[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 141 (Tuesday, September 12, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S13345-S13356]
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. 2472

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Amendment 2472 is now pending.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Mr. President, this is kind of an interesting 
place to pick up, following the child voucher amendment. This, again, 
is separate and distinct from that. If anything, the child voucher 
amendment really is the most important in terms of the children.
  This next amendment goes to the adults. What do we do about the 
parents? In that regard, as we know the underlying legislation calls 
for States to provide work experience, assistance in finding employment 
and other work preparation activities, section 402(A)(2) of the bill.
  One of the uncertainties in the legislation, uncertainties that CBO 
spoke to, that many of the speakers on this issue have noted, is that 
the States have not yet geared up to do this. Only a few will be ready 
to move forward.
  We have the example of Wisconsin. I understand in a couple of 
counties there they have already moved to a work assistance kind of 
program, an initiative. Other States have tried it. Under the Family 
Support Act, those kinds of work-training experiments and initiatives 
are encouraged.
  The point is that a lot of States have not yet moved to that. The 
question is whether or not the States will actually do so, whether they 
will actually move to employment training, work preparation, work 
experience, assistance in finding employment for individuals. Again, 
the CBO estimates that there is not enough funding in the bill to do 
that.
  This legislation says that the State should not just kick somebody 
off of assistance--this is as to the adults, not the children, as to 
the adults--the States should not kick the adults off unless they have 
provided work assistance.
  Now, HHS has estimated that under the leadership plan, some 2.9 
million people would be required to participate in a work plan under 
the plan. That is fine. The point is that in terms of the number of 
dollars to meet that participation rate there is not enough, it is also 
estimated we need 161 percent more dollars than presently provided in 
the legislation.
  Clearly, there is a dissonance, a gap in the interesting goal and our 
intent to provide work and job training assistance and our dollars that 
will flow to do so. We do not know how that will come out. It creates a 
great uncertainty.
  It seems to me that, again, as a bottom line--as to the adults--we 
ought to make it clear that States should not just kick people off 
without providing them with some assistance.
  I encourage my colleagues to take a good look at this. Again, we have 
the numbers from CBO regarding whether or not their respective States 
will be able to meet the work requirements and not have a penalty. Most 
of the States will not. It is estimated only 10 to 15 States already 
are geared up sufficiently to provide the kind of work assistance that 
the bill, the underlying legislation, calls for.
  All this amendment says is that States must provide those services in 
terms of job assistance and the like if they are going to cut people 
off at a time certain, whether it is 5 years, 2 years, 1 year, 6 
months, or whatever the time limit is.
  Again, this State responsibility amendment, if anything, goes to 
providing the parents with some comfort level that in the event there 
are no jobs in their area, in the event the State has not been able to 
get them into some kind of gainful employment, that they will not 
thereby lose their ability to feed themselves and to provide for their 
children.
  I point out, Mr. President, also that this amendment only requires 
that the States deliver the services to those recipients that the State 
decides need to have those services. That is not to say they have to 
provide everybody with 

[[Page S 13346]]
job training. The State can make decisions as to who has to go into job 
training or receive education.
  We are not fooling with States' flexibility with this amendment. What 
we are saying in those instances, and there are instances where either 
there are no jobs or the State has not been able to figure out a way to 
get people transported to where the jobs are located, or, 
alternatively, the individual has been trained for a job but the job 
does not exist any longer, in the event that happens, they will not be 
denied assistance.
  I think Mr. President, given the fact we have huge dissonances in our 
economy, again, this is a response to poverty this amendment is needed. 
It is not the answer to it but it is a start.
  The answer to poverty, which is where the Senator from Pennsylvania 
and I are most in agreement, the answer to resolving poverty is to look 
at the underlying economic issues and to create an environment in which 
jobs get created, that people can go to and earn a sufficient living to 
support their families. That ought to be our objective, and I think 
that will be our objective as we take up these issues.
  As we talk about what is our interim response to poverty, if welfare 
is that response, we ought to make certain that we do not wind up just 
throwing people over the edge of the Earth because we have failed to 
actually address the fundamental issue of economic dislocations.
  Mr. President, I do not know if you were in committee--I know the 
Senator from Pennsylvania was there--the other day when we were talking 
about this. In my own State, there are areas of my State where there is 
1 percent private employment. One percent private employment.
  Mr. President, that is not a recession or depression. That is 
economic meltdown. If an individual lives in an area where there is 1 
percent private employment, then the question becomes where, pray tell, 
are they going to work?
  This chart shows areas of high unemployment in the city of Chicago 
specifically, but I was in southern Illinois just this weekend and the 
single biggest complaint and cry I heard there was about the huge 
unemployment and dislocations caused by closing of the coal mines. We 
had not gotten to the point of economic development there, to provide 
people with alternatives to working in the mines. In areas of the city 
of Chicago, there is a community with 72.3 percent poverty rate. 
Unemployment is 43.4 percent. Given the way we count unemployment 
numbers, that is only counting the people that have been in the job 
search for the last 6 months, so a lot of the people in this category 
have given up looking, so the numbers are even higher.
  These numbers, Mr. President, again, these numbers in certain 
segments are even higher. Again, I point to what I thought was the most 
stunning, stunning example, and that was the area that had 1 percent 
private employment.
  Until we figure out how to get capital into those communities, until 
we figure out how to get jobs created in those communities, we will 
have to do something. I dare say the States will have to come up with 
transportation initiatives to move people out of their neighborhoods to 
neighborhoods where the jobs are or figure out some public service; 
they will have to work through these plans.
  That is the whole import of this devolution of welfare, sending it to 
the States, is tell them, ``You go figure this out.''
  As we do that, the question becomes, what about these individuals 
that get caught up and for whom there are no options? I dare say, Mr. 
President, we have an obligation to see to it that these individuals--
and, again, every State has them, I have numbers even for the Presiding 
Officer's State--but as we go through this experiment, I do not think 
we have the luxury of being generous with the suffering of others, and 
that we want to really, really put ourselves in a position where people 
who want to work but cannot find work wind up with absolutely nothing 
and with no help from their State in helping them to do better and to 
do for themselves and to provide for themselves and their families.
  With that, Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the second 
State responsibility amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, the Senator from Illinois knows how much I 
appreciate her efforts and how much she tries to do good here on the 
floor. Certainly, what she is talking about here is something that is 
very alluring and very tempting, if you do not care where the moneys 
are coming from, if you do not really care about trying to reach a 
position whereby we live within our means.
  Under the Moseley-Braun amendment that is currently being debated, it 
prohibits the States from imposing a time limit if the States fail to 
provide job-related services, that is work experience, work preparation 
activities. So, if the State fails to do that, then the State cannot 
impose a time limit on how long a person has to get to work.
  The things that can be said for this amendment, it seems to me, are 
that a State should not be able to cut recipients off without providing 
them training to become self-sufficient. And the second point would be 
the States will not be willing to spend money on recipients that need 
extensive services. At least that is the argument.
  But when you look at the other side of the argument, that is, when 
you have to stop and think is this the right thing to do if we want to 
get spending under control, if we want to have a true welfare reform, 
if we want everybody on a equal level, if we want a level playing field 
and everybody understands the rules and lives within them, then you 
have to look at the fact that this, some believe, and I am one of them, 
is a back-door attempt at continuing the entitlement.
  Let us be honest about it. Entitlement programs have been eating the 
budget alive. They go on and on, up and up, without any controls, no 
ceilings, no lids, no nothing. Gradually, demand always outstrips 
supply when you make something free. That is just the way it is. It is 
human nature. People take advantage. And this would really allow an 
entitlement program to continue.
  Second, it would create a new entitlement which requires States to 
provide services. One of the reasons we are doing this welfare reform 
bill is to try to end these escalating entitlement programs, to get 
spending under control, face our problems, but face them within an 
authorization process that says this is the limit to where we are 
going, we are not going to go beyond that. We are going to be fair, we 
are going to try to take care of people--we do not want anybody to be 
without a work life experience, we do not want to have people without 
appropriate training--but this is what we are going to spend this year. 
If we find that does not cut it, does not make it, we can always 
increase the authorization and appropriation to take care of it. But we 
do not need to create new entitlement programs which are programs that 
go on regardless of what Congress says. They keep going up and up and 
up as people take advantage of them.
  The third point is this opens the States up to lawsuits from 
recipients who claim they do not get the type of training they want, 
rather than the type of training the State thinks they need. So any 
time a recipient or potential recipient feels he or she is not getting 
what they want, even though the State is providing job training and 
other forms of training and education, they can turn around and sue the 
State and say, ``I am not getting what I want,'' and the State finds 
itself embroiled in litigation.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. HATCH. That is not the way it should work.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Will the Senator from Utah yield?
  Mr. HATCH. I will be happy to yield.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. This section of the bill, 402 of the legislation, 
refers to the State and the definition of the eligible State. It would 
be my understanding of the operation of law that here, this would not 
confer standing upon an individual to sue. This section of the bill 
relates to the State's obligations vis-a-vis its development of its 
plan. So this is not calling on the States to do anything but abide by 
its own plan. It would not, however, confer standing on an individual 
to sue with regard to enforcement of that plan.

