[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 132 (Tuesday, August 8, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11827-S11845]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    THE FAMILY SELF-SUFFICIENCY ACT

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama is recognized.
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, no one disagrees that the current welfare 
system is in shambles. Since the beginning of President Lyndon 
Johnson's War on Poverty, government, at all levels, has spent more 
than $5.4 trillion on welfare programs in America. To understand the 
magnitude of $5.4 trillion, consider what could be bought for it.
  For $5.4 trillion, one could purchase every factory, all the 
manufacturing equipment, and every office building in the United 
States. With the leftover funds, one could go on to buy every airline, 
every railroad, every trucking firm, the entire commercial maritime 
fleet, every telephone, television, and radio company, every power 
company, every hotel, and every retail and wholesale store in the 
entire Nation.
  While many Americans may not know the exact dollar amount of the War 
on Poverty, there is a public understanding that more and more 
taxdollars are coming to Washington and being funnelled into programs 
that are having little effect. Despite a $5.4 trillion transfer of 
resources, the poverty rate has actually increased over the past 28 
years. During this same period, the out of wedlock birthrate 
skyrocketed from 7 to 32 percent, and currently one in seven children 
in America is raised on welfare. Moreover, this massive spending has 
done nothing to alleviate drug use, child abuse or violent crime--all 
of which have sharply increased during this period. In short, our 
current welfare system has failed miserably. It has exacerbated the 
very problems it was created to solve, and it should be dramatically 
overhauled now.
  The first priority of reform should be to change the incentives in 
the current system which undermine the traditional family structure. 
Today, the Government pays individuals, including teenagers, up to 
$15,000 per year in cash and in-kind benefits on the condition that 
they have a child out of wedlock, do not work and do not marry an 
employed male. That is a cruel system, since we know that work and 
marriage are two of the most promising avenues out of poverty. We 
should not be surprised that years after this policy was instituted, 
the out of wedlock birthrate has reached 80 percent in many low-income 
communities. That means that 8 out of 10 children born in many 
neighborhoods in America do not know what it means to have a father. 
The results of this condition are devastating, not only to the 
children, but to the parents, and to society as a whole.
  I believe the time has come that Congress should end the practice of 
mailing checks to teenagers who have children out of wedlock. Teenagers 
themselves are still children, and to simply mail them a check and 
forget about them is a cruel form of so-called assistance. I know of no 
private charity which assists people in this manner. We should continue 
to provide for these young mothers and their children, through adoption 
assistance, vouchers for child care supplies, food and nutrition 
assistance, and health care assistance. But, this Nation should no 
longer dole out cash to unwed teenage recipients. Several amendments 
will be offered during the course of the debate on welfare reform to 
accomplish this, and I intend to support them.
  The second priority of reform is to reinstill the value of work into 
our welfare system. No civilization can successfully sustain itself 
over a long period of time by paying a large segment of its population 
to remain idle. The current system discourages work, because nothing is 
required from those who receive assistance, and in many instances, 
welfare pays better than a normal job. I support the efforts of the 
chairman of the Finance Committee to change that by requiring welfare 
recipients to work in exchange for their benefits. Under this 
legislation, welfare will no longer be free. Taxpayers have to work 
hard everyday, and those receiving public assistance should do the 
same.
  Finally, true welfare reform means saving money. In the past, welfare 
reform has meant digging a little deeper into the taxpayers' pockets 
for more money to transfer into ineffective Federal programs. Federal, 
State, and local governments spent $324 billion on more than 80 
different welfare programs in 1993--that is an average of $3,357 from 
each household that paid Federal income tax in 1993. We must reject the 
idea that somehow, $324 billion is not enough. Real welfare reform 
should result in fewer people needing welfare and generate savings to 
be returned to the taxpayers. The Work Opportunity Act will save more 
than $60 billion over the next 5 years by returning control over 
welfare programs to State and local officials with a fixed dollar 
amount from Washington. This will give State and local officials the 
ability to improve their services to poor people without waiting on the 
dilatory approval of Washington bureaucrats.
  The American people have demanded welfare reform not because they are 
stingy or spiteful toward the poor and needy. Rather, they have 
demanded reform because they have seen a system which has destroyed the 
hope and dreams of millions of Americans by trapping them in cycles of 
dependency and encouraging self-defeating behavior. Welfare has been 
fertile soil for child abuse, neglect, homelessness, and crime. By 
strengthening the traditional family, requiring work in exchange for 
benefits, and bringing financial discipline to our current welfare 
system, we can change welfare from a system of hopelessness to one of 
hope, from a system of dependency to one of responsibility. We owe it 
to welfare recipients, their children, and society, to do no less.
  Ms. MIKULSKI addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland is recognized.

[[Page S 11828]]

  Mr. PACKWOOD. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a unanimous-
consent request that has been agreed to?
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Yes.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate continue with 
debate on H.R. 4, the welfare reform bill, until the hour of 4 o'clock 
today without any amendments.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? The Chair hears none, and 
it is so ordered.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. I thank the Senator.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. I thank the Chair.
  It is with great enthusiasm that I rise to support the Work First 
Act, the Democratic alternative on welfare reform. I support it with 
enthusiasm because it is firm on work, provides a safety net for 
children, brings men back into the family for both child support and 
child rearing, and at the same time provides State flexibility and 
administrative simplification.
  Mr. President, I am the Senate's only professionally trained social 
worker. Before elected to public office, my life's work was moving 
people from welfare to work, one step at a time, each step leading to 
the next step, practicing the principles of tough love.
  This is the eighth version of welfare reform that I have been 
through--as a foster care worker, as a child abuse and neglect worker, 
a city councilwoman, a Congresswoman, and now a U.S. Senator. Each of 
those previous efforts in times have failed both under Democratic 
Presidents and under Republican Presidents. It failed for two reasons. 
One, each reform effort was based on old economic realities, and, 
second, reform did not provide tools for people to move from welfare to 
work--to help them get off welfare and stay off welfare.
  I believe that welfare should be not a way of life, but a way to a 
better life. Everyone agrees that today's welfare system is a mess. The 
people who are on welfare say it is a mess. The people who pay for 
welfare say it is a mess. It is time we fix the system.
  Middle-class Americans want the poor to work as hard at getting off 
welfare as they themselves do at staying middle class. The American 
people want real reform that promotes work, two-parent families and 
personal responsibility.
  That is what the Democratic Work First alternative is all about. We 
give help to those who practice self-help. Democrats have been the 
party of sweat equity and in our Work First bill have a real plan for 
work. Republicans have a plan that only talks about work, but does not 
really achieve it.
  Democrats have produced a welfare plan that is about real work, not 
make work. That's why we call our bill ``Work First,'' because it does 
put work first. At the same time, it does not make children second 
class.
  Under our plan, from the day someone comes into a welfare office, 
they must focus on getting a job and keeping it, and work at raising 
their family.
  How do we do this under the Work First plan?
  First, we abolish AFDC. In its place, we create a program of 
temporary employment assistance.
  Second, we change the culture of welfare offices--moving welfare 
workers from eligibility workers to being empowerment workers. Social 
workers are now forced to fussbudget over eligibility rules. Under the 
Work First Act, social workers now become empowerment workers. They sit 
down on day one with welfare applicants to do a job readiness 
assessment. So they can find out what it takes to move a person to a 
job, stay on a job, and ensure that their children's education and 
health needs are being met.
  Third, everyone must sign a parent empowerment contract within 2 
weeks of entering the welfare system. It is an individualized plan to 
get a job. The failure of individuals to sign that contract means they 
cannot get benefits.
  Fourth, everyone must undertake an immediate and intensive job search 
once they have signed that contract. We believe the best job training 
is on the job. Your first job leads you to the next job. Each time you 
climb a little bit further out of poverty, up the ladder of 
opportunity, and at the same time we reward that effort.
  Yes, this is a tough plan with tough requirements. It expects 
responsibility from welfare recipients. Everyone must do something for 
benefits. If you do not sign the contract, you lose your benefits. If 
you refuse to accept a job that is offered, you lose benefits. If, 
after 2 years of assistance, you do not have a job in the private 
sector, then one must be provided for you in the public sector.
  No adult can get benefits for more than 5 years in their adult 
lifetime. If you are a minor, the 5-year limit does not apply, so long 
as you are able to stay in school and receive benefits.
  So, yes, we Democrats are very tough on work. Everyone must work. 
Assistance is time limited and everyone must do something for benefits. 
If you do not abide by the contract, then you lose your benefits.
  What else do we do under the Work First plan? We provide a safety net 
for children. We not only want you to be job ready and work-force 
ready, we want you to be a responsible parent. That's why we require 
parents, as a condition of receiving benefits, that you make sure your 
children are in school and that they are receiving proper health care.
  Once you do go to work, under the Work First plan we will not abandon 
you. We want to make sure that a dollar's worth of work is worth a 
dollar's worth of welfare. While you are working at a minimum wage, 
trying to better yourself, we will provide a safety net--child care for 
your children, continued nutritional benefits, and health care. We want 
to be sure that while you are trying to help yourself, we are helping 
your children grow into responsible adults.
  I do not mind telling people that they must work. Because in asking 
them to take that step, our Work First plan makes sure they have the 
tools to go to work and that there will be a safety net for their 
children.
  Unfortunately, the proposed Republican welfare bill does none of 
these things. It does not look at the day-to-day lives of real people 
and ask what is needed to get that person into a job. The people we are 
telling to go to work are not going to be in high-paid, high-tech jobs. 
We know that mother who wants to sign a contract that requires her to 
work will be on the edge when it comes to paying the bills.
 We know that she will have serious problems with finding affordable 
and quality child care unless she has a mother or an aunt or a next 
door neighbor to watch her kids.

  The Republican bill does not provide enough money to pay for real 
child care. Suppose that mother lives in suburban Maryland or Baltimore 
City or the rural parts of my State? She does the right thing; she gets 
an entry-level, minimum-wage job. She is going to make about $9,000 a 
year, but will have no benefits. She might take home, after Social 
Security taxes, $175 a week. But if her child care costs her $125 a 
week, that leaves her $50 a week for rent, food, and clothing. How do 
we expect this woman to support a family on $50 a week? There would be 
no incentive to do that.
  So that means, under the Republican welfare bill, she must jump off 
of a cliff into the abyss of further and further poverty. Where moving 
to work puts her at an economic disadvantage. The Democratic bill wants 
to help people move to a better life. The Republican bill will push 
them into poverty through its harsh, punitive approach.
  Welfare reform is about ending the cycle of poverty and the culture 
of poverty. And the Democratic Work First plan will tackle both.
  Ending the cycle of poverty is an economic challenge. It means 
helping create jobs in this country and then making sure that our 
country is work-force ready and that welfare recipients are ready to be 
part of our new economy.
  But welfare reform must also end the culture of poverty, and that is 
about personal responsibility. It is about bringing men back into the 
picture. It is about tough child support, saying that if you have got 
the stuff to have a child, you should have the stuff to support that 
child and rear that child.
  We believe that the way families will move out of poverty is the way 
families move to the middle class--by bringing men back into the 
picture, having two-parent households, ensuring that there are no 
penalties to marriage, or to families going to work.
  So, Mr. President, Democrats in this debate are firm on work and 
personal 

