[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 57 (Tuesday, March 28, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H3870-H3873]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                             WELFARE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 1995, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Fields] is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to talk about 
two issues. One, I wanted to talk a little bit about what took place in 
the House of Representatives on last week and the week before last. On 
last week, we passed legislation, in a real sense an insult and also is 
an assault on young children, on babies, on kids, on infants, and we 
passed that legislation in a spirit of welfare reform. But I just 
wanted to talk about some of the impact that this legislation will have 
on children and infants all across this country.
  The cash assistance block grants that provides that no Federal funds 
for children of mothers under the age of 18 or less unless certain 
requirements are met, it is very easy and very popular to talk about 
how we should make parents more responsible, and I do not think there 
is a Member of this body who does not wish to make parents responsible 
or would not like to have responsible parents in our society. But the 
real impact will not be on parents. The real impact of these cuts will 
be on children. Nationwide, 70,000 children will be denied benefits. In 
my own State, about 600 children will be denied benefits because of 
this legislation that was passed. Now, I would hope that parents are 
responsible.
  I would hope that no parent or no woman, young lady who is not 
married, would not even have a child. I mean, that is a perfect world, 
a perfect idea, but it is not happening today. And since there are 
women who have children out of wedlock, I think the Government has an 
interest and should have an interest in children and should, to the 
degree that we can, make sure that not a baby in America goes to bed 
hungry at night.
  The other point of this legislation that we passed provides that no 
benefits will go to anybody after 5 years. Now, that sounds very good. 
That is a very popular statement to make, but the benefits are really 
not for the mother. If we want to call it irresponsible, then so do it. 
But the benefits are not designed for the mother, the so-called 
irresponsible mothers. Those benefits are for the children. They are 
[[Page H3871]] for the infants who cannot get up in the morning and go 
to work. And we cannot chastise innocent kids in our country because of 
some faults or some mistakes of their parents. I would hate that this 
country get to the point that we not take care of those who can do very 
little for themselves, like infants and children, and those kids with 
handicaps.
  Well, 4.8 million children would be denied benefits as a result of 
this 5 years and you are off. In Louisiana, about 100,000 children. No 
Federal benefits for additional children born while a parent is on 
welfare. Well, parents ought to be responsible. But whose fault is it 
if a kid is brought into this world while his parent is on welfare? And 
who do we penalize in this piece of legislation? We penalize 2.2 
million children across this country, and in Louisiana we penalize 
about 46,000 children.
  Now, my idea of welfare reform is the thought of giving parents, 
giving mothers, the opportunity to learn a skill, so that they can be 
productive, so that they can do for themselves. But in this 
legislation, we do not require job training. We do not have funds 
available to the extent that is necessary for real job training, so 
that we can teach mothers skills and
 parents skills, and then put them to work and provide them with a job 
so that they can provide for themselves. But we do have a provision in 
the bill that says 2 years and you are off.

  Well, 2 years and you are off is popular. It makes a good 30-second 
sound bite, but is it fair? You do not require the parent to learn any 
job skills or work, but if she is on welfare and does not have a job 
after 2 years, she is automatically off of the welfare rolls.
  Well, who really suffers as a result of that? Are we teaching the 
parent a lesson or are we really teaching the children a lesson? I 
mean, children cannot be responsible. Many of them are infants. These 
infants, all they know how to do is cry when they are hungry and want 
to be changed when they are wet. Many of them cannot even speak, they 
are toddlers. You know, they are 1 month old, 2 months old, 6 months 
old. They need somebody to take care of their self. And if the mother, 
because of whatever reason, be it irresponsible or be it because she 
does not have the wherewithal to do so, somebody ought to step in and 
have an interest in that child. And I just think that our Federal 
Government should have a compelling interest in children.
  So I just wanted to express that interest and that concern tonight, 
because I do think that this Congress has taken a step in the wrong 
direction when we penalize children simply because their parents are 
not responsible or because their parents do not have a job skill or 
because their parents are unemployed. I think we need to have more 
thought, a little bit more thought put into this welfare reform debate. 
I would hope when this legislation arrives in the Senate, that the 
Senate puts much, much more thought into it.
  School nutrition program. I mean, we have talked about that so much I 
am tired of talking about school nutrition, because every time you talk 
about school nutrition, there are folks who stand up and argue with you 
as relates to whether or not it is a cut, whether or not school 
nutrition will be sacrificed as a result of the block granting, and it 
almost makes me sick in the stomach, because the numbers are very real. 
I mention the numbers, many students in this country will not have the 
benefit of a balanced meal because there is no national standard for 
nutrition in this legislation that was passed, and many of my 
colleagues will argue that students will not be jeopardized.
  The reason why we took this program in the first place is because 
States were not doing a good job. When we get to the point that this 
Congress should not have an interest in the nutrition, school 
nutrition, that is the point we ought not have a Congress. That is just 
one of the interests we should have, we ought to have an interest in 
child nutrition, we ought to have an interest in making sure that every 
child who goes to school receives a balanced meal.
  I would feel a little bit better about this rescission package as 
well as the welfare reform legislation, and I do not want to get into 
the summer jobs debate again, if we would cut money that goes to other 
places in this world. You know, we cut domestic programs on one hand, 
and then we increase money to go overseas. I do not understand the 
rationale and logic. How do we say to our children that we cannot give 
them a summer job, but we can give them somewhere in the neighborhood 
of about $30 billion in jail cells and build more prisons, but we 
cannot give them a job this summer, and we expect our streets to be 
safer this summer?
  Of course not. We cannot expect our streets to be safer in this 
summer by taking some 1.2 million kids
 off of the payrolls. We are taking their parents off the welfare 
rolls, then taking their children, you know, taking their mother off 
the welfare rolls and taking the child off of the payrolls. To me, I 
mean, how inconsistent can we get? I mean, we are consistently 
inconsistent in this Congress when we do those kinds of things. And to 
me I think we need to really, when this legislation gets back to this 
House in the way of a conference committee, I would hope that we just 
stop for a second and really put more thought into it, and not 
jeopardize and not penalize poor innocent children in this country. 
That is one of the reasons why I wanted to stand here tonight, Mr. 
Speaker.