[[Page S 13347]]

  Mr. HATCH. As I read it, it does; it is the failure of the State to 
provide work-related activity. The amendment reads:

       The limitation described in paragraph (1) shall not apply 
     to a family receiving assistance under this part if the State 
     fails to provide the work experience, assistance in finding 
     employment, and other work preparation activities and support 
     services described in [this] section.

  I contend that does give a right to sue to recipients.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Again, this section amends lines 13 through 18 on 
page 25 of the bill which relates to State planning. Again, without 
debating----
  Mr. HATCH. No, according to this amendment, it amends page 40 between 
lines 16 and 17.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. I am sorry, that is correct.
  Mr. HATCH. If I go to page 40, amending section requirements and 
limitations and put this in between lines 16 and 17, the Senator 
provides for an entitlement. It seems to me the Senator provides for a 
means whereby people can bring litigation if they do not get their way. 
That just is not the way we can run the business here.
  We have to presume that when we provide these funds, the States are 
going to utilize them properly and they are going to provide job 
training or work-related programs that work. What you do is make it 
another entitlement, which is what is eating our country alive.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. No, sir--will the Senator yield?
  Mr. HATCH. Sure.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Again, on page 43, lines 16 to 17, those sections 
refer to the development of the State plan, and the amendment says the 
limitation described in paragraph (1) shall not apply to a family if 
the State fails to provide work experience, assistance in finding 
employment, and other work preparation activities, support services 
described in section 402(a)(1)(A)(ii).
  Again, the issue of standing is a different one. Whether we argue--we 
can debate the issue on the entitlement, whether or not this creates an 
entitlement. But on the issue of standing, I think for the record it is 
really important to make clear this is not allowing and it is not the 
intent of this sponsor to allow an individual cause of action, right of 
action under this section. It only goes to the development of the 
State's plan and administration of the plan.
  Mr. HATCH. If you look at the way it is written, it certainly does. 
Frankly, that is one of the reasons--only one of the reasons--I think 
the amendment is inadvisable, even though I have to acknowledge I 
appreciate what the distinguished Senator is trying to do. But we just 
plain--I think the big argument is, this is another entitlement that 
continues to go on and on and escalate on and on, and to which there is 
no lid, there is no cap. It is a never-ending type thing that just puts 
us into even more of a budgetary difficulty than we have been in 
before.
  All of us want to help people who do not have the training. We know 
the way to get people off welfare is to get them trained; give them job 
training, give them the education, the vocational education and other 
things that will help them to become self-supporting, self-sufficient 
citizens.
  But we want to get away from the entitlement approach, which just 
allows people to make ingenious arguments that they should have 
something that really the State has not provided or does not think it 
is advisable to provide. I do believe, if you read this carefully, it 
is subject to litigation.
  But be that as it may, the fourth reason I would give as to why we 
really should not support this amendment is that this is similar to the 
Daschle bill, in that it says there is a time limit, but there are so 
many exemptions that there is not really a time limit.
  The major exemption is this. It creates a loophole. Those who are 
deemed by the State as work ready can insist on going through job 
training and other services in order to avoid work in the private 
sector. That is one of the things that this amendment will do. And 
there are people who take advantage after advantage after advantage of 
the job training and other services, rather than having to go get a job 
in the private sector and work every day and do what they should do, 
support themselves and/or their families if they have a family.
  Again, I have to say that I know what the distinguished Senator is 
doing. I know her heart is right. I know she is trying to do what is 
right. But it is a difference in philosophy.
  We have had 60 years now of entitlement programs that have been 
eating the American public, the taxpayers, alive and not doing the job. 
They are not doing the job. In fact, they are doing a lousy job, and 
they are eating us alive, they are ruining the country. And now we are 
going to add another entitlement to this when we write a bill that 
literally will get job training and other related services to the 
people as they need it. And we have the States develop and administer 
these programs.
 The States are in a better position to do it than the Federal 
Government.

  Just look at what entitlements have meant. We are talking about just 
AFDC spending. They are not all entitlements. From 1947 to 1995, in 
current dollars, we have gone since 1947 in AFDC spending from $106 
million--that is current dollars--to $18 billion. And we are worse off 
today than we were then. That is a 17,000-percent increase, a lot of 
which is driven by the entitlement nature of a number of these 
programs.
  If you use constant dollars, constant 1995 dollars, it would go from 
$697 million in 1947 to $18 billion. That is a 2,500-percent increase.
  So, if you take current dollars, it is a 17,000-percent increase; 
constant dollars, based on 1995, would be a 2,500-percent increase.
  Of course, the source of this is the Congressional Research Service 
of June 1995. It shows how these programs tend to run away if we do not 
write language in that requires the States to live within their means. 
In this particular case, this language would not require the States to 
live within their means. As a matter of fact, it allows the States and 
it allows the individuals to continue to run wild as we have in the 
past without any sense or protection to the taxpayers.
  Everybody knows that in my whole career, 19 years here, I have worked 
hard for on-the-job training, the Job Corps, the whole bit. We now have 
over 150 job training programs in this country. Every time we turn 
around, we create another one. A lot of them are entitlements.
  This welfare bill should try to consolidate some of these to reduce 
the entitlement nature of our legislative process and reduce the burden 
on the taxpayers. Frankly, we are a lot better off facing the music 
every year and having the States have to face the music within certain 
caps, albeit sometimes entitlement caps but nevertheless caps, and go 
on from there.
  I encourage our fellow Senators to not vote for this amendment 
because I think it just continues business as usual. I have to admit it 
is well-intentioned but naturally it is bad. I commend my friend for 
her good intentions. But it still undermines the basic thrust of what 
we are trying to do here, getting spending under control while being 
compassionate, reasonable, and decent for people who need to get off 
welfare rolls and get on to the work rolls.
  We think the exemption and the back-door loophole here really 
undermines what we are trying to do.
  So I encourage folks to vote against this amendment as much as I 
appreciate and respect my friend from Illinois.
  Can I just say one other thing about it? This amendment does not 
amend the State plan provisions. The State plan provisions are found in 
section 402. This amends section 405 following the minor child 
exemption and the hardship exemption.
  So, as such, it is an entitlement, and, as such, it gives the right 
of litigation that would not otherwise be, that I talked about that 
lets the individuals second-guess the State. I know in some of the 
States there are lawsuits by recipients that do not get the type of 
training that they want rather than what the State thinks they should 
have. I think those are important points.
  It is for the totality of those reasons why we should vote this 
amendment down.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Abraham). Who yields time?
  
[[Page S 13348]]

  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Mr. President, it is pretty clear certainly that 
it is a very difficult thing to argue with the chairman of the 
Judiciary Committee, a man for whom I have the highest regard and 
affection. And, quite frankly, I do not know if I would want to, but at 
this point I am going to have to respectfully disagree with my senior 
colleague, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. As a lawyer I am 
reading the same language also.
  Again, to the Senator from Utah, just on this point, I will make it 
and move on because there are other larger points to be made about this 
amendment.
  Section 405 of the legislation referred to the State requirement, the 
State plan, and the time limitation. All that this amendment does is to 
call on the States to do what it says it is going to do in the plans. 
It does not create a private right of action. We could argue that until 
the cows come home and probably put everybody else to sleep who may be 
listening to this debate. But rather than do that, I would like to go 
on. But I did want to make the point that it is this Senator's 
intention and this Senator's reading of the law that it does not create 
a private right of action.
  To move on, I think it is interesting to note that a lot of the 
debate and a lot of the argument against this amendment that I am 
hearing has to do with the word ``entitlement'' and what is an 
entitlement and what is not. I find a very curious kind of logic 
underlying the opposition which says we have failed to address and 
resolve the issue of poverty and employability of people. Therefore, we 
are going to give up. We are going to say we are out of the business. 
We are going to give it to the States, cap the amount of money they can 
spend on this stuff, and it is their problem. That, it seems to me, 
really kind of begs the question in terms of what are we going to do.
  Assuming for a moment that the State plan has a job and work 
requirement, I do not think anybody here would argue that people who 
can work should work, that people who have the ability to go to work 
ought to do that, and that States ought to require them to do that. I 
do not think there is much argument there.
  But assuming for a moment the State plan calls for work assistance 
and the State does not give that work assistance and then after 
whatever the time limit is--right now it is 5 years in the bill, and it 
may, not too long before this legislative process is over, change--but 
assuming for a moment that the time limit is met and the individual has 
gotten nothing, the State has not done what it is supposed to do under 
its own plan, that person then is not only denied subsistence but, more 
to the point, that individual's children are denied subsistence.
  I mean let us talk about who the object is here. We have 5 million 
adults. Paint a picture of the people on welfare in poverty in this 
country. Again, we have the numbers here regarding poverty in the 
United States. It is a number about which none of us should be proud. 
But in any event, we have some 14 million recipients, people on the 
welfare program, and 14.2 million give or take. Of that 14.2 million 
people, 9.6 million are children.
  So we are going to construct all of this stuff to get to the parents, 
that the parents have to go to work, which, again, we are not arguing 
about that. But we are not going to give them any help.
  The State plan says they should go to work and the States are going 
to help them. We just might not do that, and it would risk these 9 
million children. You talk about putting the cart before the horse. You 
are hurting potentially--we do not know this to be the case. I hope, 
frankly, the most optimistic projection turns out to be true. I hope 
that every State plan works, and I hope that every State is able to 
find people jobs, and I hope that parents who are right now drug 
addicted, irresponsible, and ripping off the taxpayers turn around, 
straighten up, and fly right, do the right thing, and take care of 
their own children. That is what we all hope for.
  But the question is, are we really going to allow for all those 10 
million babies to be jeopardized, to be left with the potential of no 
subsistence at all because of the sense of the parents, or, worse yet, 
for the sense of the State in not helping the States, which the State 
says it wants to do?
  That is what these two amendments are about. I mean, these are 
different amendments. That is kind of where it is.
  Are we going to jeopardize the children? I think the bottom line is 
that we could have a consensus that children will not be hurt.
  I point out that in fiscal year 1992--I think this is an important 
point--42 percent of the youngest children in these welfare families 
were under the age of 3.
  So I would say to my colleague, if you are not going to support 
enforcing work training for their parents, at a minimum support an 
insurance policy for the kids;
 an insurance policy for children so that, worse come to worse, if all 
else fails, the State does not provide assistance for the work training 
or the family cap gets violated, the mother keeps having babies, 
whatever situation happens, at a minimum we have a safety net for 
children.