[[Page S 11829]]
responsibility. We believe that the Democratic welfare reform 
alternative will bring about these results. That is why I support it 
with the enthusiasm that I do.
  I yield back the floor.
  Mr. HELMS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
  Mr. HELMS. I may state a different tack. I am sincere when I say 
this. I do not care which party straightens out this country just so 
one of them does. I have felt that way for a long time.
  For the benefit of those looking in on C-SPAN, the distinguished 
Parliamentarian was having a discussion with the Presiding Officer. I 
was wondering whether he was talking about some rule that I may have 
unwittingly violated.
  Anyway, I am pleased that debate in the Senate has finally begun on 
the issue of the fundamental reform of America's welfare system. There 
are all sorts of plans floating around. And my view is, let us get one 
that has a minimal amount of Government in it and proceed with a 
sensible welfare plan. Efforts to move away from the disastrous welfare 
state--some call it the dependency state--is long overdue. We have seen 
the bitter fruits of what has followed this business of trying to 
socialize welfare.
  We must pray that the Nation can somehow recover from the destruction 
of the basic fundamental precepts and principles, the moral and 
spiritual principles, if you will, laid down by our Founding Fathers. 
And a lot of damage has been done to all of those by the effort to have 
the Government provide for everybody, causing so many to decide that it 
is better not to work and just to sit back and get a welfare check.
  Now, that will cause screams in some quarters, but most Americans 
know it is so. Welfare as it now exists is a clear example of a 
Government program intended to be compassionate, but which, in fact, is 
demonstrably destructive, even to people to whom the political system 
gives benefits financed by citizens who work for a living.
  The welfare system has discouraged work. It encourages dependency. It 
encourages single motherhood and the breakup of families. Look at 
statistics. It is all there for people to perceive.
  Mr. President, a clear signal has been sent to the American people 
that the liberal policies of the past are and have been an abject 
failure. Congress must cease its sorry practice of cranking up more and 
more giveaway programs for the purpose of buying votes in the next 
election. It is time to stop throwing the taxpayers' money at pie-in-
the-sky Federal programs instead of working to get to the root of the 
problem.
  So, here we are. The Senate now confronts the responsibility of 
deciding how significantly the Congress will reform the welfare system 
if some Senators will let the consideration proceed.
  Mr. President, it is not a matter of being for or against helping 
those in need. It is a matter of setting the parameters of welfare so 
that every able-bodied citizen will feel obliged to go to work instead 
of sitting back to receive free sustenance from the working taxpayers. 
Past policies of dumping that burden entirely on the shoulders of the 
American taxpayers has never worked, and it never will.
  There are many citizens across the country who are working to restore 
personal responsibility in this regard. I have a couple of remarkable 
ladies in mind when I say that. First, there is Mattie Hill Brown, of 
Wilson, NC. Now, we call her ``Miss Mattie.'' She was recently awarded 
the prestigious Jefferson Award for Outstanding Community Service.
  Mr. President, you know what she does? Do you know why she was given 
this award? This remarkable lady gives freely of her limited income--
and it is limited--to prepare and deliver meals to truly needy people. 
Her generosity is direct and it is personal. It is independent of all 
administrative agencies, public and private. She wants to do it because 
it is a desire of her heart and from her heart to help others.
  And then there is another lady. She is from Texas, Houston, TX. Her 
name is Carol Porter. Mrs. Porter is a remarkable lady who founded Kid-
Care, Inc., a nonprofit group that helps feed some of Houston's 
neediest children. And Kid-Care will accept no government funding, not 
a penny. ``I'm against people saying, `Let the government do it,' '' 
Mrs. Porter once said. Then she added, ``It's time for Americans to 
feed needy Americans''--not the Government, but individual Americans 
out of the compassion of their hearts.
  Oh, we can sit up here in the U.S. Senate and spend other people's 
money and we can say how generous we are. But until we do it ourselves 
and sacrifice ourselves, it does not mean a thing. Mr. President, 
history shows clearly that efforts to shift the responsibility of 
welfare from individuals and communities to the Federal Government have 
failed. You can see that failure all around you, you can see it within 
three blocks of this U.S. Capitol.
  Now, since Lyndon Johnson led the Nation down the road to what he 
called the Great Society in the middle 1960's, the predictable result 
has been massive Federal spending, mushrooming Federal debt.
  By the way, the Federal debt is going to cross $5 trillion within the 
next 30 days. Watch it.
  It has led to increased poverty and, unfortunately, millions of 
Americans are locked into the welfare cycle. In 1988, Congress enacted 
the Family Security Act, which ostensibly reformed welfare to reverse 
the errors that were apparent, the errors of the past.
  They were continued, of course. But supporters of that legislation 
boasted at the time that it would ``revise the AFDC program to 
emphasize work and child support and family benefits * * * encourage 
and assist needy children and parents under the new program to obtain 
the education, training and employment needed to avoid long-term 
welfare dependence.''
  If that is not a political declaration, I do not know what it is. And 
it was not so, and that bill failed.
  It is encouraging to note that neither Democrats nor Republicans now 
propose to perpetuate the JOBS Program, which is an entitlement to 
education and job training for AFDC recipients. It was created in the 
1988 act. By the way, that one act in 1988--this business of Congress 
giving away other people's money--has run the Federal debt up $8 
billion since 1988. It has increased the Federal debt for our children 
and grandchildren to pay by $8 billion.
  One reason for its failure is the large number of exemptions from 
participation in the JOBS Program. Currently, 57 percent of AFDC 
recipients are exempt from JOBS for one reason or another. Of the 
nonexempt only 11 percent are currently participating and all the 
rest--all the rest--are living off the taxpayers.
  These policies have not helped to end poverty in America. Just the 
opposite. As of 1993, there were 15.1 percent of Americans in poverty 
as compared to 13 percent when that reform took place. That is a 2-
percent growth in the number of people in poverty.
  Yet, Senators agreed that this legislation would end welfare as we 
know it. We must not make that mistake on this welfare reform.
  In addition, Mr. President, 76 percent of AFDC recipients receive 
cash benefits for 5 years or more. That is certainly not the intended 
effect of the 1988 legislation.
  The point is, we must not miss the opportunity now to institute real 
reform of the welfare system. No longer should the taxpayers be forced 
to subsidize able-bodied people who just prefer not to work. We must 
provide individual responsibility and stop turning to the State and 
Federal treasuries for millions of borrowed dollars, the tab for which 
will be passed along to our children and grandchildren.
  Opinions differ as to what aspect of America's welfare system has 
been the greatest failure, in terms of principle. The fraudulent Food 
Stamp Program or the failed JOBS Program or the bloated bureaucracy--
the list is endless. The one segment of Federal Government control that 
is in most need of reform, however, is welfare.
  This past April, at Elon College, NC, the Right Honorable Margaret 
Thatcher, former Prime Minister of Great Britain and a close personal 
friend of Dot Helms and me, came down to speak to a convocation. She 
encouraged Americans, especially the young people in the audience, to 
take another look at our welfare system, which she explained that day 
fosters what we call dependency, dependency on Government welfare. 

[[Page S 11830]]

  Margaret Thatcher said: ``Of course you have to help people out of 
poverty. The Good Samaritan was the first.''
  But then she said: ``What happens when the system you have for 
getting people out of poverty produces more people in poverty, 
generation after generation after generation?''
  Maggie Thatcher, of course, was right. She had been repeatedly right 
in her challenges to Government socialism and in her defense of the 
free enterprise system.
  But there is another authority who is a favorite of mine. His name is 
Paul, the Apostle Paul who, in his Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, 
chapter 23, verses 7 through 10, and I am going to quote the modern 
version, had a thought or two about this issue which we call today 
welfare. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians and said this:

       We were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat 
     anyone's food without paying for it. On the contrary, we 
     worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would 
     not be a burden to any of you.

  And then the Apostle Paul said:

       We did this, not because we do not have the right to such 
     help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to 
     follow. For even when we were with you, we gave you this 
     rule. If a man will not work, he shall not eat.

  Whether we like it or not, and I happen to like it very, very much, 
the Apostle Paul was exactly right when he wrote his Second Epistle to 
the Thessalonians. Margaret Thatcher is right in what she says. All the 
others down through history who have sounded the same tocsin in various 
ways, they have been right, they have been telling us, ``Watch out.''
  Mr. President, political hi-jinks in this matter should be laid aside 
so that the Senate can have a meaningful welfare reform bill considered 
and enacted and sent to the President of the United States for his 
signature. The people have made clear that this is what they want. They 
have made clear that if we do not deliver, they will not forget it.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I have been 
listening very carefully to this debate; this discussion. I think it is 
fair to say that there are some who believe this debate is a battle for 
the Nation's soul. There are others who believe it is a battle for the 
Nation's heart. And there are some, I among them, who believe that it 
is a battle for the Nation's future.
  At its best, welfare reform can contribute to the work ethic and 
upward mobility of large numbers of people. At its worst, it can fuel 
poverty and desperation, and it can take us back to those days best 
characterized by Charles Dickens in some of his novels.
  The results of our actions here will be evaluated by generations to 
come. I truly believe that the ultimate test of a civilization is, as 
Albert Schweitzer once stated, a civilization is known by how that 
civilization treats the least among them.
  So I sincerely hope that one day we will be judged as having met the 
challenge of welfare reform with light rather than heat and with 
practical solutions.
  I know there are many who believe they have all the answers, but the 
ultimate test of whether we succeed in what we do here is whether more 
people will be working tomorrow than today, and whether more people 
will be able to support themselves than today, and whether children 
will be better off or worse off.
  Any bill for welfare reform, I think, because of the gravity of the 
situation in the largest State in the Union--California, must be looked 
at by how it impacts that State. California today comprises 12.3 
percent of our Nation's population, with more than 32 million 
residents. It has 18.6 percent of the country's welfare caseload. It is 
home to 38 percent of all legal immigrants, including 42 percent of the 
Nation's immigrants who receive SSI. It has one-third of the Nation's 
drug- or alcohol-addicted SSI caseload, and almost one-fifth of the 
national AFDC caseload.
  So I believe it is fair to say that any successful welfare bill will 
have a major and dramatic impact on virtually every walk of life in the 
State of California.
  Let me begin by laying out what I think are the necessary components 
of any successful welfare reform bill and how it relates to California. 
The first issue is entitlements. I believe that the consensus is broad 
that the time has come to eliminate the entitlement status of welfare. 
Our system of entitlements has reached a point where there are more 
people entitled to benefits than there are people willing to provide 
them. That is a major difficulty.
  I have had people, particularly young people, tell me that they 
believe they have a right to welfare. They interpret the entitlement 
status as giving them a basic right to this program. I do not agree, 
and I believe that the notion that welfare is a right has, in a sense, 
contributed to the collapse of the system. People in need should have 
temporary assistance, but they are not entitled to a lifelong grant.
  Anyone who has ever had responsibility for running a welfare system 
knows the challenges, but one of the biggest challenges is the welfare 
bureaucracy itself. I remember somebody bringing to the floor a pile of 
documents that it took to qualify somebody into a categorical aid 
program and the documents were quite high. The more top down our 
welfare system has become, the less effectively it has served its 
purpose.
  As a former mayor and a county supervisor, and now a Senator, I have 
dealt with every conceivable layer of bureaucracy in the administration 
of public benefit programs. But I truly believe it is at the local 
level, the counties, where welfare has seen some of its most innovative 
and successful reforms. For example, and it has been mentioned here 
earlier, specifically with one county, several California counties have 
instituted a program called GAIN. Everybody is familiar with it: 
Greater Avenues for Independence. One county, Riverside, has returned 
$2.84 to the taxpayers for every $1 spent on its GAIN Program. In Los 
Angeles, the results from the GAIN Program have been equally 
impressive. Working with 30,000 long-time welfare recipients who have 
been employed for more than 3 years, the Los Angeles GAIN Program has a 
current placement rate of 34 percent, which is very high as these 
things go.
  Followup studies in Los Angeles reveal a 60 percent retention rate, 
indicating that the majority have not cycled back to welfare.
  San Mateo and San Diego Counties have each created successful job 
search programs, cutting administrative costs and moving people into 
private-sector employment. San Mateo last year put an unprecedented 85 
percent of the people in the program to work.
  Enforcement of child support obligations, I believe, is the single 
most important welfare reform measure from the California perspective, 
because one of the principal causes of poverty in my State is the 
absence of child support, the last time I looked at this.
  Almost 3 million people in California receive AFDC [Aid to Families 
with Dependent Children]. Now, that is a caseload larger than the 
entire populations of many of the States represented in this body. 
Currently, the combined annual cost to Federal, State, and local 
government is $7 billion for the AFDC Program.
  Since 1980, the total AFDC costs for California have tripled, from 
$1.9 billion in 1980 to $5.6 billion in 1993.
  During that same period, births to unmarried teen mothers rose by 76 
percent. Now, it is true that this is not a large portion of the 
caseload. However, mothers who had their first child as teenagers 
comprise more than half of our entire AFDC caseload. So while teen 
mothers may be a small number, but the finding of the California 
experience is that once teenagers enter welfare, it is difficult to get 
them to leave the program.
  I believe it takes two people to bring a child into this world, and 
as a society we must demand that both parents be responsible for 
supporting the child. So strong child support must be an essential 
component of welfare reform.
  Of course, as has also been said by many in this debate, child care 
remains the linchpin to a successful transition from welfare to work. 
In the California experience, the shortage of affordable child care is 
a critical and overwhelming problem for the State and for local 
communities. Our State spends $840 million annually on child care. 
Another $200 million of Federal funds goes into this. That is more than 
$1 billion 

[[Page S 11831]]
for child care, and we still meet the needs of less than 30 percent of 
the families who are eligible for child care. This is the catch-22 of 
the Dole-Packwood bill for California.
  In San Diego, Federal funds provide a total of 1,636 child care 
positions. Yet, there are 11,663 eligible families on the waiting list. 
The odds of getting a child care spot in the present system are 1 in 
14. In San Francisco, with combined State and Federal funds, there are 
8,000 child care spaces. But, there are 6,000 eligible families on the 
waiting list.
  So this is one simple issue of common sense. You cannot move millions 
of mothers into the work force if there are not enough child care 
options available for them.
  Let me talk for a moment about welfare fraud, because it is a real 
problem and it must be addressed, particularly in the Food Stamp 
Program. My understanding is that an investigation by the Secret 
Service last year estimated that food stamp fraud alone costs taxpayers 
at least $2 billion a year. I am very pleased that both bills--the 
Dole-Packwood bill, as well as the Democratic leadership bill--have 
built in legislation which I introduced last week to enact strong 
provisions to permanently disqualify merchants who knowingly submit 
fraudulent claims, and to double the penalties for recipient fraud. But 
we also must remove Federal obstacles to an electronic benefit system, 
so that we can eliminate paper coupons and replace them with the 
counterfeit-proof debit card. I will certainly support efforts to do 
so.
  I think it is fair to say that under the Dole-Packwood bill, my State 
is the biggest loser. And I cannot vote for the bill in its present 
form for that reason. First of all, I was surprised to see that the 
bill does not consider California a growth State.
 No State grows more than California. Yet, in this bill, California is 
not a growth State.

  I was pleased when I learned that there would be a new growth fund in 
the bill, but I might say that the growth fund excludes one of the 
fastest growing States in the Nation--that is California--so it is not 
much of a growth fund.
  For my State this bill is an enormous unfunded mandate. It requires 
California to achieve levels of work participation five times higher 
than the present. Yet, it freezes funding at the 1994 level.
  The Department of Health and Human Services has estimated that to 
operate the work program plus related child care will cost my State 
more than $4 billion over 5 years. Yet, funding is frozen at the 1994 
level.
  Meeting the work requirements in this bill will result in a need for 
an 894 percent increase in AFDC-related child care needs. Yet, funding 
is frozen at the 1994 level.
  California, as I mentioned, is home to 38 percent of all legal 
immigrants. But it is also home to more than half, 52 percent, of all 
legal immigrants who receive Federal welfare. Fifty-two percent of all 
legal immigrants who receive Federal welfare are in the State of 
California. I am one who believes immigrants should not come to this 
country to go on welfare. But this bill takes a problem created by the 
Federal Government and simply dumps it on the States.
  It would deny SSI and Medicaid benefits to almost 300,000 legal 
immigrants who reside in California, resulting in a $6.3 billion cost 
shift to my State over 5 years. Los Angeles County alone has estimated 
a loss of $530 million annually under the Republican bill.
  We cannot just shift the problem. The impact on States and counties 
must also be addressed. I have already stated that many of the 
innovations currently under discussion have been pioneered by 
California counties. I want them to have the ability to continue the 
work they have begun. Counties--not the State--are on the front lines 
in California.
  The Dole-Packwood bill falls far short for States like mine where 
responsibility for administering welfare has been delegated to the 
counties. If we are serious about devolving authority to local 
communities, I see no reason to sustain a two-tiered welfare 
bureaucracy where the State simply passes the responsibility through to 
the counties but keeps some of the funding for its own purposes. I want 
to see the people closest to the problem--the counties--have full 
control of the Federal funds being allocated to implement this mandate.
  In conclusion, the legislation currently before the Senate, I 
believe, fails to reform welfare in a way which will help California 
or, I believe, the Nation. I believe the alternative proposal by the 
Democratic leadership is a more cost-effective vehicle for change in my 
State.
  The Daschle bill addresses California's concern in the following 
ways. It accommodates growth; it provides adequate child-care funding; 
it allows for local government control; it does not dump a huge 
unfunded mandate on the States with regard to immigrant benefits.
  For 60 years now, this Nation has been generous to poor families with 
dependent children. Originally conceived during the Great Depression, 
AFDC was designed to keep widows at home with their children at a time 
when women were not valued in the work force.
  The 1930's were a time when women and children were accorded respect 
and compassion if they were poor, because they were economically 
vulnerable. It seems that time has passed. But our goal in these times 
has not changed. We still need a plan to assist the economically 
vulnerable, assist them to work and to be independent. So we must do so 
with training, with child care, and with incentives to work. Surely a 
nation which could reach for the stars could also eliminate poverty.
  I have been very fortunate in my life. I have not known poverty, and 
I have not known hunger. But I have known failure. To me, there are few 
human experiences that are worse.
  Yet, our welfare system has rewarded failure and punished success. In 
the process, we have created not only a dependency on welfare but a 
dependency on failure. It is overcoming failure which is the challenge 
before the Senate.
  I very much hope that in reform we do not throw the baby out with the 
bath water, and that we also recognize that the American people are no 
less generous than they were in 1935. Today, perhaps, they are much 
more practical. They want to know that their tax-paying dollars are 
going for good, solid, practical programs.
  I do not believe there are Americans that really want to see 
youngsters starving in the streets of our communities. They are still 
willing to help those in need, provided they are willing to help 
themselves.
  I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gorton). The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I wanted to rise today to continue 
discussing welfare with a little different tack on it than yesterday. I 
want to talk about what is going on on the other side of the aisle, and 
how the President and the Senators on the Democratic side are 
participating, or, in some cases, not participating, in this debate.
  I have been on the floor on many occasions over the past several 
months to talk about the President's abdication of responsibility in 
dealing with the most important issue that we have to deal with here in 
this session of the Congress and one of the most important issues we 
deal with in every sense of the Congress, and that is passing a 
budget--passing a reconciliation bill. In this case, a very important 
reconciliation bill, because it is one that will bring our budget into 
balance.
  I got up on the floor of the Senate on many occasions and suggested 
that the President has not come to the table in that respect in 
offering a balanced budget. I have not been to the floor in recent 
weeks because the President has not really been talking about his 
budget--the one that he proposed, the 10-year balanced budget that he 
proposed.
  I am not going about espousing how this brings us into balance, but 
yesterday he did an interview on NPR talking about how irresponsible 
the Republican budget was, how irresponsible the Republicans were on 
Medicare, how irresponsible the Republicans are being on welfare, and I 
thought it was time to bring to the Senate floor and remind people of 
how many days it has been since we put up a responsible Republican 
balanced budget over a period of 7 years, and how long it has been 
since the President has refused to come to the table and do so.
  He gets away with a lot in the national media. I am not surprised 
with NPR, but I would be surprised with any 

