[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 86 (Tuesday, May 23, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7237-S7240]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  WAGING WAR AGAINST THE HUMAN SPIRIT

  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, as we continue to debate the budget 
resolution setting the spending levels for the next 5 years, we do so 
with the knowledge that one of our greatest challenges is moving the 
Nation's needy from governmental dependence to economic independence.
  One of our challenges is to ensure that hope and opportunity are 
defining characteristics for all Americans. This was the challenge 30 
years ago when the great movement reshaping world politics was the end 
of colonialism. John Kennedy celebrated the ``desire to be 
independent,'' as the ``single most important force in the world.'' 
Eventually this movement revealed its power from Asia to Africa to 
South America.
  The problem with imperialism was not just its economic exploitation, 
it was its influence on culture. It undermined traditional ways and 
institutions, and it was inconsistent with human dignity.
  Why? Because imperialism rewarded passivity and encouraged 
dependence, required citizens to live by the rules of a distant elite. 
It demanded people be docile in the face of a system that they could 
not change. It was an attack, not just on national sovereignty, but on 
national character.
  What our Washington-based welfare system has done, particularly to 
women and children, has been to fashion a new form of colonialism. It 
created an underclass that is paid to play by the rules that lead to 
dependence, rather than act with independence and dignity. Our welfare 
system rewards behavior that keeps people powerless. It thwarts the 
efforts of private and religious charitable organizations to care for 
the needy. It discourages the genuine compassion of the American 
people. Our welfare system has waged a war against the human spirit.
  Our goal in welfare should not be to maintain an ``underclass" in as 
comfortable as possible circumstances. Yet that is precisely what our 
welfare system has done. Cash benefits anesthetize their suffering. 
Food stamps relieve their hunger. Health care and housing are provided. 
But the hope, the dignity, and the integrity of independence are 
forgotten.
  Consider, just briefly, what our current welfare system has wrought. 
The numbers alone are enough to numb the senses. Since 1965, we have 
spent more than $5 trillion, a cost higher than that of waging the 
Second World War--fighting poverty. Yet today, there are more people, a 
greater percentage of Americans, living in poverty than ever before. 
And our safety net has not acted well, the safety net has become more 
like quicksand.
  In 1965, when President Johnson launched the war on poverty, there 
were approximately 14.7 million children in poverty. They constituted 
about one in every five children in America. But in 1993, there was a 
greater percentage of children in poverty than there were in 1965 when 
the Great Society programs were launched. It is pretty clear that the 
Great Society experiment has not been so great for America's children.
  Of all age groups in the nation today, children are the most likely 
to be poor. In 1991, a study of the poverty rates in eight 
industrialized nations revealed that American children were almost 
three times as likely to be poor as children from the other nations 
studied.
  The character of the poverty we face today is also a more deeply 
entrenched poverty in which generations of people are born, live, and 
die without the experience of holding a job, of owning a home, or of 
growing up with a father's love and discipline.
  Go to our inner cities--or just a few blocks from this building--and 
you will meet a generation fed on welfare and food stamps, but starved 
for nurture and hope. You will meet young teens in their third 
pregnancy. You will meet children who are not only without a father, 
but do not know any children with a father. You will talk with sixth 
graders who do not know how many inches there are in a foot--having 
never seen a ruler--and with first graders who do not know their ABC's 
because no one ever took the time to teach them.
  The political elites that have spent and taxed in recent decades have 
redistributed wealth beyond the dreams of Roosevelt and Johnson 
combined. But in the Government's war on poverty, poverty is winning 
and the casualties are the poor, and the casualties are our children. 
The casualties also include the future, because we have piled budget 
after budget high with debt. Hope and opportunity are missing in 
action. Programs and policies that once were judged by the height of 
their spending must now be judged by the depth of their failure. This 
is no longer a source of serious debate, no longer a matter of partisan 
politics, but it is a matter of national concern--it is a concern that 
has been reflected in our news magazines, on the covers of U.S. News 
and Newsweek, and Time. [[Page S7238]] 
  I have a belief that is confirmed by the record of our times, and it 
is this: That the greatest, most insistent human need is not the need 
for subsistence, nor handouts, nor dependence--it is the need for 
independence. Not the kind of independence that suggests one person can 
live without another. No, quite the opposite.
  The independence of which I speak is the independence born of 
economic self-sufficiency and opportunity. The independence to dream, 
to pursue and fulfill our deepest wishes and our personal potential.
  This is something, Mr. President, that social architects cannot 
build, they cannot plan. It is not structure, it is spirit. It is 
something that our welfare system has lacked for the last 30 years as 
we have sought to merely spend our way into a new kind of opportunity. 