  Also, I want to talk about another subject, but I see my very good 
friend from Texas is on the floor, and it is always good to have her, 
because she is an eloquent person who cares about children in this 
country.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield very briefly to my very good 
friend from Texas, Ms. Sheila Jackson-Lee.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE. I appreciate the gentleman yielding, and I could not 
help, listening to your eloquence, to just come over and not only share 
in your concerns as you have expressed them considerably and 
articulately throughout this session.
  But I was reminded of a story that you told just a couple of weeks or 
so ago relaying your own personal experience. It made it very real for 
many of us who likewise experienced what you experienced, and that is 
that you were, if you will, a participant in these programs, the school 
lunch program and the school breakfast program, and as a youngster, 
you, if you will, benefitted from the fact not of a handout, but simply 
of an opportunity to come and get a meal. And a meal is not a partisan 
issue. A meal simply is reflective of the concern of this country. I 
had in my office today a representative from the teachers association, 
National Education Association, out of the Houston area, and that 
teacher, with a great compassion, spoke about seeing elementary school 
children come to school to get a breakfast or get a lunch and how they 
took the last grain of food off the plate because it might have been 
the only meal that they would have had.
  I had some other ladies come from the National Council of Jewish 
Women who indicated that they were themselves concerned about some of 
the very cuts that you have already mentioned, and indicated how 
ridiculous it is when we are talking about welfare reform, and in fact 
we are talking about suggesting that the parent, whether it be a mother 
or father, get out and work. And we know very often in this very busy 
society how many of us have time to sit down with our families to eat. 
So some cavalier comment was made, let them eat with their families, 
meaning their children that get the school breakfasts and lunches. This 
very insightful lady said, ``I live in different conditions. I didn't 
eat with my children.'' She noted the fact we live in different times. 
But how insensitive to suggest that you now want the welfare mothers or 
welfare parents to find work and to be independent, but yet you are not 
going to give them the kind of supportive services like a school lunch 
program, a school breakfast program, like a job training program or 
transitional child care. You are simply going to, if you will, throw 
them to the wolves.
                              {time}  2215

  It simply does not make sense. And none of us, as we have come from 
State government, I know that you have a very fine record in the State 
of Louisiana, you had to make hard decisions about where we cut and how 
we reduce government, none of us ignored those concerns. But what we 
are asking for is 
[[Page H3872]] a simple understanding of the compassion upon which we 
though this Nation was founded.
  It was founded on opportunity and founded because people were hungry 
for jobs and for work. And it was founded on freedom of religion. But 
most of all, people coming here, certainly many of our ancestors and 
most of our ancestors did not have that luxury, but the whole thrust of 
the Nation was to come here for opportunity. And yet we throw it back 
into the faces of the American people who we are telling to get up, 
stand on your own two feet, be independent, unshackle yourself from 
welfare.
  Yet we take, if you will, the slash and burn attack and we cut off 
programs like you have been speaking of. I could not help but come here 
to simply share with you.
  Let me just mention these points and I would certainly want to dialog 
with you about this and ask you how it is impacting your area, because 
I have gone home to my community and heard nothing but screeching, 
shrill screams of outrage, not of violent outrage that they would act 
violently, but pained outrage, shock and wondering what are we telling 
our children. What examples are we setting? Again, as we begin to look 
at the tax cuts we have already gone through rescissions, many people 
are in shock because they said, We thought those dollars were 
authorized.
  Summer jobs cut out, you were mentioning that. Safe and drug free 
schools, cut out. This is in the State of Texas. I can quote the 
dollars, $780 million, $40 million. Youth job training, very effective 
programs to get our youth moving from school to work. The Goals 2000 
program that in fact this teacher was mentioning to me, a very 
effective program that helps establish greater educational goals, the 
title 1 education program, $9.2 million, and in the vocational 
education tech prep program. I wanted to share with you those because 
all of those are program based upon our children.
  I would like to ask you this question, this is what is puzzling me. 
Take, for example, a gentleman
 who is going into business. He is in the exotic bird business, and he 
wants to go into a store that offers to the public exotic birds. Not 
being able to get many investors, he goes out and gets a very, very 
large loan, but he is able to employ some 6 to 10 employees because, as 
he sees his way clear, this exotic bird business is taking off. And he 
is doing well.

