[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 57 (Tuesday, March 28, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4677-S4682]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    HOW TO PROCEED ON WELFARE REFORM

  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I am pleased today to join my freshman 
colleagues to discuss some of the solutions and some of the facts, the 
interest, that go into the Nation's welfare system.
  Before the debate on welfare reform can proceed, however, it seems to 
me that we have to make some stipulations. We have to begin with the 
basic premise, the premise that everyone in this Chamber is 
compassionate about helping over 26 million people climb out of 
poverty. That is not the question.
  I think if we are really seeking some solutions to our welfare 
problems, some solutions to help Americans advance themselves, we have 
to get away from this idea of saying that this group--because they have 
a different view--wants to throw everybody out in the cold.
  I think we do all start with that notion that every day, each person 
has a responsibility to make this a better place to live. With that 
premise, we wanted to talk some about the fundamental question of how 
we proceed, and what is the role of the Federal Government; how can we 
make changes that will cause some changes in the results of the welfare 
program?
  Mr. President, let me first recognize the Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for yielding. The 11 
freshman Republican Senators have made it a point to come to the 
Chamber and speak each week on an important topic because we have just 
gone through an election, have just spoken very directly with our 
constituents, with a large segment of the block of voters who called 
for change in this last election. The Presiding Officer experienced 
that as well, and knows the fervor with which our constituents approach 
the issues of reform and change.
  No issue that they talked about in the last campaign had more 
emotional feeling to it, I think, than the issue of welfare reform. 
Because they not only recognized that welfare reform could result in 
huge savings of money to the Federal Government, but that we were 
destroying generations of people, creating a cycle of dependency from 
which too many people were finding it impossible to extricate 
themselves.
  So it is a very personal challenge as well as a sound, prudent fiscal 
policy that causes us to look to the issue of welfare reform. We do 
that this week because we want to compliment our House colleagues for 
passing a meaningful fundamental welfare reform package, the first real 
effort to reform our failed welfare system in decades, and to say to 
our House colleagues: You got the ball rolling and now it is our 
opportunity in the Senate to take advantage of the momentum you have 
created, to take the legislation you have passed and to try to improve 
upon it if we can, and to get a bill to the President which he can 
sign, truly ending welfare as we know it.
  The House bill, in most people's view, is not a perfect bill. But it 
is a very good start toward this issue of welfare reform. As I said, it 
is now our opportunity.
  Let me just make four quick points about what I think our approach to 
this problem ought to be.
  Our current system, I think almost everyone has now recognized, does 
not foster independence, and family, and responsibility--all values 
that we know are essential, but, instead, perpetuates both material and 
behavioral poverty. The most compassionate, responsible course of 
action that I think we can take is to find a way to free our Nation's 
children and families from dependency in this terribly flawed welfare 
system.
  Toward that premise I think we should first admit that continued 
dramatic increases in Federal social welfare spending have failed to 
reduce the number of people in poverty in this 
[[Page S4678]]  country and that more money is simply not the answer. 
The Federal Government has spent more than $5 trillion on social 
welfare programs since President Johnson declared the war on poverty, 
yet, according to the Congressional Budget Office figures, total 
spending will rise to 6 percent of the gross national product by 1998. 
Since the mid-1960's, poverty has actually increased from 14.7 percent 
to 15.1 percent today. So after spending all this money we have not 
eradicated poverty. It is more in our land than before.
  Second, the Federal Government does not know best how to spend our 
hard-earned dollars. One of our colleagues gave us a test. If you 
inherit $100,000 and because you are a good citizen you want to, in 
effect, tithe a tenth of that to solve the problem of social 
deconstruction in our country, to whom would you give that $10,000? 
What organization would you give it to, to best help eradicate poverty 
in your own community? I daresay none of us would invest that in the 
U.S. Government. None of us would say the Federal Government welfare 
programs are pretty good, let us give the $10,000 to them. We would 
pick the local homeless shelter or Salvation Army or some other local 
group that really knows how to stretch the dollars and make the 
individual decisions in the community that we know work.