  Now, is that an entitlement? Well, you may want to call it that, but 
it seems to me that one of the issues for our time is whether or not as 
a national community we have an obligation to provide for destitute 
children. We do not have the orphanages for them. We do not have the 
private sector options for them. We really do not have any mechanisms 
in place. It seems to me that we have an obligation at a very minimum 
to provide those children with some options and, on the other hand, 
with regard to their parents, to provide the parents with some job 
training.
  I submit to my colleagues, let us separate out--as we try to get at 
the 5 million parents, let us not jeopardize the 10 million kids.
  And with that, I again yield to the Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. HATCH. I yield to myself such time as I need.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, again, the major issue here is this is 
another entitlement program. I do not think the American people realize 
how many entitlement programs we have in the Federal Government as we 
exist right now. I am going to talk generally, and I think these 
figures are pretty accurate.
  Today, in the Federal Government, there are approximately 410 
entitlement programs--410. The bottom 400 will total about $50 billion 
in spending. They are relatively small programs. Most of them are under 
$10 billion each, although to me that is a fairly substantial program. 
But the bottom 400 are costing us $50 billion and going up every year.
  The top four entitlement programs currently in our country today--
these are programs that automatically go up no matter what the Congress 
does. Year after year after year, this Congress basically has not been 
able to restrain the growth of spending. The top four entitlement 
programs are as of fiscal year 1994, to make that clear, No. 1, Social 
Security. Social Security in 1994 cost us around $333 billion, and it 
is going up and everybody knows it. It is going up dramatically, and 
everybody knows it.
  No. 2 is Medicare. When we first enacted it, those who argued for 
Medicare said it would be a relatively small cost. If I recall 
correctly, it was somewhere between $10 and $20 billion a year. It is 
now up to $177 billion a year as of 1994. Of course, it is more this 
year, in fiscal year 1995.
  So Social Security is $333 billion. Medicare in 1994 was $177 
billion. Medicaid, which also was supposed to be a relatively low 
figure, to take care of people who really need help, who were low-
income people, low-income seniors as well, and some who are persons 
with disabilities, now costs us, in 1994, $96 billion.
  Other retirement programs are entitlement programs costing us $65 
billion as of 1994. These big four, plus interest, will be about $900 
billion in 1995.
  The point I am making is that about 400 programs cost us about $50 
billion. These four will cost us $900 billion. And as you all know, 
they are going up.
  Take Medicare. Medicare, at $177 billion last year, if we keep going 
the way we are going, will be off the charts by 

[[Page S 13349]]
the year 2002. We are trying to restrain the growth, not cut Medicare, 
but restrain the growth from its current 10.4 percent approximately a 
year down to about 6.4 percent--above the rate of inflation, by the 
way. And already, because we have announced we are trying to restrain 
the growth of that entitlement program, some of the hospitals and 
others are trying to find ways of restraining the growth, just because 
we are saying it has to be done. Can you imagine if we pass legislation 
that says it has to be done? They are going to have to live within the 
6.4, which is about 2\1/2\ percent above the inflation rate.
  Some of our colleagues on the other side want the 10.4 to keep going 
on, which will eat this country alive. And I am going to make that 
point. And it is true of all of these big four entitlement programs. 
Let me just make the point. The big four entitlements, plus interest, 
were----
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. HATCH. They were and they will be if we do not pass the balanced 
budget----
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Will the Senator yield just for 1 second?
  Mr. HATCH. Sure.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Is it not the case AFDC is not one of the top, one 
of big four entitlements?
  Mr. HATCH. It is not. Neither will the Senator's amendment be, but it 
still is an entitlement program, and we need to stop doing 
entitlements. Let me make my point.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Will the Senator yield? The Senator is including 
Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid.
  Mr. HATCH. Including all entitlement programs to make this point, 
because it makes the point that we have to face the music someday. We 
cannot just keep entitling our runaway budget.
  Now, we are going to continue Social Security the way it is. I do not 
think anybody here is going to change it. We are trying to make some 
changes in Medicare, maybe Medicaid. And I do not know of any changes 
in the retirement programs. But there is an effort to try to restrain 
the growth of runaway spending.
  One of the reasons it has run away is an entitlement program--now, 
true, this would be one of the less than $10 billion programs, although 
it would rapidly escalate as an entitlement program. I just make this 
one point. I am just trying to make this point on how entitlements are 
eating us alive and why as a principle we want to stop making things 
legislative entitlements.
  The big four entitlement programs, plus interest, were 25 percent of 
total spending back in 1965--25 percent of total Federal spending. By 
1975, they were 36 percent of total Federal spending. By fiscal year 
1985, they were 47 percent of total Federal spending, going up every 
year. By fiscal year 1995--this is just the big four, just the big 
four--Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, and retirement--they will be 
almost 60 percent of the total Federal budget. And by fiscal year 2005, 
these entitlement programs will be almost 70 percent, not counting the 
400 smaller entitlement programs that automatically will be going up 
themselves unless we put a lid on it and say we are not going to go the 
entitlement route anymore.
  We know that Social Security is going to keep going up the way it is. 
We know that Medicare is going to go up dramatically even if we are 
successful in restraining the growth from 10.4 percent down to about 
6.2, 6.4 percent--above inflation, by the way, is that figure. We know 
Medicaid is going to keep going up, and we know other retirement 
programs are going to keep going up. In fact, the 400 programs will 
keep going up unless we put some restraint of growth and unless we stop 
the entitlement nature of these programs and face the authorization and 
appropriations process every year as good legislators should.
  I wanted to make that point because as sincere as the distinguished 
Senator from Illinois is, and I know she is, and as compassionate as 
she is--and I feel the same way--I think the bill has better language 
to take care of these problems with less problems than will arise if we 
enact her amendment. And the principle of stopping these entitlement 
programs to the extent we can ought to be observed.
  That is why I suggest we have just got to bite the bullet around here 
and we have to do what is right. I have also made the point that there 
are other reasons why the amendment is one that should not be 
supported. The main reason is it is another entitlement program.
  I understand we differ on whether it entitles recipients to bring 
litigation. But be that as it may, there is no time limit, no real time 
limit in this amendment because those who are deemed by the State as 
work ready will be able to insist on going to job training rather than 
taking a job. Then they can avoid working in the private sector, 
something we want to stop. We want people who are ready and able to 
work; to work. And that is what this bill is going to try to get done. 
I think it makes a valiant and very intelligent attempt to do so. And 
it should not be changed into another entitlement program.
  I yield the floor.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Thank you, Mr. President.
  The Senator from Utah and I find ourselves singing from the same 
choir book sometimes and other times singing on different pages. But 
certainly with regard to our need to balance our budget and get our 
fiscal house in order, he and I could not be more in agreement.
  We were on this floor together during the debate on the balanced 
budget amendment, both of us supporting moving in the direction of a 
balanced budget. But how one gets to a balanced budget, gets on a 
glidepath to some fiscal integrity--and fiscal integrity is as 
important as getting there. So the question becomes, what are our 
priorities and how will we approach the difficult issues as we are 
trying to get our fiscal house in order? How are we going to approach 
that task?
  Let me suggest that we not do it on the backs of children and that we 
not target and single out poor people for our exercise in newfound 
frugality and our exercise in fiscal right thinking. The fact of the 
matter is--and let us talk about the numbers for a minute because it is 
very important. In the first instance, AFDC is not one of the big four 
entitlements. Those big four entitlements will be the topic of many 
upcoming floor discussions. I served as a member of the bipartisan 
commission on taxes and on entitlement and tax reform, and, yes, we 
have some serious and thorny issues to deal with. But AFDC is not one 
of those big four entitlements.
  Indeed, in 1969, Aid to Families With Dependent Children took up some 
3.1 percent of our Federal budget. In 1994 it had declined. I know this 
is counterintuitive. This does not comport with what the talk shows 
will tell you. But the reality is that the numbers showed it had 
declined to 1.1 percent of the budget. The fact of the matter is that 
over time the amount of AFDC payments have not kept up with inflation 
and have declined some 47 percent in the last 25 years.
  And let me give you another fact that may sound counterintuitive. In 
1993, the total cost-benefits, plus administration, Federal and State--
Federal and State; this is everybody--the total cost was $25.24 
billion, which is an amount equivalent to 1.8 percent of Federal 
Government outlays. That is total, State and Federal. The Federal 
Government's share of AFDC costs came to $13.79 billion in 1993, or 
0.98 percent of total Federal outlays.
  So what we are talking about is less than 1 percent of total Federal 
outlays that can have a devastating, devastating effect on the almost 
10 million children in this country who receive assistance.
  Again, my colleagues have argued that our efforts so far have not 
worked. And indeed, if anything, one of the more distressing and 
depressing charts--and I do not think I have a large version of this, 
Mr. President--but this one talks about the percentage of low-income 
children lifted out of poverty. It has got Sweden, 79.7 percent; 
Germany, 66.7 percent; the Netherlands, 73 percent; France 78.2 
percent; 