  Would you think that he would immediately then, as his meager profits 
are coming in, seek to, if you will, provide an opportunity to bring 
down that debt, meaning that large debt that he has gotten from a bank, 
say like the deficit, or would he be seeking to take that money and 
maybe spend it foolishly, something like a tax cut, or would he be 
looking to make sure that he puts his business on sound footing, 
because he had an exotic business now and he could not find any 
investors and so his loan was extremely huge.
  And so, rather than taking these profits, maybe I could take it to 
even a more visible or visual type example. Would he run off to some 
luxurious vacation with the dollars or, if he is a sound business 
person, who he seek in order to ensure the viability of his business, 
to go and reduce that deficit or to reduce that huge debt that he has 
outstanding on this business.
  Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana. Any reasonable man or any reasonable women 
of ordinary prudence would use that money to pay the debt. That is just 
something that reasonable people would do. Any irresponsible person 
would probably do just the opposite, use the money to do everything but 
to pay the debt. And I think that is one of the problems that we have 
here in this Congress.
  We take money from the poorest Americans in the world, I mean the 
country, in our country, the poorest Americans in the United States of 
America, and we give it to those who have. We take from the have nots 
and we give to the haves.
  I think that is not only unconscionable but unbelievable and unfair. 
For us to take infant formula, for example, from a baby because her 
mother so happens to be 17 years of age, we want to teach that mother a 
lesson because she should not have had this baby when she was 17, we 
are not going to give her baby any milk. We are going to teach her a 
lesson.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Then we are asking her to be independent.
  Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana. That is right. We want her to pull herself 
up by the bootstraps. We are not going to teach you any job skills but 
we want to set an example.
  What happens, if the gentlewoman would answer this question, what 
happens if that baby, while we big Americans, Members of Congress, I do 
not know, I do not think any of us have to worry about eating at night, 
we make a pretty decent salary, what happens if that baby dies of 
infant mortality? Does that make us big Members of Congress? We are 
talking about maybe 1.7 percent of the whole budget goes to welfare 
programs, and we are going to solve the deficit problem by taking money 
out of this person's, this baby's mouth. And we are going to teach the 
parent to be responsible and, at the same time, we are going to give to 
big business over there or the individual who makes $200,000 a tax 
break.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE. If the gentleman would yield, you raise a very 
striking question. Just a couple of days ago I was here on the House 
floor and had in fact a chart that answered your very question dealing 
with women and infant and children nutrition. That is the program, the 
WIC Program, that has been so effective in not only helping with care 
of that new infant but it also helps monitor the young infant's 
progress and also it brings in mothers in the prenatal stages to ensure 
that they know about good health care, good nutrition for their babies.
  But it said that if we did not invest in the Women and Infant and 
Children's Nutrition Program, we would have a bill of some $15,000 per 
infant with the kind of illnesses, for example, that that baby would 
have when it was born and, ultimately, the kinds of problems that it 
might face in early childhood education and as it grew up to be an 
adult.
  Clearly, the data suggests that when you invest in that young child, 
whether it is a school lunch, whether it is a school breakfast, whether 
it is the Women and Infants and Children Nutrition Program, that you 
are truly making an investment.
  Let me say this, because there is something about us here on the 
House floor believing that this is such an important issue, wanting to 
communicate with the American people, the great citizens in the great 
State of Louisiana and the great citizens of my great State, Texas, for 
us to be branded as speaking the words of only a few Americans, but let 
me say, knowing that you have got certainly a State that is well 
endowed with energy leadership, energy corporations, I face the 
business community.
  I have not heard a hue and cry for the need for the kinds of tax cuts 
that are not really bringing in all of us to discuss what best way to 
energize, if you will, if you can use that term, the economy. I have 
not seen individuals with incomes at a certain level standing in the 
highways and byways screaming for a tax cut. I have heard them speak 
eloquently and forcefully, as good business men and women, about 
bringing down the deficit to create the kind of economy that would be 
the most, if you will, energized and forceful in stabilizing this 
Nation.
  Let me share with you on this point, because I think we have had some 
discussions on this, there is something about having a job, being able 
to go to work. We know that we are facing some hard decisions. I just 
simply want to acknowledge that we have got a headline that says, 
``NASA cuts 55,000 jobs.'' We know we are going to have to make some 
hard decisions. But I would imagine that in the course of
 these cutting of jobs, potentially in this reinventing government that 
we all have to do, you might be able to go up to any citizen and say, 
what do you think is most important in this nation? Allowing people to 
work, stabilizing the economy to allow them to work, making sure that 
if you have welfare mothers who are seeking independence, that they 
have jobs? Or is it to have this big balloon tax cut that seems to go 
nowhere and you are talking about thousands of people in the streets 
with no jobs?