  It is interesting, several Governors, including Tommy Thompson from 
Wisconsin, whose welfare roles have declined 25 percent over the past 
few years, have had to ask for literally hundreds of waivers from the 
U.S. Government in order to achieve welfare reform in their own States. 
So giving States more flexibility to quickly achieve welfare reform 
will help those in need.
  Third is the point the Senator from Wyoming just made, and it is a 
very important point, we must end the damaging and incorrect rhetoric 
which suggests that somehow by reforming welfare we are going to be 
taking food out of the mouths of young children. This is rhetoric of 
the worst kind. The House bill, for example, has been criticized, but 
few point out that the House bill actually increases funding for school 
lunch programs by 4.5 percent each and every year for the next 5 years, 
an increase of $1 billion; and that the block grants to the States will 
save money and enable them to apply those funds to the children.
  Fourth, the Federal Government and the States must continue to search 
for ways, whether they be difficult initial choices or not, which 
foster self-sufficiency, encourage marriage, and work. The House bill 
contains several such incentives. For example, we should eliminate the 
marriage penalty created in the Tax Code. Fathers should be required to 
live up to their financial responsibilities. Again, giving States the 
flexibility to design programs which will effectively reduce out-of-
wedlock births and other similar conditions which create poverty are an 
important element of any welfare reform program.
  There is more, but I think we make the point that there are several 
things that need to be done here. The House was on the right track and 
we in the Senate need to give our backing to that in the kind of bill 
we pass out of Senate and not let this momentum flag but be able to 
send a bill to the President.
  I conclude with this point. There is a big difference between taking 
care of people and caring for people. Taking care of people was the 
philosophy of the Great Society programs. It has not worked. True 
compassion is caring for people in a way that provides them a hand up, 
not a handout. That should be the guiding philosophy to end the cycle 
of dependency that has been created by 40 years of misguided welfare 
policies. That should be the guiding philosophy of true welfare reform 
that comes out of the U.S. Senate.
  Mr. President, I thank the Chair and the Senator from Wyoming for 
again getting the freshmen Members of the Senate here to talk about 
this important subject.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. THOMAS. The Senator from Arizona, I think, has made one of the 
key points in this whole discussion, and that is this is a 
compassionate society. All of us are committed to the concept that we 
help people help themselves. Unfortunately, almost everyone agrees that 
the war on poverty has failed, and that we have more of a problem now 
than we did when it began. That is what this is about--how do we have a 
better system of helping the people help themselves.
  One of the persons who has worked very hard and very diligently, and 
I think is most knowledgeable in this area, is the Senator from 
Pennsylvania, who last year in the House was basically the author and 
principal architect of the proposal put together by the Ways and Means 
Committee that would accomplish some of those things.
  I yield to the Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Wyoming for 
yielding the time. I appreciate the kind words in the introduction.
  I, too, want to say the Senator from Wyoming and Senator from Arizona 
have hit the nail on the head. I think the reason, the impetus behind 
us being here this morning is really to start this debate out on 
welfare reform with a little different tone than it took in the House 
of Representatives. The fact of the matter is, the debate in the House, 
with ample support from the national media, turned into a really 
disgraceful event that turned so mean-spirited and accusatory that it 
focused very little on what actually was going to occur and what the 
underlying principles were in the reform effort that were underway. It 
focused just on name-calling and, I think, outrageous allegations about 
the mean-spiritedness of the Republican proposal.
  We are here this morning as the freshman class to say we have 
examined and are examining this proposal, and we see it as a very 
positive move forward in helping people get out of poverty. That is 
what this is all about. You will hear some say, ``The Republicans, they 
just want to cut people off.'' I would tell you that I would not be 
here today--and I do not think any of us would be here today--if we 
thought that was the motivation behind the welfare reform proposal, 
just to hurt people.
  I am not in the business of hurting people. I do not like hurting 
people. I want to try to help folks. But I truly believe, as I think my 
colleagues will also state, that you do not help people, as Senator Kyl 
said, by taking care of them, by making them dependent on you, by 
providing for them instead of giving them the opportunity to provide 
for themselves.