But we have spent our way past opportunity into peril.
  I believe it is time again to create a welfare system that helps, not 
hurts, those it seeks to serve. And such a system would be a major part 
in controlling the spending which has plagued this Nation and now 
threatens future generations. A system that helps rather than hurts. A 
system that serves is the standard by which welfare reform must be 
judged, not just the utopian ideal.
  Today, I introduced the Communities Involved in Caring Act. We call 
it CIVIC. We do not expect this Act--a package of 5 bills--to be the 
long-awaited answer to all of our welfare problems by itself. But we do 
believe that it is a significant step toward restoring opportunities of 
dignity through independence and access to the world of upward 
mobility.
  The act is predicated on three fundamental beliefs:
  First, that States need the maximum flexibility possible to reform 
welfare systems.
  Second, that our intermediary organizations--especially private and 
religious charitable organizations--need to be utilized in welfare 
reform.
  Third, that intermediary organizations need not only money, but they 
need volunteers; they need the personal participation of individuals to 
flourish.
  The CIVIC Act which I introduced earlier today would block grant 
Washington's four main welfare entitlement programs--AFDC, Food Stamps, 
Supplemental Security Income, and Medicaid--to the States. It starts by 
capping the spending on AFDC, Food Stamps, and SSI, and then Medicaid 
would be limited in growth to 105 percent each year--meaning of 105 
percent of each previous year. Given the fact that Medicaid has been 
growing at well over 10 percent a year, this would be substantial 
restraint in the program's growth, but not a cut in the program.
  The programs under the block grants would also be extricated from 
their existing bureaucracies--at HHS, Agriculture, etc.--and turned 
over to the Department of the Treasury to be distributed to the States. 
The unique feature of this proposal is that the money would go directly 
from the Department of the Treasury to the States, and it would not be 
a part of any bureaucracy in Washington, D.C. that would consume much 
of the money before it ever gets to the States.
  Mr. President, Treasury's oversight role would be minimal because the 
only qualifications on the block grants would be:
  First, that States would be required to require welfare recipients to 
work. How best to do that. The nature of the work. The level of the 
participation. All of those issues should be and would be left to the 
States to determine; and
  Second, that States that decrease illegitimacy, using existing 
governmental statistics as a measure, will be able to use a portion of 
their block grant for elementary or secondary education or any other 
purpose they desire.
  The CIVIC Act also provides explicit authority for States to contract 
with nongovernmental organizations, including private and religious 
charitable organizations, and other institutions, in the effort to help 
solve the welfare problem.
  We have all heard the stories of small organizations that are hugely 
successful in helping America's poor. Unfortunately, many of these 
programs have been constrained from receiving Federal funds because all 
too often those Federal funds would require radical changes in their 
beliefs, their structure, their facilities, their program, or their 
organization--changes that would rob these programs of the very 
characteristics and attitudes that make them successful.
  However, under the CIVIC Act, States would be able to utilize their 
Federal block grant funds by either contracting with these 
organizations directly or by giving welfare recipients certificates so 
that they could choose which programs to get involved in.
  The final element of the CIVIC Act allows individuals who volunteer 
at least 50 hours per year, or approximately 1 hour a week, to 
charitable institutions that serve the needy eligible for a $500 tax 
credit for monetary donations to such charitable organizations. Just as 
the welfare recipients should work for their benefits, so the citizens 
who want enhanced tax benefits for their contributions should also work 
and volunteer in the organizations they contribute to.
  Mr. President, it is all about opportunity; it is about working 
together. When he traveled through America more than 100 years ago, the 
great French observer, Alexis de Tocqueville, was struck by how caring 
Americans were for each other.

       The Americans . . . regard for themselves, constantly 
     prompts them to assist one another and inclines them 
     willingly to sacrifice a portion of their time and property 
     for the welfare of others.

  What the Act I introduced today seeks is to undo 30 years of 
Washington discouraging that very basic American instinct to help one 
another. The ideas in the Act are not new. They are, in fact, old ideas 
in America. They have been tested and found successful.
  About 100 years ago, cities like New York were littered with 
alcoholics and addicts. Orphaned children roamed the streets. And if 
all of New York City's liquor shops, houses of prostitution, gambling 
houses, and other low-life establishments had been placed on a single 
street, they would have extended from Manhattan's City Hall to the City 
of White Plains more than 30 miles away. On that street, there would 
have been a robbery every 165 yards and a murder every half mile. And 
in Brooklyn, one out of every ten people got food from public 
storehouses.
