[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 137 (Wednesday, September 6, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12710-S12715]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      FAMILY SELF-SUFFICIENCY ACT

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, a recent paper by the Progressive Policy 
Institute leveled three criticisms at the Republican welfare reform 
plan. It is to generate short-term budget savings, the first charge 
leveled; to satisfy GOP Governors' demands for flexibility; and, 
lastly, to avoid making tough decisions.
  Now, obviously, that last statement is most ludicrous that the 
Progressive Policy Institute leveled against us because we have seen 
the Federal Government fail on welfare reform. You know, there was a 
massive effort made in 1988 at the Federal level to move people from 
welfare to work, to save the taxpayers money. We have seen 3.1 million 
more people on welfare now than before we passed our so-called welfare 
reform plan in 1988.
  In the meantime, we have seen States like Missouri, my State of Iowa, 
the States of Wisconsin, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Jersey--and I 
suppose there are a lot of others that ought to be named--reform 
welfare in a very ambitious way and in an ambitious way that we have 
not had the guts or the will to do here in Washington, DC, at the 
congressional level. And we have seen through State action people move 
from welfare to work and saving the taxpayers money. In my own State of 
Iowa we have 2,000 less people on welfare than 3 years ago when we 
passed the welfare reform plan. We have seen our monthly checks go from 
an average of $360 down to $340. And we have seen the highest 
percentage of any State in the Nation of people who are on welfare 
moving to work, at 35 percent.
  So can you believe it, Mr. President, that the Progressive Policy 
Institute would level a charge that we are trying to avoid making tough 
decisions when we have failed at tough decisions or we 

[[Page S 12711]]
have not made the tough decisions that should have been made and we 
have seen States make those tough decisions and be very successful in 
the process?
  Also, that second criticism that is leveled, to satisfy the GOP 
Governors' demands for flexibility, well, the history of welfare reform 
proves that when we have given States waivers so that they can do 
certain welfare reform things that we could not do here, we have seen 
that flexibility move people from welfare to work and to save the 
taxpayers money.
  So, obviously, it is ludicrous that we would have these sorts of 
charges leveled against us. But those three criticisms do reveal very 
key differences between Republican plans for welfare reform and 
Democratic plans for welfare reform.
  One of the things that sets the Republican effort apart from the 
Democrats is our unwillingness to apologize for our desire to balance 
the budget by the year 2002. We want to balance the budget because it 
is the right thing to do. By not having a balanced budget, we are 
living our lives at the expense of our children and grandchildren. 
Every child born today already owes $18,000 to the Federal Government, 
and will pay 80 percent of his or her lifetime income in taxes if we do 
not balance the budget and do it as soon as we said we were going to do 
it as well.
  Of course, not balancing the budget and passing on the costs to our 
children and grandchildren--and if one of those were born this very 
minute, and there are some at this very minute being born, they have 
$18,000 a year debt before they ever get out of the hospital.
  It is immoral, it is irresponsible, and it cannot continue. 
Republicans acknowledge that and we were elected to do something about 
it, and so part of the process of balancing the budget is to make sure 
that there are no sacred cows, to make sure that every program in the 
budget, every geographical section of the country contributes toward 
balancing that budget.
  So one of those programs that must be affected is the welfare program 
of the Federal Government, a program that we thought we reformed in 
1988, a program that has produced 3.1 million more people on welfare, 
and that is after increases in welfare had leveled off dramatically 
during the 1980's.
  Some people in this body would say that we have had the dramatic 
increase in welfare numbers, the 3.1 million I referred to, because we 
had a recession in 1991 and 1992. But not so, because if you go back to 
the recessions of 1975 and 1976, which were much deeper than the 
recession of 1991 and 1992, you will not find dramatic increases in 
welfare. In fact, you will find a decline in the number of people going 
on welfare.
  But if you study very deeply the reason why we have 3.1 million more 
people on welfare than we did when we passed the 1988 Welfare Reform 
Act, it is directly attributable to some of the changes that were made 
there.
  Welfare must be affected then. Welfare reform must come as part of an 
effort to balance the budget, even though welfare reform is a worthy 
goal in and of itself, even if we were not trying to balance the 
budget.
