharf when they were unloaded and sold. They were sold 
regardless, irregardless of any attachments that they might have had. 
If a sister or brother happened to come together, then nobody would 
recognize that certainly on the wharf, and then it went on and on for 
200 years.
  The largest number of slaves that existed at any time in the history 
of slavery in this country, however, were not people who were brought 
across the sea. You know, millions were brought across the sea. But the 
largest number were born in this country. They were bred in this 
country. Slave-breeding was a basic part of the slave industry.
  Why am I mentioning the ugly subject of slave-breeding? Why am I 
bothering to mention that? Because the history of the black family and 
the disintegration of the black family, the problems of the black 
family, are rooted in slavery.
  An attempt was made to obliterate any sense of family, and when 
freedom came, no attempt was made to help in any way, economically, 
socially, culturally, no attempt was made. So when a sophomore asked 
the question, why so many black people are poor, why are they so 
vulnerable, why are they all gathered in the big cities? The answer is 
they are in the big cities because they came looking for jobs, and they 
found jobs, and they thrived for three or four decades.
  But before that they were in the rural South where they were very 
poor and never had a chance, because nobody ever gave any help to the 
slaves after they were set free, and before that, of course, they were 
slaves, and instead of them being helped by anyone, an effort was made 
to obliterate, block out their humanity, destroy any sense of family, 
any sense of culture, any sense of religion.
  You cannot suddenly, as a nation or a group of civilized people, say 
that 200 years does not matter. You cannot obliterate and say it did 
not exist. That is what the Communists used to try to do in Russia, 
just wipe out segments of history. It did exist.
  After we were set free, the 13th amendment and the 14th amendment, 
15th amendment, there was another hundred years of oppression, 
lynchings, denial of all rights.
  So we are talking about 300 years before we had a situation where 
people could get up and leave the South, come to the big cities. There 
was nothing to fall back on. Nobody has a parent who gave them 
anything. They did not inherent any land. They did not inherit any bank 
accounts.
  You know, why are they so poor? Why are African-Americans in such 
large proportions in the big cities poor? Because their ancestors were 
slaves, their ancestors were victimized. There was nothing to fall back 
on to build any economic base.
  The miracle is that so many, that there are so many middle-class 
black families, there are so many people who have overcome all of this. 
There are so many who prosper no matter what.
  The cruelest activity that you could perpetuate would be to target 
this vulnerable bunch, this vulnerable group of people who are the 
descendants of slaves. We are the victims. We are the descendants of 
victims, and now we have been targeted again.
  Probably many of the people who are targeting the victims are the 
descendants of the oppressors, the slave-owners and the slave industry, 
people who participated in the slave industry in many different ways.
  It is time to get angry when you see the policies of the Government 
of the United States being shaped by people who would cut the budget in 
ways which seek to wipe out the victims of the descendants of slaves. 
In this budget process that we are about to embark upon, we are told 
that there is a desire to save $722 billion over a 7-year period. The 
call is for a balanced budget by the year 2002. They said the budget 
must be balanced, and that is a criteria that is set.
  The Congressional Black Caucus budget would not be allowed on the 
floor. It will not have a chance of getting past the Committee on Rules 
unless we can show we can balance the budget by the year 2002. All 
other budgets, they say, must do the same thing. At least, you must 
show over a 5-year period that the budget that you are 
[[Page H3404]] proposing is on a glide path to a $59 billion deficit in 
5 years; $722 billion in savings must be realized over 7 years; $59 
billion must be the deficit, no higher than $59 billion in 5 years, and 
in order to get there, the kinds of cuts that were made last week, $17 
billion in the rescission process, will have to be magnified many times 
over.
  They will have to make even more cuts in housing programs for poor 
people. They will make even more cuts in programs like the school lunch 
program, in programs like the summer youth employment program, in 
training programs for welfare mothers. The cuts will be humongous, 
monstrous, unless we turn aside from the revolution that is being 
promoted by the oppressive elite minority now in control of this 
Congress.
