[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 65 (Friday, April 7, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E832-E833]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                  PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY ACT OF 1995

                                 ______


                               speech of

                           HON. STEPHEN HORN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, March 24, 1995

       The House in Committee of the Whole House on the State of 
     the Union had under consideration the bill (H.R. 4) to 
     restore the American family, reduce illegitimacy, control 
     welfare spending, and reduce welfare dependence:

  Mr. HORN. Mr. Chairman, all parties to this debate acknowledge that 
our current welfare system is flawed to the point of indefensibility. 
It is a program that, despite the initial good intentions of its 
founders, has spun out of control to the point where it now generally 
keeps too many people who are economically poor, and ensures that their 
children will likely end up economically poor as well.
  We have a welfare system that rewards not working, instead of 
working. We have a system which, if not directly encouraging out-of-
wedlock births, is certainly guilty of providing the oxygen needed to 
spark illegitimacy into a full-fledged fire. We have a welfare system 
which has led to the dissolution of the family, which has pushed the 
father out of his duty and responsibility to provide for his children, 
and then heaped sin upon error by ensuring that critical child support 
payments are not collected. We have a welfare system which perpetuates 
a degrading and intergenerational economic dependency. We have a 
welfare system which has forgotten the need for personal responsibility 
and undercut the American ethic of rewarding those who struggle to 
better themselves. Instead, we provide sustenance to those who are 
content to do nothing to improve their own condition. That must change. 
That will change. H.R. 4, The Personel Responsibility Act, is designed 
to do just that.
  Nothing like our discussion over how to reform our failed welfare 
system reveals the ideological chasm which exists in this House. Those 
opposed to the Republican-led welfare reform effort have leveled 
accusations that this bill goes too far, that it is too extreme, that 
it is mean-spirited, that it attacks children, that it makes cuts in 
welfare spending to make room for tax cuts for the rich. Such attacks 
are to be expected, wrong as they may be. They come from those
 whose compassion is so misguided that they are willing to perpetuate 
failure in face of the fear that the changes we propose may place at 
risk those who already live in poverty. Thus, we hear claims of 
acceptance of the need for change without a commitment do anything to 
reform our truly warped system.

  We hear claims of the need for more funding, without a commensurate 
willingness to attack the social pathologies which underlie and are 
reinforced by our welfare system. Yes, we need to preserve our sense of 
compassion, our commitment to help those who are temporarily unable to 
help themselves. But compassion must come with common sense. It must be 
coupled with a sense of vision and recognition of the need for change. 
Defending what has not worked is not acceptable public policy. We must 
conclude that spending dollars is not the same as creating solutions. A 
handout does not help. It perpetuates the dependency of the person 
seeking help. And that cannot be construed as doing someone a favor.
  The campaign to paint Republicans as pillagers of the school lunch 
program is egregious in its deliberate falseness and intent to mislead. 
Of course, the opponents of this bill fail to mention that spending on 
the WIC Program and the school nutrition program will be increased 
every year for the next 5 years. The school lunch program will rise 
4\1/2\% each year. These opponents fail to accept that, at some point, 
simply throwing more money at a problem does not work. However, on a 
range of issues, reasonable people may differ. The democratic process 
we have in this House is designed to ensure that those differences are 
explored and debated, and then voted upon.
  What makes this an important bill is that it forthrightly addresses 
the two major issues in the welfare debate: work and illegitimacy. This 
bill ends the entitlement now current enshrined in law that mandates 
cash payments even to those who refuse to work. In its place, tough 
work requirements are enacted. By the year 2003, 50 percent of the one-
parent families caseload will be required to be working. By 1998, 90 
percent of two-parent family welfare recipients must be working. All 
welfare recipients must be working after 5 years, and the States have 
the option of making that 2 years if they so choose. Contrast this to 
the current system, in which 65 percent of the 5 million families on 
welfare will be on welfare for 8 years or more, where the average 
length of stay for people on welfare at any given time is 13 years. 
Those statistics are unacceptable. Time limits and the teaching of 
skills so one can become self-sufficient are an integral part of 
ensuring that welfare dependency comes to an end.
  On the issues of illegitimacy, this bill is equally clear-headed. 
Mothers under the age of 18--commonly known as teenagers--who have a 
child out of wedlock will be ineligible for Federal assistance. Thus, 
we end the perverse rewarding of children having children. Likewise, we 
prohibit the payment of additional benefits for children born to 
families already on welfare. The taxpayer has no responsibility to 
provide additional levels of financial support to those who cannot 
support themselves before they choose to bring another life into the 
world. Finally, no cash payments will be allowed for mothers who refuse 
to help establish the paternity of their child.
  Certainly, there will be instances when the result of these changes 
will seem punitive, but this step must be taken if we are to put an end 
to children bringing into the world other children for whom they do not 
have the wherewithal to care. Today, this new family is left unable to 
cope for itself and is caught in a 
[[Page E833]] cycle of dependency, bereft of the education, the work 
training, the skills, and the resources to become self-supporting. How 
can anyone claim that putting an end to this reward is harmful of 
children? I, for one, feel that we do a great disservice to the lives 
of children by encouraging illegitimacy than we do by taking steps to 
reverse this unsustainable, cruel tide.
  The last major point of contention is the return of control of the 
welfare system to the States through the use of block grants. 
Opposition to these block grants reflects a philosophy of Federal 
control, that believes at its core that States cannot and should not be 
trusted to attend to the needs of their own residents. It is a 
philosophy that I reject. We have built a Federal system that dares to 
presume that administrative rules and a bureaucracy based in 
Washington, DC, have all the answers to the localized, individualized 
problems in States ranging from California, to Maine, to Mississippi. 
The failure of the current system reveals the fallacy in that notion.
  The existing welfare system proves that the creation of new program 
after new program is not an answer that works. In contrast, this bill 
takes the reverse tack of consolidating the numerous welfare programs 
into several targeted block grants. These dollars would be returned to 
the States, with important but minimal Federal standards, to be used in 
the manner that the States regard as the most efficient. I believe that 
the States will be more fully able to adjust their welfare programs to 
the particularized needs without having to come to the Federal 
Government to get approval to take the necessary action. An approach 
that gives power to those closest to the problem is one that will work.
  Mr. Chairman, great change inevitably is accompanied by great 
controversy. Such is the case with this bill. But if we are to reverse 
the course of failure, if we are to refocus the welfare program to one 
that requires work, one that no longer rewards out-of-wedlock births, 
one that requires fathers to participate in the financial well-being of 
their children, one that gives States the freedom and resources to 
develop welfare programs that are compatible with the welfare needs 
they see, one that helps restore a sense of values to our welfare 
system, then we must be bold.
  We can quibble around the edges. We can argue about funding levels. 
But the solution to obvious failure is not to perpetuate the system 
responsible for that failure. Instead, we must change course and seek 
answers in new and innovative approaches. This bill does that. And that 
is why H.R. 4--the Personal Responsibility Act has my support.


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