  Why is it worthy in and of itself? Because we have had 40 or 50 years 
of Federal AFDC programs that have encouraged dependency, discouraged 
independence, ruined the family, besides costing the taxpayers a lot of 
dollars.
  Are we saying that people who have problems that need help to get 
over a hump in their lives should be disregarded by Government? Not 
whatsoever. But we are saying that the program of helping people over a 
bump or a hump in their life, a period where maybe they were destitute 
and needed some short-term help, we are saying that should not become a 
way of life, and a program that provides that short-term help should 
not lead to greater Government dependency and lack of personal 
responsibility.
  So, in the effort to balance the budget, as we acknowledge that, we 
do not see reducing the budget as the reason for welfare reform, but we 
see that as a result. If we change welfare from a trap to a trampoline, 
we will spend less on the program in the long run. If it is a system 
that springs people to independence and removes generational effects of 
the current program, it will cost less. That is a result, that is not a 
reason for welfare reform.
  Another difference, after saying that a major difference between the 
Republican plan and the Democratic plan is that we believe in balancing 
the budget, but that is a result, that is not a reason for welfare 
reform, then another difference between our plan and that of our 
opposition is that we Republicans believe State leaders are more than 
capable of making good decisions on how to help the needy. We believe 
that Governors and State legislators and other State leaders, people 
closer to the grassroots, can create more innovative systems that 
actually work better to meet the needs of those who need some short-
term help over a hump, over a bump in their life. We do not believe 
that States should have to come, hat in hand on bended knee, to some 
Federal bureaucrat for permission to try some new idea. That is a very 
key difference between Republicans and Democrats.
  Thank God there have been some waivers given, and maybe that is one 
good aspect of the 1988 legislation, it did give States some leeway. 
But can you believe it? My State of Iowa adopted a program, and it was 
8 months before the Federal bureaucrats got done playing around with it 
so we got the approval to move ahead with a program that has 2,000 less 
people on welfare, reduced the monthly checks from $360 to $340 and has 
raised from 18 percent to 35 percent the percentage of people on 
welfare moving to jobs.
  Republicans think that States should have the flexibility to create 
systems that work for each State's population. We do not believe, as 
Republicans, that you can pour one mold in Washington, DC and out of 
that mold have a program that attempts with success and with good use 
of the taxpayers' dollars to handle the welfare problems of New York 
City the same way that we would in Waterloo, IA or, in the case of the 
Presiding Officer, Cleveland, OH.
  We think that leaders at the local and State level are going to get 
us more for our taxpayers' dollars, spend less of those dollars and 
probably move more people to work and have less dependency than what we 
will if we try to solve this with one uniform program that treats the 
welfare problems in New York City exactly the same way they are treated 
in Waterloo, IA.
  We Republicans acknowledge that the old one-size-fits-all approach of 
Washington, DC has been a disaster. It has not worked. It will not 
work, and Republicans are simply living with reality to want to change 
it, change it based upon the successes of States who have had more guts 
to experiment, to try dynamic new approaches to moving people from 
welfare to work than what we were willing to do at the Federal level.
  There is one more thing that I want to point out of this particular 
criticism, Mr. President. I believe Democrats are failing to realize 
that the American people have elected 30 Republican Governors. They, 
obviously, are saying that the Democrats have had their chance at 
working out these problems and nothing happened. Now Republicans are 
being given the opportunity, and we are taking it and we are making the 
most of it.
  The President ran on a platform promising to end welfare as we know 
it. Well, he failed. With a Democratic President in 1993, 1994, with a 
Democratic President for the first time in 12 years, a President who, 
in his opening speech to the Congress, reiterated what he said in the 
1992 election, that we are going to end welfare as we know it, we never 
had a proposal. So that administration has failed. That Congress has 
failed. The people chose the Republicans for a new Congress, and so we 
are giving the people what we said we would in the last election and 
what they said they wanted.
  Finally, Republicans are making tough decisions. We are admitting 
that we at the Federal level do not have a lock on ingenuity, or a lock 
on wisdom, and obviously we do not have a lock on compassion. We are 
acknowledging that there is creativity, that there is wisdom, and there 
is concern at the State level. We are humbly accepting that maybe we at 
the Federal level do not have all of the answers. There is an old 
saying, Mr. President, which is that insanity is doing the same old 
things and expecting different results.
