[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 154 (Friday, September 29, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14772-S14777]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
WELFARE REFORM VOTES
Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, during the Senate's consideration of the
welfare reform bill there was often very little time available for
Senators to debate the amendments which were offered. I would like to
take a moment of the Senate's time now to comment on various votes
which were cast during that debate.
Mr. President, no single issue dominated our deliberations more than
the subject of illegitimacy. Republican or Democrat. Liberal or
Conservative. I believe nearly every Senator emphasized the need for
our society to curtail the dramatic rise in illegitimacy--or else face
the tragic consequences.
Given our near universal expression of concern and the overwhelming
urgency of the situation, the logical question became: What steps do we
in Congress take to combat this vexing problem?
A number of proposals were presented for the Senate to consider.
There was the family cap: Essentially denying additional benefits to
mothers already on welfare for any additional children they have. There
was the issue of denying any assistance at all to unwed teen mothers.
And there was the illegitimacy ratio bonus which would provide
additional financial assistance to States which successfully lowered
their out-of-wedlock birth rate.
My general philosophy when it comes to an issue such as welfare
reform is to give the States maximum flexibility in designing and
operating their own programs. I think this is especially important when
dealing with the matter of illegitimacy. While a great deal of
attention has been paid to this issue lately, at present, there is no
concrete evidence that any specific program or approach has proven to
be consistently effective in stemming the tide of illegitimacy.
Mr. President, the States have shown they are best suited to serve as
laboratories where experimentation can take place and truly innovative
solutions will be found. However, if this is to
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happen, we must resist the temptation to coerce the States into
adopting any one particular approach as the best or only way to combat
illegitimacy.
The State of New Jersey has over the last couple of years instituted
a family cap as part of its welfare program. I applaud their leadership
in attempting to reverse the devastating effects of rampant
illegitimacy. Nevertheless, there are conflicting reports about the
results in New Jersey thus far. At this time, it is unclear what
conclusions we in Congress can fairly glean from their experience.
Absent credible evidence of success, how can we justify imposing any
one approach on every State in the Nation?
A far preferable approach, Mr. President, is to set national goals
and give the States incentives to pursue them. This is why I fought to
add the illegitimacy ratio bonus mechanism to the welfare reform bill.
With the bonus, we are giving States a substantial financial incentive
to be vigorous in dealing with their out-of-wedlock birth rates without
the constraints of a specific policy regimen. It is intended precisely
to reward those States which are innovative, assiduous, and successful.
And because the award is so substantial, we included language in the
provision protecting against States using abortion as a means of
achieving these drops in out-of-wedlock births.
With these thoughts in mind, Mr. President, I voted for the motion to
strike the family cap offered by the Senator from New Mexico, Senator
Domenici. The Dole family cap language required every State to deny
cash benefits for additional children born to mothers already on
welfare. There was no opt-out available to States. There was no ability
for States to modify the cap to suit their circumstances or to get out
from under it if unintended consequences ensued.
Many people believe the crisis of illegitimacy is sufficiently dire
that dramatic steps must be taken. I concur with that assessment. I
simply question the wisdom of forcing all 50 States to adopt a rigid
prescription for combatting illegitimacy at the same time we are giving
them limited resources and asking them to be creative in designing
their own welfare programs. The illegitimacy ratio bonus--providing
States the incentive of additional resources if they make use of the
flexibility we allow and design effective programs--is I think a better
way to induce States to address this problem.
Mr. President, this same rationale persuaded me to vote in favor of
the Faircloth amendment which combined a Federal requirement that
States deny cash assistance to unwed teen mothers with a State opt-out
provision. The reason for requiring States to affirmatively opt-out of
the Federal requirement is to ensure that States at least engage in a
formal debate on how they plan to address the issue of illegitimacy.