[[Page S 11832]]
other mainstream media that he gets away with saying he lived up to his 
responsibility. He says, ``My responsibility was fulfilled when I 
offered them an alternative balanced budget and a willingness to 
discuss it.''
  When did he offer such an alternative budget? He did not. The 
Congressional Budget Office scored the President's balanced budget over 
10 years as producing annual deficits of $200 billion a year as far as 
the eye can see. There is no balanced budget.
  Standing here and wishing it were so, saying that because you can 
cook the numbers at the White House and change all the economic 
assumptions, assume faster growth, lower interest rates, that there 
will not be any other problems out there, that does not make it a 
balanced budget.
  The President himself said that he would stick with the Congressional 
Budget Office because they have been the most accurate in assessing 
whether a budget comes into balance or not and what the provisions cost 
that we pass here in Washington. But he has abandoned that, and he has 
gone with the Office of Management and Budget--his own internal 
recordkeeping to come up with this phony budget that he trots around 
the country suggesting that he has come forward with a balanced budget. 
He has not. It is absolutely amazing to me that the members of the 
press corps continue to publish this as if he has actually come forward 
with a balanced budget when he has not.
  But this should be no surprise. It is 83 days since the President has 
refused to come forward with a balanced budget after the Republicans 
have. It has been an equal number of days since he has been unwilling 
to come forward with a specific Medicare proposal, to tell us how he is 
going to get savings. In his 10-year balanced budget, he does call for 
a reduction in Medicare spending. That is interesting to note, because 
he is running around the country saying how the Republicans are going 
to gut Medicare because they are going to cut Medicare. I know the 
esteemed chairman of the Finance Committee has said on many occasions, 
as has the Budget Committee chairman from New Mexico, Medicare is going 
to grow under the Republican budget at 6.4 percent per year. What does 
it grow under the President's budget? At 7.1 percent. What does it grow 
if we do nothing? At 10.5 percent.
  You can say the Republicans are reducing the rate of spending, of 
growth in Medicare. But you also have to say the President is doing the 
same thing. In fact, there is only about $11 billion a year difference 
between the Republicans' and Democrats' number. That is, by the way, 
out of a program that is roughly a $200-billion-a-year program. So to 
suggest the Republicans are slashing when the President is not, that is 
just not living up to the realities of what is going on here. The 
President goes after Medicare as much as we do, almost. He does not 
consider that a cut. We do not consider ours a cut. We consider it 
strengthening the program because otherwise it would go bankrupt. He 
knows that as well as we do. So, let us own up to what the problem is 
on Medicare.
  The reason I started with these two is now we are at the third major 
issue of the day, of the times, and that is welfare reform. And where 
is the President? Where is the President who ran as a moderate Democrat 
on one issue, welfare? It was the defining issue, in the American 
public's eye, that made him different from Michael Dukakis or Walter 
Mondale. He was for ending welfare as we know it. He was the moderate 
Democrat, the new Democrat who was going to come forward and change the 
system.
  Where is he? Where is the proposal? Oh, he trotted out something late 
last year, 19, 20 months into his term, that was dismissed by both 
sides as an irrelevant welfare bill--an irrelevant welfare bill. Even 
in comparison to what the Democratic leader has put up here, it was 
modest. It was truly rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
  Where is he this year on an issue that he says is the most important 
issue to face this country? Where is he? Where is the welfare reform 
proposal that really takes us in a new direction, that really reaches 
into the communities where poverty is at its worst and gives the people 
in those communities a chance, that changes the whole dynamic of the 
system? Where is that proposal? It is nonexistent. It is more than 83 
days. Hundreds of days have gone by without the President being 
relevant.
  Oh, that does not mean he cannot sit in the Oval Office and throw 
darts at the Republican plan. We will see lots of that; of how this is 
cruel and how it does not solve the problem. But where is his answer? 
Where is the leadership on the budget, with real numbers, with real 
choices and decisions? Where is the leadership on Medicare, that 
everyone in this Chamber knows will be bankrupt in 7 years? Where is 
the leadership? Where is the leadership on welfare, his defining issue?
  Oh, it is political season down on Pennsylvania Avenue. It is time 
just to criticize what the Congress is doing and hope the voters do not 
notice that you do not have anything to offer yourself.
  One thing I will say, the minority leader, the Democratic leader and 
others on the Democratic side, have actually come up with a proposal. 
They have actually put forward a proposal on welfare. I will add, just 
to be consistent in comparison, that the Democratic leader offered no 
balanced budget. No balanced budget, no substitute budget was offered. 
There were no ideas on how they would get to a balanced budget.
  Oh, there were plenty of criticisms, plenty of amendments, but no 
Democratic budget to get this country into balance. Medicare--I have 
not seen any program offered on the other side of the aisle on how we 
are going to solve the Medicare problem. I have not seen anything, not 
even a discussion of a discussion. Not even a possible meeting on the 
subject.
  Again, there is plenty of criticism on what the Republicans want to 
do and the fact we are even thinking of doing it. But not one solution 
on the other side of the aisle, not one discussion on how they would 
solve the problem that everyone in this Chamber knows exists.
  But now we move to welfare, and so they are 0 for 2 and they have 
decided maybe this time, instead of watching the strikes go past, they 
are going to take a swing at it. They are going to take a swing and see 
if we can put forward a welfare plan that can attract some support 
among the American public. Unfortunately, they swung and they missed 
and missed badly. This is a strikeout. This is a strikeout. It is a 
strike against the people who are in the system who need the help. It 
is a strike against those who have to pay for this system.
  The Daschle bill tinkers with welfare. In fact, I would even add that 
it may make things worse rather than improve them. It, in fact, spends 
more money. It eliminates AFDC--that is the big claim, they eliminate 
AFDC. Again, it is changing the name of the program. But there is still 
an entitlement program there for mothers and children. It is called now 
the Temporary Employment Assistance Program. It replaces the AFDC 
Program but it is still a Federal program with Federal guidelines 
administered in Washington, run by bureaucrats here in Washington, 
administered through the State. It costs $16 billion more than the 
current AFDC Program. No, it does not spend less, it spends more on 
AFDC--now called TEAP--but $16 billion more over the next 7 years.
  They say it puts time limits in. Remember, the President ran saying 
we are going to put a 2-year limit on welfare and at some point we are 
going to cut people off of welfare if they refuse to work? The minority 
leader would have you believe his bill puts time limits on welfare. It 
does not. It puts a 5-year limit on the--and this is in the bill, they 
do not use the word ``person,'' they use the word ``client.''
  Mrs. BOXER. Will the Senator yield for a question on his chart?
  Mr. SANTORUM. I will be happy to.
  Mrs. BOXER. Thank you so much.
  Are you referring to the President of the United States, when you use 
the name ``Bill''? Or are you referring to a bill, as in a Senate bill?
  Mr. SANTORUM. I am sorry, the Senator from California has not been 
here for the many occasions that I have been questioned on this chart. 
On each one of those occasions I have been asked a question about who 
am I referring to. This is referring to the President's lack of a 
balanced budget.
  Mrs. BOXER. So you when you say ``Bill'' you mean the President of 
the United States? 

[[Page S 11833]]

  I would say to my friend, if I had asked you to yield and I said, 
``Will Ricky yield for a question?'' I would think that would not be 
appropriate and I would not do that. I would say ``Will the Senator 
yield?''
  I think, when we refer to the President of the United States on the 
Senate floor, be it in verbiage or on a chart, we ought to be 
respectful.
  Thank you.
  Mr. SANTORUM. I appreciate that. That is a common voice that I hear 
from the other side every time I have this chart up. So I appreciate 
the Senator being added to the chorus of people who do not like my 
chart. But I am glad people are paying attention. Maybe the White House 
will pay attention and actually come forward with a budget.
  It is easy for me. I do not have to come here and do this. I can 
actually put this chart away, file it away for another day. All the 
President has to do is put a budget forward.
  I would say to the Senator from California, who hopefully is 
listening in the Cloakroom, on a couple of occasions I came to the 
floor and noted example after example how Members on her side of the 
aisle refer to the President of the United States by his first name, 
terms like, ``Where is George?'' ``Bushwhack,'' ``Reaganomics.'' I can 
go on down the list. So to be indignant in this case is just further 
evidence of the fact that maybe people are uncomfortable with the fact 
that the President has not put forward his budget, and since you cannot 
argue the substance, let us argue the chart.
  Getting back to the Democratic bill on this subject of welfare 
reform, they say they impose a 5-year limit, but in fact they do not 
because there are in this bill--here is the substitute, and we have 
pages 8 through 11, four pages of exceptions, of people who do not have 
to live by the 5-year time limit.
  So there are a whole host of exceptions to people who are limited to 
5 years, and I will go through some of them. There is a hardship 
exception. That is the first one on here. A hardship exception is 
people who are on AFDC, or now this new program, who live in high 
unemployment areas. So if you are on unemployment--high in this case is 
defined as 7\1/2\ percent--if you are in a high unemployment area, 7\1/
2\ percent or higher, you do not have to worry about the time limit.
  Just to give you an idea, in 1994, people who lived in these cities 
would not have 5-year time limits: Los Angeles, Washington, New York, 
Philadelphia, Miami, Detroit, and the list goes on. None of those 
people would have time limits. I do not know what percentage of the 
people on AFDC are in those cities, but I would suggest a pretty good 
percentage of them are.
  All of them are now off the list. They do not count toward the 
State's participation rate. So you have large groups of folks who will 
never be time limited, particularly in the major cities of this 
country. One huge loophole. And there are a lot of suburban areas and 
rural areas that also qualify with these high unemployment areas.
  I know that in several counties, rural counties in Pennsylvania that 
have had difficult times, the unemployment rate is well in excess of 7 
percent.
  In New Jersey, there are 99 areas for computing unemployment. Of the 
99, 35 had rates in excess of 7\1/2\ percent in 1994. So you can see 
that this is a major loophole to this 5-year requirement.
  What else? Well, teenagers are exempt. Anybody who is a teenager does 
not have a 5-year limit. If you have a child while you are a teenager, 
you do not have a 5-year limitation. Your limitation does not kick in 
until you become the age of maturity and beyond. So you can get a much 
longer period of time if you have children when you are a teen.
  It does not apply to mothers who are having children. You get a year 
exemption. If you have a child, you have a 1-year exemption. It extends 
your 5-year limit another year. And it goes on and on.
  There are literally pages of exemptions for people to the 5 years. 
All I would suggest is it is a phony 5 years. And remember, this only 
applies, to begin with, to 20 percent of the caseload; 20 percent of 
the people who go into the system have to go into this kind of program 
with all of these exemptions in place. That is 20 percent of the 
remaining caseload--not 20 percent of everybody but 20 percent of the 
people who are not exempt.
  So you take the people who are exempt out first and then you say you 
have to have 20 percent. To give you an idea how that compares with the 
Republican bill, the Republican bill is 20 percent of everybody, 
whether they are exempt or not. In fact, there are no exemptions in the 
Republican plan. The State can figure out who is exempt if they want 
to. It goes up to 50 percent in the Republican bill; in the Democratic 
bill, over a period of 5 years, but again the Democrats have this huge 
exempt group out here that never has to participate in this program. So 
it is a phony 5 years and a phony number of people who are going to be 
in this kind of program.
  Under the Dole-Packwood bill, the savings in the welfare program over 
the next 7 years are $70 billion. That is less than the House bill. The 
House bill is $60 some billion but it is over 5 years. The Senate bill 
is $70 billion over 7 years, and, of course, the House bill will be 
much more over 7 years. The Democratic bill, $21 billion over 7 years--
$21 billion over 7 years in programs that spend over $100 billion a 
year.
  Take in one case the child support enforcement provision. Very 
important. The Senator from California, Senator Feinstein, was 
absolutely correct that this is a very important aspect of the bill, to 
track down deadbeat dads--and 98 percent of the folks who owe back 
child support are fathers--to track down deadbeat dads and get them to 
pay the back child support. We are talking about over $50 billion in 
back child support owed in this country.
  So this is a very important provision in this bill. You would think 
that when tracking down deadbeat dads and getting them to pay the child 
support, as we do in this bill, that part of the child support paid 
back would go to the State, because it would offset the welfare 
payments that are being made to mom. In other words, if the mother and 
children get child support, they no longer get welfare. This would 
actually be a cost savings to the Federal Government. And, in fact, in 
the Dole bill it saves $155 million a year, $1.2 billion over 7 years. 
The Democratic bill costs $261 million over the next 3 years. That is 
the only estimate we have at this point. So it costs money over those 3 
years.
  What does this bill do for State flexibility? You are hearing a lot 
about getting the bill and the program back to the States, back to the 
localities where they solve the problems the best, giving State 
flexibility. You will hear, as I have on some shows with some Members 
of the other side talking about welfare, the term ``partnership.'' What 
the Democratic bill does is create a partnership between the Federal 
Government and the State government, and that this partnership will be 
forged where they work together to solve the problems of poverty. It 
sounds so nice, except it is not true.
  A partnership is where each party has a say in the decision; that 
they work together to come to a decision jointly. That is exactly what 
happens under the Republican bill. Some decisions are made 
predominantly in Washington, other decisions are made predominantly in 
the State. Most of them in fact are made by the State.
  Under the Democratic bill, all the decisions are still made in 
Washington. You want to do something different in your State? You have 
to ask Washington for permission. I do not know too many people who are 
going to get involved in the partnership where the one partner 
basically can tell the other partner no all the time and go ahead and 
do whatever they want to do without asking them. But that is this 
partnership that they would have you believe is a partnership. That is 
the current system. The current system already allows for waivers. This 
does not change it any. It just says we will be nicer and give you 
more. But that is up to the President to decide.
  You can see there is even some little special interest things in the 
Democratic bill that remind you what constituency they are really 
serving here, and it is not the poor. This is not the poor. There is a 
provision in this bill that has to do with the Work First program, the 
program that they get people in to get to work immediately upon getting 
on welfare. 

