[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 53 (Wednesday, March 22, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H3540-H3541]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             WELFARE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. Thurman] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. THURMAN. Mr. Speaker, we have another chart and I am glad to 
know that the gentleman is looking at the Deal plan because I think 
that that is very important, because I think it does do many of the 
things that the gentleman talked about, particularly in simplification, 
folding in waste, fraud and abuse. We are all trying to meet that same 
criteria. I think where we really get into the fights is over some of 
the funding issues and specifically because of some of the entitlement 
issues.
  But I heard some remarks tonight that I really took exception to and 
that was that some of us may have lost or gotten into the Beltway kind 
of feeling up here. Let me tell you, I have never done that and I can 
tell you that the people that work in my office every day are out there 
helping people every day with problems that they have. So I am going to 
give you some facts, and some real-life situations, and not just about 
numbers, first of all, and then I am going to go to the numbers.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, if the gentlewoman will yield, I will 
never accuse you of being an inside-of-the-Beltway person because I fly 
home with you every weekend. I will say this: I hope you tell some of 
the stories to the leadership in your party who do tend to be a little 
bit more inside the Beltway than someone like yourself.
  Mrs. THURMAN. I think we can all take some credit for that, and I 
will leave it at that. I want to talk about a man and woman who live in 
Horsehoe Beach, Thomas and Pam Wright, and they have five children, 
four of which are of school age. Tom was a long distance truck driver 
who made $600 to $800 a week. He was diagnosed with diabetes and can no 
longer be certified as a truck driver and now is working as a security 
guard, and he makes $200 a week and he is now receiving $230 per month 
in food stamps. He does not like where he is at, but he does not know 
what to do if this is cut off.
  Danielle Plummer, a 30-year-old single mother living in Holder, FL 
considered herself lucky because she inherited a 40-year-old A-frame 
house which was paid for. So she does not have to pay rent anymore. 
Imagine that.
  Miss Plummer recently lost her job at a McDonald's restaurant because 
she lost her source of transportation and if you know where this area 
is of Florida, there is no transportation. She receives $212 in food 
stamps and $214 in AFDC monthly for her 10-year-old daughter. Miss 
Plummer has been in and out of court fighting for child support and 
cannot receive benefits owed for her daughter.

                              {time}  2200

  She admits welfare is not where she wants to be, nor is it where she 
plans on remaining. However, when I asked her what she would do if her 
assistance she now receives was suddenly discontinued, she said, ``I 
don't know. My God, how would I take care of my daughter?'' Those are 
real people. Those are people that live in my district.
  But in the Deal plan, I was asked to look at some situations as how 
the purchasing power, and I will admit, you do go up 2 percent for 
purchasing power for food every year, but what happens is that that 
power actually goes down. And this is what happens here.
  In the Deal plan we keep 102 percent, the safety net, very safety 
net. This is the package that President Nixon and President Ford worked 
on, and they said, ``We have got to have a thrifty food plan. We have 
got to make sure there is a nutritional program out there,'' kind of 
like we do with food and breakfast and those kinds of things, that very 
basic nutritional need. What happens is, if you look at what happens 
traditionally in food prices, they have gone up 3.4 percent every year. 
In your plan it goes up 2 percent. So what we are doing is we are 
notching that down every year, and not leaving it so people get good 
nutritional value. This is what happens.
  Deal leaves it 102 percent. Republicans, under H.R. 4, actually, as 
you see it, it declines. So think about it this way, think about this 
woman who is on food stamps who has to go to the grocery store next 
year, because she does not have a job, she is trying, she is trying to 
do all the right things to raise her daughter, she goes to the grocery 
store, and now all of a sudden she has got to start pulling food out of 
the bag, because she cannot afford to keep up with prices as they have 
increased. It may mean a loaf of bread. It may mean some eggs. It may 
mean that milk. It may mean one of those basic 
[[Page H3541]] nutritional value foods that we talk about.
  And that is what you are going to end up doing here.
  Now, let me tell you about Michael and his family to finish this. 
Well, I do not have time, but let us just remember in this debate, this 
is not about numbers. This is about people with real problems, and we 
need to be careful.


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