[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 207 (Friday, December 22, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S19154-S19178]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY AND WORK ACT OF 1995--CONFERENCE REPORT

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will now be 30 
minutes for closing remarks on the conference report accompanying H.R. 
4, to be divided in the usual form.
  The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A conference report to accompany H.R. 4 to restore the 
     American family, reduce illegitimacy, control welfare 
     spending and reduce welfare dependence.

  The Senate resumed consideration of the conference report.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, to begin, I ask there be printed in the 
Record an editorial in this morning's Washington Post entitled ``Hard 
Hearts, Soft Heads.''
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, Dec. 22, 1995]

                        Hard Hearts, Soft Heads

       President Clinton earlier this year gave way too much 
     ground in endorsing one bad welfare bill. Yesterday, he 
     finally took the right stance in announcing that he would 
     veto a successor bill that is even worse. Better late than 
     never, and not a moment too soon.
       His announcement came as the House passed this terrible 
     piece of legislation and the Senate prepared to take it up. 
     This time, Mr. Clinton should stick to his position, and the 
     bill's opponent should have the political will to sustain any 
     veto. That would provide the one chance of passing welfare 
     reform that does what it claims--or, failing that, of at 
     least avoiding a dangerous step toward something worse even 
     than the current system.
       Advocates of this bill's deep cuts in programs for the poor 
     and its ending of welfare's ``entitlement'' status like to 
     cast themselves as true friends of the poor and foes of 
     ``dependency.'' Their hardheadedness, they insist, grows from 
     warm-heartedness and a desire to promote work.
       But the House Ways and Means subcommittee on human 
     resources heard a very different analysis from Lawrence M. 
     Mead, a welfare expert much respected by Republicans and 
     conservatives. Prof. Mead was not at all confident that 
     Congress's welfare proposal would do much to promote work. On 
     the contrary, he said, it imposes theoretical ``work 
     requirements'' that states will have great trouble meeting. 
     He suggested that the states might just dump work 
     requirements entirely and take the modest 5 percent cut in 
     federal aid that the bill proposes. This is ``workfare''?
       But hear out Mr. Mead's argument. ``To promote serious 
     reform, it is crucial that Congress manifest that work 
     requirements are serious, and also that it is possible to 
     meet them,'' he said. ``I fear that the new stipulations are 
     not credible as they stand. They call for participation rates 
     never before realized except in a few localities, yet they 
     provide no specific funding or program comparable to JOBS 
     [the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills program] to realize 
     them. The demands made look excessive, but it is also 
     doubtful whether Congress really means to enforce them.'' 
     Imagine that: a bill that claims to be historic whose work 
     requirements are essentially rhetorical.
       If Congress wants a welfare ``reform'' that will do little 
     to encourage work while endangering the basic systems of 
     support for poor children, this bill is just the ticket. But 
     that's a strange place for a ``revolutionary'' Congress to 
     end up.

  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, last evening, I had occasion to remark 
that persons most specifically critical of the welfare measure before 
the Senate have been conservative social scientists who understand the 
extent of the problem we face and the resources needed if we are going 
to achieve anything.
  I mentioned Prof. Lawrence Mead. It turns out he prepared a report 
for the Republican Caucus in the House saying ``Your bill is a 
disaster, can't you see that?'' and readers will do so.
  Several of those of us who voted against this measure in September 
are 