[[Page S 11834]]

  Participants in the Daschle bill program would be forbidden to fill 
any unfilled vacancy--in other words, ``participants'' meaning 
employers--employers would be prohibited from filling any unfilled 
vacancy at their place of employment or to perform any activities that 
would supplant the hiring of employed workers not funded under the 
program.
  What does this mean? This means if you have a vacancy and you are in 
a unionized job--most of these participants would be governed--that you 
not fill a job slot with a welfare employee; you have to hire the union 
person first. So unions do not lose any positions under this. The 
Government has to fill the job created in the bureaucracy with another 
unionized person. They cannot take a slot and fill it with a welfare 
recipient who wants to get the job opportunity. Oh, no. We have to bow 
to the AFL-CIO here on the floor and make sure that any jobs we create 
for this new work-force program are basically new--probably in many 
cases make-work jobs--because you cannot even supplant the hiring of 
employed workers. You cannot even supplant the hiring of employed 
workers.
  This is one big bout to the AFL-CIO and one big ``Who cares?'' to the 
poor. We do not want to give you good job opportunities and 
opportunities where you can, in effect, learn some skills in jobs that 
are needed. We want to make jobs for you and keep you on the dole.
  That is where this program goes. It keeps the gravy train running. It 
keeps the entitlements and keeps the control, and it keeps everything 
decided here in Washington and spends more money in the process.
  I know a lot of people in this country are looking for welfare 
reform. But you have not found it here. It does not exist in this 
proposal. I do not know if I need to start another chart of how many 
days it will be since Democrats have come up with a welfare reform 
proposal, because this is not it. If you want to get serious about 
welfare reform, let us talk about working together on a bipartisan 
basis for something real, something that fundamentally changes things, 
not playing around with the existing programs, spending more money and 
paying off your constituencies that help you get elected.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, first, I would like to ask unanimous consent that 
Cindy Baldwin, who is a fellow in my office this year, be granted the 
privileges of the floor for the remainder of the debate on welfare 
reform.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Which may be a substantial period of time.
  I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I have some remarks that I would like to make on the 
work components of the two major bills, the Dole-Packwood bill and the 
Daschle-Mikulski-Breaux bill. But the twist of fate has put me in the 
position to be looking across the Chamber at my good friend and partner 
in some other good causes. And the question of, Where is the President? 
And I do, in fairness, want to respond to that question.
  The Senator from Pennsylvania has discussed the role that the 
President's discussion of welfare reform had in the 1992 campaign. And 
I agree with the Senator from Pennsylvania; it was a pivotal role. It 
was the defining element of the campaign. And may I say, as a Democrat, 
how proud I was that we had a Presidential candidate in 1992 who broke 
with the past, who was not defensive about the status quo, who was 
prepared to take on some interest groups, frankly, within the 
Democratic Party who had always said, ``Do not touch welfare.'' I mean, 
if you touch welfare you are really talking about beating up on welfare 
recipients. For your own political advantage--In this case, I think the 
President stood up and stood out and said very clearly, welfare as we 
know it has to change. Welfare as we know it has to change. And I 
really believe that, had the President not taken that leadership stand, 
we would not be in the process of considering and having a genuine 
opportunity to adopt welfare reform. We may disagree--obviously we do 
disagree on some of the specifics. But I think that the President's 
position in 1992, and his following of that position since then, has 
created a bipartisan consensus in favor of welfare reform. And his 
principles as enunciated in the campaign were to create time limits, to 
require work, to give the States flexibility, to deal with teenage 
pregnancy and to increase the child support enforcement role.
  Mr. President, last summer the President introduced a bill, proposed 
legislation, that would follow through, implement those principles that 
he enunciated in the campaign. I want to say to my friend, and my 
colleagues, that the President has worked very closely with the 
Democratic Senate leadership, and I believe the House leadership, to 
fashion the proposal that is before the Senate now or will be when 
introduced as a substitute by Senator Daschle and Senator Breaux and 
Senator Mikulski, which is the so-called Work First proposal.
  The President has joined forces in that sense with the Senate 
Democratic leadership. He has unequivocally endorsed the proposal. His 
endorsement is part of the reason why there is a remarkable unity among 
Senate Democrats. I remember the old Will Rogers line, ``I belong to no 
organized political party. I am a Democrat.'' That is true. Often that 
is the case. But in this case it is not true. That is to say, the 
Democrats are united behind the principles that the President 
enunciated in 1992.
  I will say one thing concerning the question that continues to 
resonate toward me in those luminescent colors of blue and yellow 
across the Chamber, which is this: that President Clinton has not just 
spoken on this issue, he has acted. He has used the authority that the 
law gives him as President to grant waivers to the States, more 
waivers, granted more rapidly, than any President before him. More than 
half the States now have waivers.
  And the truth is that in the midst of all of the discussion and 
rhetoric and contests going on here, the real work of welfare reform in 
the midst of the parameters that we set at the Federal level is going 
on at the State level. They are experimenting. And one of the things I 
hope we will show in this debate is some sense of humility when we are 
dealing with the lives of millions of people in a system that we agree 
has gone wrong, to understand that while we know what is wrong with the 
system, we, in most cases, do not have a great reason to have a great 
sense of confidence about exactly what will make it better. The States, 
in their experiments, are going to help us do that. And the President 
has encouraged that. And this proposal builds on that.
  So I do not know that I have totally satisfied the interrogatory 
alleged by the Senator from Pennsylvania, but I feel very, very secure 
in saying that on this issue President Clinton was out in front early, 
formed a consensus, and has been directly involved in the work that 
brings us, hopefully in the near future, to the adoption of genuine 
welfare reform.
  Mr. President, this is an important debate. There have been some very 
thoughtful statements made in the first couple of days of the debate 
which showed that the people really thought about this issue and 
understand the importance of it to those who are on welfare, to those 
of us who pay for welfare, and really to the country, and to the 
people's attitude toward Government, because the fact is welfare has 
become a symbol, in some senses a caricature, of all that has gone 
wrong with our Government, a well-intentioned program created in the 
1930's, as we all know, to help widows, particularly widows of coal 
miners, then becomes an enormous program that takes basic American 
values--work, reward for work, family, loyalty to family, and personal 
responsibility--and turns them on their head. And in doing so, builds 
up an enormous bureaucracy, a kind of institutionalization of a lot of 
values gone astray.
  So the debate here has been a good one. There is obviously a very, 
very broad consensus supporting reform. There are winds in the willows 
here. There are echoes in the Chamber that suggest it may not be 
possible to finish this debate this week. I am not surprised at that. 
And I do not think it is a bad sign. 

[[Page S 11835]]

  Mr. President, it took us 60 years--60 years--for our welfare system 
to become the mess it is. We are not going to solve it in 6 days. We 
are not going to solve it right in 6 days. So, I hope that we will 
begin the debate, lay down some basic proposals, and then continue when 
we come back to do it the right way.
  We all agree, I think, that the current system fails to demand 
responsibility and provide work opportunities. It financially rewards 
parents who do not work, who do not marry, but who do have children out 
of wedlock. By doing so, our current welfare system demeans our most 
cherished values and really deepens society's worst problems, including 
the problem of violent crime which has cut at the fabric of trust that 
used to underlay the sense of community that was so basically part of 
American life. Gone, the victim of violent crime.
  Mr. President, there is, as I say, this broad agreement that our 
system must change, and I believe that there is also bipartisan 
agreement that one can see through the discussion on the goals of 
welfare reform. Democrats and Republicans agree that the welfare system 
should focus first and foremost on moving people into the work force.
  A reform system, obviously, should also combat the causes of welfare 
dependency, particularly the growth in out-of-wedlock pregnancies among 
teenagers. I hope to return to the floor on some other occasion to talk 
about this epidemic problem the Senator from New York has foreseen, has 
documented, has spoken of with such insight.
  May I just say the obvious, which is that if we can deal effectively 
with out-of-wedlock pregnancies, if we can create a national effort to 
try to cut down the number of pregnancies, this problem that has gone 
wild, we will thereby cut down the welfare rolls.
  The welfare rolls are composed of children in great part who were 
born out of wedlock. They are, therefore, dependent children. It is a 
child or children living with the mother and no father, or at least no 
father who has assumed responsibility and gone through marriage and 
lives legally in the house.
  So I hope we will act on this shared impulse of reaction to this 
terrible problem. The system reform should reinforce, not undermine, 
our shared values and a reformed system should fulfill our national 
commitment, in the midst of all the changes, that we try to provide 
protections for our poorest children, remembering that they are the 
innocent victims of the errors, misdeeds, irresponsibility, very often, 
of their parents.
  So when we say ``entitlement,'' there is no entitlement, as the 
Senator from New York has pointed out. It is up to the States whether 
they want to deal with the problems of the poorest.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Will the Senator from Connecticut yield for a question?
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I will be proud to yield.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, is the Senator from Connecticut aware 
that he is the first Senator, other than the Senator from New York, to 
make that point in this now 2-day debate? There is no entitlement. I am 
profoundly grateful to him, for at least he has heard that voice.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Senator from New York. I am proud to be in 
his company. That is the truth. It is up to the States to decide that 
they wish to enter this system the Federal Government has created. It 
is really the choice of the State. There is no coercion here. But once 
they decide, they have to play by the rules, and one of the rules--it 
certainly seems like a good one, and I would guess it is a rule that 
would be accepted in principle by a great majority of people in 
America--and that is we care for the children.
  I hope whatever system we adopt provides that level of guarantee for 
a decent life for our children in this country.
  The pending legislation, as amended by S. 1120, the Republican 
leader's bill, will create a welfare system that I believe will fail 
ultimately to meet its primary objective, which is to put people to 
work in great numbers, to get them off of welfare. It fails to give the 
States the right incentives and resources to put people to work, and I 
am afraid that it ignores a lot of what we have learned about what 
works and what does not in getting people off welfare.
  Finally, I do not think it holds States accountable for their 
success, that is I do not think that it gives them incentives 
appropriately to succeed or that it creates standards to measure in a 
fair and reasonable, rational way what success really means.
  Mr. President, for the remainder of the time speaking this afternoon, 
I want to focus in on the work requirements.
  We know a lot about what it takes to get people to work. In 1988, 
Congress passed the Family Support Act under the skilled and, may I 
say, unique leadership of Senator Moynihan. The Job Opportunities Basic 
Skills Program, which has come to be known as JOBS, established by the 
act, sought to provide training to people on welfare to prepare them 
for work. Evaluations of the JOBS Program that have been conducted have 
shown that the programs have had some success; they have begun to make 
a difference.
  Obviously, they have suffered from a lack of funding in some 
substantial degree, but welfare-to-work programs have increased work 
participation. The Government education and training programs have not 
yet moved large numbers of welfare recipients permanently into the work 
force, and so we hope in this bill to try to do better.
  But I do want to stress that it is critically important that we do 
not dismiss the JOBS Program in that sense, but that we build on what 
we have learned from the JOBS Program. Our experience with that program 
has taught us several important lessons, one of which is that programs 
that are focused on education and training, on investing in human 
capital, have had some results. Programs that have, however, emphasized 
the immediate work experience along with education and training have 
seemed to be more successful.
  What research is showing us is that providing an initial connection 
to the work force, a step on the first rung on the ladder of work, then 
to be combined with training and education, seems to be an approach 
that gives us some hope of making a welfare recipient find a way off 
welfare and into work.
  What we have learned from the Family Support Act is that education 
and training are critical to continue to climb up the ladder to self-
sufficiency. But it is Work First, which is the title of the Democratic 
bill, that will spur a recipient on and improve her life--it seems 
obvious, but it is important in this area of human frailty and profound 
human problems to test what seems obvious. It means that a recipient 
should, whenever possible, first take a job--any job--that is offered 
her to discover what her abilities are and then to be helped to learn 
the basic skills that most employers value, some of them very basic but 
critically important skills, like showing up to work on time, having 
good work habits, working hard, notifying employers of absences, 
communicating well with coworkers.
  The traditional education system has failed most of our welfare 
recipients. Education and training, therefore, must play a critical 
role in helping them succeed in the work force. But we have to connect 
recipients to work and then help them succeed once they are in that 
work environment. And that is what this bill, which Senators Daschle, 
Breaux, and Mikulski have introduced, and many of us have cosponsored, 
has focused on.
  Employers--and we have to listen to the people who are going to give 
these welfare recipients jobs--employers say over and over again that 
it is not necessarily formally trained workers that they need, but 
dependable workers, workers that they can help to train along with 
Government-supported training programs.
  As one employer said to me, ``I can train an employee to take apart 
and reassemble a widget, but I cannot train her to show up to work on 
time.''
  So programs that have taken a work-first approach, we think, have had 
the most encouraging results. There has been a lot of discussion here, 
and I need not go on at length about the GAIN program in Riverside 
County, CA, which is one such positive example. The program focuses on 
quickly placing people in private-sector jobs and 

[[Page S 11836]]
emphasizes low-paying jobs are an opportunity to start up a career 
ladder and should not be turned down.
  Mr. President, the Manpower Demonstration Research Corp. evaluated 
the program and found a percentage of the recipients employed was 13.6 
percent higher than in a control group.
 The JOBS programs run in Atlanta, Grand Rapids, and other places, 
provide additional evidence of the importance of this strategy that 
emphasizes rapid job entry.

