[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 146 (Tuesday, September 19, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S13749-S13750]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           THE WELFARE SYSTEM

  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, today we embark upon a most important 
responsibility, a responsibility that the people of this country called 
upon us to undertake in the elections of 1994. I must say that I 
believe the people have been yearning that Congress confront this 
challenge forthrightly and productively for years. But I believe that 
the Congress has finally gotten the message, and we have been working 
very hard to change the welfare system--to change it from a system for 
keeping the poor and maintaining the poor. And, unfortunately, that is 
what we have done. We have maintained them and kept them poor through a 
system that should have become a transitional system, a system that 
would help people move from poverty to prosperity, move from welfare to 
work. And it is an important responsibility which we have.
  The welfare system in the United States has been a system of failure. 
It has not been that the people have failed so much as the system has 
failed. We started out with an aggressive program in the 1960's to 
launch a war on poverty. And yet, in spite of the great war on poverty, 
spending over $5 trillion, we have more people in poverty now than we 
did when we started the war on poverty. We have a greater percentage of 
the children of America on poverty than we did when we started the war 
on poverty.
  It occurs to me that we have a great responsibility to change this 
system--to change it profoundly so that, instead of a system which ends 
up trapping people in lives of poverty, we make this a transitional 
system; that, when people really need help, we move them from the 
desperation of needing help to the opportunity of work and 
responsibility.
  So this national system which has become a national disgrace is the 
topic now of national debate, and it should be the topic of action in 
the Senate today.
  As you and I well know, and as our colleagues here in the Senate well 
know, the House has already acted forthrightly in this respect. There 
are differences between what the House has passed and what those of us 
in the Senate have been working on. But we can find a way to reconcile 
our differences, and I believe we can give to the President of the 
United States, who has said that he wants to end welfare as we know it, 
a constructive bill. 

[[Page S13750]]