[[Page S 13350]]
the United Kingdom 73.5 percent; Australia, 45.1 percent; Canada 40.8 
percent; United States, 8.5 percent, under 10 percent.
  We have done less with our wealth and the efforts that have been 
started to try to fix this situation and to address poverty and have 
barely gotten underway before we got into the debate about ``getting 
rid of welfare as we know it.'' Here we are in a situation of saying, 
well, we have not come up with a magic potion or the silver bullet to 
deal with the issue of poverty, and so we are going to junk our 
commitment altogether.
  All these amendments say--it does not say we are going to spend more 
money. In fact, the legislation has a ceiling on the amount of money 
that will be spent in this area. It does not say that anybody is 
entitled to stay on forever. In fact, if anything--again, the issue 
here--the legislation is time limited, may well have family caps, and 
it may have other kinds of limitation that the States will develop. All 
these amendments say is that when all is said and done, no child in 
these United States will be allowed to go without food, without 
shelter, without subsistence.
  And it also then says, that is after the 10 million people, almost 10 
million children, on assistance, receiving assistance, as to their 5 
million parents, it says no parent will be kicked off for failing to 
meet a work requirement if the State has not lived by its own words in 
terms of supporting work.
  I yield to the distinguished Senator from New York, Senator Moynihan.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. I rise with the most emphatic support of the amendment 
of the distinguished, learned Senator from Illinois, who brings to us 
the central subject of this legislation, which is children and what 
will happen to them under the provisions we are discussing.
  I have two charts which I would like to suggest involves the central 
issue of the number of families that would be affected by a 5-year time 
limit. This is the work of the Urban Institute, established almost 30 
years ago when it was thought we would address these issues at a time 
when they were--Franklin Roosevelt might have said it--``a cloud no 
bigger than a man's hand,'' that would come into the situation we are 
today of the number of families who would lose their benefits, who 
would see a 5-year time limit reach them.
  In the year 2001, a total of 1.4 million families; make it almost 2 
million, 2.5 million children. In 2002, 1.65; make that 3 million 
children.
  This is the Urban Institute, Mr. President. This is not a political 
document. It is not one that is even touched by the necessary 
differences and tensions between the executive branch and the 
legislative branch. This is the Urban Institute, under William Gorham, 
with whom I worked on the task force that produced the Economic 
Opportunity Act of 1965. Bill Gorham and I worked together. He never 
stopped working at this. He has created an institute of impeccable 
standards. No one will ever say that we have got the most perfect 
measuring systems, but we have peer review, we have measures of degrees 
of confidence in data. And the numbers are overwhelming.
  In the year 2003, 1.8 million families; 2004, 1.9 million; 2005, 1.96 
million--call it 2 million families, and call that 5 million children. 
The 2 million is an estimate; the 1.96 is exact. I am making a round 
number. Five million children with no provision for their support, with 
their support in some sense illegal--certainly not contemplated, 
certainly not desired by this legislation. Are we to believe that my 
friend from Utah, who is as compassionate and understanding a man, a 
member of our congregation 19 years ago on this subject--this is what 
has happened. And this is why it would happen and where it would 
happen. The numbers are startling.
  The proportion of children receiving AFDC--I would like to bring this 
around so my friend can see it. My friend from Illinois has seen it in 
the past. This is what we are dealing with. Thirty years ago when the 
OEO legislation was adopted, when the Urban Institute was established, 
we were talking about numbers so small that you could say let them be 
done by church, let them be done by localities, let them be done by 
municipalities.
  In Baltimore, MD, in the course of a year, 56 percent of all children 
receive AFDC. At any given moment, 43 percent are receiving it.
  In Detroit, MI, in the course of a year, 67 percent, numbers that we 
have not contemplated. This is a time of continued economic prosperity, 
in the aftermath of a half-century in which we basically have managed 
the business cycle. We have had pockets of unemployment, but 
unemployment ranged at very comfortable levels. The level of employment 
is high.
  In Los Angeles, 38 percent, Los Angeles, the setting of all those 
grand houses, remarkable neighborhoods, 38 percent.
  Philadelphia, I do wish my friend from Pennsylvania were here so I 
could say to him, in Philadelphia, 57 percent of the children are on 
AFDC at some point during the course of a year.
  In my own city of New York, 39 percent; New Orleans, 47 percent; 
Milwaukee, 53 percent; Memphis, 45 percent; Cleveland, 66 percent. 
These numbers overwhelm a social system. It cannot handle it.
  Should we have ever gotten to this point? I do not say we should 
have. Should we have done more? Yes, we should have. Have we done some 
things? Yes, we have. We have certainly committed the Federal 
Government to this issue.
  I was reading this morning the statement in the Washington Post by 
Judith Gueron, president of Manpower Development Research Corp., as the 
Senator from Illinois well knows. She was saying, ``Look, we are 
learning to do these things.'' She talked about Riverside, talked about 
Atlanta, talked about Grand Rapids, Family Support Act, jobs programs, 
working, getting hold, finally getting it.
  The Senator will remember the director from Riverside, CA, where 
President Bush visited 3 years ago. There was a button: ``Life works if 
you work,'' getting the sense that welfare offices should be employment 
offices. If only people had been a little more gracious to Frances 
Perkins, and if only Frances Perkins had been a little less willing to 
accommodate whatever President Roosevelt seemed to need at the time, 
the AFDC Program would be in the Department of Labor. The Social 
Security Act, with its retirement benefits, unemployment insurance, 
dependent children was to be in the Department of Labor, but there was 
the suspicion of labor, and such, and the underestimate of Mrs. 
Perkins' enormous ability. She said, ``All right, we will have an 
independent agency.'' Had it not been, right now, when you walk into a 
welfare office, you would be in a U.S. Employment Service office, but 
it did not happen. But it is happening again.
  The Daschle bill contemplated the first thing you do when you arrive 
at the welfare office is, how are we going to get you a job? But right 
now, not to see the enormity of this problem, the dimension of this 
problem, to think we can turn it back, cut it back and turn it back 
without huge costs to children is baffling to me.
  I thank God the Senator from Illinois is here. I hope she will be 
heard, and if she is not, pray God for the children.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Mr. President, since we have additional time left 
over, I would like to engage the Senator from New York, who is a world 
renowned expert in this area. He has spoken to the fundamental issues 
of, again, how we respond to poverty and, how it is necessary to take 
this conversation away from the hot buttons and the catchwords and talk 
a little bit about the demographic data that really underlie the 
reality of what we are doing here.
  There is a social issue and an issue of policy and an issue, really, 
of the kind of country we are going to have. 