  It is a very serious situation. Added to the cuts, as I said before, 
is the attack, the assault on affirmative action, which doubles the 
victimization.
  We see a pattern in the welfare reform bill that will be repeated 
over and over in the welfare reform process.
  In the bill that is being offered, the element of reform I support, 
as I said before. We all want to reform any Government program and make 
it work. The human animal is not an administering animal. We do not 
naturally know how to administer anything.
  So any big activity, any complex activity needs to be reformed from 
time to time, needs to be revised, adjusted, and welfare is no 
exception. But we should also revise any other aspect of the Government 
in the same manner. We have no problem with the reform element.
  Welfare is also, unfortunately, a vehicle for the demonization of 
African-Americans. Welfare is a vehicle for the demonization, first, of 
poor people. It is a vehicle for the demonization of pregnant 
teenagers, teenage mothers, and it is a vehicle for the demonization of 
African-Americans.

                              {time}  2230

  How does this happen? Because it has become a code word.
  When people think of welfare, the media, the political leadership, 
have handled the problem and issue in ways which have led to an 
association of welfare with African-Americans, with black people. So it 
becomes a demonization.
  If we want to really reform it, let us take out the demonization. Let 
us stop talking about welfare in terms that demonize people. Let us 
look at the problem. They are a set of victims like other victims the 
government helps, and let us go forward with reforming welfare in that 
spirit.
  Let us talk about jobs and the need for jobs and job training without 
calling people lazy. ``Lazy'' is a ridiculous term to use with the 
victims of the descendants of slaves.
  In slavery everybody had a job, and they had to do it. In slavery 
they worked people from dawn to dusk. In slavery they worked them every 
day, except a few kind slave owners who gave Sundays off. But if there 
is anybody who knows what work is all about, it is the people who are 
the descendants of the victims of slavery.
  So let us stop the demonization. People are not on welfare who are 
able-bodied because they are lazy.
  In my district certainly, if you have the jobs, for every job you 
produce there will be 10 or 20 people in line to get the job. There are 
no jobs, and we have been looking for jobs for decades now.
  We have to produce jobs in the Congressional Black Caucus budget, in 
our vision of what America should be like. We are going to have a job 
creation program, as we always have had in previous budgets. We are 
going to have job training. We are going to have job educational 
programs.
  You know, if you give a bright welfare mother a 2-year college 
education, she can become a part of the middle class, or a degree in 
nursing, or x-ray technician, or blood work technicians, a number of 
different jobs that are available for people who have training. But you 
have to have the money and the budget to provide for that 2 years of 
training in order to allow this person to bridge the gap and get into 
the middle class.
  When you are demonizing people that are making the assumption that 
they are lazy, making the charge, then you do not put money in the 
budget for training and for job creation. There is no money in the 
welfare program that has been offered by the Republican majority in the 
House. There is no money, there is no program, for job training. There 
is no program for job creation.
  We started out talking about get off welfare and go to work, and the 
Democratic alternatives to the welfare program of the Republicans, you 
are going to find an effort to provide job training. There is money in 
there for--in the Deal substitute and certainly the Patsy Mink 
substitute. There is money to provide for training to allow people to 
get off of welfare, but it is too good a demonization technique and a 
demonization weapon for the Republicans to seriously deal with jobs and 
job training and seriously try to reform welfare.
  You can have a good election issue if you continue to demonize the 
people who are on welfare because they are black, because they are 
teenagers, because they are pregnant. All of a sudden teenage girls 
become a threat to the moral fiber of the country. As I said before, 
they are not a threat to the moral fiber of the country. I would like 
to have fewer teenagers pregnant. I would like to see fewer unwed 
mothers. The number who are increasing, who are not African American, 
is great, which means that there is a situation of helplessness and 
hopelessness that is driving this situation, and we need to correct it 
before this disease spreads beyond the vulnerable poor populations of 
our cities and engulfs other groups. We should reasonably examine it 
and determine that we are going to provide hope for teenagers 
regardless of their race or color.