  Well, that is what the Democrats are doing, I believe, with their 
welfare reform program. Republicans recognize that by giving up some of 
our power to the States and the people, we will have 

[[Page S 12712]]
better results both in terms of meeting the needs of low-income 
families and in terms of our efforts in balancing the budget. The 
criticisms of the Progressive Policy Institute are, of course, out 
there in the public with the intention of shaping us into changing our 
perspective. On the contrary, I think they simply let us know, as the 
majority party in this new Congress, that we are headed in the right 
direction by getting the Federal Government basically out of the 
welfare business, turning it over to the States, for the track record 
of the States in recent years has been a tremendous success compared to 
the failure of the last reform out of this Congress which, instead of 
producing savings, is costing much more. Instead of moving people from 
welfare to work, we have 3.1 million more people on welfare, a greater 
dependency on the Government, less personal responsibility, and 
obviously a great cost to the taxpayers.
  That is why I hope this body will ratify the work of the Finance 
Committee on the welfare reform proposal that came out of that 
committee. It came out of the committee with some bipartisan support--
all of the Republicans and a few of the Democrats--because I think that 
there is going to be a bipartisan effort on final passage, if we can 
get there. I believe, quite frankly, that whatever passes this body is 
going to be signed by the President. I do not think, even if he does 
not get the welfare reform that he wants--with the public cry for 
welfare reform and for moving people from welfare to work and saving 
the taxpayers dollars, and an understanding of that at the grassroots--
that this President would dare veto anything that we send.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Snowe). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Madam President, I know that the day has almost ended. 
Prior to the time that it does, I want to have just a few minutes to 
address one more time the Work First legislation, the pending piece of 
legislation, and my reasons for believing it ought to be adopted by our 
colleagues tomorrow.
  Before I describe again those reasons and our goals in drafting the 
legislation, let me reiterate my gratitude to the many Senators who 
have had much to do with the tremendous effort put forth by our caucus 
in proposing this legislation. Thirty Members of the Senate have 
cosponsored this bill, and that, in large measure, is due to the 
leadership of Senator Mikulski, Senator Breaux, and the remarkable 
efforts of a number of our colleagues who have had special interests in 
various pieces of the bill, and were instrumental in bringing us to the 
point of introducing the bill prior to the August recess.
  Let me also express my gratitude to the ranking member of the Finance 
Committee, Senator Moynihan, for his unparalleled leadership in this 
area, for all of the work he has done on this issue, for the many years 
he has provided us guidance, and for the terrific legislative 
accomplishments we have been addressing as we have debated this bill.
  The Family Support Act is really the foundation of our welfare reform 
system. And, as many have indicated throughout the day, were it not for 
that, we would not have made the progress that has already been well 
documented already in this debate.
  Madam President, there are four fundamental goals, as I see it, as we 
look to what we hope to achieve by the enactment of this legislation.
  First, we want real welfare reform. Second, we want to recognize that 
providing people with skills, providing people with new opportunities, 
and providing people with the wherewithal to get off welfare is really 
the primary objective of what we are doing. Work is a goal that I hope 
would unite all Senators, Republican and Democrat, as we attempt to 
accomplish our goals in this area.
  Third, and perhaps equally as important in many respects, we want to 
protect children. Of the 14 million AFDC recipients in the 5 million 
families who receive assistance through AFDC, 9 million are young 
children dependent upon the services and the resources that we provide 
through the infrastructure that exists today. Protecting children, 
ensuring that they have the opportunities to become productive adults, 
and ensuring that they can acquire the skills necessary to break the 
cycle of dependency if their parents cannot--protecting children ought 
to be a goal for everybody here, and certainly that is the goal of the 
Work First plan.
  Finally, we recognize that you simply cannot have meaningful welfare 
reform if you do not provide the funding. It is one thing to set goals. 
It is one thing to lay out a new infrastructure. It is one thing to 
assert objectives and to expect the States in some way to respond to 
all of those objectives and requirements within any new piece of 
legislation; but if they are not funded properly, we cannot expect any 
of those goals to be realized. Regardless of how elaborate and how 
pleased we may be with whatever infrastructure we create, we cannot 
expect those goals to be meaningfully realized without adequate 
funding.
