[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 124 (Friday, July 28, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10860-S10862]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             WELFARE REFORM

  Mr. ASHCROFT. The question that this body will soon address in a 
formal sense is a question that has been titled welfare reform.
  In our debate, we will hear a lot about numbers. We will hear about 
how much the system costs, about the share of the Nation's output that 
it occupies. But this debate, properly understood, is not a debate 
about numbers. It is a 

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debate about lives, the lives of people who are trapped in the web of 
the Washington-knows-best, one-size-fits-all welfare system, the lives 
of the people who are welfare's casualties.
  Today, we have a welfare system that was designed with the best of 
intentions but has given to the poor the worst of all possible worlds, 
a world of despair where no future is seen, a world of no opportunity 
where advancement is virtually inconceivable, a world of no family, no 
support, no nurturing or care from loved ones, a world in which people 
are raised by welfare and fed through food stamps but they are starved 
of nurture and they are deprived of hope. The results of this kind of 
system are very frequently tragic.
  It is my intention in the days and weeks to come to highlight this 
human side of the welfare system. I wish to share some situations that 
tell us the real tragedy of welfare. Some of the cases are of children 
who have been killed or neglected. Some are testimonies of people who 
are trapped in the system. But all of the stories are real, all have 
been documented in the mainstream press, and they are all stories which 
we should remember as we debate the statistics and the numerics of 
welfare, for we must remember the human costs of welfare.
  For 30 years and more, we have been told that all we need to do is 
spend more money. We have been told that we would be able to solve the 
problems we faced if we simply had enough resources. We have been told 
that Government, particularly Washington, has all the answers. We have 
been told that Washington knew best how to help.
  The facts are in. The evidence is conclusive, and it points to the 
fallacy of the argument, for today there are more people in poverty 
than ever before. There are more children being abused and killed. 
There is less hope and opportunity for those who are trapped.
  I wish to share with you some case stories that illustrate this and 
that should motivate us to change the way we address the problem of 
those who need hope and need opportunity and who need our assistance.
  I wish to share with you a rather shocking story today, an atrocious 
story of Ariel Hill. Hers is the body that lies in this casket that is 
being lowered into the ground in this picture on my left. It is a 
tragic picture.
  According to the reports in the Chicago Tribune, Ariel came into the 
world on Christmas Eve of 1992, 1-month premature. She was the second 
of twin children. Her parents were 22-year-olds who had dropped out of 
high school and did not have jobs. Her mother had her first child as a 
teenager. Her father grew up on welfare. Ariel had three other siblings 
in diapers at the time she was born. There were three other diapered 
children in the family. They lived in a squalid, roach-infested, one-
bedroom apartment in public housing, isolated from friends and 
relatives.
  When police entered the home, dirty clothes and scraps of food were 
strewn about, giving the apartment the stench of decaying garbage. Both 
of the parents used drugs. The main source of income was the $900 per 
month in public aid checks and the food stamps they used to purchase 
their meals.
  When the investigators went into the apartment, they found the 
welfare dollars for each child listed on a scrap of paper. It is a 
tragedy when the human resource of this Nation, the future of America, 
is valued in terms of its capacity to claim welfare benefits. This was 
a family trapped in a system without hope, without future, without a 
way out.
  Ariel died on May 12, 1993, less than 6 months after she was born. 
Her body, weighing less than 7 pounds, had been malnourished and 
scalded under hot tap water. Ariel's parents were punishing her by 
refusing to feed her, starving her 5-month-old body. This program of 
punishment finally peaked on May 11; 30 hours later she was dead.
  According to court testimony, Ariel's mother was awakened by the 
daughter's crying that afternoon. Ariel needed to be changed. Her 
mother was so angry at being interrupted in the afternoon that she put 
the infant in the sink and began to burn her with hot water.
  Police sources later told the Tribune that Ariel's mother was so 
upset because she was having difficulty keeping up with her 
responsibilities as a mother. She had not had much sleep in the last 
few days, the officer said, with five kids and all. As Ariel was in the 
sink under the hot water, her twin brother, Adrian, began to cry in the 
other room, and Ariel's mother left to look after Adrian, leaving the 
infant in the hot water for approximately 5 minutes. The mother 
believed that Adrian was healthier because he was a better baby.
  By the time she returned, Ariel's skin had been badly burned and was 
beginning--well, her mother put hot butter on the wounds but did not 
seek medical attention because she did not want to deal with the 
division of family services. It was not until the next evening that 
Ariel's mother and father noticed that Ariel was no longer breathing, 
and they called 911.
  When Ariel was rushed to the Children's Memorial Hospital, she was 
pronounced dead on arrival. According to experts, her injuries were 
likely aggravated by her malnutrition, perhaps to the point where she 
was unable to cry. Ariel also was found to have bruises around her eyes 
and on her forehead. One of the examiners said there was nothing to 
her, absolutely nothing to her at all.
  According to the Tribune, at her funeral, Ariel's body was covered in 
a light pink dress and bonnet. Her casket was small enough to fit in 
the little red wagon that she was too young to play with.
  Mr. President, in the days and the weeks ahead, there will be those 
in the Senate who will take to the floor and argue that what we need is 
to reform the current system.
  I submit to you that unless we want tragedies like this, we need to 
replace the current system, not reform it. We rearranged the deck 
chairs on this welfare Titanic in 1988, and the skyrocketing record of 
welfare participation and tragedies, such as this one, indicate to us 
that reformation is not enough. This is no time for half measures. This 
is a time to focus on those in need and to realize that Washington 
never has had the answers and probably never will.
  What we need to do is to move people from hopeless governmental 
dependence to hopeful economic independence, from the grasp of a 
perverse system of Government programs to the embrace of the loving and 
caring communities and the limitless opportunities of America.
  Our welfare system has been weighed in the balances and found 
wanting. The prisoners in the war on poverty have been the poor 
themselves. We must revamp this system so thoroughly that reform cannot 
characterize the way we treat it. It has to be replaced. It has to be 
replaced with a system that will allow for the States to have full 
freedom to implement remedies that will reduce this problem, that will 
slow illegitimacy instead of grow illegitimacy. It has to be reformed 
in a way that will stop the incentive for additional births, 
illegitimate births, and the continuing payment of more and more for 
those who will bring individuals into the culture with less and less 
responsibility.
  Our effort to save ourselves from the human tragedy that the casket 
of Ariel in this picture represents has to be a good-faith effort that 
confesses that it is time to let the States and communities tailor 
programs to meet the real needs of America. As I indicated earlier, 
over the next week or so, I will be talking about the welfare system 
and the fact--undeniable fact--that it is so badly broken that it is 
tragically destroying the lives of citizens of this land.
  Welfare should be a hand up, it should be a way of moving from one 
standing to another. It should not be a way of ensuring that an 
individual trapped in a system stays there not just for his or her 
life, but condemns future generations to a similar existence of tragedy 
and pain.
  If America has a virtue, it is a virtue of opportunity, it is a 
virtue of hope. We must make sure that the welfare revisions, the 
replacement of this welfare system in which we will engage in the days 
ahead, always includes the components of opportunity and hope, those 
which have been so desperately missing, those which are all too 
frequently buried as the mistakes of welfare are dealt with under the 
current system.
  Mr. President, I thank you. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  
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  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 10 
minutes as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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