[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 141 (Tuesday, September 12, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S13329-S13333]
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.
Amendment No. 2488
Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the amendment of
my friend and colleague from Louisiana, Senator Breaux. I think if we
adopt the so-called Breaux amendment, we are preserving welfare as we
know it. President Clinton said we want to end welfare as we know it,
and I happen to agree with that line. But if we maintain or if we adopt
this maintenance of effort, as Senator Breaux has proposed--he has two
amendments, one at 100 percent and one at 90 percent--if we adopt
either of those amendments, we are basically telling the States: ``We
don't care if you make significant welfare reductions, you have to keep
spending the money anyway.''
So, there is no incentive to have any reduction of welfare rolls;
certainly, if you had the 100-percent maintenance of efforts. ``States,
no matter what you do, if you have significant reductions, you spend
the money anyway.'' That is kind of like ``in your face, big
Government, we know best; Washington, DC is going to micromanage these
programs anyway. Oh, yeah, we'll give money to a block grant, but if
you have real success, you have to spend the money.''
I think that is so counter to what we are trying to do that I just
hope that our colleagues will not concur with this amendment. This is a
very important amendment.
I just look at the State of Wisconsin. Currently, they are saving $16
million a month in State and Federal spending.
[[Page S 13330]]
Between January 1987 and December 1994, they experienced a 25-percent
reduction in their AFDC caseload. My compliments to them. I wish more
States would do more innovative things to reduce their welfare
caseload.
This amendment of my colleague, Senator Breaux, says, ``States, even
if you do that, if you have phenomenal success, you still have to spend
the money. You have to spend as much money as you did,'' and the year
that they picked, using the year of 1994, it was an all-time high for
AFDC caseload.
Between May 1994 and May 1995, nationally there was a reduction of
520,000 recipients on AFDC. So, he happens to pick the highest caseload
year as the base and then says, ``States, you have to maintain a level
at either 90 percent or 100 percent of that level. You have to spend
the money. You can't enjoy the benefits and allow your constituents to
maybe have more money for education, roads or highways, even if you
reduce your welfare caseload.'' In other words, let us make sure we
keep rolling out the State money.
I think that is a serious mistake. We will be voting on this, I
believe, shortly after the policy luncheons. I urge my colleagues to
vote no on the Breaux amendment.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time be
equally charged to both sides.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk
will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BREAUX. I ask the Chair how much time is remaining for both
sides.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana has 15 minutes; the
Senator from Pennsylvania has 9 minutes.
Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I yield myself 3 minutes.
Mr. President, I take this time just to try and conclude what we are
trying to do with my amendment.
We, in a bipartisan spirit, in joining with our Republican
colleagues, offered an amendment that simply says States should be
partners in welfare reform with the Federal Government; that the States
should be required to help participate and help fund welfare reform;
that it is not right, as the other body has done in their bill, to say
the States have to put up nothing; that it becomes a 100-percent
Federal burden and the Federal Government has to pay for the entire
cost of welfare. That is what the bill that passed the other body says.
It says there is no maintenance of effort on behalf of the States at
all, and that is wrong.
I think that we, in this body, clearly feel that the States should
have to participate financially in helping to solve these problems. It
is like we said before, if you spend somebody else's money, you can be
very careless in how you spend it. Therefore, if the States are
required to participate and put up some of their money, I think we will
all do a better job in crafting programs that, in fact, are truly
welfare reform.
Our legislation says that the States should participate by putting up
90 percent of the money that they put up in 1994. The Federal
Government will continue to put up 100 percent. If the States are able
to reduce their caseload by welfare reform, we are very pleased with
that. That is the goal. The Federal Government should participate in
those savings as well as the States participate in those savings.
The Republican bill, on the other hand, says we are going to continue
100 percent Federal funding for 5 years, no matter how much the State
government is going to be able to reduce the people on welfare, and
that is wrong. If there are savings to be made by fewer people on
welfare, then the Federal Government should benefit from those savings,
as should the State benefit from those savings.
That is what the bill says. That is why my amendment is scored by the
Congressional Budget Office to save $545 million in this program over
the next 7 years. That is real savings. If you vote against the Breaux
amendment, you are saying, ``I'm not interested in saving $545 million
to the Federal Treasury. I do not care. It is not important.''
Well, I think it is important. That is why we have tried to craft an
amendment that is balanced, that, in effect, saves Federal dollars as
well as it saves State dollars.