[[Page S 13351]]

  So I raise with my colleague, who has studied these data, this issue, 
just this graph. I know he has seen this before.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Yes.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Percentage of low-income children lifted out of 
poverty. Our country, America, does so much worse, less well than 
others.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Time has expired.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 5 
minutes and that Senator Moynihan might respond to the question.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Mr. President, in the Senator's view, will the 
pending legislation resolve the disparity between the United States 
response to poverty vis-a-vis the other industrialized nations in the 
world?
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, to respond to my friend from Illinois, I 
can only offer a judgment of a better part of a lifetime dealing with 
these matters, that it would make it hugely worse. We would be off that 
chart. We would be an anomaly among the developed nations of the world. 
We would be an object of disdain and disbelief. I can say no more.
  I yield the floor.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. I thank the Senator very much. I will say a little 
more in response to that. We have an opportunity to provide a bottom 
line below which no child in America will be allowed to fall. I, 
therefore, ask my colleagues' support for the pending child voucher 
amendment, as well as the worker responsibility amendment.
  Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I have listened to my friend from New York. 
I do not think there is anybody on this floor who has a greater 
background and knowledge in this area. So, naturally, I am very 
concerned about the statistics and facts that he has brought forward.
  So I appreciate the efforts made by the distinguished Senator from 
Illinois. I would never ignore her remarks or those of my friend from 
New York, who, like I say, has as much knowledge and background in this 
area. We have to strengthen our budget and move toward a balanced 
budget, or no amount of money is going to be worth anything, because we 
will monetize the debt and, in the end, the dollar will go to zero. 
That is where we are headed if we do not do some intelligent things 
now.
  These are tough choices. I believe that the approach Senator Dole is 
taking is about as good a one as we can take at this time. I wish we 
could do more. The fact is that we have to find the dollars and be able 
to do more. We cannot lose sight of the fact that we are working toward 
a balanced budget.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment 
be temporarily laid aside.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 2473

  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. I ask unanimous consent that we proceed to the 
consideration of amendment No. 2473.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Mr. President, I understand that this amendment 
has been accepted by the other side.
  I urge its adoption.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the amendment is agreed to.
  So the amendment (No. 2473) was agreed to.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. I move to lay that on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. 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. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Grams). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, what is the current parliamentary status 
of the Senate?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Amendments numbered 2471 and 2472 are 
currently pending, and all time for debate on those amendments has 
expired.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, is there unanimous consent for time for 
disposition of subsequent amendments?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under regular order, time has expired on these 
two amendments. The next amendment is the Graham-Bumpers amendment, and 
there is no time limit on that amendment.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the two pending 
amendments be set aside for the purposes of considering amendment No. 
2565.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Thank you, Mr. President.


                           Amendment No. 2565

  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, amendment No. 2565 has been sent to the 
desk pursuant to the filing requirement of last week.
  Mr. President, this evening with my colleague Senator Bumpers, we 
rise to offer an amendment to the pending amendment of Senator Dole 
which would dramatically affect the fairness of the funding allocations 
to the States under this legislation. We describe our amendment as the 
children's fair share amendment.
  Our approach is simple. We believe that the funding to the individual 
States, and therefore to their children, should be needs based. As a 
result of our formula, States would receive funding based on the number 
of poor children within that State in the particular year in which they 
received funding.
  There are two modifications to that basic principle: that funds 
should be allocated where poor children are in the year of 
distribution. Recognizing the fact that this legislation imposes some 
very serious mandates on States, particularly in areas of preparing 
persons for work, and to be able to meet specific numerical goals for 
the percentage of welfare beneficiaries who are employed, we believe 
that there is a minimum amount of funds required for any State in order 
to meet those obligations. Therefore, we provide that no State will 
receive less than either 0.6 percent of the national allocation, or 
twice the actual amount of that State's 1994 expenditure level, 
whichever is less. That will assure that all States will have a basic 
amount of funds in order to discharge their responsibility.
  The second principal modification from the pure principle of 
allocating funds where poor children are located is that all States, 
except those covered by the small State allocation, will be subject to 
a transitional period by which their increases in funding in any year 
would be limited to no more than 50-percent of what they had received 
in fiscal year 1994 for fiscal year 1996, or no more than a 50-percent 
increase in fiscal year 1997 over what they received in 1996 and so 
forth. The purpose of this is to provide for a 4-year transition period 
in order to get to the goal of parity for all poor children in America.
  The savings from this allocation of increased ceiling would exceed 
that for the small State minimum allocation. The net effect of these 
adjustments would be reallocated among the States which receive less 
than their 1994 actual expenditure.
  Any formula allocation should be guided by some underlying principles 
and policy justifications. One fundamental principle of the Federal 
Government allocating money to its citizens through the States should 
be fairness--fairness to America's children, fairness to the States, 
and fairness to the Nation.
  There is another principle which should be applicable in this 
legislation; that is, will the distribution of funds allow the 
fundamental objective of the legislation to be attained? The objective 
of this legislation is to facilitate 

[[Page S 13352]]
the movement of welfare beneficiaries from dependency to independence 
through work. Will the funds as allocated to the 50 States, and 
available to them in order to meet that objective, be equitable? If we 
are going to a block grant, welfare we must be very careful that these 
principles, particularly the principle of fairness, fairness to 
children, is met.
  The General Accounting Office noted in its report of February 1995 
entitled ``Block Grants: Characteristics, Experience, and Lessons 
Learned,'' that ``because initial funding allocations used in current 
block grants were based on prior categorical grants, they were not 
necessarily equitable.''
  Senator Bumpers and I propose a funding formula that would clearly 
meet the following principles: block grant funding should reflect need 
or the number of persons in the individual States who require 
assistance. The principle No. 1 of a block grant program should be to 
reflect need or the number of persons in the individual States 
requiring assistance.
  A second principle of block grants should be that a State's access to 
Federal funding should increase if the number of persons in need of 
assistance increases and decrease if the number of persons requiring 
assistance declines.
  Third, States should not be permanently disadvantaged based upon 
policy choices and circumstances which were prevalent in years prior to 
the block grant.
  And fourth, if requirements and penalties and public ridicule are to 
be imposed upon States, as I envisage will be the case with the bill of 
Senator Dole, then fairness dictates that all States have an equitable 
and reasonable chance of reaching those goals.
  If I might comment about public ridicule, one of the provisions in 
the original version of this legislation--and I believe that it is 
retained in the modified version--is that there will be periodic 
evaluations of how the 50 States are conducting their business under a 
reformed welfare.
  States will be ranked assumedly from 1 to 50 as to how well they are 
doing in terms of achieving the objectives of moving people from 
dependence to independence. Yet, we are going to be saying to some 
States you start this process, as with Mississippi, with $331 per year 
per poor child in your State, another State will start this process 
with $3,248 per poor child per year. And yet we are going to publish a 
report analogous to an Associated Press rating of football teams how 
well each State did in meeting the directives, the mandates, the goals 
of this legislation. It would be as if one State was able to field a 
fully professional team and another State had to find a group of junior 
high school beginners to play this game. Yet, they are both going to be 
subject to the same evaluation. That is the public ridicule I suggest 
is going to be a consequence of this inequitable funding formula.
  The test by which States should be evaluated would seem reasonable. 
In sharp contrast, the amendment as offered by Senator Dole fails to 
meet any and every test of fairness of a block grant. In fact, the 
formula used in the Dole amendment would perpetuate the inequities of 
the status quo.
  What are some of the problems with the amendment that is before us as 
offered by Senator Dole? The authors of the leadership proposal have 
failed to learn the lessons cited by the General Accounting Office and 
other experts who have examined block grants. They have chosen to 
distribute welfare funds to States well into the future based on fiscal 
year 1994 allocations.
  Ironically, in the name of change and in the name of reform, we are 
locking in past inequities in distribution of Federal funds. We are 
repackaging them as block grants. We are punting welfare to the States 
and failing to take into account future population or economic changes 
among the States and failing to give the States an opportunity within a 
reasonable period of time to achieve parity and equity in the treatment 
of the poor children within those States.
  By allocating future spending on the basis of 1994 allocation, the 
Dole bill fails to distribute money based on any measure of current or 
future need. It fails to account for population growth and economic 
changes. It would permanently disadvantage States well into the future 
based on choices and circumstances made in the past. And it would 
unfairly impose penalties on States. The Dole allocation is essentially 
based on the status quo.
  How was the status quo arrived at? How did we end up with a system in 
which one State gets $3,248 per year per poor child and another State 
gets $331?
  The answer is that we had a system which had as one of its principal 
objectives to encourage those States that were able, capable and 
willing to invest substantial amounts of funds in their cash assistance 
to welfare beneficiary programs. Since we are in a nation which, 
unfortunately, has huge disparities in capability as well as in 
political will from State to State, we have ended up with huge 
disparities in terms of Federal funds for poor children. The basic 
formula has been that for every dollar a State would put up, there 
would be a Federal match.
  For the most affluent States, the matching rate is 50-50--a dollar 
from the State draws down a dollar from the Federal Government. For 
States that are less affluent, they have a somewhat richer matching 
rate, going all the way up to the poorest State being able to get 83 
Federal dollars for every 17 State dollars. And based on that formula 
we have ended up with a situation as it was in 1994 and as it is almost 
proposed to be continued into the indefinite future.
  One other modification has been made to that, however, Mr. President, 
and that is that a group of some 19 States which had the 
characteristics of either growing at a rate faster than the Nation as a 
whole--and there are some 17 States that met that standard--or States 
which were more than 35 percent below the average of the Nation in 
terms of funds per poor individual received a bonus and that bonus is 
2.5 percent growth beginning in the third year of this 5-year plan.
  So beginning in the third year, if you have been receiving $100 
million, you got $102.5 million, and a similar 2.5-percent adjustment 
in the fourth and the fifth year. That adjustment distributes 
approximately $800 to $900 million over the 5-year period, concentrated 
in the third, fourth and fifth year of the 5-year period.
  The status quo plan, the plan that is based on funds as they were 
distributed in 1994, will distribute approximately $85 billion over 
that same 5-year period. So the amount of funds that are intended to 
represent poverty and growth are a pittance compared to the enormous 
amount of money that is going to be invested in continuing the status 
quo as it was in 1994.
  The consequence of this allocation is this map that is called 
``Children's Fair Share Allocations.'' The States in red on this map 
benefit by using a formula based on status quo and the modest 
adjustment which I have indicated. The States in yellow are the loser 
States in that allocation and, conversely, would benefit if the funds 
were distributed on the basis of where poor children in America live.
  Mr. President, the current proposal before us, the formula of Senator 
Dole, would result in extreme disparity between States in Federal 
funding for poor children. For example, Mississippi would receive $331 
per child in 1996 compared to an affluent northeastern State's $2,036 
per poor child.
  Let me repeat that. Mississippi, $331; an affluent Northeast State, 
$2,036; an affluent far Northwestern State, $3,248.
  In effect, those affluent States would receive six times or more 
funding per poor child than the poor State of Mississippi. Even under 
the formula of Senator Dole, Massachusetts--another affluent 
Northeastern State--would receive $2,177 per poor child. If you combine 
the per child total from five other States--you combine the amount that 
a poor child in Alabama, in Arkansas, in Louisiana, in South Carolina, 
and in Texas, if you combine what those children would receive in a 
year--that total would not equal what a poor child, a single poor child 
in Massachusetts would get in a single year.
  To state it another way, the Federal Government effectively values 
poor children of that affluent State five times more than it does the 
children of Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Texas. 
There is no justification for poor children to be treated with less or 
more value by the Federal Government depending on the State in which 
they happen to live. 

