[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 53 (Wednesday, March 22, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H3554-H3557]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page H3554]]
                      WELFARE AND CHILD NUTRITION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 1995, the gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. Jackson Lee] is 
recognized for 23 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.
  Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.
  I just wanted to respond to some of the comments that the gentleman 
from Florida made in terms of term limits.
  It is very popular to stand in the aisle or stand up in the well and 
talk about how one is for term limits, but it is very interesting to 
know that the gentleman who is for a proposal to limit a Member's term 
to 12 years he himself has served in that body for 15 years and about 
to serve one more year which would be a total of 16 years and is not 
for retroactivity.
  I just find it amazing that Members of Congress, those who speak the 
loudest about term limits, are those who have served in this Congress 
for 16, 20 and some have served as long as 25 years.
  If the gentleman is really for term limits, then I would suggest to 
the gentleman that he not run for reelection and commit to the American 
people and basically practice what he preaches and say to the American 
people here tonight that since he is so committed to this term limit 
ideal that he is not going to seek reelection.
  Mr. McCOLLUM. Would the gentleman yield on that point?
  Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana. I do not have the time, but I would be happy 
to engage with the gentleman on the debate of term limits. But I do not 
control the time, but I would certainly suggest to the gentleman that 
if he really wants to be true on the issue of term limits and true to 
the American people he himself ought to not seek reelection.
  Mr. McCOLLUM. Would the gentlewoman yield just on that one point?
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE. I can yield you 15 seconds.
  Mr. McCOLLUM. I just want to respond that I am ready to walk out of 
here voluntarily when every other Member of this body is willing to do 
it. Other than that, I am penalizing my district.
  I do not think that is a good, logical thing to do, but when we have 
uniform term limits for everybody, whether it be voluntary or 
otherwise, I am ready to go out. I think that is the logical thing to 
do, but I do not believe we are going to do it voluntarily. That is why 
we need a constitutional amendment.

                              {time}  2340

  Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana. We are never going to do it voluntarily, 
because you have decided not to do it yourself.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Mr. Speaker, I do thank you and I know that we have 
had a vigorous debate this evening, a myriad of issues which include 
term limits.
  I want to just, for the brief time that I have to really speak to the 
American people, I might imagine that some would say that they have 
been spoken to, but there has been a fury, if you will, and a flurry of 
discussions today dealing with welfare reform and dealing with where 
this country needs to go in the 21st century.
  One of the great concerns, when you involve yourself in great debate, 
is, of course, the rising emotions. Today I have heard a number of 
examples of people who pull themselves up by their bootstraps, 
individuals who looked over on this side of the aisle, the Democratic 
side of the aisle, and talked about African American illegitimacy in 
terms of babies. I know that this is not a castigating of one race of 
people over another or one group of Americans over another. We know 
this whole question of welfare reform is not a question of African 
Americans, White Americans or Hispanic Americans or Asian Americans or 
any other kinds of Americans.
  It is a question of people. What I say, Mr. Speaker, is that in fact 
all of us are looking for the best way to deal with the issue of 
welfare reform.
  I have maintained since this debate has started, and let me offer to 
say to those who might be listening, that I am a new Member. So I think 
it pales worthless to be able to talk about what happened in 1982 and 
1983, which I hear many of my Republican colleagues talking about. We 
now have before the American people the agenda that they want us to 
have. And that agenda has been an agenda supported by Democrats and 
Republicans. I imagine Independents. And I imagine all people. That is 
an agenda that moves people from welfare to independence, the ability 
to be Americans and stand up and be counted and to be responsible but 
to also have dignity and self-esteem.
  The debate that we have gathered this evening and over these last 
hours points decidedly by the Republicans to undermine and to cause the 
lack of
 self-esteem to come about in people who are now on welfare. By those 
stories of talking about how people should be independent and how they 
pull themselves up by the bootstraps, it is accusatory and it is not 
helpful.