Given the severity of the problem and the catastrophic ramifications
of our doing nothing, I do not believe that requiring States to debate
the wisdom of this particular proposal is an unnecessary infringement
on State prerogatives or flexibility. It is also important to remember
that there is nothing in this legislation which would have prevented
States from doing this once the bill was passed. Under the Senate bill,
States are free to enact such policies, and I suspect a number of them
will.
Mr. President, let me stress one final, important point. I have said
that I believe States should be given the opportunity to devise and
implement their own programs to counter the skyrocketing out-of-wedlock
birth rate. I fully expect them to make the most of this opportunity.
Should States either fail to address this issue or to deal with it
effectively, I believe the Congress will have no choice but to step in
and dictate a more prescriptive approach. Likewise, if particular
initiatives yield concrete results at the State level, it would then
become more reasonable for the Federal Government to push States to
adopt such policies--though not to the exclusion of all other
approaches.
Mr. President, another area of concern to many Senators was the issue
of requiring States to maintain a level of spending on welfare
consistent with that of previous years. I think the proponents of such
measures--commonly referred to as ``maintenance of effort''--operate
out of a genuine concern that States not take advantage of this new
Federal-State relationship. Nevertheless, I believe these efforts are
misguided for two principal reasons.
First, I believe most of these proposals originate out of the false
notion that States, once relieved of massive Federal regulation and
oversight of these programs, will immediately begin a race to the
bottom. Once States are relieved of a required level of spending, it is
argued, they will quickly cut benefits and shift their own resources to
other areas. As I have stated on other occasions, I find this argument
to be both naive and condescending.
I think our experience in Michigan shows that States--if given the
latitude to run their own programs--can be both efficient and
compassionate. The first reforms Michigan instituted, once it received
the requisite waivers from HHS, were not designed merely to get people
off welfare and save money. In fact, the actual effect of many of these
initiatives was this: To allow people to stay on welfare and, at the
same time, to remain a two-parent family, or, to take a job and earn
some additional money, or, in some instances, to facilitate the welfare
recipient's eligibility to receive Medicaid, to which they would not
otherwise be entitled.
Far from our State's program being more harsh, I believe we in
Michigan have been in many ways more realistic and more compassionate
than the Federal Government.
The second reason the rationale behind maintenance of effort
requirements is flawed is that they are simply not realistic. Again, I
think Michigan's experience is instructive.
Over the last 3 years, Michigan was able to reduce its welfare
caseload by approximately 14 percent. In September 1992, our AFDC
caseload was almost 222,000 cases and as of August 1995 our caseload
has dropped to just over 190,000. Because of this, welfare spending in
our State decreased from $485 million in fiscal year 1993 to $451
million in fiscal year 1994--a difference of $34 million or 7 percent.
And fiscal year 1995, which is about to end, is expected to be
considerably lower than the previous year.
Mr. President, there are those who will argue about whether
Michigan's caseload reduction is due to our welfare reform program or
our strong economy. Frankly, that misses the point. A strong economy
has certainly had a beneficial effect on our welfare caseload. However,
even if the caseload reduction were due solely to the State's improved
economy, the simple fact remains that there normally would be a
correspondingly large reduction in State spending on welfare. And this
would occur without any negative impact on the services or benefits
available to individuals who remain on welfare.
Why, Mr. President, should a State have to continue to spend the same
amount on welfare if its caseload has been reduced by 10 percent, 20
percent or even 30 percent?
Nevertheless, during consideration of the welfare reform bill, the
Senate was repeatedly confronted with attempts to impose a maintenance
of effort requirement. The original Dole-Packwood bill did not contain
a maintenance of effort provision. It was subsequently modified to
provide for a 75-percent maintenance of effort for the first 3 years.
We then upped that figure to 80 percent, and later extended the effort
requirement to 5 years.
Mr. President, I supported those changes because I understood that
these were sincere attempts to accommodate Senators with serious
concerns about this issue. I was willing to agree to these changes
precisely because the level of effort required--75 percent or 80
percent--allowed a reasonable degree of latitude for States to adjust
their spending levels to meet exigent circumstances. However, the
Breaux amendment--which I opposed--required a 90-percent maintenance of
effort or a decrease in the State's AFDC grant proportionate to the
amount the State's spending fell below 90 percent of previous levels.