[[Page S19155]]
on the floor. My friend from Minnesota, may I yield him 1\1/2\ minutes.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Senator from New York. Mr. President, I 
voted for this piece of legislation when it first came to the Senate. I 
asked the question, will this bill called ``reform'' lead to more 
children who are impoverished and more hunger among children? I said, 
if so, I would vote ``no.'' I voted ``no.''
  Two studies have come out since that time that said that is exactly 
what would happen. Now we have a conference report even more harsh, 
even more punitive, without basic medical assistance, guarantees of 
medical assistance coverage, with even more drastic cuts in nutrition 
programs for children.
  Mr. President, this is too harsh. It is too extreme. It is beyond the 
goodness of America. It is punitive toward children. We should not vote 
for a piece of legislation that will mean there will be more 
impoverished children and more hungry children and more children 
without health care. That is not what we are about. That is not what 
America is about. I urge my colleagues to vote against this.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished minority leader.
  Mr. DASCHLE. I thank the Senator from New York. Mr. President, this 
bill represents a lost opportunity. Democrats and Republicans share the 
view that the current welfare system needs to be reformed. We recognize 
that the current system does not work. It does not enable people to 
become self-sufficient. It does not contain the resources to put people 
to work. It is not flexible enough for the States. It sends mixed 
messages to welfare recipients.
  Welfare can become a trap, that work does not pay. In short, most 
recognize that welfare should not be a way of life. We also recognize 
the twin goals of creating incentives to work, to provide the 
opportunity for welfare offices to truly become employment offices. 
That is No. 1--giving people a chance to work, people who want to work, 
who have no skills to work, who need to work. They want that 
opportunity, Mr. President, and that ought to be the goal of welfare 
reform.
  Our second goal ought to be to protect children, to provide them the 
nutrition, to provide them the housing, and most importantly, if we are 
going to ensure that parents have the confidence that they can leave 
their homes and go to work, that their children will be cared for while 
they are gone.
  There is no perfect solution, no easy solution, but Democrats in a 
unanimous demonstration of support proposed what we called the Work 
First bill. The Senate-passed bill was passed with the support of many 
of us and we recognized it as really, just a first step--a minimal bill 
in many respects, minimally acceptable in the view of many of us, but 
certainly a bill that represented an improvement over the current 
system.
  The pending conference report, Mr. President, has fallen way below 
that minimum standard of acceptability. It will move more children into 
poverty, not less. It provides virtually no protections for children. 
It particularly targets disabled children.
  The pending bill falls far short of real welfare reform. It fails to 
achieve the goals. It punishes children and it does not move people to 
work. It does not provide the resources necessary to move people from 
welfare to work. It does not provide sufficient child care funds. It 
slashes assistance for disabled children and abused and neglected 
children.
  So the conference bill in our view is a deep disappointment. It is 
not only a lost opportunity for millions of men and women and children, 
it may also do real harm to the very people that it is supposed to 
help. It reduces or terminates benefits for 1 million disabled children 
receiving supplemental security income. It endangers the lives of 
millions of abused and neglected children. Most importantly, it 
terminates Medicaid coverage for the poor, and begs the question, where 
do we expect them to go?
  It is a lost opportunity as well for the working poor. While 
simultaneously threatening real harm for them, too, by slashing food 
stamp funding important to millions of low-income working families and 
the elderly, it slashes the earned income tax credit, the most 
effective effort to move low-income people into the work force and 
retain them in the work force that we have today.
  It underfunds child care assistance, which we know is the linchpin 
between welfare and work. It dismantles the current health and safety 
standards contained in the child care development block grant. So the 
conference bill falls far short of the minimum standard of 
acceptability which many of us supported in the Senate-passed bill. It 
reneges on nearly every improvement Democrats made to the bill before 
it passed in the Senate.
  Let there be no mistake. Democrats strongly support welfare reform, 
but this legislation threatens single women and children, the disabled, 
and the working poor. This is not primarily a debate about spending.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the leader has expired.
  Mr. DASCHLE. I ask unanimous consent I be allowed to use 3 minutes of 
my leader time to complete my statement.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Democrats proposed over $20 billion in welfare savings 
as part of a Democratic alternative, debated in September. Earlier this 
week we proposed over $40 billion in welfare savings as part of an 
overall budget being negotiated. So, this is a debate about policy, 
about changes in funding with a serious regard for reform. It is about 
a real effort to move people from welfare to work.
  In the name of reform, this bill boxes up the current system and 
shifts it off to the States. It says, ``You do it. We do not care if 
you have the resources or not, you, Governors, you fix it.'' It is 
ironic that in the same session we passed legislation to prohibit 
unfunded mandates, some now propose we pass the biggest one of all.
  So it is with deep regret we cannot support this attempt at welfare 
reform. We had hoped to work with conferees to improve the Senate bill. 
We had hoped we could continue to work in a bipartisan manner. We 
regret the political process led to this political document that falls 
far short of real reform. We regret that this bill is not about work, 
that it does not protect children. At best, it is a recognition of a 
vexing national problem which must be addressed. At worst, it is an 
experiment set up for failure.
  A defeat of this conference report is the first step to a bipartisan 
effort to create real welfare reform, just as we did with the Senate-
passed bill. This bill is going nowhere. The President will veto it if 
we fail to defeat it now. So let us get down to business. Let us work 
in a bipartisan fashion to draft a real welfare reform bill.
  It should not take a veto to achieve that objective. This 
opportunity, this lost opportunity, is not our last chance. Together, 
as Republicans and Democrats determined to solve a real problem, we can 
seize the opportunity to make welfare work.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, as I stated on repeated occasions in 
last evening's debate, this is not welfare reform; this is welfare 
repeal. It is repeal of title IV(A) of the Social Security Act, 
something never done, never contemplated in this Congress in 60 years.
  I am happy to yield a minute and a half to my valiant comrade in this 
regard, the Senator from Illinois.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois [Mr. Simon] is 
recognized for a minute and a half.
  Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I do not ordinarily mention religion on the 
floor of the U.S. Senate, but in 3 days we will celebrate the birth of 
Jesus, and the majority of Americans claim affiliation with his 
religion. And he said, in the Biblical account in Matthew 25, whatever 
you do for poor people you do to me. That is the judgment day scene 
that he describes. We, in the U.S. Congress, are going to celebrate 
Christmas by trashing poor people. What a record: Reducing food stamps, 
abused children, foster care children, cutting them by 23 percent when 
the numbers are going up, disabled children, 160,000--sorry, you are 
off of SSI. For 750,000 disabled children, cutting it by 25 percent.
  Real welfare reform, not just public relations, will have to deal 
with jobs for people of limited ability. It will have to deal with 
problems of poverty. 