It is simply not correct to say under my amendment the States would
not be able to spend less on welfare. Of course they can. We want them
to spend less, but when they spend less, we want to be able to spend
less as well. That is a true partnership that has been in existence for
60 years.
It is incredibly wrong, in my opinion, to say for the first time we
are going to put all the burden on the Federal Government to pay for
the cost of welfare reform. It has to be a partnership if it is going
to work.
My amendment maintains that partnership and, at the same time,
provides for real economic savings, savings to the Federal taxpayer to
the tune of $545 million over 7 years. There is no doubt about that. It
has been scored by CBO. We think it makes sense.
With that, I yield back the remainder of the time on the 3 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time? The Senator from
Pennsylvania.
Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, the Senator from Louisiana keeps
bringing up the point about the Federal Government contributing 100
percent, not having the benefit of any savings. I just suggest to you
that if what we want to accomplish here is savings in the welfare
system, the 90-percent maintenance effort will do more to reduce those
savings than anything we have seen produced.
The fact of the matter is, yes, his amendment may be scored as a
reduction in Federal outlays. But I suggest, Mr. President, if you went
back to the Congressional Budget Office and said, ``What would be the
increase in State spending as a result of this amendment,'' you would
see that it would be more than offset in the reductions in Federal
spending.
What does that mean? That means from the average taxpayer who does
not care whether the money is being spent on the Federal level or State
level, they are going to pay more for welfare.
That is the bottom line here. It is not how much the Federal
Government saves, or how much the State government saves, or how much
we spend and they spend, but how much the taxpayers spend on the
program.
I think what your amendment will do is net result in higher welfare
expenditures. Sure, they will have to pay more State taxes or more
money to the State than the Federal if we equal them out dollar for
dollar in taxes.
The fact of the matter is your amendment will cause States to spend
even more money than what we save on the Federal side. I think that is
clear. I think that is your concern.
Do not try to approach this amendment that we are somehow being nice
to taxpayers. Taxpayers pay State taxes and Federal taxes. When you
tell them they have to pay more on the States, more than we save on
Federal, this is not a friendly taxpayers amendment. This will cost
more money to the average taxpayers in America, not less.
Just because we save a few dollars, they will be more than made up by
required increased expenditures on programs that are being dramatically
reduced.
I have a table that shows from just 1993 to 1994, and I say to the
Senator from Louisiana that we have even seen more reductions in
welfare caseload from 1994 to this year because of other programs being
put into effect.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record this table
showing the change in the average number of AFDC recipients from 1993
to 1994.
There being no objection, the table was ordered to be printed in the
Record, as follows:
TABLE 1. CHANGE IN AVERAGE NUMBER OF AFDC RECIPIENTS: 1993-94
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Increase
State Number of Percentage or
people change decrease
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alabama.............................. -7,685 -5.50 decrease.
Alaska............................... 1,610 4.42 increase.
Arizona.............................. 4,270 2.17 increase.
Arkansas............................. -3,381 -4.65 decrease.
California........................... 176,725 7.18 increase.
Colorado............................. -4,258 -3.45 decrease.
Connecticut.......................... 4,422 2.74 increase.
[[Page S 13331]]
Delaware............................. -184 -0.66 decrease.
District of Columbia................. 7,247 10.86 increase.
Florida.............................. -25,116 -3.62 decrease.
Georgia.............................. -4,830 -1.21 decrease.
Guam................................. 1,754 32.24 increase.
Hawaii............................... 6,140 10.99 increase.
Idaho................................ 1,875 8.80 increase.
Illinois............................. 23,431 3.40 increase.
Indiana.............................. 5,217 2.47 increase.
Iowa................................. 9,189 9.09 increase.
Kansas............................... -1,386 -1.57 decrease.
Kentucky............................. -16,800 -7.47 decrease.
Louisiana............................ -14,540 -5.53 decrease.
Maine................................ -3,114 -4.62 decrease.
Maryland............................. 603 0.27 increase.
Massachusetts........................ -18,349 -5.64 decrease.
Michigan............................. -22,342 -3.25 decrease.
Minnesota............................ -4,479 -2.34 decrease.
Mississippi.......................... -13,002 -7.57 decrease.
Missouri............................. 1,989 0.76 increase.
Montana.............................. 256 0.74 increase.
Nebraska............................. -2,970 -6.16 decrease.
Nevada............................... 2,487 7.06 increase.
New Hampshire........................ 862 2.92 increase.