And shortly before final passage, we were asked to vote on the final
Dole modification package which contained two additional maintenance of
effort provisions. The first one was tied to the additional $3 billion
made available
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to States for child care. To be eligible for these funds, States were
required to maintain 100 percent of their fiscal year 1994 spending on
AFDC child care --even though they would still have to match these
Federal funds at the standard Medicaid matching rate. The second was
tied to the contingency fund, for which States were only eligible if
they maintained 100 percent of their AFDC spending for fiscal year
1994.
Mr. President, I realize many of my colleagues are concerned about
States not carrying their weight, not paying their fair share. This
Senator was willing to support a symbolic level of effort--and did.
However, I felt the two additional maintenance of effort provisions in
the final Dole modification simply went too far. The effect of all of
these provisions, I believe, would be to force States to adopt spending
priorities that were inconsistent with their caseloads, their costs or
other factors.
Why is that a legitimate concern? It amounts to subtle coercion and
contradicts what we are purportedly attempting to accomplish by
creating the block grant. It violates part of the bargain into which I
thought we were entering.
We promised to give States essentially a fixed block of money with
which to design and operate their own welfare system. The incentive for
the States to run a tough, fair and efficient system was that they
could decrease the overall amount they spent on welfare and, thereby,
free up some of their own funds for use in other areas. By adopting
these various maintenance of effort requirements, we have violated that
tacit agreement and--I believe--undermined States' ability to succeed.
I think that was a mistake.
It was for that reason I voted ``No'' on the final Dole modification.
However, I still strongly supported the bill on final passage. There
are too many other important elements in the legislation. And inclusion
of this provision in the bill does not, in my mind, jeopardize the
overall feasibility of the welfare block grant scheme.
Finally, Mr. President, there were a number of votes on amendments to
Title V of the bill which dealt with the provision of Federal means-
tested benefits to non-citizens. Let me briefly address a couple of
these.
First, I see no merit or justification--where the U.S. Constitution
is silent--in drawing distinctions between naturalized and native-born
citizens. Where the Constitution makes distinctions, we must abide by
its directives. Beyond that, I believe all citizens, regardless of how
they arrived at their citizenship, ought to be treated equally under
the law.
America is a nation built by immigrants. It has always served as a
shining beacon of freedom to those fleeing tyranny and those seeking
opportunity. In the case of my own grandparents, they came here merely
looking for an opportunity to build a life for themselves. Once they
became U.S. citizens, the place of their birth should have had no
bearing on their rights or privileges in this country.
This is why I voted for the amendment offered by the Senator from
California, Senator Feinstein, to remove language in the underlying
Dole proposal which would deny cash and non-cash welfare benefits to
naturalized citizens during the ``deeming" period. The ``deeming''
period refers to the time during which the assets of the immigrant's
sponsors are counted in evaluating the need for means-tested government
assistance.
Mr. President, I believe this amendment is clearly unconstitutional.
We are talking about American citizens, not legal aliens. As Senator
Feinstein indicated during the debate, the Supreme Court in 1964, in
the case Schneider v. Rusk ruled that ``the rights of citizenship of
the native born and of the naturalized citizens are of the same dignity
and coextensive.'' There can be no rationale for explicitly or
implicitly designating as ``second-class'' citizens individuals who
have come by their citizenship legally. It is as simple as that. The
Feinstein amendment would have eliminated any disparate treatment once
citizenship has been achieved. That is what the Constitution requires,
and that is why I supported her amendment.
The other amendments in this area addressed extending federally
means-tested benefits to non-citizens. Unlike the issue in the
aforementioned Feinstein amendment, in these instances I felt there
could be a legitimate policy distinction between citizens and non-
citizens. Exact symmetry in our treatment of these groups is not
necessary--and, in certain situations, not appropriate.
