[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 132 (Tuesday, August 8, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11811-S11812]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      FAMILY SELF-SUFFICIENCY ACT

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.
  Mr. GRAMS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. GRAMS. Thank you very much, Mr. President.
  Mr. President, today's debate over reforming the welfare system is a 
debate over the values we hold most sacred as Americans. We prize 
independence over servitude, personal accountability over 
irresponsibility, hard work over Government handouts. A welfare system 
that works ought to embrace those values, inspire people to seek the 
freedoms these values represent, and help them lead a better life.
  And yet, the Democratic system imprisoned over 20 million needy 
Americans since the 1960's. Instead of bringing families together, 
America's welfare system tears them apart. It encourages dependency, it 
subsidizes illegitimacy. And the people who benefit most from the 
present system are not the underprivileged Americans who need it, but 
the bureaucrats who run it. And it is time for a change.
  With the welfare reform legislation being debated in Congress, we at 
last have an opportunity to change 30 years of failed policies. We are 
determined to replace the old system for one simple reason; and that 
is, it does not work.
  Over the last 30 years, since the beginning of the War on Poverty in 
1965, American taxpayers have spent more than $5 trillion on 79 
different means-tested welfare programs. And what have we accomplished 
with their sizable investment? Not enough, because the poverty rate has 
remained constant. Federal, State, and local governments combined are 
now spending $350 billion every year on welfare benefits. That is 
nearly 40 percent more than we spend on national defense each year.
  If the Senate's welfare reform proposals were signed into law today, 
we would still spend nearly $1.2 trillion in welfare over the next 5 
years. Anyone on Main Street will tell you that that is an awful lot of 
money. And it is all funded by the taxpayers. And I believe $1.2 
trillion is a sufficient amount of taxpayer dollars to accomplish our 
goals of the next 5 years. And anyone who does not believe that this is 
enough, well, they spend too much time inside the beltway. Just look at 
the hard-working men and women of Minnesota who hand over more than a 
third of their paychecks to Washington.
  Last fall Republicans pledged to use the American taxpayer dollars 
more efficiently and more effectively. And reforming the welfare system 
is part of our effort to keep that promise. Our goal in the Senate is 
to truly end welfare as we know it. We must change the priorities that 
this country places on welfare and emphasize personal responsibility. 
We must include tough work requirements for welfare recipients. We must 
give States the power to develop policies which make both parents 
responsible for their children and eliminate benefits for drug addicts 
and alcoholics.
  We must give block grants to the States and put an end to the role of 
the Federal Government as a barrier in the welfare reform 
experimentation. States should begin the freedom, unhindered by the 
Federal bureaucrats in Washington, to implement innovative reforms. And 
we must give State governments the flexibility that they need to 
customize programs to address local needs, because State officials, not 
Washington bureaucrats, know best how local welfare dollars should be 
spent efficiently.
  State and local communities will finally be given the flexibility 
that they need to customize their welfare programs to best meet the 
needs of their citizens.
  It was President John F. Kennedy who once said:

       Welfare programs must contribute to the attack on family 
     breakdown and illegitimacy.
       Unless such problems are dealt with effectively, they 
     fester and grow, sapping the strength of society as a whole 
     and extending their consequences in troubled families from 
     one generation to next.

  And I agree.
  This legislation makes a first step in this direction by overhauling 
6 of the Nation's 10 largest welfare programs. And this will save the 
taxpayers approximately $70 billion over the next 7 years. Now we will 
require able-bodied welfare recipients to work 20 hours a week. Welfare 
recipients will no longer be able to endlessly job search and then 
count that as work. Under the Dole-Packwood bill, work is work. In 
addition, the bill would require 50 percent of a State's welfare 
caseload to be working by the year 2000.
  This bill will no longer give welfare recipients more food stamps if 
their cash assistance is lower because they have refused to work. In 
addition, the bill requires States to meet a minimum paternity 
establishment ratio of 90 percent. Now welfare recipients who refuse to 
cooperate in paternity establishment will have their benefits withheld.
  Another significant change this bill will make is that drug addiction 
and alcoholism will no longer be considered a disability for the 
determination of supplemental security income. Taxpayers will no longer 
be required to pay for an individual's drug or alcohol addiction.
  The Dole-Packwood bill will deny welfare benefits to illegal aliens 
and also impose a 5-year lifetime limit on welfare benefits. And I 
commend Senator Dole for these very, very important steps.
  One element of the bill that I am particularly proud of is the 
adoption of an amendment that I proposed with my friend and colleague 
from Alabama, Senator Shelby, our pay-for-performance amendment that 
will require States to pay benefits to welfare recipients only for the 
number of hours worked.
  If a welfare recipient refuses to work at all during the required 20-
hour work-week, they would receive no benefits for that week. If they 
decided to work only 15 hours instead of the 20 hours required, they 
would receive welfare benefits for 15 hours' worth of work.
  Now, Mr. President, this amendment which has been included in the 
leadership amendment will hold welfare recipients to the same 
employment 