  I spent time in my district, as many people have, and I have touched 
those who are experiencing the need to be on welfare. And I can tell 
you that the mothers have told me, one and all, this is not the way I 
want to run my life. This is not the way I want my children to live. I 
really want to be part of the all American dream.
  I hear from people like Alicia Crawford who said, to go and ask a 
person for assistance, this is a welfare mother, age 30, and she said, 
is as if you are giving up everything, your dignity, your self-esteem, 
your ability to walk about. She said, your self-esteem is low. With the 
help of the welfare system, you can find a job which will give you a 
sense of independence, self-esteem and self-worth.
  But you know what, the program that is being offered by the 
Republicans that they call welfare reform takes away job training, has 
a sense of mean spiritedness that does not include child care and 
certainly blames the Government but yet has no way of creating jobs.
  Three amendments that I offered to the Committee on Rules and offered 
to be presented to this House, and that was an amendment that included 
job care, job training, rather, child care, and a unique, I think 
perspective, that many my colleagues have supported in the past and are 
supporting even now, and that is to provide a reasonable incentive for 
the private sector to provide those welfare recipients who have been 
trained and are able to work.
  Is that not fair? Is it not fair to recognize that Government cannot 
be the only employer of those seeking independence? Unfortunately, the 
Republican plan does not include any of that sense of understanding.
  Able-bodied parents who are on welfare two to one have said, We would 
like to work. But yet there is no recognition in the present 
legislation that is before us to allow that to happen.
  Mr. Speaker, I, again, say we are not asking for a handout. We are 
asking for a hand up. But I tell you what we get with the Republican 
bill, major cuts for the state of Texas. Our comptroller has already 
indicated what rescissions will bring about. Let me tell you what would 
happen to the State of Texas over a 5-year period if we have the 
present welfare reform package passed in the U.S. House of 
Representatives.
  Title 1 would block grant cash assistance for needy families 
resulting in $323 million less in federal funding for Texas over the 
next 5 years. Title II for abused and neglected children, in foster 
care or adoptive placements would lose $196 million for Texas. What 
does that actually mean?
  I served on the Harris County Protective Services Administration's 
Foster Parent Retention Program. I lived and breathed the stories of 
foster parents in terms of the great need, one, that we have in our 
communities to retain foster parents and what foster parents go through 
to mend the broken spirits and sometimes broken bodies that come into 
their homes. Are you telling us that we will block grant them and when 
there is no money in the bottom of the pot we then say to those abused 
and neglected children, we have nowhere for you to go, stay and be 
abused. And if happenstance, you are maimed or killed, so be it.
  That is what we are saying. Foster parents who
   are sometimes at their very last rope because we do not have a 
enough across this Nation. We did not have enough in Harris County, and 
we are looking for different resources to be able to allow them to hang 
on because they were doing such a wonderful 
[[Page H3555]] job. But yet we are telling them in this new welfare 
reform, which I really call welfare punishment, that we will tell those 
in the state of Texas and many other States that you will have 196 
million. That is abusive in and of itself. That is child abuse. That is 
not being responsive to the needs of our community and of our children.
  Title III would consolidate child care programs into a block grant 
that would cut $172 million from Federal funds that would be provided 
for Texas children over the next 5 years. That is 29,000 fewer Texas 
children that would be served.
  I heard a discussion here today that saddened me for it failed to 
realize the excitement of a young woman. First off, the young woman has 
not gotten pregnant to get welfare. It has been documented that that is 
not the case. In fact, most Americans do not believe that. And I would 
say that primarily because we have documentation that says, and it is 
refuting all of what the Republicans are saying their mandate has given 
them.
  It says, they asked the question of the American people, should 
unmarried mothers under the age 18 be able to receive welfare? 
Interestingly enough, 57 percent of the Republicans said yes; some 63 
percent of the Independents said yes; and 67 percent of Democrats. 
Should welfare recipients in a work program, should they be allowed to 
receive benefits as long as they are willing to work for them? Same 
high numbers: 63 percent Republicans said yes; 70 percent Independents 
and 66 percent Democrats.
  I do not know what the mandate is that the Republicans are saying 
that they have in order to be able to cut off people who are trying to 
rise up.
  My point about child care is, these young energetic mothers who 
happen to have babies are looking for job training to prepare them for 
the 21st century. They want to work in high tech jobs. They want to 
work in clerical jobs. They want to understand the new computer age, 
the new superhighway. And they are prepared to go out to work. Yet 
child care is costing any of them, no matter what wages they are 
getting, particularly if they are at the minimum wage, they are getting 
some one-third of whatever their wages might be for child care.
  Here in the Republican bill we find out that they do not want to give 
child care to anyone with children under 5. These are young women and 
possibly young men who are at the prime of their life, who want to have 
training, who want to get out and work, who want their babies who are 
15 months old and 2 years old and 3 years old and 5 years old to 
understand that mom or the parent, whoever it might be, has the dignity 
to go out and want to be something and someone.
  And then we find title III and title V repealing the nutrition 
programs, the school lunch programs. And, oh, the stories we have been 
told about the school lunches.
  First we are told that there are really people who are working-class 
people who really do not want the lunches. Then we are told that bring 
the old fashioned bag lunch and go back to the good old days. I can 
tell you that I truly came from a family, a mother and father, lived 
with my grandmother. We worked to pull our bootstraps up, if you will. 
We were looking for the shoes, but we did not have the
 sadness that people have today, and we were gratified by the kinds of 
services that were offered to us and my brother. And we made the best 
of it.