A second Feinstein amendment dealing with immigration would limit the
deeming requirements to only cash and cash-like Federal benefits.
Therefore, legal aliens with sponsors would not have to have their
sponsor's income taken into consideration when applying for such
Federal benefits as Medicaid and Head Start.
This amendment raises three issues. First, the letter of the law is
that all legal immigrants entering this country--even those who
ultimately plan to stay permanently and become citizens--must assure
immigration officials that they will not become public charges while
they are here. They must show sufficient resources either of their own
or belonging to their sponsor. While this law has not been diligently
enforced, it is important to remember that those are the terms of an
immigrant's entrance into our country.
Second, we are in the process of making difficult budget decisions on
many programs--including Medicaid and Head Start. Are we prepared to
facilitate the ability of non-citizens to gain access to these programs
at the same time we are placing limits on the funding available to meet
the needs of our own citizens?
Last, the argument is made that, if these people are not eligible for
Federal benefits, the States will end up bearing the cost of providing
these services. The bill does make exceptions --such as emergency
medical care, disaster relief, school lunches, child nutrition, and
immunization against disease--so that under certain circumstances the
Federal Government will cover the cost of certain benefits. Aside from
those instances, States must decide what level of services they are
willing to provide, and they are free to spend their resources in those
areas as they see fit. I did not see a compelling reason to add to the
exceptions already provided for in the bill, and therefore, I could not
support the Feinstein amendment.
Senators Simon and Graham offered an amendment which would have
eliminated any retroactivity effect from the Dole bill's provision to
increase the deeming requirement in all cases to a 5-year period.
Currently, there are some government benefits, education assistance
being a primary example, for which non-citizens residing legally in the
United States can become eligible earlier than the five year deeming
period which exists for most means-tested Federal benefits.
This provision would apply to a relatively narrow segment of people:
only legal aliens who have been in this country less than five years
and who either are currently receiving some form of assistance or are
eligible to receive some form of assistance because the respective
deeming period has expired. As I have indicated, immigrants legally
admitted to the United States are asked to pledge that they will either
be self-supporting or supported by their sponsors.
I regret that some people may be adversely affected by this
provision. Nevertheless, it has become too easy in many instances for
non-citizens to receive government benefits while our own citizens
often go without. At a time when we are making difficult budget cuts
which will impact the lives of American citizens, I think we owe it to
them to ensure that we are not conferring non-essential benefits to
non-citizens. For that reason, I opposed the Simon-Graham amendment on
deeming retroactivity.
Mr. President, let me quickly describe a number of other issues which
arose during the Senate's consideration of the welfare reform bill.
Formula issues are always among the most contentious of the matters
we deal with in the Senate. On welfare reform, this was once again the
case. There were two formula-related amendments offered on the floor:
the Graham Children's Fair Share formula and the Feinstein Growth
Formula Adjustment.
Formulas are usually made up of a number of different variables, but
these
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variables tend to represent three general indexes. These factors are:
How wealthy is the State? What has the State's effort in this area been
in the past? And what are the State's needs? The formula's end product
depends as much on which of these factors you stress most as it depends
on the relevant statistics from the State.
In the case of the Graham amendment, the so-called growth States were
pitted directly against those States which traditionally had the
highest welfare caseload and highest level of expenditures. If the
Graham amendment had passed, it would have been devastating to the
State of Michigan, and thus I felt compelled to oppose it.
The Feinstein amendment was a closer call. The Feinstein amendment
was identical to the House formula, and apparently no State would have
lost money under its provisions. In fact, the State of Michigan stood
to receive a slight increase under the Feinstein proposal. However,
because formula fights are so contentious, if every State only looks at
the bottom line, we stand either to make bad policy or to be unable to
win passage of the bill.