  We want to ensure that, whatever it is we do, we understand up front 
how we are going to pay for it. Those are the goals.
  We want real reform. We want to emphasize work. We want to protect 
children. We want to ensure that, as we do those three things, we 
provide the necessary resources to do so.
  Madam President, I want to talk briefly tonight about each of those 
four goals and what it is we believe is so important and essential as 
we consider the strategies to achieve those goals. There are four 
specific strategies we have laid out in the Work First plan that we 
hope will convince any skeptic we are serious in our strong desire to 
build upon the things that have worked well, and to replace those 
things that have not worked as well as we would have hoped.
  Part of this effort involves changing the culture of welfare. We need 
to have people in those welfare offices who are there to provide more 
than just financial resources, who can be there to provide the kind of 
opportunities that people want as they walk into a welfare office--
people with an expectation that they want more than just money, with an 
expectation that they want to acquire skills, with an expectation that 
they want to break the cycle of dependency, with an expectation that 
they truly can change their lives.
  To do that we have to make welfare offices employment offices, 
recognizing that it is through employment and through opportunities to 
use acquired skills that people can acquire a dignity and a confidence 
about their lives that they do not have today. If we are going to do 
that, indeed, we have to retrain staff and refocus the whole concept of 
what the welfare office is about. We need to refocus this concept on 
work, on providing the training and opportunities necessary to make 
these services meaningful for the people who walk through those doors.
  We want to encourage States to consolidate and streamline the welfare 
infrastructure to ensure that, through a one-stop mechanism, we can do 
all that is possible with a visit to that particular office so that we 
do not require people to go from one office to the next to the next to 
the next in search of help.
  We also need to restore some common sense to this process. Common 
sense would say that yes, a father ought to be part of this process. 
Yes, we want to welcome the man back into the family. Yes, we recognize 
that two parents are better than one. Yes, we recognize the current 
system, in some respects, is penalizing families for staying together. 
We want to restore common sense to the system.
  We want to do all of this, not by boxing up the current system and 
shipping it to the States, not by simply saying to the States, ``You do 
it with fewer resources, with less real ability for Federal-State 
partnership. You do it.'' That is not the solution. That simply is 
shifting the problem to somebody else.
  We really hope we can avoid doing that with whatever course we choose 
to take during this debate. However we finally achieve our goal of 
changing the welfare culture, it is certainly our hope 

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that we simply do not expect the States to do it by themselves.
  To accomplish real reform, we have to start by changing the culture 
of welfare. We also want to redefine it--not just change the culture, 
we want to redefine it. We want to give it a new meaning, a new 
understanding, a new definition from that which has existed in the 
past.
  That is why we eliminate the program commonly referred as AFDC. We 
replace it with what we call temporary employment assistance. That is 
more than just a name change. Temporary employment assistance is a 
conditional entitlement. It says to welfare recipients that there is no 
more unconditional assistance. We will provide assistance subject to 
your willingness to take responsibility. If you are willing to take 
responsibility, we are willing to provide you with the tools to enable 
you to achieve change in your life, to achieve new opportunities for 
yourself and for your family.
  All recipients would be required to sign a parent empowerment 
contract, which puts into writing this reciprocity in a way that 
everyone understands, so there is no misinterpretation. It is in black 
and white. ``Yes, I will go find work. Yes, I will acquire the skills. 
Yes, you will help me do so. You will provide me with opportunities 
that I do not have today.'' It is all going to be written out so there 
is no misunderstanding.
  We require all able-bodied recipients to do as much as possible to 
achieve their goals in work. Even those who are not able-bodied would 
be required to take some responsibilities, even if they are not 
working. But there would be an appreciation of the need to take 
responsibility.
  So we do redefine the system. We try to break it out from past 
practice and clearly define what it is we are trying to do.
  Part of what we are trying to do is limit the length of assistance. 
We say that 5 years ought to be enough. Five years is applicable in 
just about all cases, but there are some very clear cases where that is 
inappropriate or not prudent.
  Certainly, children who live with someone other than their parent 
ought to be exempt. Certainly, those who are disabled, or caring for 
the disabled, need to be exempt. We both agree that mothers with 
children under the age of 1 ought to be exempt. Women in the third 
trimester of pregnancy, I believe of all people, ought to be exempt. 
