[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 58 (Wednesday, March 29, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E720-E721]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                             WELFARE REFORM

                                 ______


                           HON. PAT WILLIAMS

                               of montana

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, March 28, 1995
  Mr. WILLIAMS. Mr. Speaker, the welfare reform debate in the House 
was, in a word, awful.
  For the most part, it was either pandering or accusative; it was 
partisan, it was assumptive, and like the bill itself, it was punitive.
  I received the following letter from a woman, a mother, who was once 
a recipient of welfare. I commend it to my colleagues as a measured 
calm voice amidst all of this unreasonableness.

                                                   March 19, 1995.
       Dear Sir: I am writing to you concerning the future of our 
     nation. Among that collective future lies my own individual 
     life, which is very distant from yours. Okanogan County, 
     where I live in central Washington state, is larger than 
     Rhode Island and Delaware but houses a population of only 
     35,000 people. We are bordered by Canada on the north, and by 
     the Colville Indian Reservation on the east. the Cascade 
     Mountains on the west isolate us from the more well known, 
     urban coast of Washington state. Until recently, we boasted 
     only one traffic light in the whole county. The largest 
     industry employers are government and agriculture--mainly 
     apples. Despite the distance between our lives, it is not 
     impossible that you have eaten from the many tons of apples 
     that passed through my hands when I worked in the orchards 
     before my children were born. Roughly 30 percent of our 
     population here depends on welfare payments. From my vantage 
     point it is obvious that we are about to make some big 
     mistakes around how we look at and structure social programs.
       It is not our welfare system that is the problem, it's our 
     economic system. Our economic system divides this nation's 
     people geographically, philosophically and in other practical 
     ways that prevent shared problem solving. Current proposals 
     for welfare and fiscal reform blatantly disregard the reality 
     that there aren't enough jobs which provide adequate wages on 
     which to raise families. As long as there are low paying jobs 
     that need to be done--agricultural labor, for example--there 
     will be families who can't quite get their needs met, there 
     will be industries that are not economically viable, and 
     there will be a need to subsidize resources for those who 
     provide these `chore services' to the rest of the nation. 
     This is called reciprocity. It's an ancient human survival 
     strategy which we seem to have forgotten.
       Not only are low paying jobs a given, but our economic 
     system itself is incompatible with family life. This is why 
     many women with children choose to go on welfare. I'll use 
     myself as an example. I applied for welfare benefits when my 
     children were 3 and 4 years old and I take responsibility for 
     making that choice. I foolishly tried to raise a family with 
     an alcoholic husband and when it became obvious that the 
     situation wasn't good for any of us, I chose to leave. I 
     looked for employment that was compatible with my children's 
     need for my presence during such a disruption in their lives, 
     but there was none, so I chose to go on welfare. I consider 
     myself lucky to have had that option and intelligent for 
     having made that decision.
       One of the slanders being committed against welfare 
     recipients right now is this ridiculous idea that welfare 
     parents--mostly women--do not work. Even if we don't work 
     outside the home for a salary, as parents, we work our 
     backsides off within our homes, with little support, often 
     under a deficit of skills, amidst extreme financial stress 
     and in the face of growing public hostility for which 
     political leaders are partly responsible. As long as families 
     are impoverished they will find it difficult, if not 
     impossible, to fully participate in their children's schools, 
     in their communities and in larger leadership roles--where, I 
     might add, their perspective is
      sorely needed. Working and middle class families do not 
     escape this problem, either. As long as they are locked 
     into an economic system which forces parents into full 
     time employment positions, they will also fail to 
     participate fully in their own home lives, in their 
     schools, communities and social structures. When it comes 
     to family crises like divorce, violence, substance abuse 
     and juvenile delinquency, studies show that poor and 
     affluent families are more alike than different. This is 
     where the irony comes in.
       Although we are segregated by our economic and class 
     status, and although this segregation keeps us ignorant of 
     and callous to each other's struggles, it is the common 
     thread of parenthood that could supply the answer to many of 
     this nation's problems. Surely this thought has occurred to 
     some of the educated minds in the legislature! One of the 
     only ways to solve a big problem is to break down barriers 
     between people by involving them in a superordinate goal--a 
     task that simply cannot be successfully completed without the 
     participation of all persons involved. The only example I can 
     think of where we cooperated in such a superordinate task on 
     a national level is World War II. The reason we survived that 
     event is because we pulled together, and that cohesion was 
     accomplished in part by profound shifts in the way we thought 
     about ourselves, and by having the courage to change economic 
     and social norms. One example of this is the new economic 