[[Page S19156]]
But we are going to celebrate Christmas by trashing poor people.
  It is not a record we can be proud of. I am going to vote no, and be 
proud to vote no.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. The people of Illinois can be proud of you, sir.
  Mr. SIMON. I thank my colleague.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time? The Senator from Delaware 
[Mr. Roth] is recognized.
  Mr. ROTH. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may use.
  Mr. President, 3 months ago the Senate passed H.R. 4 by an 
overwhelming bipartisan vote of 87 to 12. Republicans and Democrats 
worked together on the floor of the Senate to forge an agreement to 
deliver a comprehensive, bipartisan welfare reform package which has 
been promised for so long.
  In a few minutes we will vote on a final conference report on H.R. 4, 
the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1995. There has 
been a great deal of misinformation about this conference report, as 
President Clinton has issued his unfortunate veto threat against this 
legislation. Instead of ending welfare as we know it, it seems he 
prefers to continue business as usual.
  Let me say to each of the 87 Members who voted for authentic welfare 
reform last September, you should not hesitate to vote for this 
conference agreement. Overall, you will find H.R. 4 remains true to the 
goals we share and to the most important agreements we made.
  Members know that from the early days of his administration, the 
President has outlined principles for welfare reform. H.R. 4 meets 
these principles.
  I invite Members to go back through the record of this past year. You 
will find there were substantial differences between the House and 
Senate versions of welfare reform. Those who examine the conference 
report in all its details will surely agree it more closely reflects 
the Senate positions on the major issues at stake.
  We have, in fact, added more money for the block grants for temporary 
assistance for needy families. We have, in fact, increased funding for 
child care. We have retained the Senate position on requiring the 
States' maintenance of effort. We rejected House provisions which would 
have converted SSI assistance to children into a block grant. We have 
improved child support enforcement provisions. We have preserved the 
current law entitlements to foster care and adoption assistance 
maintenance payments. We are keeping our commitment to children in the 
foster care system. Contrary to some disinformation, they will continue 
to be eligible for Medicaid coverage.
  So I hope all Members will objectively examine the conference report 
and compare it to the House and Senate version passed earlier this 
year. But more important, I invite Members to open their minds to what 
the States are doing when they get the opportunity to design 
modifications to the current welfare system. Look at what is being done 
in Massachusetts, Michigan, Wisconsin, Delaware, Virginia, and Iowa 
when the States are allowed at least some measure of control over the 
welfare system.
  For a reassuring glimpse of the future, I recommend an article by 
Massachusetts Gov. William Weld entitled, ``Release Us From Federal 
Nonsense,'' which appeared in the Wall Street Journal last week.
  As for me, I have greater confidence in the Governor and State 
legislature in Delaware than I do in the careerists in the Hubert 
Humphrey building. We know why the number of people in poverty has 
continued to increase despite the best efforts and intentions. But 
after 30 years of failed experimentation, it is clear the Washington 
bureaucracy cannot tell us how to break the vicious cycle of 
dependency. Complex human behavior cannot be reduced to a mathematical 
diagram. We have not found the wisdom of Solomon in the Federal 
Register.
  President Clinton has stated he will veto H.R. 4. Last night, a 
number of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle stated that we 
should wait for a bipartisan bill. Mr. President, we have a bipartisan 
bill. The Senate bill passed 87 to 12. President Clinton promised 
welfare reform 34 months ago. Today, we are delivering welfare reform 
to the American people. There is no need to wait any longer. Welfare 
reform is here.