  We are going to provide hope, and one area you provide hope is 
through education, providing the best possible education. Next to the 
cuts in housing that were in the rescission budget last week, Mr. 
Speaker, the $7 billion in cuts in housing programs for low income 
people, the cuts in education were the second most vicious groups of 
cuts because they are targeted to eliminate hope for large numbers of 
young people. The specific cut of the summer youth employment program 
and the specific cut of the drug-free schools program, those specific 
cuts are aimed at programs for young people, and they become, as my 
colleagues know, the most vicious, among the most vicious of all.
  If we are going to continue and repeat those kinds of cuts, then we 
are going to wipe out hope for more
 and more young people and end up with more and more being caught up in 
the web of teenage pregnancies and other social ills. Teenage 
pregnancies are a problem we are going to resolve. Let us reasonably 
try to get that kind of hope restored to teenagers so that they will 
not drift into that kind of situation which hurts both the mother and 
the child. Babies should not be raising babies. Teenagers should not be 
raising babies. We do not want it, and we should rationally do 
everything possible to end it.

  But do not demonize pregnant teenagers. Do not demonize them and use 
the code that there is something wrong with black pregnant teenagers, 
there is something wrong with black families, there is something wrong 
with the black community. Do not demonize and gain some kind of 
political advantage by appealing to the gut racism in certain people. 
Do not let the welfare reform process drift into that.
  Teenagers are not a threat to the moral fiber of America. Teenage 
pregnancies--there was a time when teenage pregnancy was a threat to 
the moral fiber of America, and I said it before on this floor, and I 
repeat it to remind my colleagues that teenage pregnancy was a threat 
to the moral fiber of America, black teenage pregnancy--during the days 
of slavery, 200 years of slavery when teenage pregnancy was promoted 
and teenage pregnancy was a profit-making enterprise. Breeding slaves 
produced more slaves in America than importing slaves from Africa--
breeding. Every teenage slave girl was expected to get pregnant as soon 
as she was old enough to get pregnant, forced to get pregnant. Terrible 
things could happen to her if she did not get pregnant, and she did not 
choose the man who made her pregnant. Part of the breeding process was 
to select the men who did the impregnation. So, that was a threat, that 
kind of activity which went on for 200 years 
[[Page H3405]] in America as a business, the slave business, the slave 
industry, that was a threat to the moral fiber of America. Like all 
other aspects of slavery, the moral fiber of America was challenged by 
the components of slavery.
  Thank G-d for Abraham Lincoln. Thank G-d for all the people who lost 
their lives in the war to end slavery. America has had that burden 
taken off its shoulder, been able to go forward as a leader of the Free 
World as a result of that kind of moral threat being removed. So, when 
you see or hear people talk about teenage pregnancies, it is a serious 
matter of today, but is not a threat to the moral fiber of America. 
These people are not demons. The demons were the people who made an 
industry out of impregnating black teenagers in the slave system, and 
the breeding pens and the breeding farms. Those were the people who 
were the demons.
  We have been targeted unfairly. I hope that the elite oppressive 
minority can hear some of these appeals. It is not too late to turn 
back and look at the process of delivering on the Contract With 
America, the process on demonstrating that you know how to run the 
government better than the Democrats. I hope the Republicans will turn 
aside the game plan that involves demonization and later on an appeal 
to make it racism.
  Candidates who are announcing now for the presidential race in 1996 
have placed great emphasis on the fact that they want to destroy 
affirmative action, affirmative action. When they add affirmative 
action and the assault on affirmative action to the game plan, as I 
said before, and my colleagues know that $722 billion is going to have 
to be saved over 7 years, you can understand that the days ahead, in
 terms of decisionmaking about the budget and the targeting of programs 
that hurt minorities and the targeting of programs that hurt poor 
people has just begun. Between now and 1996 every candidate running for 
President will be trying to demonstrate, every candidate running for 
President for the Republican Party will be trying to demonstrate, that 
they can go after African-Americans in a more overwhelming fashion and 
a more targeted and precise fashion, in a more damaging fashion, than 
anybody else. That is going to be the Willie Horton of 1996.