[[Page S 13353]]

  The proponents of the Dole formula will argue that some States will 
qualify for the 2.5 percent adjustment in the bill to address these 
disparities. However, a sizable number of States that are not treated 
fairly under the current system would receive zero remedy from the 
limited, inadequate 2.5 percent adjustment feature. Those States which 
would get zero remedy from the 2.5 percent adjustment include Kentucky, 
Oklahoma, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, West Virginia, Kansas, 
and North Dakota. All of those States are well below average Federal 
funding per poor child, yet would get no benefit from the proposed 
remedy.
  Moreover, even for those who do qualify, the adjustment is marginal 
and may fail to treat all poor children equally. Let me use as an 
example again Mississippi. How long will it take under the 2.5 percent 
formula for Mississippi to come up to the average of the country in 
terms of funds available per poor child? Will it take 10 years, will it 
take 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, 50 years, 60 years, 70, 80, 90? No. 
It will take 100 years for Mississippi to go from its current $331 per 
poor child to reach the average of the Nation at 2.5 percent a year.
  How long will it take for Mississippi to reach the level of an 
affluent Northeastern State? It happens to come out historically and 
somewhat ironically that it will take 206 years for Mississippi to 
reach the same level as the affluent Northeastern State. That happens, 
Mr. President, to be the same number of years looking backward to the 
signing of the U.S. Constitution. So Mississippi could look forward to 
all of the generations and all of the historical changes that have 
occurred since this great Nation was established. All of that would 
have to elapse again before Mississippi, under this formula, would 
reach the parity of an affluent Northeastern State.
  In contrast, the amendment as offered by Senator Bumpers and myself 
would eliminate these disparities in less than 4 years. Mr. President, 
if we are going to have a serious debate, let us have a debate over how 
many years should we allow ourselves to eliminate this unfairness. Is 4 
years too hurried a time for equality? Is 100 years adequate time to 
achieve the equality? I believe that we ought to have as a principle 
that all poor children in America have equal value and that we should 
move as expeditiously as possible to put that principle into our law.
  These disparities in State-to-State funding have real consequences on 
the lives of children. These are not just accounting or statistical 
issues. These 5 and 6 and more to 1 disparities have in the past and 
will continue to have real human consequences. The State of Washington, 
for example, received $2,340 per poor child in 1994, $2,340 compared to 
$393 per poor child in South Carolina, almost a 600 percent difference.
  Should we be surprised that there are tremendous outcome differences? 
The State of Washington's children rank seventh and sixth in rankings 
of infant mortality and percentage of children in poverty. The State of 
Washington's children ranked 12th overall in the children's well-being 
index as established by the Casey Foundation. Meanwhile, South Carolina 
with one-sixth the funding per poor child ranks 48th among the States 
in infant mortality, 45th in the percentage of children in poverty, and 
ranks 46th in the children's well-being index.
  It will be the height of irony, if not hypocrisy, to change our 
welfare system and not address this cruel disparity. When people ask, 
is the welfare system broken? the answer is almost universally, yes. 
And what is one of the key elements of a broken system? It is the fact 
that we have tolerated for too long a system that has resulted in these 
extreme disparities in the treatment of children and the consequence on 
the children in their ability to grow up healthy, strong, educable, and 
productive citizens.
  But these are not the end of the list of adverse consequences of the 
amendment as offered by Senator Dole in terms of how to allocate funds. 
Locking in historical spending will also lock into place inefficiencies 
of the status quo, the very status quo that we are supposedly reforming 
in this legislation. In 1994, the national average monthly 
administrative expense per welfare case was $53.42--$53.42. New York 
and New Jersey, however, had administrative costs exceeding $100 per 
welfare case, almost twice the national average, eight times the 
average of West Virginia, which administered its program for $13.24 per 
welfare case. Those States with higher administrative costs in fiscal 
year 1994 would receive block grant amounts reflecting their higher 
fiscal year 1994 costs for the next 5 years, whether or not those costs 
are justified.
  This formula fails to take into account demographic and economic 
accounts. Initial disparities locked in by the Dole approach would 
actually intensify as a result of the different rates of anticipated 
population growth through the end of the decade. Between 1995 and the 
year 2000, 10 States are projected by the U.S. Census Bureau to grow by 
at least 8 percent. Eight States are projected to grow less than 1 
percent or experience a population decline. Among the fastest growing 
25 States, the top half, 17 of those growth States would receive 
initial welfare allocations below the national per poor child average. 
Seventeen of the twenty-five fastest growing States start this process 
at below the national average.
  Thirty Senators, including the Senators from Texas and both Senators 
from my State, raised this issue in a May 23 letter to the Finance 
Committee chairman, in which we stated: ``Block grant funding would be 
locked in, in spite of rapidly changing patterns of need. This 
disconnect between need and funding would produce devastating results 
over a 5-year period.''
  Proponents of the Dole formula would argue that some States will 
qualify for the 2.5 percent annual adjustments beginning in the third 
year to address population growth. However, six growing States--
Washington, Alaska, Hawaii, Oregon, California, and Delaware--all fail 
to qualify for the adjustment despite projected above-average 
population growth.
  Moreover, even with the 2.5 percent adjustment, Texas would only 
receive $445 per poor child in the year 2000,
 and 27 percent of the $1,600 per poor child in Connecticut, which that 
State would receive despite the fact that its population is projected 
to decline between 1995 and the year 2000.

  So a State whose population is going up, a State which entered this 
process as one of the lowest in terms of funds for poor children, would 
be even further disadvantaged, while a State which entered the process 
at a relatively high level with a declining population of poor children 
would be further advantaged.
  Another difficulty with the legislation before us, Mr. President, is 
that under the proposal, States that receive less than their fair share 
of funding per poor child are most likely to be penalized with a 5-
percent reduction in their funding for failure to meet the bill's work 
requirement. To meet the work standards in the bill, States would be 
mandated to spend large chunks of their Federal funds for job training 
and for child care.
  According to estimates by the Department of Health and Human 
Services, the additional cost of the work program and the associated 
child care needs would absorb more than $8 out of $10 of Federal 
allocations to Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Texas; that over 
80 percent of the Federal funds from those States would go to meet the 
new Federal mandates in work requirements and child care.
  But, again, we see wide disparities. In California, New York, Oregon, 
and Wisconsin, less than 4 out of 10 Federal welfare dollars would be 
subject to the Federal mandates under this bill; that is, those States 
would be able to meet the same mandates by using less than 40 percent 
of their Federal money, while the poor States would have to use over 80 
percent of their Federal funds in order to come into compliance.
  Washington would tell the States that they have to spend block grants 
on job training and child care or face 5-percent penalties for failure 
to meet the work requirements. For States facing sanctions, the States 
would receive vastly different amounts of support to reach a common 
goal. That, Mr. President, is patently unfair.
  I might add that some of the States that are treated the most 
unfairly under this bill are represented by Senators on both sides of 
the aisle who 