     roles women took on during the war.
       As a nation, we often speak proudly of how we handled 
     ourselves in those times. Well, parenting is our nation's 
     contemporary superordinate goal, and at all economic and 
     social levels, we are failing at this job because of the time 
     deficit caused by an economic system that splits parents and 
     children into different worlds, and because of poverty and 
     all that it entails. Rather than inflict punitive measures on 
     those families and individuals who are failing to thrive in 
     our system, we need to genuinely `invite' them into the 
     middle class and we need to change the structure of our 
     economic system.
       I'll again use myself as an example because to some small 
     extent I've challenged the incompatibility of poverty, 
     employment and family life. During my first 2 years on 
     welfare, the fact that I was not employed outside the home 
     allowed me to participate in a lot of community volunteer 
     work which I could do with or around my children. I ran 
     cooperative game sessions for kids, I did volunteer library 
     work, I tutored, I even acquired a $5,000 grant for a 
     community education project which I coordinated without a 
     penny of salary. No one told me to do these things. I 
     considered them part of my parenting job and civic duty. 
     Finally, my children entered grade school and I entered a 
     local community college and eventually secured a work study 
     job. A couple years later I fell in love with a man who is 
     now just weeks away from becoming a certified teacher and 
     while still on welfare, I became unexpectedly pregnant 
     because of birth control failure.
       The decisions surrounding this unplanned pregnancy were 
     agonizing. What would happen to my schooling? Would a baby 
     prolong my welfare dependency? Could I handle the challenge 
     of parenting a toddler and a two teenagers at the same time? 
     My third son is now one and half years old and looks a bit 
     like a baby orangutan. He's the hearth around which our 
     family gathers. Although I still receive cash welfare 
     payments for the older boys I did not put this baby on the
      welfare grant even though there are laws in place that 
     require me to do so. I have avoided it by refusing to 
     apply for a social security card for him. His father paid 
     for pre-natal care and a midwife helped with his birth. 
     The cost of my maternity care was roughly $700 and it did 
     not come out of the public coiffures. I sometimes think I 
     handle the taxpayers money better than you do.
       Although I had to quit my job, I didn't miss a beat in my 
     education. I managed one semester by bringing the baby to 
     class but when he became too old to rock quietly on my lap 
     during lectures, I enrolled in distance learning courses 
     through Washington State University that allow my studies to 
     take place from home, through taped interviews, conference 
     calls and excruciating piles of written assignments. My work 
     day lasts from about 6 a.m. to 11 or 12 p.m. In an otherwise 
     family-hostile economic system, I have forged a narrow 
     pathway that at least somewhat accommodates my need to parent 
     my children. My education hasn't trained me for a specific 
     job but it has refined the skills I naturally possess and it 
     is showing me ways to use those skills. I'm in the process of 
     starting a newsletter for stepfamilies and have recently been 
     published for the first time. Of course, through social 
     spending cuts, you could pull the rug out from under me right 
     now when I'm so close to succeeding--but imagine what this 
     nation would be like if we really acted on the lip service we 
     give to ``family values.'' Imagine what it would be like if 
     parents actually had the time and resources needed to parent. 
     In a country as affluent as ours there is no excuse for the 
     lack of ingenuity and philanthropy evident in our economic 
     and welfare programs.
       With all due respect, some of y'all have got a lot of 
     things mixed up. People are not poor because they're on 
     welfare, they're poor because there aren't enough good jobs--
     and there never will be. Children aren't in trouble because 
     they're innately bad, they're in trouble because their adult 
     role models and mentors are so busy struggling to survive 
     that kids are segregated into a world of their peers where 
     they're left to manage, on their own, the development of 
     values, crucial life choices, and navigation through 
     difficult life transitions, and sometimes their very 
     survival. And contrary to what a very misguided Washington 
     State legislator recently stated, welfare recipients are not 
     like plants. And if you cut a plant off and lay it on the 
     ground (cut a person off of welfare and ``force'' them to be 
     independent), that plant does not grow new roots and 
     flourish. It dies. But it is not only in the areas of botany, 
     biology and sociology that congressional leaders appear to 
     need refresher courses--some appear to need a basic math 
     lesson.
       At least be honest with your constituents. Taking money 
     from social programs is an ineffective method of saving tax 
     money because this is not where we're over spending our tax 
     money. Even superficial perusals of Federal budget 
     allocations reveal this. The 
     [[Page E721]] money we use to help poor families access basic 
     resources like food, housing, transportation--to jobs, I 
     might add--and medical care, are not ``discretionary 
     moneys.'' Two hundred thousand annual dollars in White House 
     floral spending is discretionary money. Billions of dollars 
     in corporate subsidies which don't seem to result in jobs as 
     much as they result in inflated executive salaries is 
     discretionary spending. Overly generous Federal pension plans 
     and expensive military programs--those are discretionary 