[[Page S 11812]]
standards as the rest of America's work force. You will be paid for the 
amount of hours you work, no more, and no less.
  Now, Congress has no intention of turning its back on the most needy 
in this country. We simply want to try a new approach, an approach that 
creates opportunity and offers a hand up and not just a handout, an 
approach that is just as fair to the taxpayer as it is to the welfare 
recipient.
  Truth be told, the only people who will be turned out on the streets 
by welfare reform are the thousands of bureaucrats and lobbyists who 
administer and protect the current welfare system's complex maze of 
dependency.
  And maybe those who are bilking the system of millions, if not 
billions, of dollars each year--those who enjoy taking hard-earned 
money from taxpayers--maybe they have forgotten that taxpayers in 
Minnesota would like to keep their dollars and use them wisely for 
their child's care or their children's education.
  Again, $1.2 trillion over the next 5 years is a major commitment by 
America's taxpayers. Amazingly, however, many of my colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle will argue that $1.2 trillion is not enough, 
that America's taxpayers should pay more.
  I disagree. I believe taxpayers have been generous, but now they have 
had enough of these failed policies which have produced little return 
for their investment, policies that have only created more dependency 
and have not solved any of the problems we face. Taxpayers have paid 
more than their fair share, and as an advocate for America's taxpayers, 
I am prepared to be their voice in this debate.
  We have witnessed the attacks over the last few months organized by 
the entrenched bureaucrats, the special interest lobbyists for the 
taxpayer-financed welfare industry, and the liberal activists who 
oppose any welfare reform.
  We have been subjected to the orchestrated campaigns of these 
opponents of change, these jealous defenders of the status quo.
  They continue to distort the truth and misrepresent our intentions.
  They cry that changing the welfare system is dangerous and it is 
cruel, that Republicans will take food out of the mouths of starving 
children. But I believe that nothing could be more dangerous or cruel 
than letting the current system remain.
  The American taxpayers must look beyond the scare tactics, the 
rhetoric, and focus on the facts. The facts are reducing bureaucracy, 
increasing flexibility, and demanding work from those who are capable 
of working is an investment in our future--in their future--and both 
welfare recipients and taxpayers will be better off for it.
  Welfare, as it was originally envisioned, was meant to be a temporary 
safety net for those who had fallen upon hard times, not a permanent 
hammock that coddles them into life-long dependency. The American 
people are calling for a new vision that will make this country better, 
stronger, in the year 2000 and beyond.
  To the liberals, the solution to the welfare problem is the same 
solution they have turned to over and over again for the past 30 years.
  Whenever they have faced a fiscal crisis, their answer has always 
been to raise taxes on the middle class. That is what they have done 
each time the Medicare trustees warned that Medicare was facing 
bankruptcy. And that is how they would have us fix welfare, give away 
more of the taxpayers' dollars.
  That makes the liberals feel good to take away people's money, to 
fund programs of their choice, so they appear righteous--but what does 
that do to middle class Americans?
  This Congress is not going to raise taxes.
  This Congress is not going to ask the taxpayers to finance these 
fundamental changes to the welfare system. Instead we are going to ask 
more from the welfare recipients, and I believe that is a fair deal.
  After all, the taxpayers have supported the failed status quo for far 
too many years. And with little but a bloated bureaucracy to show for 
it.
  For those reasons, I am proud to be cosponsoring the Dole welfare 
reform bill to change the status quo, to protect hard-working, middle-
class taxpayers, to lift people out the vicious cycle of dependency, to 
truly end welfare as we know it.
  As Oklahoma Representative J.C. Watts has stated so well:

       We can no longer measure compassion in this country by how 
     many people are on welfare. We need to measure compassion by 
     how many people are not on welfare because we've helped them 
     climb the ladder of success.

  Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to join my efforts to offer 
opportunity to all Americans by fundamentally reforming our failed 
welfare system and providing a fair deal to the taxpayers and those who 
receive the taxpayers' earnings.
  Thank you very much, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, we have an informal arrangement 
alternating side by side, but no Democratic Member on this side is 
seeking recognition. I am happy to hear from the Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. BROWN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, in the mid-1960's, this country declared 
war on poverty. It was done with the greatest conviction, the greatest 
sense of purpose that Americans carry forward to all of our 
enterprises. It was sincerely and honestly believed that through 
Government action at the Federal level we could not only declare war on 
poverty but that we could beat poverty, that we could end it in this 
country.
  Ironically, today we spend in Federal programs almost enough that if 
it were divided among all the poor in this Nation there literally would 
be no one in poverty. We are not quite to that point, but it is very 
close.
  But obviously, all that money does not go to eliminate poverty. As a 
matter of fact, to our great chagrin, poverty has increased, not gone 
down. The number of people in poverty in this country has increased 
dramatically, even as we have added programs. It does not mean that our 
effort, our humanitarian effort, was not well intended, but it does 
mean that the program did not meet the objectives we set forth.
  Part of the money we spend, obviously, goes to administer it. Is it 
too much? Perhaps. But I think the problems go further. In thinking 
about ending poverty, we forgot about the most important factor of all, 
and that is ministering to the human spirit and providing opportunity 
and incentive for people to change their lives. What we have done, 
tragically enough, is create a system that at times made things worse, 
not better.
  For some people, we have locked them into poverty, we have literally 
made them financially unable to get out of poverty. We provided 
incentives to stay in poverty and penalties for getting out of poverty. 
That is what this welfare reform is all about: Finding a better way to 
help people realize their abilities and their opportunities and the 
potential for their own lives. We must understand that incentives, 
rewards and initiative have to be recognized in any program that helps 
people.
  Mr. President, I look forward to participating in this historic 
debate. I am confident that together both parties will fashion a bill 
that will make a dramatic difference not only in our welfare system but 
in improving the lives of the poor of this Nation.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed for 5 minutes as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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