  Mr. President, we have also learned that private investment in 
support agencies can effectively move welfare recipients into the work 
force. So I would say that the three characteristics that we find from 
successful programs are, first, that each assesses the needs and skills 
of each of its clients individually and assumes that they want to work.
  Second, each program bypasses traditional education and training and, 
instead, puts its clients to work as quickly as possible. But then, 
obviously, it has to supplement that with the education and training.
  Third, successful programs do form strong links with local employers 
and work hard to maintain those links with the local employers, who are 
the source of the jobs.
  Another example of the private sector agency that has done some 
successful work is America Works, which has been working in Connecticut 
for a period of time. It is a for-profit placement and support 
organization that has helped over 5,000 welfare recipients find full-
time private sector jobs in New York, Connecticut, and Indianapolis. It 
places 60 percent of those in the program into jobs, and of that 
percent, 68 percent are hired permanently at an average wage of $15,000 
per year, including benefits; 75 percent are still off of welfare 18 
months later, at a cost to the Government of $5,400 per placement. 
America Works is cost effective, especially when compared to other 
public sector only programs.
  Mr. President, we have to be honest here and say that successful 
programs are still the exception and not the rule. That is the 
difficult challenge that we face. States need more incentives to move 
recipients into the labor market. We have to move the system away as we 
all want to, I am sure, from one that focuses on writing checks to one 
that focuses on getting people into employment and providing the 
necessary backup and education and training to keep them there. We need 
to change the incentives in the current system and to reward States, 
administrators, and caseworkers for placing recipients in work.
  There is simply not enough incentive in the current system, or may I 
say in the Republican leadership bill, that rewards States directly for 
meeting the most important goal of all, which is to place and keep a 
welfare recipient in a job--a private sector, unsubsidized job.
  Mr. President, the Republican leadership bill does take one important 
step, I think, in the right direction. That is, to give States the 
flexibility to design innovative work-based programs. But flexibility 
is not synonymous with reform, and therein lies the fundamental flaw of 
the Republican leadership bill. The problem with S. 1120 is that it 
gives States flexibility, but without the proper incentives to do the 
right thing, without the resources, without the accountability, without 
the measurement of success. The bill sets States up, I am afraid, to 
fail to meet the fundamental goal that the bill establishes, which is 
to help establish self-sufficiency through work. Then it lets States 
off the hook when they fail.
  Mr. President, S. 1120 looks tough on work, but ultimately I am 
afraid it will not deliver on that toughness, because it does not give 
the States the resources they need to help put welfare recipients to 
work.
  There are some similarities, which is encouraging, to the Democratic 
Work First proposal. One is that it requires States to ensure that an 
increasingly high percentage of their welfare caseload is involved in 
work activities. By the year 2000, States must ensure that 50 percent 
of people receiving welfare are working in a private sector job for at 
least 30 hours a week, or are participating in vocational education.
  But I am afraid when you look closely at S. 1120, the Republican 
bill, you have to conclude that the States are going to have a very 
hard time meeting those work requirements, that 50 percent goal, 50 
percent of welfare recipients to work, because the States simply cannot 
afford to meet them. States will not have the money they need to pay 
for child care and other support for single parents participating in 
part-time work.
  The Republican leadership block grant proposal freezes Federal 
support for cash assistance in child care at $16.8 billion--actually, 
less than what we are spending now, even as it requires States to move 
more than three times as many individuals into work activities.
  Mr. President, we all want to save money on welfare. But it seems to 
me that we should learn the lessons of business. In so many cases, you 
do not save money, you do not turn out a better service, unless you 
invest a little bit. That is exactly what we have to do to achieve 
longer range savings for a better service, a better program.
  Today, as required by the Family Support Act, about 400,000 people 
are participating in mandatory training or work programs for at least 
20 hours a week. That is no small accomplishment. Under the Republican 
leadership bill, by the year 2000, 1.3 million individuals would have 
to be in work activities for not 20, but at least 30 hours per week. So 
the Republican leadership proposal triples the number of people who 
will need child care, for instance, but adds no new funds; it basically 
triples the number of people who will have to be in these mandatory 
work programs for 10 more hours a week, but asks the States to do it 
with effectively less and less money.
  The unfunded costs, as estimated by the Department of HHS, and 
roughly, I gather, confirmed by CBO, the unfunded cost of these work 
requirements in S. 1120 is a whopping $23 billion over 7 years. The 
State of Connecticut, my State, alone would have to spend an additional 
$300 million.
  Mr. President, I ask, where will the States get that money? I am 
going to suggest on this chart that they have four choices to satisfy 
the goal of getting 50 percent of welfare recipients into work. One is 
to raise State and local taxes. That is not a very pleasant prospect 
for the Governors and State legislators, and I doubt they will do it.
  Second is to deny assistance to needy families, either to make the 
welfare eligibility requirements more restrictive or to cut down the 
benefit level.
  Third is to cut back on child care support, meager as it may be in 
most places, and, therefore, force people to go to work, but to do so 
at the cost of leaving their children home alone, unattended.
  The fourth choice is not to go ahead with reform, not to achieve the 
50 percent welfare-to-work goal that is set out in S. 1120, and the 
punishment is a 5-percent reduction of the block grant.
  Well, it seems to me, we talk a lot about market incentives in this 
Chamber, and I am all for them. We are going to give the States--
speaking in macro terms--a choice here. The choice is to spend the $23 
billion-plus over the 7 years for what I would call the ``unfunded 
mandate,'' or to lose what amounts to $6 billion, which is the 
cumulative total of a 5-percent reduction for no reform.
  I am afraid that just on the basis of fiscal incentive, the system 
set up in S. 1120 will encourage States not to achieve the work goals 
in their proposal and, therefore, to take the relatively more 
attractive $6 billion hit.
  Mr. President, let me offer one final chart and then I will close 
because I see my friend from Missouri here.
  By contrast, I think the Work First proposal of Senators Daschle, 
Breaux, and others of us, really does do the job and understands that 
you have to spend some money to save some money here. It funds the work 
requirement through spending cuts within existing welfare programs. It 
understands that you are not going to get people to go to work--and 
these are people who need some special help to get out there and go to 
work--without some money.
  Second, Mr. President, the Senate Democratic leadership proposal, 
which really is welfare reform, builds on a successful experience in 
the State of Iowa--and a few other States have tried it--which is when 
welfare recipients come in to apply, from day one, they undergo a work 
assessment profile, a work assessment test that is done on them. And 
they are asked to sign a contract.
 
[[Page S 11837]]

  In other words, we are not just going to give them a check: Come in, 
show you meet the basic requirements, write a check, and that is that. 
The check is no longer unconditional. The check requires something of 
the recipient to meet her part of what we call the parent empowerment 
contract.
  That goes from day one. Part of that contract is to accept any job 
offer. Sometimes you have a situation where people say that is not good 
enough for me, that is a minimum wage job. The point is, we found if 
you start with a minimum wage job, you work your way up.
  Third, as others have said, the Democratic proposal provides child 
care.
  Fourth, an important part that Senator Breaux and I may build on in 
an amendment later in the debate, the Democratic proposal provides 
bonuses to States for private-sector job placements. The amendment to 
the Republican leadership bill will take 3, 4, 5 percent successively 
from the $16.8 billion in the bill and put it into a special fund that 
will be redistributed to the States based on the number of people they 
get off of welfare and into private-sector jobs. I think that is the 
kind of incentive that can make these work requirements really work.
  Finally, Mr. President, it is important to remember that welfare as 
we have known it for 60 years is first and foremost a program to 
protect the lives of children. Nine million of the 14 million welfare 
recipients are kids--9 million.
  Helping parents receive self-sufficiency through work will help kids. 
Children growing up in a home with a working parent have a much more 
positive environment, positive role model, and less poverty. Requiring 
work breaks the vicious cycle that is creating such--for want of a 
better term--an underclass in our society. That is why Senator 
Daschle's Work First proposal demands that people who are receiving 
benefits work.
  I hope that the proposal that I have described will assist the debate 
and, in whole or in part, draw bipartisan support. I think it deserves 
it. I hope my colleagues will agree with me that it is really through 
holding States accountable for their record at placing people in 
private-sector jobs that we will genuinely achieve welfare reform and 
improve the plight of these millions of children who are born to 
poverty with the odds stacked against them as they go forward in life.
  The greatest barrier to equal opportunity in our society today is 
poverty. Too often, that barrier has been made even more rigid by a 
welfare system that sends all the wrong messages to people in our 
society.
  I hope we together, Republicans and Democrats, side by side as this 
debate goes forward, can finally and effectively reform that system.
  I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield for a brief question?
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Yes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I want to commend the Senator for an excellent 
presentation and statement, and in particular his emphasis on the child 
care and the work provisions.
  I think the Senator has made the case that unless you are going to 
have a good training program in terms of moving people off of welfare, 
unless you have the day care--of the 10 million children today on 
welfare, only 400,000 actually get any kind of day care; the other 
children do not--unless we are going to manage that, we are not going 
to be able to get the kind of results we want.
  We are also going to have to at least provide the assurance of some 
health benefits for those children under the Medicaid Program.
  Is it the sense of the Senator that folding into the majority 
leader's program effectively all of the training programs which were 
out there for working families--the dislocated worker programs, or 
workers that lose their jobs because of either trade agreements like 
NAFTA or GATT, or coal miners or timber industry workers or displaced 
defense workers, men and women who have worked generally a lifetime, 
all they need is an upgrading of their skills--those programs have been 
effective in helping and assisting these workers, particularly through 
the community college program, which we are all familiar with and which 
is in all of our States, the good work and the training programs; that 
it really does not make any sense to take away those programs and take 
all of that money, the $30 billion and put it into the other pot; 
effectively, the workfare program, which has been suggested or actually 
more than suggested, included in the majority leader's program?
  Is the Senator concerned about what we would be doing to working 
families who have lost their jobs through no action of their own, and 
who need that kind of upgrading and training so they can get additional 
jobs in the future, and that effectively we have just taken all of the 
training programs and put it in here to workfare, in too many 
instances, dead-end jobs that do not do the kind of reform that I know 
the Senator and others and the Senator from New York are committed to?
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, responding to the Senator from 
Massachusetts, and I thank him for his kind words and for his question 
which I think puts a finger on something I am very concerned about, the 
answer to his question is yes, I am concerned.
  It seems to me there are two great problems pressing in our society 
today. One is the problem of people caught in the cycle of poverty--
usually people on welfare for whom the current system has failed. We 
want to change that. We want to give those people incentives, training, 
and a reason to go to work.
  Second, we have a whole group of people in our society who are 
working-class, middle-class families who have been dislocated for one 
reason or another--defense downsizing, changes in the economy, the 
economy becoming more high tech, more information-age oriented--and 
they are profoundly unsettled and worried about their ability to 
provide for their families in the future.
  There are a whole set of programs that we have built up, this 
Congress has built up, over succeeding administrations, supported by 
both parties, to try to provide essential assistance to those working 
middle-class families to help retrain them and to get them back to 
work.
  What we are trying to do here in the welfare reform proposal is to 
create a new effective program to help people at the bottom, to help 
them up from the bottom and get them into the work force.
  It seems to me to take from the working family program and to combine 
it with trying to get the welfare people to work will mean that both 
programs are ultimately going to be underfunded and each group will 
suffer. Each group really needs not to suffer but to be helped.
  I hope as this debate goes on, I say to my friend from Massachusetts, 
we can work together across the aisle to make sure there is enough 
money here to make the promise of work and the requirement of work 
real.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I see others on the floor. I welcome the statement of 
the majority leader indicating that there might be some additional 
opportunity to do some corrective action on the child care program.
  I hope that we will also have an opportunity to do it in the work 
training program. These are two extremely important features of it. 
That will take some debate and some discussion. I know the Senator from 
Connecticut wants to do it.
  I welcome the opportunity of working with others in those areas. 
Perhaps if we had more time, we could really make sure we get a bill 
that is worthy of its name.
  I thank the Senator.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Senator from Massachusetts. I yield the 
floor.
  Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, the welfare reform legislation before the 
Senate insists on more individual responsibility. It penalizes 
destructive behavior and it promotes work. The legislation provides new 
authority to the States, affirming federalism and allowing Governors to 
make bold reforms. This bill will reduce the Federal deficit.
  Nutrition assistance is a major part of our Nation's system of social 
programs. The legislation before us contains a modified form of an 
original bill approved by the Senate Agriculture Committee on June 14. 
All Republican members of the committee voted for the bill, along with 
one Democratic member.
  That bill, now part of the leadership proposal we are considering, 
makes 

[[Page S 11838]]
dramatic changes in the food stamp program. These changes reflect the 
three goals of individual responsibility, State empowerment, and 
deficit reduction.
  First, the Agriculture Committee bill reduces the Federal deficit by 
$19.1 billion over the next 5 years, and $30.1 billion over 7 years. 
Part of these savings are obtained through a crackdown on fraud and 
food stamp trafficking. The majority of savings, however, result from 
benefit cutbacks, tighter eligibility rules, and policy reforms. The 
standard deduction that is used to calculate food stamp benefits will 
be lower under this bill than under current law. Similarly, the bill 
will pay food stamp benefits based on the thrifty food plan, and not 
103 percent of that plan as is the case today.
  Second, this bill requires individuals to take more responsibility 
for their actions. The legislation withdraws benefits from able-bodied 
childless adults who do not work. It disqualifies any individual who 
voluntarily quits a job or reduces the number of hours worked. It 
denies benefits to anyone who violates an AFDC work requirement, and 
bars food stamps from increasing when a family's welfare check is cut 
because they failed to comply with other welfare program requirements, 
such as making sure children stay in school or receive immunization 
shots.
  This important policy change puts an end to the mixed message that 
our welfare system sends to recipients. Up to now, when a welfare 
recipient's cash benefits have been reduced as a penalty, his or her 
food stamps have automatically increased, partly offsetting the loss of 
income.
  For food stamp work requirements, the bill establishes new mandatory 
minimum disqualification periods for violators. States will have the 
authority to disqualify for longer periods. In sharp contrast to 
current law, this legislation will allow States to permanently 
disqualify three-time repeat violators.
  The bill will discourage teen pregnancy by requiring that minor 
parents living at home apply for benefits with their parents. In 
addition, the bill will place new responsibilities on anyone sponsoring 
a legal alien who then applies for food stamps.
  Third, the legislation before us will empower the States. States will 
have a broad range of new authorities to design simplified food stamp 
programs and conform procedures and rules for AFDC households. The bill 
will allow States to obtain waivers for welfare demonstration projects 
that reduce food stamp benefits or restrict eligibility. The bill also 
compels the U.S. Department of Agriculture to be more responsive to 
State waiver requests by imposing a strict turnaround time for initial 
responses to these requests, with automatic approval if USDA misses its 
deadline.
  Under this legislation, States will be able to pay wage subsidies in 
lieu of food stamps--innovative programs in which the amount of the 
food stamp benefit is paid to an employer who hires a recipient. The 
employer then passes the benefit along as a wage.
  Finally, the legislation allows States to choose an optional block 
grant instead of the regular food stamp program. States would be 
eligible for an amount equal to the higher of their 1994 food stamp 
funding level or the 1992-94 average. Seventy-five percent of the 
amount expended would have to be spent on food assistance, with the 
remainder to be spent on payments in return for work, work 
supplementation programs, other work-related initiatives, and 
administrative costs.
  The bill approved by the Agriculture Committee did not include the 
block grant option. Although several Senators on the committee 
supported block grants, a majority did not.
  I believe that the optional block grant that has been developed over 
the past several weeks gives States a fair choice. If they are 
concerned about the possibility of a demographic change or a large, 
recession-induced increase in their caseload, they may continue to 
participate in the Federal food stamp program, and benefit from all the 
flexibility provided in this bill. But if States prefer, they now have 
the ability to make a one-time choice of block-granted benefits. It is 
their decision.
  Mr. President, we should give States the opportunity to try new 
approaches. We must make it clear to recipients of public assistance 
that more will be expected of them. And we should spend less money on 
welfare.
  The legislation before us passes all three of these tests. I hope all 
Senators will support it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thompson). The majority leader.