  Those were the days that maybe you could bring a mayonnaise sandwich 
or maybe you could skip, if you will, a lunch for a period of a day or 
so because things were not as bad as you would find them today, but we 
go into homes today and we find people living in such degradation, not 
brought upon by crack and selling drugs but simply because of the 
poverty, the need of jobs, the lack of education, poor schooling.

                              {time}  2350

  So I would simply say rather than maybe getting a good oatmeal 
breakfast every morning which I got, which even though it was the same 
old same old, it was a good breakfast, some of these children are not 
getting any kind of breakfast. And we are told by the American 
pediatric Association that these children are going hungry in school 
here, suffering from dizziness; they are not understanding what is 
going on if they are not on the school breakfast program; that 
sometimes these meals are the only meals that our children get 
throughout the week. Kid Care, which is in Houston, a private 
organization in the city of Houston, has said how many meals children 
miss. And in fact if they do not get the Kid Care, which is a 
charitable organization, over the weekend and sometimes during the 
week, they do not eat all weekend long, and the only time they eat is 
when they come to the school that Monday morning.
  What are you going to say when you block grant child nutrition 
programs that in fact help our children to learn, help the teachers to 
be able to control the classroom, and clearly as you can note, the 
kinds of loss that we are suffering here in Texas,
 the impact that nutrition block grants will have on WIC programs which 
have proven to be successful in and of themselves.