Those living in high unemployment areas, that is above 8 percent--and 
there was a good colloquy this afternoon about what that means--should 
not be thrown into the street. You cannot expect someone to go out 
there and find a job when there are simply no jobs available.
  So we base all of those exemptions, Madam President, on set criteria, 
and that really is a fundamental difference between our bill and the 
bill introduced by our Republican colleagues. What the Republicans do 
is simply exempt a flat 15 percent. It does not matter if any of these 
categories would take the population in any given area beyond 15 
percent. If you are a woman in the third trimester of pregnancy and we 
have hit the 15 percent threshold, you are out of luck. If you are a 
child living with someone other than your parent and you need help and 
you are in an area where 15 percent has already been realized, you are 
out of luck. I really do not believe my colleagues on the other side 
want to do that, but that is what the bill says.
  So, Madam President, we understand the need to set a lifetime limit 
in most cases. But we also recognize the necessity of addressing the 
real needs and concerns and problems of individuals, the practical 
problems associated with real lives of people who do not fit any neat 
little box, any neat little description.
  We also recognize that you cannot dictate all this from Washington. 
It does not work. And, as we have seen already with the Family Support 
Act, providing opportunities for States to become workshops, become 
prototypes, become environments within which new ideas can be explored, 
can be very valuable.
  Giving States flexibility is absolutely essential, so we allow States 
to set benefit levels and eligibility and asset rules and income-
disregard policies. We recognize we are not going to require a one size 
fits all, that South Dakota is different from New York and Maine. So we 
want, as much as possible, to give States latitude, to give States 
flexibility, to give States the opportunity to experiment. And the Work 
First plan ensures that States are given that flexibility.
  So, Madam President, that is our first goal, to engineer real reform 
by creating a new infrastructure that allows us to provide assistance 
in a way that we have not done before. So we began with that.
  Then, as I said, our second goal is to give as many people as 
possible the opportunity to work. We prescribe five strategies to do 
that by attempting, in part, to reflect the values that many of us had 
the good fortune to learn early on. We call it Work First because that 
is really what we want to do. That is what we were all, hopefully, 
brought up to think--that in order to live our lives fully as American 
citizens, in order to achieve all that we want to do, we have to take 
responsibility, and part of taking responsibility means acquiring 
skills to work in whatever endeavor we may choose. That is part of what 
it is to become a productive citizen in this country. Whatever luxuries 
we may enjoy, whatever opportunities we may have, whatever benefits we 
hope to acquire, in part is dependent upon our ability and our desire 
to work. Those are not just South Dakota values, as ingrained as they 
are in most people in my State, but they are values that we find in 
every State of this country.
  So we require recipients to work. The goal is not simply to create 
jobs that do not exist today. What we want, as much as we can achieve 
it, is to ensure that we create those opportunities in nonsubsidized, 
private sector employment. We want people to be employed for the right 
reasons--not simply to occupy their day, not simply to pay off a 
Government debt, but truly to become involved in an activity, in a job 
function for which there is a reward other than the money they receive. 
So finding private sector employment is our first objective.
  So we require an intensive job search for the first 2 months. If no 
job has been achieved at the end of 6 months, we go to the second 
option: we require community service. We work with them to develop the 
kind of job skills and the discipline through community service that 
may ultimately give them the chance to apply those skills in private 
sector opportunities later on.
  There is a difference, as others have alluded to today, between our 
bill and the Republican bill in that regard. Our bill requires that 
this effort take place in 6 months. The Republican plan has no work 
requirement for 24 months.
  But again, Madam President, as I said just a moment ago with regard 
to our goal of real reform, when it comes to work we also recognize the 
need to give States flexibility--the flexibility of putting people to 
work through placement services or vouchers, by creating micro-
enterprise or self-employment concepts, by using work supplementation, 
by implementing a program like the GAIN program in Riverside, CA, the 
JOBS-Plus Program in Oregon, the Family Investment Program which has 
worked so well in Iowa--all of those options and many more would be 
available to any State that would so choose. We do not want to limit 
them. In fact, we want to expand the short list that I have already 
provided, giving States the flexibility to put people to work in 
whatever way they find to be the most appropriate.