  It is time to come to grips with it right now. It is time that we on 
the floor of this House understood that we do not intend to sit idly by 
and allow this kind of demonization and appeal to racism to go on. We 
do not intend to allow the budget to be twisted and distorted in order 
to accomplish that purpose.
  We want to show a vision of America that, I think, the majority of 
Americans want, and that is a vision where we apply the tremendous 
wealth of this country with the richest nation that ever existed on the 
face of the earth. There has never been anything like America. The 
wealth is not something of the past. The wealth is escalating every 
day. Wall Street is not suffering. We are not on the verge of 
bankruptcy. people are getting rich faster and faster. Those who have 
money, the wealth of America is not absorbed by the fact that there is 
no frontier anymore. There is no frontier in terms of land.
  But it seems we have a lot of wealth above us, the broadcast 
frequencies above us. The bands up there that are now being auctioned 
off have brought in close to $9 billion. The people on the air--and we 
should stop and think about that resource that belongs to us. There are 
all kinds of ways in which this country can be protected from 
bankruptcy. There are many ways in which the deficit can be solved once 
and for all, and you do not have to increase taxes on individuals. We 
need a whole system of taxation which does not focus on individual 
income and throw one group of people against another.
  In the Congressional Black Caucus budget we shall propose a 
commission to creatively look at new kinds of tax options, and we 
should propose some of those tax options to go forward as soon as 
possible. Why not? As my colleagues know, look at the air waves in a 
different way, and derive some income through user fees, and let it be 
known right away. Why not even halt the auctioning process and do some 
other form of ownership of the frequency bands up there which are going 
to be very lucrative? And one industry that we know will be very 
lucrative in the future is the telecommunications industry. One 
industry that will derive a great deal of profit and revenue will be 
telecommunications. The industry that the Japanese, and the Germans, 
and the Taiwanese, nobody in a foreign country can take away from us, 
is the telecommunications industry.
  So, let us look forward to making use of the potential that is in the 
air above us in ways that benefit all Americans.
  Nobody should buy the argument that you have to cut programs for poor 
people because we are bankrupt. Nobody should buy the argument that we 
have to cut HUD in order to save money, that is the only place we can 
save money. Nobody should buy the argument that the summer youth 
program, which is a relatively small amount of money, has had to cut 
down to zero in order to balance the budget or in order to save money. 
We should not buy those arguments. There are many, many ways to cut the 
budget and adjust the budget. There are many ways to look for new 
revenue.
  All the industries that are based in America that
   have foreign operations have been let off very lightly in terms of 
they have taken the jobs away from the workers. The people who own the 
plants and investors, they reap great profits. There should be some way 
to get a greater share of those profits and pile them back into the 
country of origin. There are many, many ways which we should look to 
new sources of revenue in order to sustain the richest nation that ever 
existed and to pay for the kind of services, and the programs and the 
projects that benefit all Americans.

                              {time}  2245

  The caring majority, which I think is the majority of Americans, will 
insist, I think, that everybody be given an opportunity for an 
education, eveybody be given decent housing, everybody be given an 
opportunity to eat well, that children will have free lunches.
  I think the caring majority is made up of people out there who need 
government help. The caring majority is made up of a majority of people 
who are not people who need government help. They are just people who 
are wise enough to know that if this society is going to hold together, 
if you are going to go forward with the maximum civility, go forward 
and build a society which promotes the common welfare, the prosperity 
for all, then we are going to have to care about people who do not have 
housing.
  People in the caring majority do not necessarily want to live next to 
homeless people, have them come to their homes and eat, but they want 
them to have a home and want them to have food. People in the caring 
majority may not want their kids to go to school with poor children, 
but they want every child to have an opportunity to go to school. The 
people in the caring majority care about health care for everybody, and 
they do not think we are so poor that we cannot have health care 
systems which provide decent health care for everybody.