 That is not truly taking care of. That is not truly helping people.

  So when you look at these proposals, look at it not as to how much 
are we doing for somebody, but how much are we helping them help 
themselves. How much opportunity are we creating; not how much are we 
taking care of. That is really the test here, because we know from our 
history that taking care of people destroys them, destroys communities, 
destroys families, destroys country. That is what is brewing in our 
communities that are heavily laden with welfare populations today. That 
destructive element of Government dependency is taking control and is 
not creating better communities, families, individuals, and 
neighborhoods.
  I have been asked, because of my background in the House on this 
issue, what the prospects are here in the Senate. The general 
conventional wisdom is the Senate will water it down and we will get 
something that is just sort of tinkering with the system, that they 
will not be nearly as dramatic as the House. I say this: The more the 
Senate looks at the problem, the more we focus in and see the absolute 
destruction that is occurring in our neighborhoods today, the morality 
behind what we have to do--this is not an economic issue; providing for 
the poor in our society is a moral issue. We have to look at it in that 
context.
  When you look at what we are doing to children, families, 
communities, and our Nation, I believe the U.S. Senate will follow the 
path very similar to the House of Representatives.
  The chairman of the Finance Committee just yesterday said that the 
block grant idea has merit and that we should move forward on that 
track. It does have merit. Why? Because it takes all of the power and 
control out of this town that thinks it knows best for everybody, where 
we make sure that everything is taken care of from here and 
[[Page S4679]]  that all the decisions are made here, and puts them 
back into the States and, more particularly, into the communities and 
into the families of America. That is the right direction for us to 
take when it comes to taking responsibility for the poor in this 
country. That is the right direction. I believe that is the direction 
we all will take here in the U.S. Senate.
  It will be a dramatic bill that comes out of this Senate. It will not 
be a watered down version that looks very much like the system today. I 
do not believe the Senate will stand for that. And I think we can get 
bipartisan support to do it. I am encouraged by that.
  There will be some who stand up and defend the status quo. They will 
stand up because they were the creators of the status quo, and they 
will defend the system and accuse anybody who wants to change it as 
being cruel, inhumane, and mean spirited. And they will say in many 
cases, as happened in the House, outrageous things about our intent.
  Let me clear the air one more time about our intent. Our intent is to 
help people help themselves. Our intent is to get people off the 
welfare rolls. I find it absolutely incredulous that when you have a 
program in place that actually gets people off the welfare rolls, that 
is bad. What? A good welfare program gets more people on the welfare 
rolls? Is that what we want? Is that our analysis? Is that our 
benchmark as to what is good? Getting more people on welfare, making 
more people dependent? That is good? No. What is good is solving 
poverty, not sustaining it. Moving people off the welfare rolls is 
good. Decreasing those rolls is good. That is a good objective. That is 
what we hope to accomplish here.
  Those who stand up and say so many people are going to be cut off and 
all these people are going to be leaving. That is good. People leaving 
welfare and on to productive jobs in America is good. That is what this 
program is going to be all about. You will hear people say, ``Well, you 
cannot change this. You are going to harm children.'' Folks, look at 
all the welfare payments, AFDC, SSI, on down the list. How many of 
those benefits get paid directly to the children? How many of them? The 
answer is none. A child in this country does not get any money paid 
directly to them. It all goes to parents. They all go to parents.
  So when you hear this argument we are going to cut children off, we 
are going to hurt children, think of where the money goes and think of 
where that money is being spent and by whom it is being spent; not the 
children. I wish the money could be sent directly to those children so 
they could get the food and education that they need. But, 
unfortunately, in many cases it does not.
  Let us focus in on the real problem. The people who are going to 
defend the status quo have put forward a plan for the past 30 or 40 
years that has increased poverty, decreased hope and opportunity, has 
increased crime and decreased the sense of community safety and 
neighborhood, has increased illegitimacy from 5 percent in the 
midsixties--5 percent of children in this country were born out of 
wedlock--30 percent today and rising. As a result, we have seen a 
decrease in fathers taking responsibility for their children and a 
resulting increase in gang activity because fathers bond with other 
males instead of bonding with females to take care of children. It is a 
vicious cycle that is created by very good intentions of the people who 
created this system; very good intentions, but very wrong programs.