In the case of the Feinstein amendment, a compromise had already been
worked out between the Senator from Texas, Senator Hutchison, and the
Majority Leader which addressed many of the concerns of the so-called
growth States. This was a fragile compromise and passage of Feinstein
amendment would have abrogated it, effectively increasing the
likelihood of the Graham amendment passing. That would have been
devastating to Michigan. My vote against the Feinstein amendment was an
attempt to ensure ultimate passage of the bill while also guaranteeing
adequate funding for my State.
The Senator from Illinois, Senator Moseley-Braun offered two
amendments that dealt with cutting off benefits. The first stipulated
that the 5-year cumulative time limit on benefits for welfare
recipients would not apply if any State did not provide employment, job
training or job counseling to the recipient. The problem with this
amendment is that it places the entire burden on the State to provide
the work-activity related services'' to the recipient, thus alleviating
the individual of any need to exert the effort and responsibility
necessary to seek out and obtain job training or employment.
We already have a requirement that States get welfare recipients into
work-related activities; it is called the participation rate. States
which do not meet this will themselves be sanctioned. Mr. President, if
individuals desire to get off welfare and into training or employment,
they will find an eager partner in the State welfare agency. For those
recipients who are less motivated--or not motivated at all--we need the
5-year time limit. Adopting this amendment would, in my estimation,
emasculate the 5-year time limit, and for that reason I opposed it.
The second Moseley-Braun amendment dealt with the consequences of
what happens to children if their parents are sanctioned for any reason
and lose their benefits. It would have required States to replace the
lost benefits with vouchers for goods and services equal to each
child's share of the benefits. I am sympathetic to the problem the
Senator from Illinois sought to rectify. I am simply concerned that, in
this instance, her solution was too far-reaching.
As with ``strings'' in other areas--for instance illegitimacy--I am
reluctant to tell States they must address a potential problem with a
particular remedy. States are free, under this bill, to do exactly what
this amendment proposes with their own funds. And I believe many will.
But by passing this amendment, we would be limiting the options
available to the State to address certain exigencies. I believe that
would be a mistake, and for that reason I voted against this particular
amendment of the Senator from Illinois.
The Senate also considered a similar amendment offered by the
Minority Leader and the Senator from Massachusetts, Senator Kennedy,
which would permit States to use Federal funds to provide non-cash
assistance to children whose parents become ineligible for assistance
due to the five year time limit. As I stated above, States are, of
course, perfectly free and capable to provide this assistance with
their own funds. However, there is another provision of the Dole bill
which could apply in such instances.
The Dole bill does allow States a hardship exemption to protect
families from the five year time limit when circumstances warrant. In
fact, the Majority Leader, at the request of the Minority Leader,
raised the level of hardship exemptions States can claim from 15
percent to 20 percent precisely to address this concern. So I am
confident that sufficient resources and flexibility exist for States to
take care of children who may be affected by the 5-year time limit.
Mr. President, I have a lot more faith than apparently is held on the
other side of the aisle that Governors and State legislators--whether
they are Republicans or Democrats--will not allow children in their
States to suffer. I know that many people believe that will occur. I do
not. I believe that any elected official who allows that to take place
on their watch will pay the price at the ballot box at the next
election. And frankly, Mr. President, there is already considerable
suffering occurring under the present system. I do not imagine the
States could do much worse.
There were two amendments from the Senator from Maryland that I would
like to discuss. One dealt with an issue both she and I had addressed
earlier this year in the Labor Committee. Her amendment proposed to
strike from the workforce development portion of the welfare bill the
repeal of Title V of the Older Americans Act which applies to senior
community service employment programs. While the workforce development
section now has been separated from the welfare reform bill to be taken
up as a free-standing measure, let me describe the rationale behind my
opposition to the Mikulski amendment.
The existing Senior Community Service Employment program gives
approximately $320 million to about 10 national seniors groups. It is
then left to those groups to set up programs that benefit the seniors
at the State and local level. By many accounts, that presently is not
happening. During the Labor Committee's consideration of the workforce
development bill, I heard from seniors groups in Michigan. They
supported the concept of block granting these funds to the State level
precisely because they are not receiving adequate funding under the
current structure.