  I yield the floor, Mr. President.
  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, according to the latest figures I have, 
there are 92,160 unemployed individuals in Kentucky. Eight counties in 
my State still have double-digit unemployment rates.
  There is widespread support for putting welfare recipients to work. 
But one of the questions I frequently get when I talk to constituents 
about welfare reform is ``Where will the jobs come from?'' I still do 
not know the answer. I do not think we have thought through that simple 
question very well.
  I also get asked two conflicting questions about welfare. One is 
``Why don't you cut spending on welfare?'', and ``What are you going to 
do to enable those on welfare to find jobs?''
  These are legitimate questions. I hear about three common barriers to 
those on welfare who truly want to work:
  First, fear of losing health care for their kids--and that is 
Medicaid;
  Second, lack of affordable child care; and
  Third, inadequate educational or job training opportunities.
  I supported the earlier version of welfare reform because I thought 
it was a good faith attempt to address these competing priorities. It 
did reduce overall spending on welfare programs, and it also attempted 
to address some of the obstacles to finding jobs--particularly child 
care.
  Unfortunately, the conference report before us today, in my opinion, 
has shifted entirely toward cutting spending. It cuts spending far more 
than the Senate-passed bill, and it retreats from putting people to 
work.
  When you combine this with the impact of the Republican budget 
proposal, you see even further that this conference report just simply 
will not work:
  First, the proposed Republican budget cuts in Medicaid will be 
devastating for those trying to get off of welfare and go to work.
  Second, the proposed Republican tax increases on low-income families 
will hurt many just as they try to get off welfare.
  Third, the revised, pessimistic CBO numbers on the unemployment rate 
assume that unemployment will remain virtually unchanged at 6 percent 
over the next 7 years even if we pass a balanced budget plan. This 
means jobs will be at least as scarce as they are today for those 
trying to go from welfare to work.
  Mr. President, I do believe this welfare conference report will 
succeed in reducing Federal spending on welfare programs. But I believe 
it will--
  First, fail to put people to work;
  Second, underfund child care; and
  Third, increase poverty among our children.
  For these and other reasons, I cannot support this conference report, 
because I simply do not believe it will work.

                                                                  WELFARE SIDE BY SIDE                                                                  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                         Senate-passed bill                                         Conference report                   
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Work...............................  measures work                                              measures work.                                          
                                     work bonus                                                 no bonus; lowers maintenance of effort for successful   
                                                                                                 States instead.                                        
                                     $8 billion child care over 5 years                         $7.0 billion child care over 5 years.                   
                                     80 percent maintenance of effort                           75% State maintenance of effort.                        
                                     personal responsibility contract required                  no Personal Responsibility Contract.                    
                                     work exemption for moms w/kids under 1                     work exemption for moms w/kids under 1.                 
                                     work after 3 months                                        no work for 2 years.                                    
Time limits........................  20 percent exemption                                       15% exemption.                                          
Protect kids.......................  $8 billion child care over 5 years                         $7.0 billion child care over 5 years.                   
                                     100 percent maintenance of effort for child care           75% maintenance of effort for child care.               
                                     no transfer for CCDBG                                      no transfer of CCDBG.                                   
                                     retains health and safety standards for child care         eliminates health and safety standards for child care.  
                                     no mom w/child under 6 can be sanctioned due to inability  No mom w/child under 6 can be sanctioned due to         
                                      to find or afford child care                               inability to find or afford child care.                
                                     State option to allow mom w/kids under 6 to work 20 hours  mom w/kids of any age required to work 35 hours per week
                                      per week                                                   by 2002.                                               

[[Page S19157]]
                                                                                                                                                        