     funds. Give me a line item breakdown of the Federal budget 
     and I can probably point out where some more of the leaks 
     area.
       We are not a stupid populace, but we are easily swayed into 
     believing in fiscal half-truths and dramatic anti-welfare 
     gestures because we are desperate for solutions to social and 
     economic ills. There is no such thing as a ``self made man.'' 
     Every family, every individual, who is surviving economically 
     is doing so within a system and has an obligation to that 
     system which supports them. The intentional misinforming of 
     the American public concerning fiscal management is the most 
     shameful and cowardly thing I've ever seen. I mentioned early 
     in this letter that the perspective of welfare recipients is 
     sorely needed in leadership roles in this country. There is 
     probably no one more qualified by experience to streamline 
     the Federal budget than the welfare mothers who are managing 
     to raise children on poverty level incomes--or less.
       Most of us welfare moms are adept at the basics--first we 
     buy bread and clothe our children, second we pay our bills, 
     and then we try to budget for health, education and 
     ``entertainment.'' If there is anything left at this point--
     usually there isn't--we sometimes help others or try to build 
     a small savings. Way, way, way down on our shopping list are 
     rainy day luxuries like bombers, cow fart studies, luxurious 
     travel accommodations, fancy luncheons, financial 
     contributions to successful mega-corps, vacations and wars. 
     I'd like to clarify for the record that neither myself nor 
     any other welfare recipient I know has ever spent tax payer 
     money on that last list of items. I don't have quite enough 
     education to understand all the macro-economic smoke and 
     mirrors that politicians are so fond of dazzling the public 
     with and while I do understand our interdependent 
     relationship with foreign markets and our desire for a 
     healthy corporate world, I understand something even more 
     important and basic. We're pouring our tax dollars into the 
     top of our economic system when it's the bottom that's 
     depleted. We need to try a ``trickle up'' theory.
       My 11-year-old son is very bright and handsome with brown 
     eyes and dark curly hair that he painstakingly combs straight 
     every morning. He's a natural athlete, a straight-A student 
     often described by his teachers as a leader, and he was 
     recently chosen by his fellow classmates to represent them at 
     a regional Science Olympiad. Even so, he is still a young men 
     at risk--the son of an alcoholic and a low income mother, a 
     child of divorce and a member of a new stepfamily. But in 
     this world, you never know, someday one of your daughters or 
     your granddaughters may meet and fall in love with my son.
       My 10-year-old is blond, blue eyed, playful and precocious. 
     In first grade, his language skills tested out at high school 
     levels and fortunately, he had a teacher who gave him the 
     opportunity to pursue independent and challenging work. 
     Currently, he and a friend are working with the friend's 
     father to build a robot and learn computer programming. 
     Fortunately, his friend comes from a family with greater 
     resources than ours, and he gets to share experiences with 
     this friend that I can't provide. He's a very compassionate 
     young man, which is lucky because in this world you never 
     know, someday your own health and well-being may depend on 
     scientific discoveries my son and his friends are able to 
     make.
       I'd wager that our core values are pretty similar, although 
     the way we are managing to uphold them is quite different. 
     Please keep in mind that my children and I have been luckier 
     than most. We have a network of friends who support us 
     socially even though they are unable to do so financially. I 
     brought a middle class background and a few life skills with 
     me onto the welfare roles. Other recipients are not this 
     fortunate. The current welfare system, despite its 
     shortcomings, is what was allowed my children and I to 
     thrive, and I am extremely grateful.
       I don't know exactly how such an important word as 
     `welfare' took on such negative connotations. I don't know 
     how we lost sight of the fact that parenting is a high status 
     job at all economic levels and a primary responsibility of 
     any society. But we're reaping the impacts of those 
     oversights right now and we can no longer afford to pretend 
     that private, political, and economic spheres are separable 
     or that any of us survive independent of one another. 
     Enclosed with this letter is a summation of ideas concerning 
     welfare and economic reform, distilled from conversations 
     with friends, from my own thoughts, my education and the 
     thoughts and research of others. I challenge you to have the 
     courage and integrity to consider some of these ideas 
     seriously.
       I have no doubt that somewhere down the road we'll 
     recognize the need to make radical economic and social 
     adjustments, but probably not until we've caused a lot of 
     trauma to the individual families of this nation. Today's so 
     called leaders who refuse to talk about the reality on which 
     our well-being teeters and who pretend that the only thing 
     wrong with our economy is that poor people have too much 
     money, will eventually be exposed as greedy fools. And people 
     like myself who look on from the fringes of society into the 
     decaying core of its leadership will see that our concerns 
     were right on the money--even though we didn't have much of 
     it.
                                                        Sincerely,
                                                    ------ ------.
     

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