The General Accounting Office reportedly will soon release a report
documenting the degree to which these funds fail to ever reach the
senior citizens and local seniors groups they are meant to benefit.
Reportedly, one fifth of the $320 million is going to administrative
costs including salaries, fringe benefits and expenses. Only a fraction
of the remainder reaches the grass roots level. This is the type of
arrangement that my constituents sent me to Washington to rectify. That
is why I supported block granting these funds to the States and why I
voted against the Senator from Maryland's amendment.
The second Mikulski amendment was very attractive in theory, but it
contained a couple of elements which I could not justify supporting.
The purpose of the amendment was noble: to create incentives for
families to stay intact and to remove any existing disincentives from
the law. Regrettably, one of the incentives was a mandate on States to
establish job training and employment programs for non-custodial
parents to help them get jobs, earn an income, and pay child support.
That is a laudable objective, Mr. President. However, how do we
explain to the lower-middle class working parent, who may already be
holding down two or three jobs himself or herself, that we are setting
up a new program to provide a dead-beat dad job training when we are
not providing them the same opportunity. I think the existing penalties
for dead-beat parents--and the additional ones provided in this bill--
will give them sufficient incentive, if they are so inclined, to seek
out training and work. And there are plenty of existing job training
and employment service programs available to meet the needs of any non-
custodial parents needing assistance.
Second, this amendment attempted to re-insert into the bill a
controversial provision which had already been struck: namely, the $50
pass-through.
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In most, if not every State, the policy is that when delinquent child
support payments are finally collected, the State is first entitled to
subtract the costs it incurred in providing assistance to the family
while child support was not forthcoming. It then passes any remaining
money on to the mother.
This amendment would propose that the first fifty dollars collected
in back child support be passed directly through to the mother before
the State attempts to defray its costs in caring for the family. Mr.
President, State child support agencies oppose this amendment as an
added and unnecessary administrative burden and as an obstacle to
States' attempts to recoup monies they have spent supporting these
families. We are not talking about States taking money which rightfully
belongs to others. We are talking about State's being reimbursed for
their expenditures when remuneration becomes available, and therefore,
being able to support another needy family at a later date. That is
entirely reasonable and fair, and thus, I believe such a proposal is
misguided.
The Mikulski amendment does contain a provision which I strongly
support: the elimination of the 100-hour work limit or the man in the
house rule. However, the other aforementioned elements of the amendment
are not sound policy to my mind, and therefore, I felt constrained to
oppose the amendment.
As an aside, Mr. President, back in 1992 the State of Michigan sought
and received a waiver from HHS from the man in the house regulation as
well as the work history requirement before families can become
eligible for AFDC. Please understand this incongruity: For a two parent
family to be eligible for AFDC, one of the parents must have a recent
work history, but at the same time, that parent cannot be working more
than 100 hours in a given month. That, Mr. President, is why we need to
free States from the Federal micro-management which has, I think,
plagued our national social policy over the last thirty years.
On another matter, the Senator from New Mexico, Senator Bingaman,
offered an amendment to increase funding levels for treatment programs
for drug abuse and alcohol treatment. Senator Bingaman's amendment
sought to increase funding for these programs by an additional $300
million. This was after the Majority Leader and the Minority Leader had
already included in the final modification package a funding level of
$50 million for the next two years. The Senator from New Mexico
preferred $100 million for the next 4 years.
Mr. President, it is no secret that substance abuse and alcoholism
are severe problems for our society and not simply characteristic of
welfare populations. Nevertheless, research confirms that a very
sizable segment of the long-term welfare dependent population has
either a substance or alcohol abuse problem. Any effective welfare
reform program at the State level will have to deal with this dilemma.
The problem, Mr. President, is that we have very limited resources
with which to work. If we add $300 million dollars in substance abuse
treatment, it will come from one of two places. It can come right off
the top of each State's welfare block grant. But this is money already
going to the States, and under this amendment, the States would have no
option but to use it exclusively for treatment. At least under the Dole
proposal, States can assess their own needs in determining what is a
reasonable level of expenditure.