  I challenge the national media to give us a break. Tell the truth. 
Quit printing that we are repealing the School Lunch Program when they 
know darned well we are increasing the money. We are cutting out, as 
was said in the House, the lunches, the free lunches, here in 
Washington by the bureaucrats who suck money from the system before it 
even gets to the kids. Tell the truth about what is going to go on here 
in the U.S. Senate with the welfare reform. Do not be afraid that your 
friends on the other side will not like you by telling the truth about 
helping people, that the Republicans can actually be kind, 
compassionate, and be for a more progressive and uplifting opportunity 
type of society for the poor. Do not be afraid of that. Stand up and 
tell the truth about what is going on here in the U.S. Senate.
  Finally, the welfare system in this country has to change, and there 
are four principles we have to accomplish. First, work. The only true 
measure of success of a welfare program is how it gets people off 
welfare and into work. Work has to be a central component.
  Second, there has to be a system that supports families and does not 
tear families apart, that supports marriage and does not foster fathers 
walking away from their children.
  Third, it has to focus on flexibility to provide States and 
communities the opportunity to have programs that truly do tailor their 
needs to the individual families and communities and not be 
bureaucratic and regulatory from the Federal level.
  Finally, we have to save money. We heard so much about the people 
program, cutting people off. The Republican program allows welfare to 
grow over the next 5 years 32 percent. If we did nothing, it would grow 
39 percent. I do not think cutting the program that is scheduled to 
grow to 39 percent is mean spirited or draconian. In fact, a lot of 
people listening would probably say, ``Why don't you do more?'' We do 
not do more because we want to try to help and not just be handing out. 
That costs money, but it is a good investment. We are willing to make 
the investment of helping people get out of poverty, but we are going 
to stop throwing money at people who stay in poverty.
  I thank the Senator from Wyoming for yielding the time. I appreciate 
his indulgence in my discourse. I look forward to the rest of the day.
  Thank you.
  Mr. THOMAS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Campbell). The Senator from Wyoming [Mr. 
Thomas].
  Mr. THOMAS. The Senator from Pennsylvania has obviously given a great 
deal of thought to this. I think it is interesting that almost everyone 
in this country, including President Clinton, says welfare is broken 
and needs to be fixed. Yet, when you begin to look at it and take the 
opportunity to seek to find a better way to deliver services, then we 
run into all of this criticism and, as the Senator says, untruths about 
what is really happening. But I think there is a real opportunity this 
time to do something.
  One of the reasons is that there are people in this body who are new 
here and who are bringing to the body a brandnew idea, some of it 
having come from the campaign, some of it having come from living 
regular lives. And one of those is the Senator from Tennessee. I would 
like to yield time to him.
  Mr. THOMPSON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee is recognized.
  Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Wyoming for his 
leadership in this area and also the Senator from Pennsylvania for his 
eloquent remarks and for his leadership in this area, both in the House 
of Representatives and in the U.S. Senate. He, as usual, assesses the 
problem very precisely.
  I would like to lend my remarks to my own assessment of the situation 
as we begin this debate because we are indeed addressing one of the 
most fundamental problems facing the Nation at this time. I think if 
one true thing can be said about the welfare system, it is that the 
American people have overwhelmingly concluded that we have a mess on 
our hands and an intractable problem that we must do something about 
for the preservation of our society as we know it.
  Too often the program has been run by the wrong level of government, 
by the wrong people.
  We have spent $5 trillion trying to address the welfare program in 
this Nation, and we have created more poverty, more out-of-wedlock 
births, a higher crime rate, more dependency than we ever thought would 
be possible. If the Federal Government had deliberately gone out and 
tried to wreak such havoc with $5 trillion, it would not have been able 
to do it, yet we have done by accident what could not be done by 
design.
