[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 55 (Friday, March 24, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H3794]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


              THE REPUBLICAN WELFARE REFORM BILL IS FLAWED

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from West Virginia [Mr. Wise] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WISE. Mr. Speaker, I am going to pick up where the last speaker 
left off, perhaps in a little different refrain. I might add he just 
accused the Democratic Party of 30 years of not tending this problem. 
It actually did in 1988, when it worked with President Reagan to pass 
the welfare reform bill which is the basis under which this Federal 
Government has been operating since 1988.
  So if you want to place some blame, talk to President Reagan about 
that. He, of course, is a well-known Socialist.
  Now, I want to talk about the welfare reform bill. I want to talk 
about why I voted against it.
  I voted against it because the GOP version, the Republican version, 
does not stress work adequately. I voted against it because it does not 
preserve but instead cuts the School Lunch Program. I voted against it 
because the money that saved the estimated $68 billion does not go for 
deficit reduction.
  Let me make that clear: It does not go to reduce the budget deficit, 
but it is going to go fund a tax cut that is going to go sailing 
through here in a couple of weeks that will provide 65 percent of its 
benefits for everyone over $75,000 a year while providing less than 5 
percent of the benefits for those under $30,000 a year. That is not a 
good trade.
  We all want welfare reform. That is why I introduced a bill earlier 
this year that has many of the elements that have been common to these 
welfare reform bills. My bill has a 2-year requirement in it and after 
2 years a person must go off the welfare rolls.
  Mine has a tough work requirement modeled after what we have done in 
past years in West Virginia. Mine required, for instance, that people 
seek education and that they do public sector work, if necessary. But 
there are a lot of other things, unfortunately, that were not included 
in the Republican version.
  A lot of things, for instance, that the Republicans do not tell us, 
did not talk much about. How about the fact that the Congressional 
Budget Office, which now has a Republican appointee--not a Democrat 
appointee--but the Congressional Budget Office recently scored this 
bill and said that not one of the 50 States, not one--not West 
Virginia, not any one of the States--would be able successfully to move 
the required amounts of people from welfare to work.
  What kind of statement is that, when the Republican-dominated 
Congressional Budget Office itself issues a bad report?
  I think it important as well to look at what the States think of 
this, particularly, my State. We have heard a lot about how this is 
going to free up the States. Take a look, for instance, at what it does 
for the States.
  Many of us raised concerns on the House floor about what would happen 
when the School Lunch Program was put into a block grant with the 
Women, Infants, and Children Program, which was put into a block with 
the other nutrition programs. We raised concerns about this. They said 
not to worry, the States will love it. And, of course, they said there 
would be a real increase. And, of course, it is not an increase in the 
block grant, because while you can give technically the School Lunch 
Program a 4.5-percent increase per year, what you are not telling the 
people is that at the same time you are permitting the Governors to 
shift 20 percent of that money elsewhere. You are not telling them that 
the current law provides more assistance than the new law, and you are 
not telling them that all the Federal nutritional standards are being 
removed.
  You are also not telling them that in order to do that, you have to 
savage other nutrition programs in the block grants, such as the 
important Women, Infants, and Children Program.
  I think it is very important to note, Mr. Speaker, that I am holding 
a concurrent resolution, a concurrent resolution No. 37, from the West 
Virginia Legislature, signed by the speaker of the house Chuck Chambers 
and the president of the West Virginia State Senate, Earl Ray Tomblin.
  In that concurrent resolution, one of the last acts passed by our 
State legislature, they urged the Congress not to vote for this welfare 
reform act put forward by the GOP for the reason that it decimated WIC. 
They point out that the Women, Infants, and Children Program serves 
55,000 West Virginians,
 provides 28 million dollars' worth of assistance, but more than that, 
helps young woman bring healthy babies to term.

  I think it is very significant that the legislature which would be 
charged with enacting this legislation went on record as opposing the 
legislation.
  I think it is also important to note that the West Virginia Board of 
Education, our State board of education, which is in charge of 
implementing the school lunch program and the school nutrition programs 
which you would think under the philosophy of the GOP they would be 
most eager to accept the School Lunch Program, the school nutrition 
program in a block grant; they went on record in resolution on the 10th 
day of March 1995 opposing this legislation and urging that the school 
lunch and school nutrition programs not be block-granted, because they 
understand it would be even more of an administrative nightmare.
  The also understand that the school lunch and nutrition programs 
would be pitted against each other.
  So, I want a bill, Mr. Speaker, that stresses work. This did not 
stress work. I want a bill that preserves the School Lunch Program and 
the nutrition programs and does not cut them. I want a bill that 
reduces the deficit and does not give, does not give the savings for a 
large tax cut for the wealthiest individuals in this country. This bill 
does not do that either.
  For that reason, I voted against its passage.

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