[[Page S 13354]]
joined in that letter to the chairman of the Finance Committee.
  If I could just put this in the context of my State and in the 
context of what it is going to mean in the lives of real children, in 
my State, a family on aid to families with dependent children, which is 
typically composed of a single female and two children, receives $303 
per month; $303 is their current allocation. Fifty-five percent of that 
comes from the Federal Government; 45 percent, State funds. That means 
that Federal funds represent approximately $168 or $169 of the $303 
that is being required.
  Under the proposal, 63 percent of the Federal money in my State of 
Florida would be required to meet the mandates of job training and 
child care; 63 percent would be required, which means, Mr. President, 
that less than 40 percent of that $168 is going to continue to be 
available to meet the economic needs of children.
  It is that 40 percent, plus the $135 that comes from the State, that 
buys the clothing, that pays the light bill, that pays the rent, that 
provides whatever transportation costs, that meets their health care 
needs that are not covered by Medicaid. Think in your own life 
experiences of meeting all of those needs on $303 a month. You would 
also qualify for $304 a month in food stamps to cover your food budget. 
But think of what it would mean to live at that level and then to see 
your $303 monthly stipend reduced to $198, which is what is going to 
happen with the mandates on child care and on work training, and that 
assumes that the State will continue to maintain its current level of 
effort.
  Just a few hours ago, we defeated an amendment that would have 
required a maintenance-of-State effort. So that is speculative as to 
whether, in the case of my State or any other State, there will be a 
continued maintenance of effort, which would keep the level of monthly 
support at the $198 level, not the $303 level which is currently 
available.
  Another factor, Mr. President, is that a wrong decision made today is 
not a decision likely to be reversed. The history is that once a 
funding formula is adopted, there will be great difficulty, if not 
impossibility, of future change. Example after example can be cited of 
block grants which are being allocated today because of funding 
decisions in the past, often decisions which are historic and 
irrelevant to needs today.
  The General Accounting Office notes that, for instance, under the 
maternal child health block grant, funds continue to be distributed 
primarily on the basis of funds received in the fiscal year 1981 under 
the previous categorical program. A program in 1995 is distributing 
funds based on a preexistent categorical program of 1981.
  I am concerned that our successors would be looking back from the 
perspective of the year 2015 wondering why we are distributing a 
significant amount of Federal funds for block grants to States to meet 
the needs of poor children based on a categorical program of 1981.
  The General Accounting Office proceeds by saying:

       Only when the funding exceeds the amounts appropriated in 
     fiscal year 1983 are additional funds allocated in proportion 
     to the number of persons under the age 18 that are in 
     poverty. We found that economic and demographic changes are 
     not adequately reflected in the current allocation resulting 
     in problems of equity.

  As Ronald Reagan might have said: Deja vu, there we go again.
  Mr. President, I want to conclude with two final comments. One looks 
forward and one looks back. The debate that we are having today 
foreshadows a much larger debate that we are likely to have on 
Medicaid. More than $4 of every $10 that Washington sends State 
governments are Medicaid dollars. This is the program that provides 
medical assistance to the poor, elderly, disabled, and poor children 
and their families. Medicaid is nearly five times larger in terms of 
its Federal role than welfare; $81 billion were distributed last year 
as opposed to $17 billion distributed in welfare reform.
  We are already hearing that if the policy is adopted of using 
essentially the status quo as the basis of distributing welfare funds, 
that that will establish the precedent for how we should distribute 
Medicaid funds; that by locking in past spending patterns and 
inequities in this program, we are setting the precedent for the much 
larger Medicaid Program.
  Again, remember my previous point: Block grants, once established, 
have proven to be highly resistant to subsequent change.
  Finally, Mr. President, to look back. I say this with sadness but 
also with candor. This Congress has been faced over the past several 
years with a number of major challenges.
  Examples: In the early eighties, we were faced with the challenge of 
reforming our financial institutions. A number of pieces of legislation 
were adopted with that as their intention. Unfortunately, less than a 
decade later, we were back passing further legislation to deal with it 
with the calamity of our financial institutions which have largely been 
occasioned by our earlier actions.
  In 1986, we passed what was supposed to be major tax reform, intended 
to simplify the Internal Revenue Code. Today, there is so much public 
dismay at the complexity of the Internal Revenue Code that we are 
talking about a complete repeal of the income tax and the substitution 
of a consumption tax, or a flat tax, or some other basic new approach 
to domestic revenue procurement.
  In the mid-1980's, we passed a catastrophic health care bill that was 
intended to deal with some of the inadequacies in Medicare. Within less 
than 2 years, we repealed the bill that we passed, and now we are back 
looking at Medicare reform again, but no longer looking at legislation 
to fill the gaps of the program, but rather to add new gaping holes to 
Medicare and new expense to the beneficiaries.
  Mr. President, I suggest that all of those past precedents have 
something in common; that is, we allowed the theory of how things were 
going to work to get ahead of common sense and practicality as to how 
things would work. We, I fear, are about to make the same mistake 
again.
  I will state, with no doubt of the correctness of history in this 
statement, that a plan which is as fundamentally unfair in the 
distribution of funds as this which is before us today--a plan which so 
fundamentally mistreats two-thirds of the States of this Nation, in 
terms of their ability to achieve the goal of facilitating the movement 
of welfare-dependent individuals to the independence of work, that a 
plan that has those kinds of imperfections embedded in its basic 
allocation of funds to achieve its purpose, will fail. And we will be 
subjected to more public animosity toward this institution for failure 
to have carried out our task in a craftsmanlike manner.
  The public will continue to be outraged at what it sees as the abuse 
of people who are living on a public system without contributing to the 
betterment of the public. We will continue to see poor children start 
their lives with the extreme disparities that exist today. We will see 
this institution held in even more public disrespect because of our 
inability to deal intelligently, thoughtfully, rationally, with an 
important national chapter. We are dealing here with fundamental 
fairness. The proposal before us fails to meet that standard.
  Senator Bumpers and I, joined by our other colleague, the Senator 
from Nevada, have provided to the Senate an alternative which will meet 
the goal of treating poor children in America as they should be 
treated--each with equal worth and dignity.
  I urge the adoption of the children's fair share amendment.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, it was our informal understanding--we 
have no time agreement--that we would alternate from one side of the 
aisle to the other.
  Mr. BUMPERS. I have no problem with that. I think the Senator from 
Texas wishes to speak.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I would be happy to let Senator 
Bumpers proceed. I do not mind waiting. I am going to be here anyway.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Does the Senator from New York wish to speak at this 
time?
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. No. The Senator from New York is awaiting with great 
expectation the remarks of the Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. BUMPERS. I am immensely flattered, Mr. President. 

[[Page S 13355]]