  Mr. President, I think it would be appropriate, as we address this 
problem, that we do so with a certain amount of humility. We are not 
the first people to address this problem. This is not the first time 
the Senate has addressed it. This is not the first time the House of 
[[Page S4680]] Representatives has addressed this problem. It has been 
with us for many years. It has been growing and growing. Many people 
have come up with different ideas and different people of good faith 
can have different ideas about this.
  So I think as we proceed into this debate, we ought to be openminded. 
We ought to be constructive. I think there is only one thing that we 
should not tolerate and that is the status quo. We have a miserable 
system now that is in large part participating in the decline of the 
United States of America; a country that we have all grown up in and 
has been the strongest, most powerful and most respected Nation not 
only in the world but in the history of the world.
  The time has come for change. It seems to me these problems fester 
and are debated for years on end, but finally there comes a time when 
we really have to face up to them. I think we are beginning to do that 
in the Senate, and in the Congress of the United States with regard to 
many areas for the first time. We are talking about changing the way we 
do business in the Congress of the United States, and there is no more 
clear example of that than our approach to the problems in our welfare 
system.
  I think that going into it we can certainly conclude there are 
certain things that have been proven not to work. We know, for example, 
that merely throwing money into a failed system is not the answer. We 
could have taken all of the assets of all the Fortune 500 companies in 
America and given those assets to the poor and still have saved money. 
That alone gives us some indication of the amount of money we have 
poured into a system, and a rising poverty level indicates the results 
we have achieved from that money.
  I think it is also clear that large Federal programs are not the 
answer. We are now talking about workfare. We are talking about job 
training as if this was the first time these ideas have come about. 
Some people think if you take a little more money out of this pot and 
put it in here or if we reduce a program a little bit and add it to 
another, if we fine tune it enough, we are smart enough that we can 
come up with the right solution to solve this problem from Washington, 
DC.
  We have been trying this for 30 years to no avail. We are dealing 
with a single problem, and that is poverty. It is a problem that has 
many causes. We are trying with one set of overlay programs from 
Washington, DC, to cover situations where on the one hand we have a 
person who is trying to get off welfare and trying their best to get 
out of a temporary hardship; on the other hand we have people who have 
been on welfare for generations and have no interest in working until 
they are absolutely forced to do so. The same program from Washington, 
DC, cannot cover the myriad of conditions and circumstances that we 
face.
  There are certain principles we can adhere to as we begin to address 
this problem, and one is that we must give the States more flexibility. 
We must get this problem down closer to the people who can see their 
neighbors, who know the person down the street or across the way, and 
who knows who is trying and who is not trying and who legitimately 
needs help and who should be told it is time to go to work. All of the 
innovation that has taken place in this country with regard to the 
welfare problem in the last decade has been at the State and local 
level.
  We have to take advantage of those innovations and those remarkable 
Governors we see all across this Nation who are coming up with 
solutions and trying different things under heavy criticism and heavy 
barrages of acrimonious statements but are standing tall and standing 
strong and changing those programs and showing that certain basic 
programs and changes of motivation of people can really work and help 
the system.
  We should not be embarrassed to ask local churches, local 
communities, private organizations to step up to the plate and do more. 
That is the way it used to be in this country. It is not turning back 
the clock. It is a way of moving forward. I still believe that this 
country is full of well-meaning, caring, big-hearted people who, if 
they knew the nature of the problem, they knew someone down the way who 
really was having a hard time, would be willing to jump in and lend a 
hand. If it were brought to our attention and we had the responsibility 
and felt the responsibility to do something about it, there are 
millions of people out there who would be willing to step forward and 
do something about it. They cannot take care of the whole problem, and 
we cannot turn over the whole problem to them overnight, but they have 
to be brought back into the system. People have to feel a sense of 
responsibility for their neighbors the way they used to in this 
country.