  During the past several weeks we have debated this measure, and we 
have properly spent substantial time on it because this is no small 
item. It does not just deal with the billions and billions of dollars. 
The welfare problem, the welfare challenge, deals with much money. It 
deals with the great set of natural and national resources--not just 
financial but human resources.
  The fact of the matter is that the United States of America can ill 
afford to compete on the international scene, can ill afford to be a 
part of the challenge for productivity as one nation will seek to do 
and do better than another nation, if we have so many of our players 
that are not really on the field. We would not think of sending our 
team out to play another team for a Saturday or Sunday afternoon 
football game with half of our team not taking the field, not being 
capable of participating, and being ruled out of the system. Well, our 
team is a big team, and it is a strong team. It is a capable team in 
the United States. But we have too many that have been consigned to 
bench duty without any possibility of making it to the field. And we 
will not win in the competition of the international arena unless we 
find a way to bring people into productivity and out of poverty.
  So the real challenge we face is changing the system, and changing it 
not just by tinkering around the edges. No rearrangement of the deck 
chairs on the welfare Titanic will get the job done. We need to have 
the kind of profound changes that will move people out of despair into 
industry, and out of hopelessness into opportunity.
  So we will vote on a clear question today, and that is whether we 
will continue to fund the horror that came to define the United States 
welfare system and which came to detail the lives of individuals 
trapped in this system. Whether we have the courage to change that or 
not will be the real vote which we make today. I believe we have the 
courage to do that which is right, and I believe we will do so. And I 
believe we ought to do so.
  I would say that this is not an ideal welfare bill. This is not 
something that is in my judgment the best that could be done. There are 
probably changes that almost every Member of this Chamber would make in 
the bill. I believe that the right thing to do would have been far 
broader, not just block granting AFDC with an option to block grant 
food stamps. In my judgment we should have had AFDC, food stamps, 
Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income. The big four of welfare 
should all have been in this bill, all reformed at the same time for a 
variety of reasons, such as stopping the insanity of entitlement 
spending. We should avoid cost shifting that would take people out of 
one program in which we removed the entitlement status and shove them 
over into another program which has remained as an entitlement. That 
kind of cost shifting should not be allowed. It should be avoided.
  I would have preferred a more comprehensive bill. Obviously, I would 
have preferred one where the block grant for food stamps was mandated. 
I would have preferred one where we had Supplemental Security Income. I 
would have preferred a bill that would have had a more significant 
breadth, that had Medicaid in it as well. But we are making some first 
steps, and they are important first steps.
  One of the important first steps is the reduction in bureaucracy 
here; the reduction in the redtape, the reduction in this 
micromanagement, this intermeddling micromanagement from the Federal 
Government which makes it very difficult for the States to adopt 
policies that will really make a difference and makes it very expensive 
when you have to comply with hundreds of pages of Federal bureaucratic 
redtape. It is expensive. Instead of money getting to the truly needy, 
instead of the resource making it to the population that wants to move 
from welfare to work, sometimes the resource gets clogged in the 
bottleneck of the bureaucracy and the money is spent there instead of 
being spent on the poor. We are going to reduce the number of 
regulatory impositions from Washington substantially. This bill will 
improve our ability to deliver the real kind of help that people need. 
That is important--maximum State flexibility.
  Second, I believe it is important that we will end an entitlement. 
This philosophy that we do not care how much it costs, that as many 
people as can meet certain criteria are just entitled to self-
appropriate to themselves--that has to stop. It is a major thing. 
First, reduce the bureaucracy; second, end entitlement; third, we are 
going to require work far more pervasively than ever before.
  The American people have told us with a clarity that is unmistakable. 
We must require work, and, of course, provide the flexibility so that 
people can do in the various States and communities of this country 
what works there, not what somebody in Washington wants to impose, but 
to do simply what works.
  This bill makes a statement that Washington does not have all the 
answers. We are now looking to the communities and the States to do 
what works there, to tailor programs, and to be experimental stations 
to say we will try this, and, if it works here, others might want to 
try it. But it should not be imposed on them because people should have 
an opportunity to do what works to move people from poverty to 
productivity. Washington, it may be said, has been the mad scientist 
seeking to impose its will. But the truth of the matter is we need to 
provide an opportunity for States to do that which works.
  Well, this bill comes with an explicit admonition as well. This bill 
recognizes that Government alone will not solve these problems. And I 
think that it is important for us to express nationally and as a part 
of policy that we really expect charitable and nongovernmental 
institutions in this culture to rally to address this problem, and not 
expect the problem to be solved fully by Government.
  So we have in this bill a specific invitation to private charities, 
nongovernmental entities, even faith-based organizations to participate 
in the solution of this serious challenge to the success of this 
society in the next century. And I believe that is a major step 
forward.
  We have an opportunity. We have an opportunity to do something that 
is substantially in the best interests of the people of this country, 
something they have yearned for us to do. That is to change a welfare 
system which is badly broken, which has been the keeper of the poor and 
has kept people poor, which has managed to find more people in poverty 
after its great effort than less people in poverty.
  The war on poverty has resulted in the children of America being 
taken as prisoners. We have to do something, and we have to do it well.
  As I previously stated, this welfare reform bill is not perfect, but 
it does take the first steps. The lack of perfection in this bill, the 
absence of a mandate that the Food Stamp Program be sent to all the 
States, the lack of reforms to the SSI Program in the bill, are some of 
a number of things which keep it from being perfect but should not keep 
it from being passed.
  This bill gives us the opportunity to say, ``Let us pass this bill, 
but let the imperfections drive us to keep our focus and in the next 
year to continue to improve and extend it.''
  There has been a lot of talk in the last few weeks during the welfare 
reform debate about money and about resources. We know how desperately 
important it is for us to balance the budget, but the ultimate 
importance of this bill is not money. The savings we are talking about 
are the savings in lives and opportunities and, through those savings, 
the future of America. Our task in this welfare reform measure is then 
to save the lives and opportunities of citizens. To pass this welfare 
reform bill today would be a real step toward saving lives, and we must 
support it and must be driven by its imperfections to do even more when 
we reconvene next year.

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