[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 

[[Page S 14773]]
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 

[[Page S 14774]]
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 

[[Page S 14775]]
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. 

[[Page S 14776]]
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.

[[Page S 14777]]

  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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