New Jersey........................... -13,974 -4.00 decrease.
New Mexico........................... 6,856 7.19 increase.
New York............................. 58,150 4.86 increase.
North Carolina....................... -2,167 -0.65 decrease.
North Dakota......................... -2,060 -11.12 decrease.
Ohio................................. -34,182 -4.76 decrease.
Oklahoma............................. -6,851 -4.96 decrease.
Oregon............................... -3,654 -3.10 decrease.
Pennsylvania......................... 11,772 1.94 increase.
Puerto Rico.......................... -7,539 -3.97 decrease.
Rhode Island......................... 1,116 1.81 increase.
South Carolina....................... -6,932 -4.73 decrease.
South Dakota......................... -999 -4.97 decrease.
Tennessee............................ -11,186 -3.60 decrease.
Texas................................ 5,882 0.75 increase.
Utah................................. -2,731 -5.19 decrease.
Vermont.............................. -732 -2.56 decrease.
Virgin Islands....................... 12 0.32 increase.
Virginia............................. 277 0.14 increase.
Washington........................... 3,458 1.20 increase.
West Virginia........................ -4,681 -3.93 decrease.
Wisconsin............................ -10,713 -4.52 decrease.
Wyoming.............................. -1,884 -10.33 decrease.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, what it will show is that we have seen
State after State--Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Florida,
Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan--many States who have
already reduced their caseload or are in the process through welfare of
reducing it more, and the amendment of the Senator from Louisiana will
make them spend as much money, although they have less on the caseload.
That just is not right. That penalizes States for doing exactly what
they want them to do. I think it is a well-intentioned amendment. I
understand the concern for the race to the bottom.
But the Dole, as modified, bill provides adequate safeguards to make
sure that States are not going to eliminate their welfare expenditures.
I think it does so in the context of encouraging welfare reform on the
State level.
I reserve the remainder of my time. I suggest the absence of a
quorum. I ask unanimous consent that the time be divided equally.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BREAUX. I yield myself 3 minutes.
We have had a lot of discussion as to the amendment that I propose
which requires the State to participate and how it affects the States.
I mentioned a number of Governors who have spent a great deal of time
on this effort, including the former chairman of the National
Governors' Association, Governor Howard Dean of Vermont. I quote him:
I support the concept of State maintenance of effort as
envisioned by Senator Breaux and other Senators. States
should provide adequate levels of support for welfare
programs to prevent a ``race to the bottom.''
The Governor of Colorado, Gov. Roy Romer:
The Federal-State partnership is an essential component in
a strategy designed to provide families with temporary
assistance to help them achieve or regain their economic
self-sufficiency. We are particularly concerned that if
States reduce their commitment to these programs, then
responsible States will become magnets for displaced welfare
clients.
These Governors are recognizing that, yes, States ought to have to be
required to participate in solving welfare problems, that we should not
engage in a race to the bottom as could happen if we have no
requirement that the States actively participate.
Equally as important, Mr. President, is the comment by the chairman
of the U.S. Catholic Conference, the domestic policy chair, the Most
Reverend John Ricard, auxiliary bishop of Baltimore who said:
We urge you to pass genuine reform which strengthens
families, encourages work, promotes responsibility, and
protects vulnerable children, born and unborn, insisting that
States maintain their current financial commitment in this
area.
Catholic Charities President, Fred Kammer, said:
In exchange for Federal dollars and broad flexibility,
States should be expected to maintain at least their current
level of support for poor children and their families.
Mr. President, I think it is very clear the distinguished Governors
and other distinguished social experts in their field have recognized
the importance of requiring States to continue to participate.
That is, in fact, what the Breaux amendment does. We do it and at the
same time save the Federal Government $545 million over the next 7
years as estimated by the Congressional Budget Office. That partnership
is absolutely essential. To say the States would not have a requirement
to be able to be participants in this process I think is the wrong
message.
I say under our amendment, States clearly would reduce the amount of
money they spend, and after it is reduced by more than 10 percent, the
Federal Government will be able to reduce our contribution so that
there should be joint savings by people who pay Federal taxes, as well
as by people who pay State taxes.
It is wrong to maintain 100 percent Federal requirement as the
Republican position does even if there are reductions in the amount of
people on welfare and any particular State.
Both sides should say the States have the flexibility to cut up to 10
percent under my amendment and still get 100 percent Federal funding.