  In the days ahead, as the Committee on the Budget moves to realize 
its $722 billion in savings, we have to be on a glide path, they say, 
showing that the deficit is down to $59 billion in 5 years. The 
horrible kinds of devastating cuts that they will propose must be 
resisted. We must show that an F-22 fighter plane that nobody needs 
will cost us $12 billion over the next 5 years, and if we are really, 
truly worried about bankruptcy and becoming insolvent as a nation, why 
are we building an F-22 fighter plane, the most sophisticated fighter 
plane ever devised by the imagination of man. We have already a very 
sophisticated fighter plane. Put that on a list. Those Americans who 
think out there that somebody has to suffer, there has to be some cuts, 
that is the argument we hear, let us spread the pain.
  We are not spreading the pain. Seven billion dollars comes out of 
HUD, housing for low-income people, and you are going to continue to 
build the F-22 at a cost of $12 billion over the next 5 years,
and this is a scaled down version of what was proposed originally. If 
the whole plan was followed and we built all the F-22's that were 
originally conceived, it would cost us $72 billion. Seventy-two billion 
dollars. But just over the next 5 years we are looking at $12 
[[Page H3406]] billion, and nobody is scrutinizing that expenditure and 
saying we cannot afford it.
  The CIA, $28 billion is the estimate of CIA's budget. If you have to 
cut something, cut the CIA 10 percent every year for the next 5 years. 
You will not lose very much. Eldridge Ames and his kind will be taken 
care of in a less lucrative fashion, but you will not lose any ground 
in terms of America being secure and competitive. They do not 
contribute that much at this point. They would still have half of $28 
billion, which is $14 billion.
  Let us spread the pain where it hurts the least. Let us spread the 
pain by not building another Seawolf submarine, $2.1 billion. If we 
must make cuts, if we are worried about the future, if you do not want 
to mortgage our children's future, then there are many ways and places 
that cuts can be made.
  There are a whole list of corporate loopholes that we can start 
closing. The Committee on Ways and Means has produced a proposal for 
tax cuts, and one set of analysts has looked at it and spoken to me and 
told me there is $1 trillion worth of tax cuts, $1 trillion worth of 
giveaways, loopholes in that proposal. One trillion dollars.
  Let us take a close look at that bill and those loopholes. Let us 
look at the tax expenditures as closely as we look at the other 
expenditures.
  In other words, we are going to resist. The Congressional Black 
Caucus budget is just a tiny part of the resistance. We will not stand 
by and allow $722 billion to be saved on the backs of the poorest 
people in the Nation. We will not allow people who consider themselves 
revolutionaries to wreck the civility of the Nation, to destroy 60 
years of activity and programs. We will not let people go hungry, 
remain jobless, have less educational opportunity, without putting up 
the most stringent possible fight.
  I appeal to the majority in this House, the people who represent the 
oppressive elite minority, to turn aside from their effort to create a 
budget and a game plan, a scheme, that envisages America only for a 
handful of people, only for a small class of people. We are looking at 
America for everybody, and we do not seek to throw overboard the most 
vulnerable. We will not continue to try to throw overboard the poor 
people in America. We will not continue to try to throw overboard the 
poor people in the cities. We will not continue to throw overboard the 
African-Americans among the poor people in the cities. We will not look 
at the most vulnerable population and attempt to demonize them and use 
them as a way of guaranteeing the next election.
  There is a vicious set of activities in motion, and it is time for us 
to get angry and call them for what they are. We will challenge the 
oppressive elite minority, and in representation of the caring 
majority, we will prevail. The caring majority will counterattack in 
1996, and those who are vicious, unyielding, uncivil, who refuse to try 
to create an America that belongs to everybody, will find that this 
democracy cannot be hoodwinked, the people cannot be stampeded into 
voting against their own interest. The caring majority will stand 
behind the most vulnerable in our society.


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