  I could imagine in South Dakota there would be a lot of rural-related 
work, a lot of agriculture-related work, perhaps in some cases work 
having to do with forestry or tourism. But clearly every State would 
have definitions, different expectations, and certainly different 
strategies.
  We give States bonuses for putting people to work, bonuses for 
exceeding the work threshold, and bonuses based on job retention, not 
just placement. It is not enough just to acquire a job. We want to 
ensure that those people have the opportunity to stay in that job, to 
go beyond just the first month or 2 months or 3 months. We want to give 
people careers--not just jobs--careers that give them satisfaction and 
reward beyond just a check.
  Finally, and perhaps this is the most important--certainly our caucus 
feels that it is the most important-- if we 

[[Page S 12714]]
are going to create incentives for work, we have to abolish the 
disincentives that exist today. And there are two profound 
disincentives. The one that troubles me the most is to tell a young 
woman, we want you to work, but you have to leave your children 
somewhere to do so. We are not going to help you pay for it. We are not 
going to really make much of an effort to help you find adequate child 
care. We want you to work, and you have to take care of your children 
regardless of cost. We do not care if you only net $1 an hour. We want 
you to work. We cannot accept that.
  If we want real reform, then we owe it to those families to do our 
level best to help them find a way to take care of their children. I do 
not want to see 10 million children on the streets 10 years from now 
and everybody asking the question, as the distinguished ranking member 
said so eloquently in our caucus, ``How did it happen?'' I do not want 
to see more broken homes. I do not think any one of us ought to ask the 
question, How is it so many people today do not have the appropriate 
upbringing, and we are filling our prisons with people who do not know 
better, when there is no one at home to teach them right from wrong?
  It is no mystery to me why crime is going up, when two people in the 
same household have to work night and day to make ends meet, and 
oftentimes, because they cannot afford child care, rationalize that 
maybe it is OK to leave their children at home unattended day after 
day, night after night. That is unacceptable.
  Today 60 percent of AFDC families are mothers with children under 
six-- over half. And we are going to ask them to go out and get a job 
and somehow miraculously have an angel appear somewhere to take care of 
their kids while they do so. We cannot do that.
  Child care is critical. It enables people to work. It is an 
investment in our kids. But the Republican plan has no money for 
children. There is none in there right now. So I do not know how they 
expect to cope with that problem, if, indeed, they want to solve the 
work problem.
  As I said, it is great to lay out all these goals, and it is great to 
set up a new infrastructure that looks wonderful on a chart. But how 
great is it when you get down to the real issue, when you are going to 
tell someone they better find a job in a 6-month period of time, but 
there is no money for your children.
  Health and Human Services said that we need an additional $10.7 
billion to do it right over a 7-year period of time--$10.7 billion if 
we are going to do it.
  The second issue is health care. I do not blame anybody for not 
taking a job at a minimum wage in a McDonald's restaurant if all they 
get is $4.35 an hour and lose the health care their children have 
access to through Medicaid today. I do not blame them for doing that. I 
must tell you that if I were in that situation, I would do exactly the 
same thing. How can we say, ``We do not care if your kids get sick; you 
go out and flip hamburgers, and somehow your kid will get well without 
health insurance.''
  Madam President, we are better than that. Those kids deserve better 
than that. And providing them with transitional Medicaid coverage is 
just common sense.
  So that is how we handle work. Five strategies, five very specific 
ideas on how we get people out the door, confident that their children 
are cared for, confident that they have some real opportunities to 
change their lives.
  The third goal is protecting children, and so much of work and 
protecting children is interrelated. But ensuring that child care and 
health care and maintaining the safety net we have created for children 
is essential. If you are going to protect children, child care is a 
higher goal than simply the money we save, as important as that is, and 
I do not want to minimize it.
  Health and Human Services estimates the Republican plan has a 
shortfall of over $16 billion in protecting children, $10 billion in 
child care costs alone. That is the shortfall.
  Now, maybe somebody someday can give us a projection on what that 
savings will ultimately generate in additional costs. How much more 
will we pay later on for what we have saved today?