  We have to have a system that pays more to work than it does not to 
work. As I travel around the State of Tennessee and go into these 
little restaurants and coffee shops and see these young women working 
hard, many hours a day, some of them with a child or maybe two children 
at home, never been on welfare, you talk to them, working at low-wage 
jobs trying their best, working hard, and they see someone down the 
street from them or across the road who does not work, who has never 
worked and are netting out more than they are in terms of take-home 
pay, they see that, Mr. President. People see that. It has a 
debilitating effect on them and our country. It has a debilitating 
effect on these people, young people especially, who are not into the 
welfare mentality, who have worked all their lives and want to work, 
and we are delivering a message to them that really it pays more 
sometimes not to work.
  We have to change a system like that. As the Senator from 
Pennsylvania pointed out, there will be those against reform. There 
will be those who want to stay with the status quo. A lot of people 
have done very well on the system that we have. A lot of people in 
Washington, DC, elected representatives over the years by sending out 
more money and getting more votes have done very well for themselves 
under the current system. Certainly the bureaucracies that run the 
tremendous system that we have now, that siphon off most of the money 
before it ever gets to anybody that it can help, have done very well 
under the system. They will come up with every horror story known to 
man to keep from having to do without a little more money for their 
agency or a few less jobs as we try to move this down to the State and 
local level where the problem is and where people know what to do 
better to solve that problem.
  So, Mr. President, these are my observations as we go into this 
debate. We have a problem on which we all agree. We all know that we 
have been trying for years to do something about it, essentially 
nibbling around the edges. I think we have all concluded now that the 
time has come for action; that we must take bold action; we must 
change. We are better than this. We cannot go down the road to 
destruction of this Nation. The people who genuinely need help in this 
country deserve a better system, and the people who work hard for a 
living and pay for this system deserve better.
  I thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming has 5 minutes and 24 
seconds remaining.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, we got started a little late. We would 
like to have about 15 more minutes, if there is no objection.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Hearing none, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I think it is exciting; I think it is 
exciting that Senators like the Senator from Tennessee and others are 
willing to take a look at this program. It has been a long time since 
we have said: Does this program work? What are the results? How do we 
measure the results? What is the measurement of success?
  Instead of that, over the years, we have simply said: We have a 
program. It is not working. Let us put some more money in to make it 
bigger.
  Now we have an exciting opportunity, and that opportunity is to 
evaluate it, to change it, to find better systems, to look for 
duplications, and to eliminate some of the things that do not work.
  One of our colleagues who has had an opportunity to work with this 
very closely at the local level as Lieutenant Governor is the Senator 
from Ohio. I yield to the Senator.
   [[Page S4681]] Mr. DeWINE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio is recognized.
  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, let me first thank the Senator from 
Wyoming for putting this group together this morning. His comments are 
certainly well taken, as are the comments of my colleagues from 
Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee.
  I think it is fitting and appropriate that the new Members of the 
Senate, who just finished the campaign, just finished talking directly 
to the American people, should be the ones who are on the floor this 
morning talking about welfare reform, because I am sure that the 
experience my friend from Wyoming, or my friends from Tennessee, 
Pennsylvania, and Arizona, had was the same experience that I had.
  I could not find one person--not one person--in the State of Ohio who 
thought welfare worked. And that included people who were on welfare. 
It included taxpayers. It included the average citizens, whom I see day 
after day after day. I could not find anybody who thought welfare 
works. So it is appropriate that we, really, in this country engage in 
this national debate.
  Mr. President, the House has just concluded this debate and the 
Senate will take up this debate in a few weeks. In this debate, we seem 
to be focusing on adults, on money, on jobs. But, Mr. President, 
underlying all these considerations is really the future of our 
children, because that is really what this debate is all about. It is 
about our children. It is about breaking the cycle of poverty. It is 
about breaking the cycle of despair.
  We are, it is true, Mr. President, trying to rescue the adults who 
are trapped in the welfare system. But if we are brutally frank and 
honest with ourselves, I think most of us will admit that it is our 
concern for the children that really underlies this debate and makes it 
so imperative that we do something, that we do something different.
  Fixing welfare will not be easy, and it will not be done overnight. 
And fixing welfare, frankly, is not all we have to do. We also have to 
tackle the broader problems of violence, poverty, and lack of education 
that is posing such a threat to the well-being of our country's 
children.