  These pathologies met their match, Mr. President, in society's 
intermediary, nongovernmental, voluntary, private 
institutions of charity and assistance. Their warm-hearted and hard-
headed approaches--and you can have a warm heart and a hard head when 
it comes to making sure that we change such circumstances--helped save 
women and children and men. As the historian Marvin Olasky notes, ``The 
solutions these reforms came up with forestalled an epidemic of 
illegitimacy and saved thousands of children from misery.''
  I believe that as we confront our own social pathologies today, we 
must do it the same way--with the ideas that have worked in the past 
and yet with new ideas for the 1990's--even though they may have been 
the standard fare of the 1890's. We must meet our challenges with a 
greater role for States and a greater role for intermediary 
institutions, nongovernmental organizations, private charities--both 
larger ones like the Salvation Army and Goodwill, and smaller ones like 
Best Friends and the Sunshine Mission.
  So while the CIVIC Act begins the process of moving welfare from 
Washington to the States, it also begins the vital task of 
reinvigorating our private, nongovernmental organizations which can 
help meet the deepest needs of our citizens, organizations that we know 
will help solve our welfare problems.
  The change that we want to see will not occur overnight. Neither will 
it come without hard work or thorough debate. The end of colonialism 
was not an easy process either. For independence means risk, the 
sacrifice of security.
  Well, security, coupled with dependency is a bad bargain. Economic 
mobility means work; it means hard work. But no nation and no people 
who have ever tasted the sweet fruits of freedom has ever called for a 
return to its colonial dependency.
  I believe that if we want to make sure that we are free and we remain 
free, we must reform the welfare system. It can be a part of a large 
reform in which we reform the financial integrity of America, for we 
cannot hold [[Page S7239]] hostage future generations to the spending 
of the present.
  As we seek to pass the budget in the hours ahead in this Chamber, it 
will be a pleasure to do so in a way that not only puts us on a footing 
of sound financial integrity, but establishes us on a path toward 
economic independence and opportunity for individuals --through a 
reformed welfare system, characterized by block grants maximizing the 
States' flexibility and innovation, and characterized by Government 
joining hands with nongovernmental agencies in order to bring to the 
battle the energies and talents of this great Nation's private 
citizens.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I want to thank the Senator from 
Missouri. He was a former Governor, so he is one of the experts that we 
are going to have in this body when we deal with the very, very tough 
issue of choices as we reform the welfare system.
  I think it is really appropriate that he has taken a leadership role 
in this. Once again, what we are showing tonight is the tough decisions 
that must be made to balance the budget, which the people of America 
asked us to do. So I appreciate the Senator waiting for so long and 
giving that great talk about the bill he introduced today and the 
choices that we are going to face today and tomorrow.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Texas for her 
kind words.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I would like to yield to the Senator 
from Wyoming.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I am glad to join my colleagues this 
evening in continuing this discussion. By noon tomorrow, we will have 
had 50 hours of talking about the budget. I guess after 50 hours, your 
eyes kind of glaze over. But the fact is that there is nothing more 
important that we will talk about during this Congress. It becomes 
difficult to find something new to say about the issue after 50 hours. 
But maybe that is not important. Maybe the important thing is to stress 
those things that are necessary, those things that are important, those 
choices that we do have.
  It has been 10 days since the Republicans presented a balanced budget 
plan, which America has been waiting for. In that time, the deficit has 
increased another $4.9 billion. It added $19 for every American.
  The Republicans are working to end Government's relentless borrowing. 
The Republican plan would balance the budget by the year 2002 by 
slowing the growth in the Federal spending from 5 percent to 3 percent.
  It protects Social Security, saves Medicare from bankruptcy, 
maintains a Social Security safety net, reduces the size of the Federal 
Government, and moves power out of Washington and back closer to the 
people.
  Republicans want to transform Government to make it more efficient 
and more responsive and less expensive. Democrats, meanwhile, are 
standing up for the status quo. They have offered no plan to balance 
the budget.
  Mr. President, this debate has been characterized by almost everyone 
who has risen, has stood up and said, ``I want to balance the budget 
but we cannot cut''--blank--and fill in the blank. Medicare, earned-
income tax credit, defense, education, whatever.
  So we always say we want to balance the budget--but for a million 
reasons we cannot do it. I am confident that we shall for the first 
time in 25 years balance the budget--tomorrow. Starting on the path to 
balance the budget.
  It is awfully hard. These are large figures, talking about $5 
trillion. Who knows what $5 trillion is. I read something the other day 
that sort of personalizes this. I thought it was interesting.