  Madam President, we have to protect children, so we put an exemption 
to the time limit for children in our plan. There ought not be any time 
limit for children. We want to give them all the time they need to grow 
into productive citizens. We want to provide them with every 
opportunity for rent, for clothing, for whatever other needs they have 
because it is not their fault they are in the position of needing 
assistance. It is not their fault that their parents do not have a job. 
It is not their fault that they were born into families that may or may 
not have any real chance of success. But I can tell you this: If we do 
not care for them, their chance of success is gone.
  We recognize as well that teenage pregnancy is something we have to 
address, so we ask that teen mothers be required to live at home or in 
some supervised group home. We require that teen parents stay in school 
so they have the skills they need to succeed in life.
  I have had the opportunity on occasion to talk to teen mothers who 
had no home and who were out there all by themselves, despondent, 
desperate, rejected. The chance for them is even less than all those 
who may have had some other opportunity.
  This is one area in which there ought not be a lot of State 
flexibility, in my opinion. I think it is critical that we address the 
teenage pregnancy problem, given our limited understanding of what is 
occurring there. No one has all the answers. But we recognize that we 
have to provide a safety net to the extent that it can be provided. We 
also recognize that we have a right to expect some responsibility. And 
it is that balance between a safety net and responsibility that always, 
in my view, has to be considered as we make our decisions with regard 
to policy options.
  We also have tough child support enforcement provisions. We base our 
provisions on those proposed by the distinguished Senator from Maine, 
the Presiding Officer, to improve interstate and intrastate collection.
  We require that noncustodian parents take responsibility, pay up, 
enter into a repayment plan or choose between community service and 
jail. I am told that the default rate on used cars is 3 percent. The 
default rate on child support is 50 percent in this country.
  We can do better than that, Madam President. And it is going to take 
tougher enforcement requirements, a realization that we can do a lot 
more than we have done so far in bringing people to the responsibility 
that it is going to take to make families families again, to give 
children the chance to be protected. That ought not just be a Federal 
or State responsibility; it must be a family and a parental 
responsibility. And the provisions of the Work First Act allow that to 
occur.
  Finally, as I said, Madam President, our fourth goal is to ensure 
that we do not have the unfunded mandates, that we all lament here from 
time to time. And I am deeply concerned--of all the concerns I have, 
other than child care and the protection for children in the Republican 
bill, the greatest second concern most of us have with the bill as it 
is now written is this requirement for States to do so many new things, 
but the absolute absence of resources to do so.
  We are not going to address the root causes of our problems if we 
simply rhetorically address them in new legislation without providing 
the resources. And there has to be an understanding of partnership. The 
Federal Government and the States can work together, local governments 
can work with the Federal Government, but there has to be a sharing of 
resources and an acquisition of resources in the first place to make it 
happen.
  The Republican bill increases requirements on the States 
dramatically, all kinds of new requirements that the States are going 
to be expected to do--a huge unfunded mandate. As I said, Health and 
Human Services says over the next 7 years that unfunded mandates will 
exceed $16 billion. So States are going to be left with one of two 
options: ignore them or cut benefits and increase taxes to pay for 
them.
  The costs are being shifted to the States and ultimately they will be 
shifted to localities and to the taxpayers, and in a mishmash of ways 
to acquire the resources that I think would be very unfortunate. We 
need to provide a guaranteed funding stream to 

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make this happen correctly. We do not want the Federal Government to be 
the biggest deadbeat dad of all. We do not want this bill to be the 
mother of all unfunded mandates. And yet I fear, Madam President, that 
is exactly what we are going to do unless we address the concerns that 
many of us have raised in this debate already. So that is really what 
we accomplish with this bill: No. 1, real reform; No. 2, an emphasis on 
work; No. 3, a desire and a mechanism to ensure that we protect 
children; and No. 4, the assurance that we are not going to create 
something that nobody wants, a huge new unfunded mandate.
  Madam President, I sincerely hope that tomorrow when the vote is 
taken, this can be a bipartisan vote, that a number of Republicans who 
care as deeply as any of us do about all that we have addressed tonight 
will join with us in passing a bill we believe can accomplish all that 
we want in changing welfare reform and changing the culture of welfare, 
in creating jobs, in protecting children. We can do that. We can do it 
tomorrow afternoon. We can do it by voting for the Work First bill.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Bravo.
  Mr. GRASSLEY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.

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