[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 86 (Tuesday, May 23, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7244-S7247]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


          STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS

      By Mr. McCAIN:
  S. 841. A bill to increase the special assessment for felonies and 
improve the enforcement of sentences imposing criminal fines, and for 
other purposes; to the Committee on the Judiciary.


              the crime victims assistance improvement act

 Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation 
to assist those who are often ignored in our ongoing struggle against 
crime: the victims: The Crime Victims Assistance Improvement Act 
increases and improves collection of crime fines which are deposited 
into the crime victims fund. This fund provides desperately needed help 
to crime victims across this country.
  I am pleased that this legislation has been supported by the National 
Organization for Victim Assistance, the American Legislative Exchange 
Council, Crimestrike, and the Arizona Department of Public Safety.
  First, this bill doubles the mandatory special assessment charged to 
every convicted Federal felon. The current special assessment is $50 
for each [[Page S7245]] individual felon, and $200 for an organization. 
The money from these special assessments goes directly into the crime 
victims fund. So doubling the assessments will double the amount of 
money going into the crime victims fund.
  This means that more rape and assault victims will get counseling, 
more battered women and children will get shelter, more families of 
murder victims will get money to defray funeral expenses. It means more 
help for more crime victims in every State of this Nation.
  Second, this legislation increases, to 20 years, the statute of 
limitations for the collection of these special assessments. Currently, 
the Government loses the right to collect this money from convicted 
felons after 5 years, which means vital resources are lost in the 
effort to assist crime victims. Criminal debtors should not be allowed 
to get away with defying a court order to pay. Increasing the statute 
of limitations significantly increases the amount of time that the 
government has to track down deadbeat criminals and make them meet 
their obligation.
  This legislation also requires an enforceable payment schedule for 
special assessments, orders of restitution and additional fines charged 
to convicted Federal criminals. Current law only allows the judge the 
option of setting up a payment schedule. A mandatory schedule for 
payment of the money owed will enhance collections and improve debt 
management. Ultimately, it means more dollars in the crime victims 
fund.
  Fourth, this legislation prohibits delinquent criminal debtors from 
receiving Federal benefits, such as grants, contracts, loans, 
professional and commercial licenses and other Federal assistance 
programs. If convicted criminals are not meeting their financial 
obligation to crime victims, then they certainly should not be allowed 
to benefit from Federal assistance programs.
  Fifth, the bill addresses a particularly absurd loophole in current 
law which allows delinquent criminal debtors to collect money from the 
Crime Victims Fund if they themselves become victims of crime. It is 
ironic, and yet tragic, when a convicted criminal debtor in turn 
becomes a victim of crime; but it is unfair that such an individual, 
who is delinquent in payments to the crime victims fund, and has not 
made a good faith effort to meet his or her obligation, is allowed to 
receive assistance from the program.
  The intent of this legislation, however, is not to deny needy people 
from assistance if they are making a good faith effort to meet their 
financial and legal obligations. Payment schedules certainly could be 
amended by a court to address exigent circumstances.
  Finally, this legislation establishes that crime victim compensation 
payments shall not be counted as income for purposes of eligibility for 
unrelated federally-funded general assistance programs.
  Let me relate the story of a 2-year-old-boy from Iowa. After his 
father was brutally, murdered, this boy's mother had no means of 
support and was placed on AFDC rolls, which qualified the family for 
Medicaid. The State victims compensation program also provided this 
young victim and his mother $2000 for loss of support. This one-time 
compensation payment was considered as income, however, so the 
Government was forced to cut off this child's Medicaid benefits for 
nearly a year. This is not right and it must be changed.
  Mr. President, crime continues to plague our Nation. Figures from the 
U.S. Justice Department show that one violent crime is committed in 
this country every 16 seconds. Yet the unmet need for victim assistance 
and compensation is enormous. The number of victims' compensation 
claims has increased by 10 to 20 percent each year for the past 5 
years, but many of those claims are being turned down because of a lack 
of funding.
  In my home State of Arizona, we are receiving fewer dollars from the 
crime victims fund at a time when serious crime is increasing. In 1993-
94, 16 Arizona agencies that applied for crime victim assistance grants 
received no funding at all. The funding requests that were rejected 
included victim witness programs, domestic violence agencies, as well 
as child abuse and sexual assault programs.
  The victims compensation system is also overburdened. Families with 
limited financial resources must face the initial trauma of the crime 
coupled with the additional concerns of medical expenses, funeral bills 
and other crime-related losses. We need more resources to help these 
victims, especially those in financial distress, and the Crime Victims 
Assistance Improvement Act will help tremendously in this endeavor.
  Doubling the amount of special assessments, increasing the statute of 
limitations on collections, setting up specific payment schedules, and 
keeping delinquent criminal debtors from benefiting from the crime 
victims fund are effective methods for channeling money from the 
criminals who committed the crimes to the victims who are living with 
the aftermath. We must let criminals know that fine payment is not an 
option, it is an obligation that they must and will meet.
  Mr. President, this legislation enhances collections of criminal debt 
and improved administration of the crime victims fund to keep pace with 
the growing needs of crime victims, and I urge timely consideration and 
passage of this measure. 
                                 ______