If they cut further than that, if they decide to spend more money on
roads and bridges, well, then, the Federal Government ought to have the
right to spend less, as well. If they do so because they reduce the
number of people on welfare, we should benefit from those savings, as
well.
That is what a true partnership is all about. That is what the Breaux
amendment tries to accomplish. And I think it is important to know
there is a bipartisan effort here. This is not a party difference, it
is a question of how we achieve a mutual goal of true welfare reform.
I reserve the remainder of my time.
Mr. COHEN. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Maine. Does he
wish to speak in support? What time does he require?
Mr. COHEN. Not more than 5 minutes.
Mr. BREAUX. I am happy to yield 5 minutes to the Senator.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the Breaux
maintenance of effort provision. While I want to let States step up to
the plate and implement innovative welfare to work programs with the
assistance of Federal Government--not interference--I believe a
Federal-State partnership is a key part of successful welfare reform.
Therefore, Congress must make a strong statement on the need for State
investment in welfare.
We need to encourage States to provide their own funds as a condition
of receiving the Federal block grant. Under current law, States have an
incentive to spend their own money on AFDC and related programs. That
incentive is the Federal match. Fourteen States receive one Federal
dollar for each State dollar they invest. The rest of the States
receive more than a dollar-for-dollar match.
Under Senator Dole's maintenance provision, States can satisfy the
requirement by spending money on any program which is modified or
altered in any way by the Dole bill. This would mean State spending on
food stamps, State foster care, Head Start, or even SSI State
supplemental benefits would satisfy the requirement in the Dole
amendment.
I support the Breaux amendment to require a State match, using a
formula of a dollar for dollar to determine the Federal match for each
welfare dollar a State spends. If a State reduces its spending below 90
percent of its 1994 spending on AFDC and related child care programs,
administrative costs, and job training and education funds--for each
dollar the State spends below that threshold, the Federal grant to the
State will be reduced by $1.
This amendment is extremely important. It maintains an incentive for
a
[[Page S 13332]]
State to spend its own resources to aid its own people. Understand,
however, that the State match does not require a State to spend money.
If a State is successful in trimming its caseload or cutting
administrative costs, there is no requirement that it maintain its
spending. But if a State is going to realize savings in the welfare
program, I think the Federal Government should share in the savings,
too.
Mr. President, I have listened to the debate with considerable care,
and I must say I find myself in agreement with at least the very last
point made by the Senator from Louisiana about the need to try to
approach welfare reform on a bipartisan basis, because I do not think
either Republicans or Democrats necessarily have the right solution. I
have read a great deal by sociologists. I have listened to the
commentators on television, those who are advocating change. There is a
general consensus that we have to change the system, but there is no
agreement on what those changes should be, and few are confidently
predicting what the ultimate consequences of any reform are likely to
be.
It seems to me that welfare recipients generally can be divided into
three groups. On the one hand we have people who lose their jobs after
working years and years and are temporarily in need of assistance and
should have that assistance. There are those at the other end of the
spectrum that I think we all recognize that, by virtue of some
disability or some other handicap as such, they are unable to work and
they deserve our support and not our scorn. Then there are those in the
middle category, people whom we feel generally should be expected to
work, who have been caught up in a cycle of welfare over decades, if
not generations, even though they would seem able to work. We have to
reform the system in order to encourage, if not require, these people
to break the cycle by entering the workforce long-term.
So I have looked at the various proposals, and I come to the
conclusion, after listening to my colleague from Louisiana, that there
should be a maintenance of effort undertaken by the States. A couple of
reasons lead me to that conclusion. On the one hand, I believe, as my
colleague from Maine, Senator Snowe, and also my colleague from Vermont
indicated, there is a partnership between States and the Federal
Government. The State is under no requirement to spend $1. The State
does not have to spend anything if they do not want to. They can decide
they do not want to take care of welfare recipients; that those who are
out of work, either voluntarily or involuntarily, that is not their
problem. But States that take this view should not expect to continue
to receive the same amount of Federal welfare dollars.
Without a maintenance provision, some States may engage in a race to
the bottom by setting their benefits low to discourage residents in
States providing minimum benefits from moving to States with more
generous benefits. This concern has been dismissed by opponents of this
amendment but remember: For years, many conservatives have argued that
welfare recipients moved from State to State to get generous benefits.
In a recent survey done in Wisconsin, 20 percent of newly arrived
Wisconsin welfare recipients admitted that they had moved to get a
bigger check.