The only other recourse we would have is to tell the Finance
Committee that they now, during the reconciliation process, need to
come up with another $300 million from somewhere. Will it be Medicare?
Will it be Medicaid? Who knows? The responsible thing, I believe, Mr.
President, is to allow the States to determine their own needs and give
them the flexibility to direct the necessary resources to meet that
need. For that reason, I voted against the Bingaman amendment.
That same day we also considered a Sense of the Senate amendment by
the Senator from Minnesota, Senator Wellstone, which stated that ``any
Medicaid reform enacted by the Senate this year should require that
States continue to provide Medicaid for 12 months to families who lose
eligibility for welfare benefits because of more earnings or hours of
employment.''
Mr. President, this is one of those amendments that appears
well intentioned and reasonable, but serves, I think, to replicate the
type of over-regulation that has hampered our Federal social programs
for years. In Michigan, as I have already noted, we were able to secure
a waiver from HHS that would allow us to opt out of a Federal
regulation which served to limit people's access to Medicaid. Once
Michigan obtained the waiver, between October 1992 and December 1992
over 4,500 cases were transferred from our State Family Assistance
Program to Medicaid.
In 1994, Michigan sought another waiver from HHS. The State wanted to
eliminate the disincentive which often exists when people face the
prospect of losing Medicaid if they find employment and leave AFDC.
Michigan proposed to offer a Medicaid ``Buy-In'' option for individuals
whose transitional Medicaid coverage had expired and for whom employer-
based health coverage was not available. This program would also cover
children for whom a child support order requires the purchase of health
coverage. Regrettably, our State has still not received a waiver from
HHS so they cannot move forward with this program. Because of this
inaction, people in my State go without health care coverage or remain
on welfare.
Mr. President, I ask my colleagues: Where is the compassion in that?
This program would in fact be even more generous than what the Senator
from Minnesota has suggested in his amendment. The State of Michigan
was not under duress when it requested this waiver; it was good social
policy. It is experiences like this that give me confidence that the
States are going to perform much better than people think, and better
than the Federal Government has performed in many areas.
Perhaps the amendment of the Senator from Minnesota is not misguided
in intent, but I am afraid it is misguided in effect. It states that
one particular approach is ideal in all situations. There is not even
an allowance for States to deny benefits to individuals earning over a
reasonable income limit; it only states ``families who lose
eligibility'' because of ``more earnings'' should retain their Medicaid
eligibility for an additional 12 months. This amendment is simply
unrealistic, and it undermines our efforts to give States maximum
flexibility in responding to various exigencies. I felt it was
necessary to oppose it.
Following the Wellstone amendment, the Senate took up an amendment
offered by the Senator from Wisconsin, Senator Kohl. The Kohl amendment
would have exempted senior citizens, the disabled, and children from
the optional food stamp block grant which is part of the Dole bill.
First let me point out that, through burdensome regulations and
restrictions, we have already made the ``option'' for States to elect a
food stamp block grant fairly unattractive. This would make it only
more so. Imagine the administrative nightmare for a State to run a
system in which some of its citizens are in the State program and some
are still in the Federal system. That would prove to be unworkable.
There is also the matter of cost. This provision would reportedly
cost an additional $1.4 billion. As I have already indicated, it can
only come from two places: decreasing the amount going to States in
their welfare block grants--meaning less money in assistance--or
further reductions in other federal programs like Medicare or Medicaid.
I do not believe that either of those results is acceptable, and
therefore, I voted against the Kohl amendment.
The Senator from Florida, Senator Graham, offered an amendment which
would undermine the tough work requirement in the Dole bill by allowing
the Secretary of HHS to modify each State's work participation rate to
reflect the varying levels of Federal assistance. I agree that some
States are farther along than others in developing a welfare program
capable of meeting the ambitious participation rates contained in the
Dole bill. However, I also believe that States are given sufficient
tools and enough flexibility in this bill to meet these targets in the
time allotted.