      By Mr. ASHCROFT (for himself, Mr. Coverdell, Mr. Craig, Mr. 
        DeWine, Mr. Smith, Mr. Inhofe, and Mr. Kempthorne):
  S. 842. A bill to replace the aid to families with dependent children 
program to the States, and for other purposes; to the Committee on 
Finance.
  S. 843. A bill to amend the Food Stamp Act of 1977 to convert the 
food stamp program into a block grant program, and for other purposes; 
to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.
  S. 844. A bill to replace the Medicaid program with a block grant to 
the States, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Finance.
  S. 845. A bill to replace the supplemental security income program 
for the disabled and blind with a block grant to the States, and for 
other purposes; to the Committee on Finance.
  S. 846. A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow 
for charitable contributions to certain private charities providing 
assistance to the poor thereby improving Federal welfare efforts 
through increased activity, and for other purposes; to the Committee on 
Finance.


                       welfare reform legislation

  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, as we continue to debate the budget 
resolution, setting spending levels for the next 5 years, we do so with 
the knowledge that one of our greatest challenges is moving our 
Nation's needy from governmental dependence to economic independence. 
One of our challenges is to ensure that hope and opportunity are 
defining characteristics of 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. It was inconsistent with human dignity.
  Why? Because imperialism rewarded passivity and encouraged 
dependence. It 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 
rules that lead to dependence. It rewards behavior that keeps them 
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. It has waged war against the human 
spirit.
  Our goal in welfare should not be to maintain the underclass as 
comfortably as possible as wards of the state. Yet that is precisely 
what has been done. Cash benefits anesthetize their suffering. Food 
stamps relieve [[Page S7246]] their hunger. Health care and housing are 
provided. But the hope, dignity, and 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've 
spend more than $5 trillion--a cost higher than that of waging the 
second world war--fighting poverty. Yet today, there are more people 
living in poverty than ever before, and our 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 of every five children in America. In 1993, there were 14.6 
million children in
 poverty. They constitute a little more than one in every five American 
children. Of all age groups, 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 a deeper, more 
entrenched poverty in which generations of people are born, live, and 
die without the experience of holding a job, owning a home, or growing 
up with a father's love and discipline.
  Go into our inner cities--go just blocks from here--and you will meet 
a generation fed on welfare and food stamps but starved of 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 anyone who 
has a father. You will talk with sixth-graders who do not know how many 
inches are in a foot, having never seen a ruler, and with first-graders 
who do not know their ABC's or numbers because no one ever took the 
time to teach them.
  Thirty years ago, Robert Kennedy reflected on welfare and said this:

       Opponents of welfare have always said that welfare is 
     degrading, both to the giver and the recipient. They have 
     said that it destroys self-respect, that it lowers incentive, 
     that it is contrary to American ideals. Most of us deprecated 
     and disregarded these criticisms. People were in need; 
     obviously, we felt, to help people in trouble was the right 
     thing to do. But in our urge to help, we also disregarded 
     elementary fact. For the criticisms of welfare do have a 
     center of truth, and they are confirmed by the evidence.

  Robert Kennedy's warnings were not heeded.
  The political elites that followed him have spent, and taxed, and 
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. Hope and opportunity are missing in 
action. Programs and policies that once were judged by the height of 
their aspirations must now be judged by the depth of their failure.
  I have a belief that is confirmed by the record of our times. It is 
this: The greatest, most insistent human need is not subsistence, not 
hand-outs, not dependence, but independence. Not the kind of 
independence that suggests people do not need one another or that 
suggests that every man is an island. Quite the opposite, the 
independence of which I speak is the independence born of economic 
self-sufficiency and opportunity. The independence to dream, pursue, 
and fulfill our deepest wishes and our personal potential. This is 
something that the social architects cannot plan or build. It is not 
structure, it is spirit. It is something that our welfare system has 
lacked for at least the past 30 years. It is a reality that we continue 
to ignore only at our peril.
  We stand at a time of unique opportunity. There is a mainstream 
movement of values sweeping this land. It is a movement reflected on 
the covers of popular magazines like Newsweek and US News who lament 
the absence of shame and the lack of fathers.
  I believe it is time again to create a welfare system that helps, not 
hurts those it seeks to serve. That is the standard against which 
reform must be judged--not some utopian ideal, but the cold, hard 
realities of our present welfare system.
  Today I will introduce the Communities Involved in Caring [CIVIC] 
Act. We have neither the aspiration nor the expectation that it alone 
is the long-awaited answer to our welfare problems. But we do believe 
that it is a significant step toward restoring the opportunities of 
dignity through independence and the access to the world of upward 
mobility.
  This act is predicated on three fundamental beliefs. First, that 
States need to be given maximum flexibility in reforming their 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 volunteers, to flourish.