  Mr. President, the fact is that America's children are in crisis, and 
welfare dependency is part of the cause of that crisis.
  The statistics in regard to our young people today are absolutely 
staggering and frightening. In 1960, about 5 percent of the children 
born in America were illegitimate. Today, almost one-third are. In some 
major cities, that figure is now at two-thirds, and in some cities, 
even higher than that.
  Since 1972, the rate of children having children has doubled. What 
happens to these children, Mr. President? According to the 
Congressional Budget Office, half of all teenage unwed mothers are on 
public assistance within 1 year of having their first child, and within 
5 years, 77 percent are on public assistance. This takes a huge toll on 
the children. The poverty rate among children is the highest of any age 
group in the country.
  Our young people today are the only age group in America--listen to 
this--the only age group in America that does not have a longer life 
expectancy than their parents did at the same age. A recent study 
revealed that of the children born to a married adult with a high 
school education, only 8 percent live in poverty. But of the children 
born to unmarried minors without a high school diploma, 80 percent live 
in poverty.
  The children born out of wedlock are three times more likely than the 
children of married parents to become welfare clients when they grow 
up.
  What kind of a life are these children being prepared for? What kind 
of values are they learning in a family where many times no one works, 
and bare subsistence income is given by, frankly, a distant and 
grudging Federal Government?
  Mr. President, what do we do? That is what we are going to be talking 
about in the weeks and months ahead.
  I think it might be tempting, particularly for those of us on this 
side of the aisle, now that Republicans control the Senate and 
Republicans control the House, to once again do what we have done in 
this country time and time and time again, and that is to impose a 
Washington solution on this problem. I think, however, Mr. President, 
that would be a mistake. I think it is very tempting to do this now 
that we are in control, but I believe it would be a grave mistake 
because history has simply taught us that Washington does not have all 
the answers.
  I do believe that there will be times, as we debate this bill and 
this reform, when I will vote for some uniformity. I think, for 
example, that it makes eminent sense in the area of child support 
enforcement, an area that has been a problem for many, many years, to 
have more uniformity, to have more cooperation between the States. I 
saw this 20 years ago as a young assistant county prosecuting attorney 
when we tried to enforce child support. I saw the problems we had in 
going from State to State to State. I think uniformity in that area 
does make sense.
  But I think, in most cases, we are going to be much better off in 
allowing the Governors, the legislators, and the people of the States 
to design their own programs.
  Too often, Mr. President, we think, here in Washington, we have all 
the answers. Indeed, the crisis of welfare dependency in today's 
America is, I believe, in large measure a consequence of Federal 
policies written right here in this Capitol.
  Mr. President, to be very blunt, I do not believe we should replace 
the Democratic Party's version of Federal micromanagement with the 
Republican version of Federal micromanagement of our welfare system. I 
think it would be a mistake. The answers are not here in Washington, 
not even on this side of the aisle.
  If we are going to find answers, we need to be looking to the States 
and the local communities.
  My colleague from Tennessee, Mr. Thompson, said it very, very well. 
Who better knows their neighbors, their friends, their communities? Who 
better knows the solution to this problem than the people of the local 
community?
  I believe, Mr. President, that welfare reform experiments in Ohio, 
Wisconsin, Michigan, and other States do in fact show a great deal of 
promise. But we should not try to force all States into a single mold. 
We still have a great deal to learn about what works in welfare, and we 
certainly know already what does not work.
  We should not standardize the Federal solution to which all States 
and communities have to conform. We need the States to continue to 
experiment, to be the laboratories of democracy, and to lead the way 
toward a 21st century welfare system in this country that does, in 
fact, work.
  Finally, Mr. President, we, I believe, as we approach this welfare 
debate, must always remember that welfare is not, first and foremost, a 
money problem. Over the last few weeks, we have heard a great deal 
about the money side of welfare, and that is quite natural. Some say we 
are taking money away from the needy. Others say we are saving money 
for the taxpayers.
  But beyond the welfare debate in regard to money is something much 
more important, and that is human beings, and that is young children.