  Someone asked, how do we identify the Federal budget with something 
that is closer to a personal budget? This is what the answer was, and I 
thought it was interesting: Suppose you have an income of $125,000 
coming not from work but from contributions of all your friends and 
relatives who work. You are not satisfied with what $125,000 can buy 
this year, so you prepare for yourself a budget of $146,000 and charge 
the $20,300 difference to your credit card on which you already carry 
an unpaid balance of $452,248, boosting that to $472,548 on which you 
pay interest daily. Multiply that by 10 million and that is what our 
Government did in fiscal year 1994.
  This is clearly the most important element of debate for this year. 
Not just because of the dollars, as important as they may be, but 
because we have an opportunity to examine and to change and to look at 
the role of Government, look at those things that should logically and 
legitimately be done by the Federal Government, do something about 
those that should be done in private sector. To take a look at the size 
of Government. Clearly, voters said last year, Government is too large 
and costs too much.
  So we have a chance to do that. We have a chance to make major 
changes, the first really major changes in 25 years. To do that, and I 
believe very strongly and we have done some of this, we have to make 
some procedural changes. We cannot simply continue to do what we have 
been doing and expect to get different results. We have to do things 
like line-item veto, which we worked on. Have to do something about 
unfunded mandates. I think we should do something about term limits. I 
think we should have had a balanced budget amendment to the 
Constitution and we will go back to do that.
  We did not accomplish that. We failed by one vote in this Chamber. 
Now we have the opportunity to do what many opponents of the balanced 
budget amendment said, and that is we do not need an amendment, we just 
belly up to the bar and do it. That is what we have an opportunity to 
do.
  The record is not good. Sure, we can do it and we will do it. We have 
not done it for 25 years. We will raise the debt limit to $5 trillion 
this summer. The administration budget has $250 billion in deficits out 
as far as we can see. The size of Government is growing. So for the 
first time we have an opportunity to do something different.
  Clearly, there are different philosophies about Government. There are 
different philosophies about what the size should be. That is fine. 
That is the way it should be. That is what elections are for, so people 
can make a decision between two choices.
  There are those in this body and other bodies and in this country who 
say the Government should be larger, the Government should do more. In 
fact, the Government does a better job of spending dollars than 
families do and businesses do. That is, I suppose, a legitimate view. 
It is not my view.
  So we do have differences and there are differences. The Republicans 
would like to have a smaller Government that costs less, that is more 
lean, and efficient.
  Democrats, on the other hand, have moved toward more Government and 
more spending. Republicans want to transform Government, something that 
is more efficient, to deliver services more efficiently. Welfare is an 
excellent example. Nobody wants to eliminate welfare. We want to be 
able to help people who need help, but to help them back into the work 
sector. We want a Government that is more responsive, that is more 
customer oriented. One that is less expensive.
  The administration, on the other hand, and our friends on the other 
side of the aisle, support the status quo. There is no plan to balance 
the budget.
  The President, as was suggested yesterday, is AWOL, absent without 
leadership, on finding a way to balance the budget. No options on how 
to save Medicare despite the fact that the trustees have said in no 
uncertainty that if we do not do something, in 2 years we will be 
dealing with the reserves, and 7 years Medicare will be broke. No 
welfare reform proposal.
  We have an opportunity to do something. The administration's track 
record, of course, over the past several years has been to raise taxes 
and expand the Federal Government. The 1993 budget, the largest tax 
increase in history, nearly $260 billion. We hear it was just on the 
highest percent--not so. Gas tax--my State has probably the largest per 
capita gas tax increase of all because of the miles we travel.
  Mr. President, we do have a chance to do something. If spending 
remains at the same level for the Government programs in order to 
balance the budget by the year 2002, we would have to raise taxes by 
$935 billion, $7,400 for every American taxpayer. That is the choice. 
We either level off growing or we raise taxes. [[Page S7240]] 
  We have a vision of keeping our promises to make Government smaller, 
to reject the status quo, balance the budget by the year 2002, protect 
Social Security, save and improve Medicare, and return power to the 
communities and to our families and the States.
  Mr. President, I am pleased we are moving in this direction. I feel 
confident there will be a positive vote tomorrow, to make these kinds 
of changes. I thank my colleagues for continuing to point out the 
choices that we have before the Senate. I urge my colleagues to support 
this budget plan. I yield the floor.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I would thank the freshman from 
Wyoming, the freshman Senator, for adding to this debate. He has really 
been there through all these days, talking about the important issues 
that we are facing and the tough decisions that we are going to have to 
make. I appreciate the fact that he has just hit the ground running in 
the U.S. Senate, and I am pleased he stayed tonight along with his 
wife, to make the remarks that he did. We appreciate it very much.
  Now I would be happy to yield to the Senator from Iowa for 10 
minutes.

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