                              block grants

  The CIVIC Act block-grants Washington's four main welfare entitlement 
programs--AFDC, Food Stamps, Supplemental Security Income, and 
Medicaid--to the States. It does this first by capping the spending on 
AFDC, food stamps, and SSI at either an average of fiscal year 1992-94 
levels, or at fiscal year 1994 levels, whichever is higher. This cap 
would then apply for the next 5 years. For Medicaid, which is currently 
growing at rates exceeding 10 percent per year, spending would be 
capped at a rolling 5-percent increase for the next 5 years.
  These programs would then be extricated from their existing 
bureaucracies--HHS, Agriculture, et cetera--and given to the 
Department of Treasury to distribute to the States.
  Treasury's oversight role would be minimal because the only 
qualifications on the block grants would be the following. First, 
States would be required to make welfare recipients work. How best to 
do that. The nature of the work. The level of participation. All of 
those issues would be left to the States to determine. Second, States 
which decrease illegitimacy, using existing governmental statistics, 
will be able to use a portion of their block grant for elementary and 
secondary education or any other function they desire.


                involvement of intermediary institutions

  The CIVIC Act also provides explicit authority for States to contract 
with intermediary organizations--including private and religious 
charitable organizations--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 those 
programs have been constrained from receiving Federal funds because all 
too often those Federal funds would require radical changes in the 
program--changes that would rob the programs of the very 
characteristics that make them successful.
  Under the CIVIC Act, States would be able to utilize their Federal 
bloc-grant funds by either contracting with these organizations 
directly or by giving welfare recipients certificates so that they can 
choose which programs to get involved in.


  tax credit eligibility for volunteering at charitable organizations

  The final part of the CIVIC Act makes those people who volunteer at 
least 50 hours per year, or approximately 1 hour per week, to 
institutions that serve the needy, eligible for a $500 tax credit for 
monetary donations to such charitable organizations. Just as welfare 
recipients should work for their benefits, so our citizenry should work 
for charitable organizations in order to receive a tax credit. It is 
all about responsibility. It is all about opportunity.
  When he travelled 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,'' he wrote, ``constantly prompts them to assist one another 
and inclines them willingly to sacrifice a portion of their time and 
property to the welfare of [others].'' What this act seeks to undo is 
30 years of Washington discouraging that very basic American instinct 
to help one another.
  These ideas are not new ideas. They are, in fact, ideas that have 
been tried, tested, and found successful. About a hundred years ago in 
cities like New York, alcoholics and addicts littered the sidewalks. 
Orphaned children roamed the streets. And if all New York City's liquor 
shops, houses of prostitution, gambling houses, and other low-life 
establishments would have been placed on a single street, 
[[Page S7247]] 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, 1 out of every 10 people got food from public 
storehouses.
  These pathologies met their match through society's intermediary, 
nongovernmental, organizations. Their warm-hearted and hard-headed 
approaches 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, we must, we 
must do it the same way--with new ideas for the 1990's that were the 
standard fare of the 1890's. We must meet our challenges with a greater 
role for States and a greater role for intermediary organizations--both 
larger ones like the Salvation Army and the 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 intermediary organizations--organizations which can 
help meet people's deepest needs, 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 and thorough debate. The end of colonialism 
was not an easy process either. For independence means risk, the 
sacrifice of security. Economic mobility means work, hard work. But no 
nation and no people who have ever tasted the sweet fruits of freedom 
has called for the return of its colonial rulers.
                                 ______

      By Mr. GREGG (for himself, Mr. Reid, Mr. Coats, Mr. Bradley, Mr. 
        Kyl, Mr. Cohen and Mr. Lautenberg):
  S. 847. A bill to terminate the agricultural price support and 
production adjustment programs for sugar, and for other purposes; to 
the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.