  I raise that question to you because it is puzzling to me how we can 
make decisions with no data, no hearings of crowds pouring in saying, 
tax cut, tax 
[[Page H3873]] cut. And yet we are having to put people out of work.
  Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana. The gentlewoman makes a very good point. I 
think one of the problems we have in this country is we are blaming the 
wrong people. When we had the S&l crisis, for example, that hit the TV 
screen for a few days, a few weeks. And we developed the RTC, and we 
are now getting to the point we are resolving that whole issue, 
multimillion dollars.
  And when a person who has food stamps, for example, walks into a 
store. I had the occasion of walking into a grocery store in my own 
district, purchasing food and standing in line. And then a lady in 
front of me with maybe one or two kids, who is about to purchase her 
food with food stamps, she turns around and sees me. And then, all of 
sudden, she forgot something. And she said, Go ahead, Mr. Fields, I 
forgot something.
  And in a real sense, she did not forget anything. But she was 
embarrassed because the whole nation is blaming her for the problems, 
blaming her for the deficit. Blaming her for everything that is wrong 
with America. And she did not want her congressman to see her purchase 
her food with food stamps. And it is a shame and a disgrace that we 
have poor people in America who are being blamed for every ill that we 
have in this country.
  For example, it is amazing that we would take $30,000 and we would 
put it in jails and persons, and it takes $60,000 to build a jail cell 
in this country. And it takes about anywhere from $28,000 to about 
$30,000 a year to maintain a prisoner in that jail. And we are spending 
all of that money to put kids in jail who violate the law.
  And we find out, we look at all the statistics and all the statistics 
reveal that 86 percent of the people who are incarcerated, who are 
behind jail cells, are high school dropouts.
  Now, it takes very little discussion and very little debate to pass 
that kind of appropriation. But if we tried to put more money in 
schools, we just cut $100 million out of infrastructure. Prisons and 
jails in this country are in better condition than our schools. but it 
would take a literally an act of Congress, not really knowing what the 
cliche of an act of Congress really means, to pass any appropriation to 
put more money in education.
  It is a clear correlation between education and incarceration, but 
the problem is, the question is whether or not we really want to 
address these real meaningful problems.
  I feel, and I may be wrong, but I feel the way we address these 
problems is not by pointing our finger at poor people but by lifting 
them up, by making sure that every parent receives job training and 
then provide a job so she can go to work.
  I am not against workfare. I am for workfare and making sure that 
deadbeat dads be responsible dads and
 make them pay child support for the kids that they bring into this 
world. I am for that. And I am also for a kid having a summer job.

  That hurts me the most because I know what it feels like to be a part 
of a summer jobs program during the summertime. And I have been taking 
this mike now almost every night because these are programs, maybe I am 
one of the few Members of Congress who has been through most of the 
programs that were cut, but I know what it felt like to have a summer 
job during the summertime.
  I mean it gave me self-esteem. It gave me pride. It gave me dignity. 
I was getting up and I was going to work. I went to work, Monday 
through Friday. And I made a salary. I got a check with my name on it. 
And I was able to buy my school clothes, and I was able to help my 
mother pay her rent. And that made me feel good. And that really taught 
me job skills; taught me responsibility.
  And now even the thought that this summer kids will not have the 
opportunity that I had when I was growing up in Baton Rouge, they will 
not be able to go into a summer job this summer because this Congress 
had the gall to cut 1.2 million kids off of the program in the spirit 
of fiscal reform and personal responsibility, and then talk about how 
we need to get kids off the streets, my God, where would I be today if 
I did not have a summer job, many of my friends, when we were growing 
up?

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