  Mr. President, when I first came to the Senate we had some great 
people here: Hubert Humphrey, Abe Ribicoff, Jacob Javits, John Pastore, 
Scoop Jackson, Ed Muskie--truly great men, great Senators who believed 
in the theory of enlightened self-interest, who believed in governing.
  Hubert Humphrey used to make a great speech, and he said, ``This will 
never be a great place for any of us to live until it is a good place 
for all of us to live.'' I agree totally with that statement. As I 
think of those words and the author, I cannot help but wonder what 
Hubert Humphrey would think about a bill that said, ``If you are rich 
and affluent, we will make you more affluent; and if you are poor, we 
will punish you and make sure those in poverty stay in poverty.''
  Well, even the people in the U.S. Senate would take strong exception 
to that if they believed that was our philosophy or that was what we 
were about to do.
  Mr. President, that is exactly what this bill does. Senator Graham 
has covered just about everything that needs to be covered. As Mo Udall 
used to say, ``Everything that needs to be said has been said, but 
everybody has not said it.'' So while I know that much of what I have 
to say will be repetitious of what my good friend, and the real author 
of this amendment, the Senator from Florida, has said, it bears 
repeating to make sure that the all Senators understand what they are 
voting on.
  In 1994, the AFDC formula allowed the following: If the States want 
to add more money to their AFDC program, the Federal Government will 
match it dollar for dollar. So what is the result? The result is the 
same as it has been for years under this formula. The ``haves,'' the 
affluent States, put more money into AFDC, so they get more money. If 
they add $100 per child per year, the Federal Government gives them 
another $100. That whole concept is flawed, totally, fatally flawed, 
because what it says is, ``If you are wealthy, we will make you 
wealthier, and if you are poor, we will make you poorer.''
  (Ms. SNOWE assumed the Chair.)
  Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, everybody knows that this amendment is 
a fair proposition. What Senator Graham and I are suggesting is that we 
divide all the money in the pot by the number of poor children in the 
country and we allocate it to the States based on the number of poor 
children each State has. For example, if we had 10 million poor 
children in the country, we would divide the total pot of money by 10 
million and that amount would be paid to each State for every poor 
child in that State.
  Madam President, the problem Senator Graham and I are trying to solve 
is a result of the formula we've used for the AFDC Program since its 
inception. Under that formula, the more affluent States have, over a 
period of years, received the lion's share of the Federal money because 
they were able to put more State money in the program, and we were 
matching it.
  On the face of it, we should applaud States that have tried to 
improve and do better for themselves. But we should not penalize those 
who are not affluent and who could not put more money in.
  Think about this for a moment. I want Members to think about this. I 
have good friends in this body from States who make off like bandits 
under the Dole bill.
  Just take the State of Rhode Island. We have two fine Senators, my 
dear friends from Rhode Island, but I do not believe either Senator 
from Rhode Island would say they believe that a poor child in Rhode 
Island is worth $2,244 a year, but a poor child in my home State of 
Arkansas is worth only $394. What in the name of all that is good and 
holy are we thinking about here?
  All my life I have had to say I come from a poor State. I hate to say 
that. But I have always believed that being upfront and candid about 
your own plight is good for the soul and good for understanding.
  I cannot believe that we are about to pass a bill that allows New 
York, for example, to get $2,036 for every single poor child on AFDC, 
and my State $394. They get five times more than my State. If this were 
State money I would not squawk. But it is not. It is Federal money out 
of the U.S. Treasury, and we are saying that if you come from an 
affluent State which has been able to put more and more into the 
program, and we have matched it more and more as you put more in, you 
will benefit permanently. We are looking at a gross inequity and we are 
ratifying it. We are institutionalizing it for all time to come. States 
like New York, the home of my very good friend and ranking member on 
the Finance Committee, will always do very well under the Dole formula.
  The Dole formula claims to correct these inequities over time. For 
example, if my home State of Arkansas goes below 35 percent of the 
national average for concentration of poverty, the Dole formula 
provides a little honey pot from which the State can get a 2.5-percent 
bonus. How that warms the cockles of my heart.
  If my State gets that 2.5-percent bonus it will only take us 84 years 
to reach the national average. And it will only take us 177 years to 
catch up to New York. If I thought I would live to see that, I might 
favor it. Unhappily, I will not be around.
  Sometimes as I get steamed up making these speeches on the floor I 
get to thinking, am I living in a loony bin? Is this actually going on? 
Is it happening? And often the answer is yes.
  If you want to take all this Federal money and give it to every poor 
child in America on an equal basis under the proposition that a poor 
child in Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, North Dakota is worth as much as 
a poor child anywhere, count me in. And then if the State wants to 
enrich that, let them.
  They have a right to do that, even though, Madam President, school 
districts all over America are being ordered by the Federal courts to 
equalize their school expenditures among the poor districts as well to 
bring them up to par with the more affluent districts.
  If you come from an affluent school district in my State you get 
voice, glee club, debate. You get field trips, you get everything, 
because the people in that district are more affluent and the more 
affluent they are, the more advantages and opportunities they want 
their children to have. So they vote for higher taxes to support those 
programs.
  Then you take some poor school in the Mississippi Delta. I do not 
care how hard they try. I do not care how much they stretch out. I do 
not care how much they sacrifice. They can never, never reach the 
affluence of the more prosperous school districts. So the courts are 
saying nowadays, you cannot do that anymore, you have to equalize these 
State funds.
  This bill says that in the very first year, a State has to get 25 
percent of the people on the rolls into the work force. I am going to 
say women, rather than people, because the adults in this program are 
almost exclusively single mothers with children. I do not say this to 
be sexist. I say it because that is the way it is.
  This bill says to each State, New York and Arkansas alike, that 
during the first year, 25 percent of these women must enter the work 
force, and, if they do not, we are going to penalize them by reducing 
the amount of their block grant. By how much? Up to 5 percent.
  I want you to think about the lunacy of that provision. They say: Get 
these women into the work force. But there is not enough money in the 
bill for child care, even if there were jobs available and women 
wanting to take them. There is not enough money in this bill to provide 
the kind of child care you would have to have to even come close to 
getting 25 percent of these women into the work force.
  I do not want to stray too far afield, but the Senator from New York 
was quoted in the paper the other day with a magnificent statement. Ten 
years from now, more and more thousands of children are going to be 
sleeping on the grates in this country. This bill is a veritable 
assault on the children of this country. I wonder where some of these 
people who purport to have these great family values and Christian 
beliefs are when we are debating things like this? Why do they not 
sense the inequities of this? Why do they not understand that millions 
of children who have little chance now are going to have much less 
chance in the future when this bill becomes law?
  You think about West Virginia, with an administrative cost of $13.34 
per caseload per year. I am sorry the senior Senator or junior Senator 
from West Virginia are not here to hear me laud 

[[Page S 13356]]
and commend their State for their very low administrative costs in the 
present AFDC Program. I did not get a chance to check it in my State, 
but I know our average is in that vicinity. The national average is 
$56, and in some States it is as high as $106. Under this bill we are 
rewarding those States with high administrative costs. We are rewarding 
States that have a $106 administrative expense and punishing the State 
of West Virginia for being good stewards over the administration of 
their funds.
  Madam President, every year for 5 years--you have to get 25 percent 
of the women off the rolls the first year, the next year you have to 
have 5 percent more, the next year 5 percent more, until, in 5 years, 
50 percent of these people are off the rolls. On a point that is not 
relevant to this amendment, I submit to you that 20 percent of the 
people on AFDC today are incapable of either finding or holding a job. 
What happens to them?
  One morning one of my sons came home. I have to tell you, all my 
children are pretty liberal when it comes to poor people. They have 
good values. I am immensely proud of every one of them. My son, who 
practices law downtown in Washington, DC, said, ``Dad, I wish you would 
go with me in the morning. Our firm is in charge of feeding the 
homeless people in the morning.''
  ``Where?"
  ``A project called SOME, So Others May Eat. I think it will be good 
for your soul.''
  It was nearing Christmas. My daughter, who was in school in New York, 
was home for Christmas. We all went. The temperature was 28 degrees, 
and 400 men and 2 women were standing outside waiting for the dining 
room to open. So I flipped pancakes for 3 hours--the best day's work I 
ever did. Then I went around, just like I would at a political rally, 
talking to these men. ``Where do you come from?"
  I found that one-third of them had jobs. About a third of them had a 
drug habit. And a third of them were essentially dysfunctional, they 
could not hold a job. And being dysfunctional is not peculiar to men, 
it is also true of women, and a lot of women on AFDC today cannot and 
will never take, or be able to hold, a job. What happens to them? If 
the goal is to get everybody off the rolls, how on Earth are you going 
to do it?
  Senator Graham made a very salient point a moment ago about some 
States trying to meet their mandates. They have nothing left after they 
meet the mandates. I think he said in Florida, 63 percent of the funds 
that Florida will get will go to meet the mandates and what is left 
will go out in AFDC grants. In my State it is almost 80 percent, which 
means when we meet the mandates of this bill, we will have $40 a year 
per child to hand out.
  The most cruel among us may say, ``Well, you have food stamps on top 
of that.'' Food stamps will not pay the electric bill. Food stamps will 
not pay for a child's medical care, for housing, or for his clothing. I 
cannot believe how callous and indifferent we are to the least among 
us.
  I started off mentioning de Tocqueville. I never tire of talking 
about him. He talked about enlightened self-interest. That is a very 
simple proposition that has governed my entire life. The principles I 
learned in Sunday school in the Methodist Church and the principle of 
enlightened self-interest that I learned from reading ``Democracy In 
America'' have governed my life, and that is where my values come from.
  And what does it mean? It means that when some poor soul is reaching 
for the first rung on the ladder and you are on the top rung, you do 
not step on his hands. You reach down and take his hand and you pull 
him up. You pull him up because it makes him a better citizen, it makes 
the country a better country, and it makes me a better person.
  How could anybody quarrel with those three principles, all of which 
are unassailable? So that is what is wrong with this bill. We are 
reaching out and giving a hand to some and we are stepping on the hands 
of millions who did not have a dog's chance to begin with and will have 
even less.
  Madam President, I could not vote for this bill. I will never vote 
for a bill that includes so many things I deplore in this country. I 
might also say I would hate to have to go home and explain to my folks 
why I voted for a bill that uses their tax dollars and sends back to 
them only $394 for each poor child at the same time it sends the State 
of California $1,716. You can use all the sophistry in the world. You 
can use every kind of convoluted argument in the world to try to defend 
this. It is indefensible.
  So, Madam President, I am honored to join my good friends and 
colleagues, Senator Graham and Senator Bryan, in trying to bring some 
sense and sanity to this bill. There are a lot of things about this 
bill I do not like. I would have a very difficult time voting for this 
bill even if this amendment was agreed to. I am not terribly worried 
about that.
  But, for the life of me, when you look at that map and you see the 
States that are helped and the States that are hurt under this 
amendment--which simply says divide the pot of money by the number of 
poor children in this country and send it out to them on a per capita 
basis--you cannot improve on that. So I am hoping when the rollcall is 
up on this amendment, people will look at that chart and realize we are 
not talking about State money; we are talking about Federal taxpayers' 
money. We are distributing it in the most unkind, most unfair way I can 
imagine.
  I yield the floor.
  

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