  If you just look at these numbers, although they go up simply to 
1992, you can simply see when we have the prenatal WIC which deals with 
nutrition and the prenatal care of those mothers that we say have 
gotten pregnant just to get on welfare, and I have never heard that 
story, but we notice what has happened: the decline in infant 
mortality.
  Is it not interesting that a community like the city of Houston that 
has such a high rate of infant mortality is being compared to Third 
World countries. Can we even stand as an international world power when 
we are losing infant children at the rate of Third World countries? 
That is what will happen with the kind of nutrition programs that is in 
the Republican plan.
  I am looking clearly and supporting both the Deal plan that has been 
proposed, a Democratic plan, and as well the Mink plan. All of those 
concern themselves with welfare to work. But at the same time, they 
recognize that you cannot fill a bucket up with water, then let it run 
out, and when a dying man or child comes for a drink of water you say 
to them, ``I am sorry, we have no more.''
  This is what the program is that we have. And then title IV talks 
about the difficulty or the lack of welfare for legal immigrants. Let 
me simply say something to you. I am reminded of being taught as a 
child what the Statue of Liberty stood for, and let me share any 
misconception. Legal immigrants pay taxes. They pay taxes. I think what 
we need to understand is that welfare dollars come from our taxes, and 
so it is certainly irresponsible not to consider those who pay taxes 
and work and fall upon hard times.
  Interestingly enough, we find ourselves with the SSI allotment under 
title VI denying some of our most severely disabled children. What I am 
bringing to the point of the American people is I think that we have a 
voting population and a constituency that is certainly more sympathetic 
than what is occurring on the House floor. They have decidedly said 
that if people are willing to work, let them continue to get benefits 
so that they can bridge themselves to independence. Do not cut off 18-
year-olds. Help them get to the point of independence by job training, 
by child care, and certainly job incentive.
  It is interesting to find out there are letters coming in from 
adoption agencies begging my office for children. We feel it is a 
mistake to make child protection a block grant. There should be a 
Federal standard to protect abused and neglected children. It should 
not be a matter of geography that determines how children should be 
treated.
  This is the issue because what is happening in the State of Texas, 
which has not been traditionally high in its AFDC payments, this new 
formula that will be utilized as indicated by our comptroller has said 
that we will be hurt, we will be hurt in the State of Texas, our 
children will be going to drink out of an empty bucket. There will be 
known dollars for abused children, there will be no dollars for 
adoption assistance, there will be no dollars for WIC assistance 
programs, there will be no dollars for school lunches and breakfast 
programs, there will be no dollars to help us understand our own 
children.
  [[Page H3556]] I do not understand this. It is frustrating that when 
I go home and I have to see a headline like ``do not short change Texas 
children.'' Is this a raving radical, somebody irresponsible? No. It 
happens to be the President and chief executive of Children at Risk, 
because before we left home we were pleaded with by the youth 
commission that is formulated in Harris County, we were pleaded with to 
remember the children.
  Under the proposed legislation Texas would get $558 million annually 
for our children, but it would indicate that we would lose dollars 
because of the formula.
  This means that Texas has 7.3 percent of the U.S. child population, 
New York 4.4 percent but we would be losing money because we would not 
get the number of dollars to serve that population.
  Our children are at risk. And it is very important to understand that 
as our children are at risk, we are in fact suffering the lack of 
investment in those children.
  Where are the family values we talk about and I have heard them 
discussed in this very emotional debate about grandmothers and mothers 
and those good people who raised us? I hear the comments saying that 
the good people who work do not want their tax dollars thrown away. And 
if I can share with you what has happened in the WIC Program, gain, and 
to emphasize again, for example, how this program has again been 
effective, but I hear all of that kind of talk about where we are, and 
why we are in fact trying to do it this way, the Republicans say.
  But let me show you these numbers. WIC prenatal care benefits saved, 
if we want to save taxpayer dollars, $12,000 to $15,000 for every very 
low birth weight baby prevented. Is that saving the taxpayers dollars? 
Is that true investment for the time that we spend?
  The gentleman from Louisiana is interested in this issue as well. 
But, does this save us money? It does save us money; that we would 
invest to avoid a child that is born that cannot learn, that cannot 
think and then to have dysfunctional behavior in school because they 
were a low birth weight baby. This is an investment in our future.
  Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield?
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE. I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.
  Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. This 
whole debate is really not necessarily about mothers, it is really 
about children. And I think all too often we lose sight of
 the fact that this is really about 15.7 million children who cannot 
make the decision and could not make the decision about what household 
they are born in, they cannot make the decision as to whether or not 
they are handicapped or not handicapped or have some type of birth 
defect.