                           Order of Procedure

  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Missouri for 
waiting just a few more moments. I think the Senator from Washington 
also wanted to speak, Senator Murray.
  Let me just sort of lay out where we are and where we are going. I 
discovered a lot of people want to go home, which has some impact on 
what we are doing.
  I think it is fair to say we have had almost 2 solid days of debate 
on welfare reform, plus statements by the two leaders on Saturday. And 
I think, without exception, we have had good debate. We have had 
different points of view, different philosophical approaches. But 
overall it has been steady, and we have had very few quorum calls.
  But it is also clear to me--and I am not criticizing anybody, I just 
know how this place works--we are not going to finish the bill this 
week. We could stay all night every night. So the question is, let us 
do it next week. But I know from counting on this side there would be a 
number of absentees, and I assume the same would be true on the other 
side, because people can make commitments.
  There was an August recess. So I was faced with the reality of what 
we can do and what we cannot do and knowing we cannot finish this this 
week. I have talked to the Democratic leader about it. We had a good 
visit. We were not going back and forth blaming each other. I think the 
conclusion was, the signals were, there was no way we could do it. 
There were too many amendments, too many people had not been heard.
  But I would say on this side, today Governor Thompson, who is 
chairman of the National Governors Association, was kind enough to come 
to Washington from Wisconsin, and we met with about, I would say, 18, 
20, 22 Republican Senators. And we heard from a Governor who has cut 
his welfare caseload 27 percent and a Governor who is saving $17 
million a month. Half of that is Federal money and half of that is 
State. And somebody who knows about child care, health care, 
transportation, and other things he says are so important to welfare 
reform.
  He tried to make the point--and did make the point very effectively 
with a number of my colleagues on different sides of the spectrum 
here--that Governors get elected by the same people we do. Do you not 
trust your Governors? Then he went on to say what he had done in 
Wisconsin.
  So, I think we are a little closer together, I would say, on the 
Republican side, than we were 6 or 7 hours ago. So, today and tomorrow 
and Friday we will be going back to Republicans who had different views 
on the so-called leadership bill, the Work Opportunity Act of 1995, and 
perhaps the leaders would reserve the right to modify their bills 
before we go out on Friday. I think at that point we would be, 
hopefully, very, very close to having every Republican on board. I 
think maybe Senator Daschle can say the same.
  These negotiations are going on now. They are going to continue. So I 
have to make a judgment whether I want the negotiations to go on and 
make some headway and then bring all that to the floor on Friday, or 
should we go ahead today and finish three very important appropriations 
bills: Transportation, Interior, Defense appropriations and the Defense 
authorization bill. That is a lot to do in 3 days. It may spill into 
Saturday. But I have learned from the past that when you have a 
deadline, things do go more quickly. Suddenly speeches that could have 
been made for hours are 10 minutes, and they are better. People 
actually listen to 10-minute speeches. So we hope that is the case.
  It is my intent to go to the Interior bill, if it is satisfactory 
with the Democratic leader, and try to finish that, hopefully, tonight. 
We have had consultations with managers on each side. There are some 
contentious amendments, but I do hope we can have cooperation of all 
Members on each side as far as amendments--give us time agreements, 
give the managers time 

[[Page S 11839]]
agreements. And I think the question is--I think I already know the 
answer because I have talked to the Democratic leader--I think we have 
agreed to cooperate on this, to work on both sides of the aisle, try to 
get Members to cooperate with us. When we finish these bills, the 
recess starts. So it is automatic. It is automatic.
  It is up to every Member when he or she stands up to address an 
issue--and certainly some of these should not be addressed in a--Do not 
misunderstand this. They are very serious. But I think we can make the 
case in fairly rapid order.
  So I ask the Democratic leader if he concurs in this statement, and, 
if so, it would then be the intention of the leader to move to the 
Interior appropriations bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority leader.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I do concur. I also want to commend the 
majority leader for making the decision he has.
  I think there are three reasons why this makes sense. First, as the 
distinguished majority leader said, negotiations are continuing. I hope 
to lay the Work First amendment down prior to the time we go to the 
Interior bill for the opportunity it presents all Members to compare 
and to pick apart and critically review both the bill offered by the 
Republican leadership and the bill offered by the Democratic 
leadership. So the next 3 days could be very helpful in bringing to 
refinement what we hope are legislative proposals that will unite not 
only our caucuses but, hopefully, the Senate, ultimately.
  Second, I think it is also helpful, as the distinguished majority 
leader said, to involve the Governors in a way that they have not yet 
had the opportunity to be involved. I think the next 3 weeks could be 
the most meaningful in terms of asking people outside of Washington 
what they think. They are the ones ultimately, when this legislation 
passes, who are going to be confronted with the responsibility for not 
only implementing but administering what it is we are doing here. So, 
having their input, having their review, having their ideas will even 
better prepare us to come back and conclude the work on this very 
important piece of legislation in September.
  Third, as the distinguished leader said, we have a lot of work to do 
on appropriations. I recognize the very difficult decisions that have 
to be made on a number of these bills. I may, personally, vote against 
a couple of these bills, but that ought not preclude us from 
considering them in a timeframe that will allow us to accommodate this 
schedule in a way that will meet the schedule laid out by the majority 
leader.
  I hope as many problems and as many difficulties as we may have with 
this legislation--that is, these appropriations bills --that we agree 
to short time limits, that we do the best we can to resolve what 
differences there are, be as willing to confront these bills with time 
limits to amendments and ultimately, perhaps, even a time agreement in 
consideration of the legislation itself.
  I believe we can accommodate not only the welfare reform schedule in 
that manner but also the rigorous schedule we will have with regard to 
appropriations bills when we return in September.
  So, for those three reasons I think this makes a good deal of sense, 
and I hope we could get unanimity here in the Senate with regard to 
this schedule and the appropriateness with which we will take up each 
of these bills and, hopefully, welfare reform when we come back.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I want to underscore a point made by the 
Democratic leader because I had forgotten Governor Thompson indicated 
they would like a little time, too, the Governors.
  We sort of unveiled our bill in Burlington, VT, I guess, a week ago 
Monday. The President talked about welfare that same day. The Governors 
broke up the next day, and they have had one meeting. They are about to 
send us a letter in general terms saying they support a lot of things 
in different proposals.
  The Governor made the point this would give them some time in the 
next 3 weeks to try to bring Governors together--Governors, I am 
talking about Democrats, Republicans--to see if there is some common 
ground. There may not be. So I want to underscore the point made by the 
Democratic leader.
  Second, to indicate that when we come back, with the appropriations 
bills out of the way, there has been a lot of talk about a train wreck 
in this town on October 1. When we finish the appropriations bills, we 
will have finished everything that has been reported out by the 
Appropriations Committee. There is nothing else left to take up.
  So when we come back on September 5, we will be back on the welfare 
bill, which will give the appropriators time to report out the other 
bills. We want all these bills, if we can possibly do it, down to the 
President before October 1. You have to go to conference; you have to 
do a lot of things. We may have to negotiate with the White House and 
others. So I think that is very important. We want to try to avoid 
that. We want the President to understand that the Congress has done 
its work on time, and completing these three appropriations bills will 
be a big step in that direction.
  Finally to indicate--not just to indicate, just a fact-- we will 
bring up welfare again on the 5th of September, unless something 
unforeseen happens. That would be Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday 
of that week, maybe even slip into the next week, into Monday. If we 
cannot finish it in a reasonable time, then I think the Democratic 
leader understands and others understand, we will probably have to put 
it in reconciliation. But first we want to give everybody an 
opportunity.
  I would rather pass a freestanding welfare reform bill where 
everybody has a right to offer amendments, we have votes on the 
amendments--and I think there are going to be dozens of amendments, 
legitimate amendments. But I would make that statement.
 And that date is September 27, sort of the drop-dead day for that 
process. So we do not have a lot of time. I think this makes the best 
use of our time, and it also permits our colleagues to start the recess 
either Friday or Saturday of this week.

  I thank my colleague, the Democratic leader.


                Amendment No. 2282 to Amendment No. 2280

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, with that understanding, I would like to 
lay down the Democratic substitute at this time and ask for its 
immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from South Dakota [Mr. Daschle] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 2282 to amendment No. 2280.

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Amendments 
Submitted.'')
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I would also ask unanimous consent that 
Timothy Prinz, a congressional fellow in my office, be granted 
privileges of the floor during the debate on welfare reform and the 
appropriations bills to which it would refer.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I have had a number of opportunities to 
discuss this legislation. I did again last night. I probably will 
throughout the remainder of the week. In the interest of time and 
certainly appreciation of the long wait that the distinguished Senator 
from Missouri has had already, I will make no further statements 
regarding the amendment and save that for a later date.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, we will probably be making comments on the 
bill, too, on this side of the aisle. A lot of comments have been about 
our bill, so I assume we will probably make a few comments about this 
bill before the recess.
  Mr. DASCHLE. If I could just ask the majority leader for a 
clarification on the opportunity both leaders will have to modify our 
legislation prior to the end of the week. I think there is an 
understanding we will be able to do that.
  Mr. DOLE. That is an understanding we have. 

[[Page S 11840]]

  Because I assume the Senator is meeting with his colleagues; we are 
meeting with our colleagues. We are working out problems, and we would 
like, where we can, to accommodate different views to those changes. It 
might save a lot of amendments.
  Mr. DASCHLE. That is right.
  Mr. DOLE. So I ask unanimous consent now that we turn to the 
consideration of H.R. 1977, the Interior appropriations bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. DOLE. First, before we do that, I understand the Senator from 
Missouri would like about 8 minutes and the Senator from Washington 
about 8 minutes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. Leader, I need about 4 minutes.
  Mr. DOLE. And the Senator from Massachusetts, 4 minutes. So that 
gives the appropriators 20 minutes.
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, I hate to----
  Mr. DOLE. Excuse me.
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. I hate to delay this, but I have some things I wish 
to say in answer to the Senator from Massachusetts, and it would seem 
to me important to kind of set the record straight on some of the job 
training aspects of this. If I could have just 5 minutes, that would be 
fine.
  Mr. DOLE. So the appropriators have 25 minutes to arrive.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the Senate will proceed to 
H.R. 1977, at the conclusion of the remarks of the Senators.
  The Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I thank the Chair. I am most grateful to the 
leaders. I will accept the admonition to make it brief and do it within 
8 minutes.
  Mr. President, I know there is an old saying that a good sermon in a 
house of worship wins no souls after 20 minutes. I think we have 
probably gotten to the point in the debate over welfare where even the 
most compelling statement on welfare does not win too many votes after 
about 10 minutes, and I will accept the challenge to summarize some of 
the things that I think are very important.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Will the Senator from Missouri yield for a short 
unanimous-consent request?
  Mr. BOND. I will be happy to yield to my colleague from South Dakota.
  Mr. DASCHLE. The Senator from Missouri has mentioned the need for 10 
minutes, and I think that was the understanding. I think under the 
unanimous-consent agreement, it was just 8 minutes. I ask unanimous 
consent that the Senator from Missouri and the Senator from Washington 
have 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I am most grateful to my friend from South 
Dakota, the minority leader. I will try not to use the full 10 minutes.
  I wish to say based on what we have heard here today that there may 
be differences among us. We do have some questions about the Democratic 
leadership amendment that has been introduced, but I gain a great deal 
of encouragement from hearing the comments of my friend from 
Connecticut, who was talking about work and the emphasis we must place 
on work.
  I personally am pleased to be an original cosponsor of the welfare 
bill the majority leader and the chairman of the Finance Committee have 
introduced. I think that after 30 years of ever more expensive and less 
effective approaches to poverty, we are on the threshold of developing 
a plan that will reform welfare in a meaningful way.
  We have heard from a lot of our colleagues who spent the last 2 days 
describing the problems of the current system. I agree with that. There 
are problems. We all recognize the current system is a disaster and it 
does not well serve those down and out in society who need a hand up, 
and it does not serve the taxpayers of the country who fund it. If any 
of us have questions about that, I think we can just go home and ask 
the folks in our home State. We are going to hear that clearly.
  I would like to describe in brief some of the reasons I think the 
Dole-Packwood approach will work in that it strikes a fair balance 
between the role of the Federal Government in providing a safety net 
and giving States increased responsibility. I think it is a sound 
approach in fixing the system and clearly the best alternative to those 
who would completely dismantle public assistance and those who would 
simply tinker around the edges.
  We have heard some very eloquent statements in the last hour about 
how important all the individual programs are and how great they are 
and what wonderful things they have done and how much better they would 
be if we spent more money.
  I do not think that is the real world. I hope we can come together on 
a bipartisan basis to say more and more individual Federal programs 
with more and more money is not getting us out of the hole.
  I have been working on welfare reform 8 years as Governor and longer 
than that in this Congress in past legislative sessions. I have been 
very pleased to work on a bipartisan basis with my colleague from Iowa, 
Senator Harkin, over the last 2 years, and I am delighted that some of 
the ideas we have worked on are included in the bill before us. The 
centerpiece of the bill that we included on a bipartisan basis was a 
personal responsibility contract.
  This is a fundamental change in the way we would approach public 
assistance. Since the creation of aid to families with dependent 
children, public aid has been regarded as an entitlement. If you meet 
the requirements, if you have the problems and if you have the lack of 
money for eligibility and you have the children, you get the cash with 
no strings attached. That just does not work.
  The current system has rightly been condemned by persons from all 
walks of life: researchers, advocates, pastors, politicians, even the 
recipients themselves. The system is impersonal. It is inefficient, and 
it encourages continued dependency. Recipients continue to get cash 
month after month after month without thinking about their future and 
without giving any help or any encouragement or any prod to become 
self-sufficient.
  Treating public assistance as a contractual relationship such as is 
being done in Iowa, Missouri, Utah, and elsewhere where both parties 
have responsibility for changes, both parties need to do something, 
recipients themselves have to work or perform for their benefits, is 
the way out of the trap.
  I believe a large reason for the stagnation in the welfare programs 
today is that we have not required anything in return for benefits. It 
is a one-way street. The lack of reciprocity has bred an ethic of 
dependence rather than a work ethic. The only way we can turn this 
around is to require something in return for what the taxpayers are 
paying out.
  Most Americans believe our Government has a responsibility to help 
families in need, and certainly we are going to pursue that. But we 
also know that individuals have a responsibility to help themselves if 
they can. I believe that this approach will do a better job of helping 
people to create a better life for themselves and their families. I am 
concerned that if we do not require recipients of public assistance to 
work or behave responsibly, then our efforts at reform will fail.
  The principle should be, public assistance is a two-way street. You 
want benefits? You have got to work and behave responsibly in return. 
The Dole-Packwood bill has a real work requirement. We have, I think, 
in this measure, since we last took on welfare reform in 1988, learned 
that the States are moving well ahead of the Federal Government. That 
is why we are going to look to the States to lead the way in finding 
new ways and better ways to get out of welfare dependency.
  We have tinkered with the problem. We have tinkered with eligibility. 
But we have not come close to solving the problem of poverty. I am 
pleased that we take steps to move responsibility back to the States. I 
think we are doing an excellent job in reforming the supplemental 
security income program, which has grown out of control and has brought 
real outrage. I think that we need to change the system with respect to 
noncitizens. These elements are all in the bill.
  The Dole-Packwood plan has a real work requirement, unlike the 
existing system. There would be no automatic exemption from work 
requirements. Currently, over half the caseload on average in every 
State is exempt from participation in work and job training 