We must also address the vulnerability of the new block grant program
to cost-shifting. Increasingly, we have seen States which excel in
shifting recipients in the general assistance and AFDC programs into
the SSI Program, a program funded entirely by Federal dollars. By
shifting their cases to the SSI Program, the States can be big winners:
States are able to recoup interim general assistance payments that they
provide to the beneficiary, from the date of application for SSI to
determination of SSI eligibility. Even more important, States will
avoid future costs by shifting populations to a program entirely funded
by the Federal Government. One State contracted with a for-profit
corporation at a cost of $2.7 million to shift cases from the State's
disability rolls to the SSI Program. The State enjoyed net savings of
$27 million in 1992 because of this concentrated effort to more people
to the SSI Program.
I predict that we will see additional cost-shifting onto the Food
Stamp Program. Without a strong maintenance of effort provision, States
who retain food stamps as a Federal program can do what other States
are already doing--pay lower AFDC benefits. When that happens the
Federal Treasury will bear the burden as the food stamp benefit
increases because the cash benefit is low.
We must steer away from doing anything to encourage States to make
unreasonable cuts in their welfare spending. We do not want Federal
programs to become a magnet for new recipients who hope that the
Federal Government will absorb reductions by the State. This increases
budget costs for the Federal Government. Just as important, the results
we hope to attain through reform of welfare have only a small chance of
being realized because we have excused the States from shared fiscal
responsibility.
For these and other reasons, Mr. President, I wanted to indicate I
intend to support the Breaux amendment, and I yield the remainder of my
time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, in the couple of minutes left before
concluding our side of this debate, I just suggest this really boils
down to whether you really want to see dramatic reform or not and
whether you want to see dramatic savings in the welfare system.
Because, if you require States to keep 90 percent of maintenance of
effort, what you will do is create a disincentive in an approach that
was supposed to be the maximum incentive to welfare reform; to get
welfare savings for the taxpayer--to do both.
I think it is pretty clear this is sort of a moderating attempt to
try to make welfare reform not as dramatic as it could be. I think that
is unfortunate. I think what the public has demanded on the issue of
welfare is that you cannot go too far in trying new things to get
people off welfare, to get people on to work, to reduce the amount of
expenditure that we have.
I remind all Senators that, even under the Republican plan as it
exists today, welfare spending will go up 70 percent--70 percent--over
the next 7 years. It was scheduled to go up 77 percent. We have it go
up only 70 percent. That is hardly dramatic, but it is something. It is
a start in the right direction, at least, because we believe even
though the Federal expenditures on welfare will go up 70 percent, we
believe State expenditures will come down and come down dramatically.
We are willing to make that tradeoff because we believe ultimately the
taxpayer is going to benefit more from this proposal because of lower
State expenditures even though the Federal Government is going to
maintain a relatively high level of expenditures.
I am hopeful we can look to the goals of this, the Dole substitute,
which is dramatic, ingenious, inventive reform, to get people back to
work, all at a savings of taxpayers' dollars on the Federal level and
even more dramatically on the State level.
If this amendment is adopted, we will see less reform, less
innovation, and more money spent overall on welfare. And that is not
what the goal of this welfare reform debate should be.
I yield the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana has 2 minutes 50
seconds left.
Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, do I understand we have an agreement that
there will be 4 minutes after we return?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, has the Republican side yielded back their
time?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
Mr. BREAUX. What do I have left? Do I have any?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. A minute and a half.
Mr. BREAUX. I would say, Mr. President, when we return after the
party
[[Page S 13333]]
caucuses, we will be, of course, voting on this amendment. I think,
from our perspective, this has been a real effort at trying to reach a
bipartisan agreement. We have Republican cosponsors and we have
Democratic cosponsors of this effort. It is an effort to try to achieve
a partnership between the States and the Federal Government.
The States should be required to participate. The Federal Government
is required to participate. When savings are achieved, which they will
be, both sides should benefit from those savings. When States spend
less money because they have fewer people on the welfare rolls, the
Federal Government should have to contribute less money, not the same
amount. That is why our amendment clearly is scored by the
Congressional Budget Office as saving $545 million over the next 7
years. Those are important savings. Without my amendment, they will not
be achieved.
I think this amendment continues the participation that we have had,
allows the States to be inventive as to different types of programs
they come up with, but requires them to participate. The Federal
Government should not have to pay 100 percent of the cost of welfare.
The States should participate, and jointly, together, we can produce a
better result.
With that, Mr. President, I yield the remainder of our time.
____________________