  But we can help in the area of prenatal care and we still find 
ourselves in this Congress cutting money for prenatal care where we 
have babies dying, high infant mortality all across this country, and I 
just want to commend the gentlewoman from Texas for taking out the time 
at this very late hour in talking about the need to preserve some of 
these programs, because these programs actually affect real people and 
those real people so happen to be children.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE. I thank the gentleman, and let me simply say as I 
close, I have this picture up because I want to emphasize our children 
are our future. Our Democratic colleagues know that and they know that 
Texas will lose 100,000 children who will not be able to eat school 
lunch and of course this is not a me, me situation, me in Texas, you in 
Louisiana, someone else in New York. This is really about our children.
  I think what we need to do in the U.S. Congress is clearly to 
emphasize not the stories of yesteryear about what grandmother did for 
me and how we pulled our bootstraps up because we realize by the year 
2000 we will be losing $1.3 million in aid to children, SSI will be 
losing 348,000 children, in foster care 59,000 while about 14 million 
children will not have school lunches, 2.2 million under this program, 
and 14 million children will lose food stamps.
  We need to move this agenda forward and vote for legislation that 
will in fact assure that parents, but yes, children can be able to move 
with their parents from dependence to independence.
  We must ensure our children of a future and we must ensure that the 
ugliness that has been brought about by the debate or the mean-
spiritedness is not the way that we go.
  We must ensure that these numbers that I have cited, the 2.2 million 
in school lunches will not be caught up in the term limits debate, is 
not caught up in what part of the country we come from, but realize 
actually we confront that we must represent and govern all Americans. 
It is so very important.
  I hope tomorrow will be a day and Friday will be a day that we vote 
for legislation that is not a mean-spirited, mishmash, patchwork, but 
in fact will be a comprehensive and informative piece of legislation 
that goes to the U.S. Senate that represents all of the people and 
reflects the polls that are saying Americans are compassionate 
taxpayers, middle class, rich, whatever you want to call them, working 
class, poor people are compassionate for our children. That is what we 
are missing in the legislation that is being proposed. And that is what 
I had hoped that we would be able to work toward, my colleagues, that 
that would be the case and that we would be successful in making this 
legislation effective for all of the people and especially our 
children.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to again speak against the short-
sightedness and apparent spitefulness of H.R. 1214--the Republican 
welfare reform proposal.
  Mr. Speaker, all Democrats unequivocally acknowledge the shortcomings 
of our current welfare system and are genuinely determined to do the 
bipartisan work necessary to fix that system.
  I, for one, have always believed that welfare should be a hand up, 
not a hand out.
  I want very much to join with all my colleagues in crafting forward-
thinking reform that will provide welfare parents and their children 
with real hope and a renewed sense of individual responsibility.
  By promoting the American work ethic with intelligent reform, we can 
finally make our welfare system live up to its original purposes and 
promises: To lift people out of poverty; move them into real jobs; and 
empower them to become independent, self-supporting and productive 
citizens.
  To that end, I offered, in good faith, amendments to this welfare 
bill that would have accomplished three very important things.
  First, so that able-bodied welfare parents ready to work could 
actually find real jobs in the private sector--as opposed to make-work 
government jobs--I proposed offering a tax incentive for businesses 
willing hire them.
  I believe corporate America is willing and able to do more when it 
comes to expanding and preparing our workforce.
  Second, so that welfare parents could acquire the training and job-
skills private sector employers rightly demand, I proposed that the 
Federal Government ensure funding for training and education programs 
needed to prepare welfare parents for the competitive world of work.
  And third, so that parents could complete their training and begin a 
regular work schedule without undue fears about the safety and care of 
their young children, I proposed that the Federal Government provide 
assistance for transitional child care.
  Mr. Speaker, these common-sense amendments were rejected out-of-hand 
by the majority on the rules committee.
  Unfortunately, the G-O-P proposal before this body makes no job 
training or child care provisions for welfare parents. And the short-
term budget savings it boasts are to be squandered on tax breaks for 
some of the most comfortable citizens.
  For the moment, let's set aside the obvious moral questions the GOP 
proposal raises. Let us just talk practicality.
  If we just begin slashing aid to families with dependent children, 
emergency assistance for families, childcare assistance, nutrition 
assistance including the WIC and food stamps program, and supplemental 
security income for families with disabled children, what will we 
accomplish beyond tax cuts for the well-to-do?
  And what will we do when the bills for our shortsightedness come due?
  Will we be forced to raise taxes 5 years from now to pay for costly 
emergency health care as nutrition-related childhood diseases reach 
epidemic proportions?
  How will we cope with the inevitable explosion of homelessness of 
women and children?
  Are we fiscally prepared to build jails and orphanages to the horizon 
so that we might incarcerate or house all those Americans who 
[[Page H3557]] the GOP bill would relegate to futures outside the 
mainstream economy?
  And does corporate America want a workforce that excludes the 
potential and creativity of millions of Americans who, in some cases, 
are literally dying for a chance to succeed?
  I do not think the American people would answer yes to any of these 
practical questions?
  The Department of Health and Human Services has analyzed the GOP 
welfare proposal and their findings are not encouraging.
  HHS projects that, during the next 5 years, 6.1 million children 
nationwide would be cut off from AFDC benefits. Nearly 300,000 in my 
home State of Texas alone.
  I will share more revealing numbers in a moment but my point is this: 
if family values are truly a concern of my colleagues from the other 
side of the aisle, why won't they work with us to preserve America's 
safety net for families.
  This welfare reform debate is indeed one of values. We must ask 
ourselves, what kind of nation shall America become as we prepare for 
the 21st century?
  Shall we wisely seek to nurture the vast potential of all our 
citizens, or merely those with political clout?
  Do we want welfare reform that steers people into productive work, or 
shall we continue driving them down the dead-end road of dependency?
  Mr. Speaker, these are our choices and we dare not consider them 
lightly?


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