[[Page S 11841]]
programs. No wonder the American people think the system is a sham.
  Since we last took on the welfare reform issue in 1988, we learned 
that our Nation's Governors are far ahead of Washington in generating 
reform ideas and in implementing them. Currently States must undertake 
a lengthy and cumbersome waiver process in order to obtain permission 
to implement commonsense reforms. States that want to require welfare 
recipients to obtain preventive health care for their children, or to 
ensure that their children stay in school, or wish to allow recipients 
to keep more of their earnings from a parttime job--good ideas all--
must now obtain a waiver from HHS. This is costly, time consuming, and 
silly. Dole-Packwood permits States to try a variety of ideas to move 
people into meaningful work and off public assistance, without 
permission from the Feds.
  Senator Harkin and I had also proposed that recipients be permitted 
to keep more income earned on the job, that teens be allowed to work 
without counting against family income, and that States be permitted to 
subsidize private sector jobs for welfare recipients on a trial basis. 
We also proposed that benefits be denied to those who fail to behave 
rsponsibly--those who fail to have their children immunized or to 
attend school. Under the system set up by the Dole-Packwood plan, 
States would be able to try any combination of these ideas, and many 
more we have not even thought of yet, without permission from 
Washington bureaucrats.
  Mr. President, in past attempts to reform welfare we have erred on 
the side of caution. We have tinkered with the programs and generally 
expanded eligibility. We have not come close to solving the problem of 
poverty; in fact, there are more children living in poverty now than 30 
years ago. So we do not want to be overly cautious in our approach to 
this issue. But neither do we want to throw the problems back to the 
States. Some of my colleagues propose a mega-block grant which would 
encompass virtually all means-tested assistance. I would argue that 
just because we no longer have to deal with the issue on the Federal 
level does not mean that there is no longer a problem. While their plan 
has the appeal of simplicity, I do not believe it is workable.
  I have tried to work with those in my State who have the 
responsibility of running these programs to determine what reform 
efforts make sense. I have come to the conclusion that we should not 
include certain programs in this bill, particularly child welfare and 
foster care programs, and public housing reform. Children who are 
abused and neglected and who become wards of the State are our 
society's most vulnerable, and their needs should be addressed 
separately. And I am pleased that the majority leader and the Chairman 
of the Finance Committee have left these programs out of this bill.
  Another highlight of this plan, in my view, is its reform of the 
Supplemental Security Income [SSI] Program, which provides benefits to 
low-income disabled individuals. SSI is one of the fastest growing 
welfare programs in the Federal budget, costing $22 billion per year, 
and without the reforms in this bill, projected to grow 50 percent by 
the year 2000. SSI provides perhaps the best example of what happens 
when the Federal Government provides cash and asks for nothing in 
return. Over the last 2 years, we have investigated abuses in the 
program. We have discovered that many drug addicts and alcoholics are 
using the cash payments to subsidize their addictions, that children 
are being coached by their parents to fake a disability, and that new 
immigrants are being coached to fake disabilities to qualify for 
benefits.
  Dole-Packwood would reform the SSI Program without denying benefits 
to those who truly need them. The bill would no longer treat drug 
addiction and alcoholism as disabilities or purposes of qualifying for 
SSI. Noncitizens would only be eligible after working and paying taxes 
for 5 years. And only children who were diagnosed with a real 
disability, rather than being said to behave inappropriately for their 
age level, would qualify for benefits.
  Mr. President, the bill before us is not perfect. No legislative 
document ever is. Over the course of this week I hope we will make 
improvements in the area of child care and job training. Certainly 
there are a number of loose threads. But I am throwing my support 
behind this plan because I believe it is fundamentally sound from a 
philosophical and practical standpoint. It recognizes that the Federal 
Government cannot possibly provide the innovation and compassion 
necessary to solve the problem of poverty. It permits States, private 
organizations, and individuals to assume more responsibility in caring 
for our neighbors. And it recognizes that persons in need of assistance 
in our society will not become self-sufficient unless they are required 
to give of themselves in return.
  I yield the floor.
  Mrs. MURRAY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, the Senate has jumped into the welfare 
reform debate with both feet. I want to pose a question to the body 
now, as we enter the process: What is this debate about?
  I will make it very simple: it is about families. It think all my 
colleagues will agree that in this country, there can be no substitute 
for healthy families; they are the bedrock of our society.
  I hear so much from my constituents about their fears for the 
American family. In the modern world, the family faces more challenges 
than ever before, from economic opportunity, to education, to child 
care. We live in a world where more and more both parents must work to 
make ends meet. We have also seen an increase in single-parent homes 
where the challenge to balance work and family can be overwhelming. In 
my own family, my brothers, sisters, and cousins all share these fears.
  With this in mind, there is one question I urge my colleagues to keep 
in mind throughout this debate: what can the Government do--or not do--
to build, and rebuild, families in this country?
  What can the Government do to ensure economic opportunity? What can 
the Government do to create a healthy environment for children? What 
can the Government do to open doors and prevent dependency?
  What can the Government do--or not do--to foster a sense of security, 
hope, and confidence for families?
  During this debate, we will hear a lot about failure. In fact, we 
already have. We have heard about bad actors who abuse the system. We 
have heard about systemic failure, about substance abuse, crime, 
spousal abuse, child abuse, and everything that plagues a family stuck 
in poverty.
  We have heard about addicts awaiting the day their checks come in the 
mail. We have heard about mothers who stay on welfare, rather than 
accepting work. And we are going to keep hearing these things used to 
justify radical overhaul of the current welfare system.
  We may hear about these failures, and we may all agree the current 
system needs improvement. But let's not lose sight of what this debate 
is about: families and children. America's children.
  Mr. President, I bring a unique perspective to this debate on the 
Senate floor. I am a mother with school-age children. I have been a 
preschool teacher, dealing with kids from all economic classes. I have 
taught parent education classes, counseling young parents to help them 
develop their skills as mothers and fathers in the modern world.
  I can personally tell you what it is like to take a desperate phone 
call from a young single mom at the end of her rope. She is burning the 
candle at both ends, trying to work, worrying all day long about her 
kids. For school age kids, they face a tough environment at school; for 
toddlers, access to quality day care is a constant problem.
  When this mom gets home, the kids need attention, but she is out of 
energy. They need love, they need nourishment, and
 she has to summon everything she has got to meet their needs. Take my 
word for it: in today's world this is hard for any parent.

  To succeed in reforming welfare, we cannot talk in vagaries about 
accountability and responsibility, though these concepts are important. 
We have to understand the everyday challenges of everyday parents.
  Only by knowing and understanding these challenges can we begin to 
design 

[[Page S 11842]]
a welfare reform proposal that truly gives struggling families a boost 
to economic stability.
  Mr. President, shortly after I was elected to the Senate, I decided I 
needed a better perspective on the challenges faced by young kids in 
our cities. I asked friends from Washington State social service 
agencies, from the juvenile justice system, from the public school 
system, and kids themselves to come together in a series of forums 
across my State.
  In all three cases, I heard the same message over and over again. 
Kids today feel like adults do not care about them, or their problems. 
They come home to an empty house because one parent is absentee, or 
both parents have to work to cover expenses. Or they have dysfunctional 
parents.
  They wake up each morning scared, and all they can think about is 
survival. They do not see anything getting better for themselves, and 
to them, it adds up to a world in which adults just do not care.
  More recently, Mr. President, I have tried to learn more about the 
perspective of typical welfare recipients. I participated in a unique 
program called Walk-a-Mile which started in Washington State and pairs 
a welfare recipient with an elected official, and the two speak 
frequently on the telephone about each others' experiences. I was lucky 
enough to be paired with June, a single mother of two from a Seattle 
suburb who survived an abusive relationship.
  During her time on welfare, June attended school and earned a degree 
from Evergreen State College. Her classroom time was frequently 
interrupted, however, because her 6-year-old son Jonathan suffers from 
attention deficit order, a side effect of the abuse suffered in their 
previous home.
  June has been told by six different day care providers that her son 
could not be cared for, because of his explosive and erratic behavior. 
During this time June has lived in fear she would lose her credits at 
school, or have to drop out, because Jonathan could not stay in day 
care, or in school.
  Since earning her degree, June has divided her time between looking 
for work and looking for childcare. Her dilemma is a familiar one: in 
the absence of child care, she cannot work; yet she is qualified to 
willing to work today.
  Mr. President, I know what scared single parents, and I know what 
scares the kids. I have seen it firsthand, and I have studied it 
closely over the past 2 years.
  These are the fears of moms and their children. This is why moms get 
trapped in dependency, and why their kids look for their solutions on 
the streets. And unless we do something to remove these fears, we will 
not accomplish reform.
  I am concerned about what the Dole plan means for the State of 
Washington that has quality programs based on current Federal 
resources. I am concerned about parents and families--like June--who 
are currently participating in programs that will move them off welfare 
and into the work force.
  The Dole plan limits funding to States, and stipulates 2 years of 
benefits and then you are cut off. This amounts to nothing more than 
passing one of our biggest headaches off to the States for them to deal 
with. As a former state legislator, I can tell you that is something my 
State does not relish.
  The Senate has already passed a budget proposing to cut Medicare and 
Medicaid over the next 7 years. Under the dole welfare plan, the same 
working families will lose another $500 million over the next 7 years.
  Over 60 percent of my State's budget is public education: There is no 
way it can maintain any kind of excellence in public education if 
Congress forces new responsibilities and under-funded block-grants down 
to the State level.
  What does this mean in personal terms for June, my Walk-a-Mile 
partner? Under the Dole plan, there is no certainty she and her son 
Jonathan will have access to quality child care. In fact, there is a 
strong possibility they would not, because overall funding is being 
reduced.
  This plan will not do anything to improve June's situation, and it 
will certainly add to the message we send to our kids that we do not 
care about them.
  The Daschle bill offers credible reform. It proposes to move welfare 
recipients into the work force swiftly and decisively. It provides 
guidance on how to equip recipients to make this move. And, most 
importantly, it ensures quality childcare will be available during the 
transition.
  For people like June, this means they will have the stability and 
peace of mind to invest themselves in education or training programs 
that will equip them to move into the work force, without worrying 
about whether their kids will be looked after during the day.
  Mr. President, as a preschool teacher, and parent education 
counselor, I can tell you based on firsthand experience, give the 
choice between work and kids, the parent, with limited options, will 
stay at home.
  I can also tell you that unless we neutralize the fears and 
challenges of poor families, single parents, and their kids, we will 
not succeed in reforming welfare. We will simply infuse the underclass 
with a big new group of have-nots.
  I will conclude my statement where I began this statement. Welfare 
reform should be--must be--about rebuilding families in America. In 
America, we have always taken care of our own.
  We built the farm program to preserve the family farms. We establish 
Social Security to make sure Americans live well in retirement. We 
passed a GI bill to give our men and women in uniform ready access to 
education.
  Welfare reform should be no different. The central goal of welfare 
reform should be to make sure American families at all economic levels 
have equal access to economic opportunity in the modern world.
  We cannot legislate morality. Nor can we legislate family values. But 
we must promote family values. These are intangibles that are up to 
every family to address in their own homes. All we can do is provide 
opportunity and a stable environment to let it happen.
  If we can move people into the work force and create self-
sufficiency, we will have succeeded. To do this, we must remove 
parents' fears about access to child care, and we must remove kids' 
fears about the future, and we must make skills training and education 
available; and we must be very firm about our end goals. If we do these 
things, we will create a stable environment in which families can 
success in their own right, on their own merits.
  I thank the Chair, and I yield my time.
  Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I want to commend the majority leader for 
his decision to postpone further action on the welfare reform bill.
  Clearly, the pending Republican bill needs more work. Governors, 
mayors, business leaders, workers should all take a close look at what 
is being proposed. As this debate has proceeded, it has become clear 
that the bill is deeply flawed in two major respects: Its failure to 
include adequate provisions on child care, and its grossly defective 
treatment of job training.
  No welfare reform bill that fails to deal effectively with child care 
and job training deserves to pass. Without adequate job training, the 
goal of welfare reform is a charade, since those on welfare will not be 
able to work even if they are willing to work. To raid existing job 
training and job education programs in order to solve this problem, as 
the bill proposes to do, is an unacceptable assault on dislocated 
workers and all families in all parts of the country struggling to hold 
on to their current jobs or to improve their skills to find new jobs.
  Without adequate child care, this bill is a sham. It makes no sense 
to force mothers on welfare to work and then deny child care for their 
children left at home. The last thing the Senate should do in the name 
of welfare reform is pass a ``Home Alone'' bill that jeopardizes 
millions of children and their chance for a brighter future.
  Finally, it is clear that the Republican bill is also under assault 
from many Republican Senators who think this bill should be even more 
punitive on people on welfare.
  It is no surprise, therefore, that this defective legislation is 
being recalled for further repairs. As President Clinton and Democrats 
have made clear, we are ready to support responsible and 