  The problem, frankly, Mr. President, is the kind of culture we are 
building in this country and the kind of lives America's children will 
inherit.
  As we begin this debate, I propose a very radical solution. It is 
particularly radical for this town and this city, this Capitol 
Building, this Chamber. And the radical solution is to say, ``We don't 
have all the wisdom here. We don't know all the answers.''
  Let us trust the States to be the laboratories of democracy. Let us 
turn back power to the States and let them try things, and let them 
find out what will work and what will not work.
  They cannot do a worse job than the Federal Government has done. That 
may be a radical solution. It may be something that is foreign to 
Congress in the past. Quite frankly, Mr. President, we have tried 
everything else. I think it is time for a radical solution, a radical 
change, and I think, quite frankly, that it will work. Thank you very 
much.
  Mr. THOMAS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
   [[Page S4682]] Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I would like to wrap up 
our focus, our effort this morning.
  Let me just say, again, that I congratulate the House on what they 
have done. I think they moved forward. I think they have examined and 
have come up with new ideas. Do I support all of it? Probably not. Is 
it a perfect bill? Of course not. But it gives us an opportunity to 
take a new look at something that needs a new look.
  What we are seeking is the best way to deliver services, the best way 
to help people help themselves, to find a way to help people who need 
help back into the workplace. That is what it is all about. That is the 
purpose of this program.
  I went into our welfare office in Casper, WY. I expected to find a 
staff that was very defensive when we talked about change. That is not 
true. They felt frustrated with the program that they now have to 
administer. The director showed me this whole shelf full of 
regulations. He said, ``God, I spend half my time working on 
regulations.'' They come from different Departments. They come from 
Agriculture, they come from Housing, they come from the welfare 
program. We need to put them together so that they do work.
  We try to do something to encourage people to work, and if a mother 
on AFDC does not have a job or does not look for one or does not do 
what is required, they seek to reduce the payments. They reduce the 
payments here and they go up in food stamps, they go up in housing. 
They are very frustrated that they are not being able to accomplish 
what they want to accomplish.
  There is a perception that more Government is needed by some, that 
more money is needed. Since the war on poverty, the Federal Government 
has spent nearly $5 trillion on social welfare programs. Federal, State 
and local governments combined now spend $350 billion a year, 20 
percent more than the Government spends on national defense.
  Separate Medicaid from food stamps and aid to families with dependent 
children and you find a program that costs taxpayers approximately $90 
billion a year, more than five times what it was in 1981.
  Specifically, the Federal share for Medicaid spending in the State of 
Wyoming has grown from $42 million to over $107 million from 1990 to 
1994. The State's share for that program has grown from $24 to $61 
million in that same period of time. And we all know what the results 
have been.
  We have heard a great deal of criticism from the administration 
regarding the Republicans' efforts to reform welfare. On the other 
hand, that is what the President talked about when he came here. He 
said, ``We're going to change welfare as we know it.'' Unfortunately, 
we have not heard much lately from the administration. The proposal 
introduced by the President in 1994 exempted all welfare mothers born 
before 1972 and proposed $9.3 billion in additional spending. Exempting 
80 percent of the current caseload is not an answer, nor is the 
infusion of more money without change.
  So what we are talking about is a great opportunity to provide real 
help, to provide a system that delivers the help to the people who need 
the help, not take it off on the way there.
  I hope that we can start, as we said in the beginning, with a 
stipulation that everyone in this place is compassionate about 
children, everyone in this place wants to find a system that works and 
that we do not polarize ourselves by saying, ``These folks want to 
throw everybody out; these folks want to help everybody.'' That is not 
the case.
  Like the Senator from Pennsylvania, I call on the media to help, to 
help really say what the facts are, to really lay out that cuts are not 
cuts, reductions in spending proposals are not cuts, that consolidation 
of programs can end up with more benefit to recipients, and that is 
where we are.
  Mr. President, we appreciate this opportunity in the morning time, 
and we look forward to participating in developing a program of 
assistance to Americans that will bring them out of poverty and into 
the workplace.
  I yield the floor.
  

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