[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 118 (Thursday, July 20, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10333-S10334]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             WELFARE REFORM

  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I rise to continue a forum that we 
started here as the 11 freshman Republican Members of the 104th 
Congress to talk about the issues that were important to us during the 
campaign that are now coming to the floor of the Senate and give a 
perspective of those who are more freshly from the hustings to the 
Senate and to the people listening.
  Today, the issue that we are going to discuss--and I know the 
Presiding Officer, the Senator from Missouri, has been an outstanding 
advocate in his short tenure in the Senate on this issue--is welfare 
reform. Senator Ashcroft served as the Governor of Missouri for 8 years 
and instituted welfare reform and has been a tremendous advocate for 
really dramatic reform in the States.
  Later today, Senator Ashcroft, along with Senator Gramm, Senator 
Grams, and others, is going to have a press conference to discuss a 
version that we are going to put forward which I believe, of all the 
bills that have been introduced to date, both in the House and the 
Senate, is probably the most dramatic, the most forward looking, the 
most flexible, and the most meaningful welfare reform package that has 
been put forward. When I say meaningful, I mean meaningful to the 
people who are in the welfare system or who may find themselves at some 
future time being caught in that net.
  We believe this is a dramatic departure from business as usual, and 
it is something I am very excited about. I have worked on the welfare 
reform issue as a member of the House Ways and Means Committee and 
chaired the Republican task force last session of Congress to come up 
with a Republican welfare reform bill. We worked 9 or 10 months in 
extensive meetings and came up with a bill--it was included as part of 
the Contract With America--called the Personal Responsibility Act. That 
formed the basis of the bill that was eventually passed, H.R. 4, by the 
House, and what we have done really is take that product and taken it 
one step further and allowed more State flexibility, more local 
experimentation.
  One of the provisions that is in the bill that I am very proud of 
that the Senator from Missouri was the author of is a provision that 
says that community organizations, local community organizations, 
nonprofits, churches could actually be the welfare agency in a local 
community, really get back to what we know works. And what we know 
works in dealing with the problems of poverty are people who are in the 
community, who care about the people that they are serving, not someone 
hired from the State capital to monitor caseload, but someone who lives 
next door, who goes to the same church as the person who is going 
through the difficult time in their life.
  Those are the kinds of really dramatic reforms that are in the Gramm 
bill that we are going to be introducing today. And I am excited about 
it. I think it is a good mark. It shows where we want to be ultimately 
on the issue of welfare reform: Multiple block grants, some flexibility 
within those block grants to allow States to deal with emergencies or 
an increase in maybe the number of people who need nutritional 
assistance, so they can move from one fund to another maybe people--
there is an increasing surge in day care requirements. The same thing 
allows that kind of flexibility for the State to be able to move funds 
around from account to account. I think that is an important change. 
Again, the Senator from Missouri was the one that put forward these 
ideas. So I am excited about that bill.
  Let me say that I do not think that is where we are going to end up. 
That is where I would like to end up. So I am on the bill. That is 
where I would like to end up. That is where I would like to see 
somebody come down and say, this the way we should go, this is the 
dramatic step forward we should take.
  But just like the House where there were bills that were introduced 
that were more dramatic than was passed, H.R. 4, I think we will have 
to come up with a more modest approach if we are going to get the 60 
votes required to pass a welfare reform bill in this body. And I am 
confident we can do that.
  I am, also, at the same time--having worked with Senator Ashcroft, 
Senator Gramm, and others, working with Senator Packwood, Senator Dole, 
and others--trying to come up with a bill that we can form that takes, 
hopefully, a lot from the Gramm bill, but reaches across to try to get 
Members who may have concern about providing too much State 
flexibility, too much local control and provide some sort of compromise 
that can get the required votes to pass this Chamber.
  I think this issue and the opportunity to make dramatic changes is 
here. And this issue is too important for us to hold out for the 
perfect solution. I think we need it out there as a goal. But at the 
same time I think we have to be practical and understand that we have 
to get what we can today. And if we can, as will be in the Packwood 
bill, also in the Gramm bill, is a block grant of the AFDC Program to 
allow States the flexibility to put forward their own plan for welfare 
recipients, to give them the opportunity to get into jobs, to get into 
job training, and put stiff work requirements, put a time limitation--
those kinds of things that we know work in getting people off the 
welfare dependency cycle back into the mainstream of American life. 
Those are the kinds of things that we need to say, ``States, do the 
innovation, do the work that is necessary for your individual States to 
be able to transition people off.'' We are going to give that 
flexibility, and in both bills.
  That is only a small piece of the welfare pie, AFDC, what many 
people, certainly a lot on the other side, consider to be welfare. I 
think welfare is a much broader category. They say AFDC is the welfare 
program, Aid to Families With Dependent Children. If we can block grant 
that program, end the entitlement nature, end the dependency that 
results from someone being guaranteed money for doing things that, 
frankly, most people would say are not what we want them to do: have 
children out of wedlock, do not get a job, do not get job training, do 
not try to do anything to get yourself out. We will give you more 
money. I think that is a very perverse incentive. End that entitlement. 
Say that after a certain period of years, you cannot continue in this 
life. That we will help you but you must help yourself. It is a 
contract between those who want to help and those who are to be helped. 
That piece alone, if we can block grant that piece, send it to the 
States, give them the opportunity, with a string that says you have a 
5-year limitation, you have to have a work requirement; if we can do 
that piece alone, I think we will make a major change in the lives of 
millions of Americans and give them the opportunity that they have not 
seen under this system, which is intended to be 

[[Page S10334]]
compassionate but is nothing but destructive to millions of lives, 
families, and communities across America.
  We have that opportunity today. I think we can get 60 or more votes 
for that provision. We should go as far as we can. We should try to do 
more. We should do food stamp reforms. I would like to see a block 
grant for food stamps. I do not know if we can get a block grant for 
the Food Stamp Program. If we can get major reforms that came out of 
the Agriculture Committee that require work for people who are on food 
stamps, that get rid of a lot of the waste and fraud that encourage 
electronic benefits transfer, which is being used just north of here in 
Maryland and other places, in isolated programs, for example, in Berks 
County in Pennsylvania, using the debit card as opposed to a food 
stamp. It cuts down tremendously on fraud. We need to encourage that 
for States to be able to do more of that, to reduce the amount of food 
stamp fraud, which I know is a very sensitive issue among millions of 
Americans who see the fraud every day at the grocery store.
  Those are the kinds of things that we can and should debate here on 
this floor. And I am hopeful that we can bring a bill--I want to doff 
my cap to the majority leader for his courage in setting forth the last 
week of the session before the recess to do welfare reform so that we 
can come here and have a great debate before we get into the 
reconciliation process after we come back, but have a debate focused 
solely on the issue of welfare reform. Many have encouraged the 
majority leader to just fold welfare reform into reconciliation and 
consider it all one big package. I think that is a mistake. I do not 
think it gives welfare the kind of focus that it deserves in changing 
America.
  So I appreciate the opportunity to come here and talk about this. I 
want to again congratulate the Presiding Officer for his tremendous 
work on this issue. And I yield the floor.
  Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota is recognized.

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