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My concern, Mr. President, is that if we do not have tough, uniform
work requirements, States will have every incentive to come up with
reasons that these target rates are not achievable. As it now stands,
States know what is expected of them, and they are given five years to
meet these targets. And we have made a number of changes to facilitate
their task. To have accepted this amendment would have set us back
considerably from our goal to have people on welfare performing real
work. For that reason, I could not support the Graham amendment.
In conclusion, Mr. President, I believe the Senate's passage of this
legislation was a momentous occasion. It marked, I think, a watershed
in our approach to social policy in this Nation. There were a number of
considerable accomplishments in this measure.
We were able to end the ``entitlement'' status of welfare benefits.
The American people have made it clear that they want a welfare system
which does more than simply provide government hand-outs. They expect
something from the recipient in return--self-discipline, a work ethic,
personal responsibility. But it is practically impossible to have real
welfare reform without the ability to sanction those recipients who
fail to abide by the terms of the program.
As long as welfare is treated as an entitlement--essentially a right
and not a benefit--the courts have ruled that the same due process
rights exists for the welfare recipient as for a homeowner or property
owner. In fact, some would argue it would be easier for the Government
to take your property away. Without this legislation, sanctioning
recipients who refuse to work will be administratively unduly
burdensome if not impossible.
The second major achievement of the welfare bill was to erect a
strong work requirement for States to use in developing their programs.
We started by giving States difficult targets to reach in the form of
work participation rates among welfare recipients--and without
exemptions. Exemptions only serve to exaggerate the number of people
working in any State. We then crafted a strict definition of what
constitutes work so that we could be confident that the States had
genuine work programs. Other than those parameters, Mr. President, we
tell the States that they are free to determine by themselves how they
wish to meet those targets.
Third, while the Senate did not go as far as many people wished, we
took a sizable and laudable first step toward addressing the crisis of
illegitimacy. We made illegitimacy a core feature of the welfare reform
bill, and we gave States a carrot and stick. The carrot comes in the
form of the illegitimacy ratio bonus. The stick, I believe, is the
inevitability of Congress taking much more drastic, prescriptive
actions if States fail to effectively combat their out-of-wedlock birth
rates.
Finally, the bill gives the States tremendous latitude and
flexibility in designing and running the programs we are block granting
and sending back to them. That is critical if the block grant approach
is to ever succeed.
For years, many of us have said that the Federal Government does not
have all the answers. We have repeatedly proclaimed that too often
bureaucrats in Washington have actually created many of our problems or
were hindrances to others' attempts at finding solutions.
Mr. President, this Senator simply does not believe that government
at any level--Federal, State or local--has the resources or the
ingenuity to solve all of our Nation's social problems. That is
especially true when we are talking about many of the issues related to
welfare reform: illegitimacy, child care, education and job training,
paternity establishment and child support.
If all we ask of our welfare system is to provide a safety net for
people who have fallen on hard times, then we can content ourselves
with Government merely getting money or goods into peoples' hands.
However, if we want our welfare system to be one in which individuals
needing assistance are given the tools and the opportunities to get off
welfare and never return, the assistance we provide has to be more than
simply a government hand-out.
To accomplish this will require input from a whole host of other
institutions in our society beyond government--our churches, our
schools, our businesses, our civic associations--in essence, our entire
community. For too many years, Government has seen itself as the sole
purveyor of opportunity for the less fortunate and, in the process, has
stifled the efforts of other institutions desirous of sharing the
workload. With the passage of this welfare reform bill, we are telling
Government that it must begin to share the responsibilities and the
resources with other partners in this endeavor.
That is why I believe the legislation we passed last week is such a
tremendous accomplishment. I trust the conferees will work diligently
to come up with a similarly tough and balanced measure, one that most
of us can wholeheartedly support.
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