                 AGRICULTURAL PRICE SUPPORT LEGISLATION

  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise today with Senators Reid, Bradley, 
Coats, Cohen, Lautenberg, and Kyl to announce the introduction of 
legislation to repeal the sugar program. This legislation will 
eliminate the U.S. Department of Agriculture's [USDA] price support, 
subsidized loans, producer assessments, and marketing allotments for 
sugar.
  The sugar program is big government at its worst. At a time when the 
American people are demanding that the Federal Government assume a more 
limited role in society, this program goes in the opposite direction. 
Instead of leaving the sugar industry to market forces, the USDA wields 
the heavy hand of government intervention.
  Why should Congress repeal the sugar program? That is a good 
question, and I will give you but a few examples:
  It has been estimated by the General Accounting Office [GAO] that the 
program costs consumers and sweetener users an average of $1.4 billion 
annually. The producers who sell the most sugar reap the biggest 
benefit. Right now, the world sugar price is half that of the United 
States.
  The sugar program stifles competition. In 1991, the GAO estimated 
that 42 percent of the program's benefits went to only 1 percent of the 
growers. The 33 largest sugar plantations receive over $1 million each 
year.
  The U.S. has generally supported free and fair trade. How can we 
justify artificially inflating the price of a domestic commodity just 
to enrich and protect a particular industry? This legislation would not 
impact existing rules on tariffs and quotas. Therefore, there would be 
no dumping of foreign sugar into the U.S. market.
  Like most Americans, I strongly support reducing the Federal budget 
deficit. Due to import tariffs and a 1.1 cents-per-pound tax on 
producers, the sugar program operates a no-net-cost to the Federal 
budget. While this is true, the program costs the American taxpayers 
$1.4 billion. The sugar program is a regressive tax, which imposes a 
much greater burden on those who spend a great deal on consumption. 
Under the present system, the benefit of reducing the Federal budget 
deficit is far outweighed by the high cost to the American consumer.
  One of the greatest environmental crises facing the State of Florida 
is the degradation of the Everglades. The Everglades is a national 
treasure, which is threatened by phosphate and pesticide runoff. The 
sugar program's continued high price supports have for years stimulated 
overproduction in the Everglades agricultural area. In effect, the 
Federal Government has encouraged the destruction of the Everglades 
through heavy-handed government intervention and misguided attempts to 
regulate the economy.
  The repeal of the sugar program would have a minimal, if any, impact 
on jobs in the sugar industry. The American sugar industry, the pro-
sugar lobby, has estimated a job loss of 420,000. This is factually and 
statistically untrue. The Census Bureau and the USDA have estimated 
that the sugar industry only accounts for 46,000 jobs. In fact, even 
with the program, sugar industry jobs fell by 18 percent between 1982 
and 1992. It is believed by many economists that any job losses in the 
sugar industry would be offset by gains realized in the sweetener 
industry.
  Mr. President, the time for wasteful and inefficient commodity 
programs like the sugar program has come to an end. I hope the Senate 
will move quickly to pass this legislation and send a message to the 
relatively few that benefit from this program that the American 
consumer deserves a better deal.
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to rise today to join Senator 
Gregg and Senator Reid to introduce legislation to eliminate the sugar 
program. The Federal Government has been meddling in the sugar market 
for over 200 years, and I believe the time has come to end what has 
become a wasteful practice.
  The supporters of the sugar program argue that the system operates at 
no cost to the Federal Government, and therefore there is no need to 
eliminate this harmless program. Technically speaking this assertion is 
true; the Federal Government does not send checks to sugar growers. But 
the federal government does artificially raise the price of sugar by 
limiting imports, and, as a result, American consumers pay an 
additional $1.4 billion each year for sweetened products, according to 
the Government Accounting Office. So while Americans may not pay for 
this program through higher taxes, they do pay for it every time they 
buy a soda, or a candy bar, or anything else which contains sugar or 
other sweeteners.
  The supporters of the sugar program argue that this program is vital 
to the livelihoods of family farms. Unfortunately this program, like 
many other agricultural subsidies, was designed to help family farms, 
but actually tends to support big businesses. Seventeen of the over 
1,700 sugarcane farms received roughly 58 percent of the benefits of 
this program in 1991. One family in florida receives an estimated $65 
million a year as a result of the artificially high prices. Mr. 
President, this certainly does not fall within my definition of a 
``family'' farm.
  Finally, the supporters of the sugar program argue that the 
elimination of this program will kill the domestic sugar industry. 
While there will likely be some changes to the industry if this program 
is eliminated, I take issue with the argument that there is no life 
after subsidies. During World War II, a price support system was 
established for potatoes. Several years later Congress abolished the 
program. But the potato industry remains vibrant in the United States 
to this day. From Maine to California, farmers continue to grow 
potatoes without the benefit of a subsidy they once enjoyed.
  Mr. President, the time has come to end the sugar program. Simply 
stated, its benefits go primarily to a select few, while its costs are 
borne by every consumer in America. Because food accounts for a higher 
share of the household budget of low-income families, these higher 
costs are especially regressive. For the sake of these families, I hope 
the Senate will pass this important legislation.


                          ____________________