[[Page S 11843]]
far-reaching welfare reform. But it must be more than bumper-sticker 
slogans. It must be genuine reform that makes welfare a hand up, not a 
handout. This bill flunked that basic test, and it deserves the failing 
grade it has now received.
  I yield the floor.
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, let me say before I start that the 
majority leader has yielded me his leadership time if I should need 
more time than the 5 minutes I believe was in the agreement.
  Mr. President, I would like to answer several accusations that have 
been made about the welfare reform bill. First of all, the bill is 
neither marginal nor is it a sham. The bill that has been put forward 
by the majority leader is an important step forward and makes good 
progress in dealing with a most difficult problem.
  There may be some major philosophical differences, and that we would 
all recognize. But the bill addresses three areas that I think are 
important to any significant and major welfare reform legislation. One, 
it ends the entitlement for welfare; two, it makes substantial reforms 
in the Food Stamp Program; and three, it provides major and 
constructive reform of our job training programs.
  It is job training, Mr. President, that I would like to address 
specifically. If we are ultimately going to be successful in reforming 
welfare, we must be realistic about what it takes to do so. We have to 
separate rhetoric from the reality of what is out there, and we must 
determine how we can be supportive while making changes that are 
absolutely necessary.
  Effective welfare reform is not simply a matter of increasing 
flexibility or changing incentives, but also of recognizing that 
obtaining and holding a job does not occur in a vacuum. That is why 
quality child care is important and why job training--realistic job 
training--is important.
  This morning, my colleague, the Senator from Massachusetts, who is 
the ranking member of the Labor and Human Resources Committee, said in 
a press conference: ``This is a cynical scheme to pit welfare 
beneficiaries against laid-off factory workers, unemployed defense 
workers and millions of other Americans.''
  Mr. President, that is just not true, and there has been a 
misunderstanding about what the job training portion of this program 
does. Because it was approved by the Labor and Human Resources 
Committee, I would like to spend a little bit of time going through 
that title of the bill.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield on that point?
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. I will be happy to yield.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I welcome the Senator's clarification. I just mention, 
in the Senator's bill, as the Senator knows, in listing the various 
provisions of permissible activities, on page 67, those effectively are 
identical to what is in the Dole bill, with the exception of one word. 
The Senator may be familiar with this, and that is on page 337, under 
paragraph O and line 20, which adds the word ``workfare.''
  So essentially all of the provisions of the Senator's bill were in 
there. We had other kinds of differences about the construct, but not 
in this area.
  Then there was the addition of the word ``workfare.'' Just the 
workfare under permissible activities, at least the way the bill was 
designed or appeared to this Senator, would open up the utilization of 
those funds for the welfare training programs. That is a reason for the 
observation.
  I welcome the clarification. I had a chance to read the Senator's 
statement a minute or two before, but I welcome at least what she 
intended. I certainly welcome the chance to work with her and try and 
remedy it.
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, yes, I will clarify the workfare 
addition to the permissible activities section. But first let me speak 
more generally about the Workforce Development Act, a measure which 
provides a substantial and dramatic reform of our current work force 
training and work force education systems. The linkage it provides 
between our training and education systems is, I think, enormously 
important.
  The Workforce Development Act was a separate bill, S. 143, that has 
been incorporated in the legislation that is before us; that is, the 
welfare reform legislation or, as it is called, the Work Opportunity 
Act.
  I want to emphasize from the outset that the Workforce Development 
Act is not a welfare program. It is a comprehensive effort to bring 
together myriad Federal programs--about 90 in all--serving everyone 
from high school vocational students to dislocated workers in America. 
These programs are brought together in a way that is going to help 
everyone. The new system will be far more beneficial to individuals in 
terms of offering realistic help in finding jobs that suit them and in 
identifying the market opportunities that actually exist.
  Several question whether these provisions should be included in a 
measure that focuses on welfare reform, and I understand the concern 
that misconceptions could occur. At the same time, because the relevant 
training activities for welfare and food stamp recipients must be 
provided by the single system created by the Workforce Development Act, 
this welfare bill provides the opportunity to consider, what I believe 
to be, a very important initiative. I will, therefore, strongly oppose 
any efforts to remove these titles from the bill.
  Our current patchwork system is ill-equipped to deal effectively with 
today's work force needs. The proliferation of training programs has 
instead resulted in duplication of effort and is the source of 
confusion for both employers and job seekers.
  Moreover, there is little evidence available to tell us what we have 
actually achieved in return for the $20-some billion we spend annually 
on all of these programs. The purpose of the Workforce Development Act 
of 1995 is to develop a single, unified system of job training and 
training-related education activities designed to ensure that:
  One, there is a logical relationship among formal education, job-
specific training, and the jobs available in our economy.
  Two, individuals who need assistance in obtaining employment are 
easily able to identify the resources available for that purpose.
  Three, there is a clear accountability for Federal dollars. To 
achieve this goal, Mr. President, the Workforce Development Act repeals 
all or a major portion of nearly a dozen Federal education employment 
and training statutes and some 90 programs that they authorize. The 
funds would be combined into a single authorization and distributed to 
States as block grants, but with accountability measures that ensure 
there indeed will be a means of monitoring what is to be achieved.
  Maximum flexibility will be provided to the States to design their 
own work force development systems, based on the following principles: 
One-stop delivery of job training services; support for school-to-work 
activities for youth; the development of benchmarks by which to measure 
results.
  In addition, private sector employers will be involved at all levels 
of the training system, including the Federal, State, and local levels.
  Finally, the legislation provides for a transition period during 
which States may be granted broad waivers from current regulations to 
begin consolidation.
  I think this legislation takes bold steps to reform our training and 
education programs. I think it is a valuable part of any welfare reform 
effort. More importantly, it is important for us as a country to be 
able to address in a far more realistic and effective way, how to help 
States design the programs that best fit their individual needs.
  At this point, I would like to speak specifically to the question 
that was raised in the press conference where Senator Kennedy indicated 
we were trying to pit welfare beneficiaries against laid-off factory 
workers and unemployed defense workers. I think it is important to 
clarify the provision which has been the source of a serious 
misunderstanding.
  The Workforce Development Act contains a section on activities for 
which work force training funds may be used. It is the same list as 
included in the committee-passed bill, but with one addition. That 
addition--workfare--is the source of the current confusion. 

[[Page S 11844]]

  It has been represented that this term was added to create a 
loophole, whereby all work force training funds could ultimately be 
diverted to welfare payments. That is simply not the case.
  I, too, would oppose the diversion of work force training funds to 
welfare payments. It was for that reason that I strongly opposed 
provisions included in an earlier draft of the Work Opportunity Act 
which would have permitted up to 30 percent of the work force 
development funds to be used for other activities in the bill. That 
transferability provision was deleted.
  So let me be very clear. Under no circumstances, may funds be taken 
out of State job training systems to be used to pay for welfare 
benefits or food stamps.
  On the contrary, any training activities conducted under a State's 
welfare or food stamp program must be carried out through the State job 
training system. That preserves the concept that training activities 
within a State will be carried out through a single system.
  The reason ``workfare'' was added to the list of permissible 
activities was to link a very specific existing food stamp employment 
and training program into the statewide job training system.
  Six States currently carry out workfare programs as a component under 
their food stamp employment and training program. The purpose of 
workfare is to improve the employability of individuals not working by 
providing work experience to assist them to move into regular public or 
private employment. In essence, it is another form of on-the-job 
training.
  The sole reason that this activity was added to the bill was to 
ensure that those States that currently conduct the food stamp workfare 
program can continue to do so through the statewide workforce 
development system established under title VII.
  In general, the overall food stamp employment and training program 
has not been a very effective job training program, Mr. President. 
Nevertheless, it remains a part of the food stamp initiative--an 
initiative which I believe is important.
  I am prepared to add clarifying language to assure that the intent of 
this language is completely clear. I hope, Mr. President, that my 
explanation clears up any misunderstandings about this issue.
  Before I yield the floor, I just want to say that I regret at this 
late hour to take such a long time on an issue to which we will return 
in September. But I am convinced, Mr. President, that there is an 
opportunity for both sides of the aisle to come together in a 
significant way to address welfare reform.
  I think it is an important issue. I, in no way, believe that the 
legislation that has been put forward by the Republican leader, Senator 
Dole, is one that minimizes or ruins our support system for those in 
need. I think, as a matter of fact, it strengthens it; it shows that 
there is an ability to work through some issues that are of concern on 
both sides of the aisle. At the end of the day, we are going to have a 
stronger, more effective, and more constructive program.
  I think that is an opportunity and we should seize it. I think we 
will when we come back in early September and address the issue.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator be good enough to yield for a question?
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. I do not know how much time I have.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Abraham). The Senator has 3 minutes.
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. KENNEDY. First of all, I want all of our colleagues to know--and 
I believe they know already--the respect that all of us on our 
committee, Human Resource Committee have for the work Senator Kassebaum 
has done in working through the job training and consolidation. We have 
certain areas that remain that we hope to be able to work through. I 
appreciate very much the clarification of the workfare provision 
because, as the Senator knows, nowhere in the legislation is workfare 
designed.
  So her explanation certainly gives us the legislative history about 
what the reason was for including it, because nowhere in the 
legislation is it defined. Generally, Governors have defined workfare 
whatever way they desired to do it, as an augmenting and supplementing 
way of providing assistance or jobs to welfare recipients. It has not 
been defined. And being included where it was could, at least under 
permissible activities, open up a range of different possibilities.
  Clearly, the Senator did not support it. I want to say that I look 
forward to working with the Senator not just on this issue, but on the 
other issues, to try and see if we cannot find common ground. We had 
some areas of difference. The Senator has been a strong supporter of 
the child care feature and programs, and also in the consolidation of 
training programs. So it is certainly our desire to try and find ways, 
and maybe this period of time will permit us the opportunity to do so.
  I thank the Senator.
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, I certainly would welcome the support 
of the Senator from Massachusetts for this legislation. I look forward 
to seeing if we cannot work these things out in September.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have 5 minutes 
to speak on welfare.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, Senator Dole has pulled down the welfare 
bill and, therefore, the amendments that I and others had prepared will 
not be offered today, tomorrow, or at any time during the remainder of 
the week. So I thought it was very important to outline what I see the 
issues to be and to make the point that some progress has been made, 
even though the bill was only on the floor for 2 days, with no formal 
amendments, other than a change that the leader himself sent to the 
desk and was approved.
  When we started this debate, there was a lot of common ground between 
Senator Dole's position and the position that I and other conservative 
Republicans have taken. But there were also some fundamental 
differences:
  First, I felt very strongly that we needed a binding work requirement 
which said, in no uncertain terms, that able-bodied men and women 
riding in the welfare wagon were going to be required to get out of the 
wagon and help the rest of us pull. I had concerns about the original 
Dole-Packwood bill that came out of committee because it did not 
contain a binding work requirement and because there was no enforcement 
mechanism to guarantee that people who refused to work would actually 
be dropped from the welfare rolls.
  I am very proud of the fact that yesterday Senator Dole decided, in 
what I viewed as a gesture toward consensus, to send a modification of 
his amendment to the desk to add the pay-for-performance provision that 
was part of both the House bill and the bill that I had proposed with 
24 other Republican Senators. This modification simply says that 
welfare should operate like any other process in America:
 if you do not show up for work, you will not get paid. This work 
requirement was added, I think it was a change in the right direction, 
and I think that as a result we are closer to a consensus today than we 
were 2 days ago.

  I want to see this bill changed to deal with illegitimacy. Under the 
current program, the illegitimacy rate has risen from 5 percent in 1960 
to almost 30 percent in 1990. Last year, roughly half of all the 
children born in the big cities in America and almost a third of all 
children born in the entire country were born out of wedlock.
  It is clear to me that a program which continues to give people more 
and more money to have more and more children while on welfare has got 
to be changed. I have agreed today, in talking to the majority leader, 
to sit down with him, to have our staffs sit down together, and to see 
if we can find an agreement to deal with illegitimacy. I think it is 
clearly necessary not just to pass a bill, but to change the welfare 
system in America.
  I feel very strongly that we should not continue to have immigrants 
coming to America, looking for a hand out rather than with their 
sleeves rolled up ready to go to work. I do not believe people ought to 
be able to come to America just to get welfare. We have room in America 
for people who want to come and work, for people who want to come here 
to realize their own American dream. 

[[Page S 11845]]

  We have children of immigrants in the U.S. Senate. Most of us are 
grandchildren or great-grandchildren of immigrants. We want people to 
come to America to build their dream, to build our dream, but we ought 
to end this practice of letting people come to America and immediately 
go on welfare.
  Senator Dole has agreed today--in fact, our staffs at this moment are 
meeting--to try to see if we can find language in this area that we can 
agree on, both to settle this issue and to make a fundamental change in 
this bill. I think if we can do that, then we are making progress 
toward a consensus.
  I want a smaller Federal bureaucracy. If we are going to give AFDC to 
the States, if we are going to let States run this building block of 
the welfare system, it seems to me we should not be keeping 70 percent 
of the program's Government employees at the Federal level with nothing 
to run. What are these people going to do other than to get in the way 
of States that are trying to reform the system?
  In working with Senator Ashcroft, I have proposed that we give those 
Federal programs which are going to be block granted to the States no 
more than 10 percent of the Government positions they have now, so that 
they can monitor what the States are doing. Although I would rather 
have audits by independent firms, I cannot see any logic in giving 
AFDC, a program which we are eliminating at the Federal level, the 
ability to keep 70 percent of their Government employees in place. Is a 
Government job the only immortal thing in the temporal world? I would 
answer no, but Congress continually says yes.
  Finally, I would like to expand the number of programs that we are 
giving to the States. We will try to block grant food stamps and I 
believe that there will be a cross section of Senators voting together 
in favor of this proposal.
  The point is that although some progress has been made, we need to 
continue to work. In the past, we have reformed welfare many times, but 
we have never truly changed it. I want this bill to be different.
  I yield the floor.

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