                                     time limit exemption raised from 15 to 20 percent but no   time limit exemption lowered to=15% and no specific     
                                      specific voucher option for kids                           voucher option for kids.                               
                                     all children remain eligible for Medicaid                  eliminates the guarantee of Medicaid eligibility for    
                                                                                                 welfare recipients.                                    
Teens..............................  required to stay at home or in adult-supervised group      required to stay at home or in adult supervised group   
                                      home                                                       home.                                                  
                                     $150 million over 7 years for second-chance homes          no money for second chance homes.                       
                                     State option to deny teen moms money                       State option to deny teen moms money.                   
                                     family cap at State option                                 mandatory family cap; States may opt out.               
Funds..............................  AFDC block grant                                           AFDC block grant.                                       
                                     $1 billion contingency grant fund and $1.7 billion loan    contingency grant fund $1 billion and $1.7 billion loan 
                                      fund                                                       fund.                                                  
                                     food stamp block grant at State option, but Wellstone      food stamp block grant at State option.                 
                                      amendment requiring sunset of block grant if HHS finds 2                                                          
                                      successive findings of increased child hunger                                                                     
                                     school lunch program left intact                           cuts child nutrition programs and allows 7 State demo   
                                                                                                 fro school lunch block grant.                          
                                     child protection programs left intact                      block grants child protection programs.                 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, last September I voted for a tough welfare 
reform bill. I supported--and I still strongly support--a comprehensive 
overhaul of the welfare system.
  Too many welfare recipients spend far too long on welfare and do far 
too little in exchange for their benefits. Many of those who manage to 
get off the welfare rolls only end up back on them after a short period 
of time. And, for some, generations have made welfare their way of 
life.
  This is unacceptable. And, the American people rightly are demanding 
reform.
  Last September, I outlined how I think we should reform the welfare 
system. Welfare recipients would be required to work in exchange for 
their benefits. The time a person could spend on welfare would be 
limited. Child care would be provided so that children would not be 
left home alone. A safety net would be retained for the innocent 
children. And, we would be as tough on the deadbeat dads who did not 
pay child support as we would be on the welfare mothers who did not 
work.
  That is what I supported last September. And, that is what I voted 
for last September.
  But, Mr. President, I did not vote to dismantle the child protection 
system. I did not vote to cut foster care. I did not vote to gut the 
Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act. I did not vote to end the 
Federal Government's effort to help States prevent child abuse. I did 
not vote to cut the school lunch program. I did not vote to cut child 
nutrition programs. I did not vote to take away health care for 
pregnant women and children. And, I did not vote to eliminate the 
health and safety protections for kids in day care.
  I voted for welfare reform. I did not vote for this bill.
  I am reminded of the children's fable where the lesson was: beware of 
the wolf in sheep's clothing.
  Mr. President, this bill is a wolf in sheep's clothing. This bill 
uses welfare reform as a mask for an all-out assault on the most 
vulnerable of America's children--many of whom are not on welfare. This 
bill uses welfare reform as a cover for the extreme, mean-spirited 
policies emanating from the House.
  Look behind the so-called welfare reform. Strip away the wool of the 
sheep, Mr. President, and you are left with an awfully extreme wolf.
  It did not have to be this way.
  When I voted for the original welfare bill last September, I noted at 
the time that I had some reservations. But, the final product was a 
good-faith effort at a bipartisan compromise. And, despite the fact 
that I thought it could have been both tougher on work and more 
compassionate toward innocent children, I was not going to undermine 
the bipartisan compromise. Working out differences and coming to an 
agreement is what the American people sent us here to do.
  But, what happened? The Senator from New York has pointed out that 
the House-Senate conference met once--for opening statements. 
Everything else was done behind closed doors without any participation 
by Democrats. The bipartisan compromise left the Senate and became the 
victim of House Speaker Gingrich's extremism.
  So, Mr. President, while I was willing to overlook a few reservations 
last September for the sake of a bipartisan compromise on welfare 
reform, I am not willing to sacrifice my principles for the sake of one 
party's extremists--just because they call it welfare reform.
  I urge my colleagues to reject this conference report and demand that 
we take up and pass real welfare reform.
  Mr. HEFLIN. Mr. President, I must oppose the conference report on 
welfare reform despite my support for the original version of this 
bill, which previously passed the Senate.
  The conference report on welfare reform goes far beyond the bill 
passed by the Senate and consequently, Republican efforts to reduce the 
budget fall heavily on working poor families, unemployed workers, the 
elderly and the disabled.
  Welfare reform, in my mind, is about moving people from welfare to 
work. This conference report undermines that goal. The bill's apparent 
emphasis on transforming the welfare system to a work system is 
undermined by the failure to provide States with adequate resources for 
work programs and child care while maintaining a basic safety net of 
poor children and the elderly.
  The bill combines cash assistance and work programs into a single 
block grant. According to CBO estimates, block grant funding, combined 
with State spending, would fall $5.5 billion short of what will be 
needed to fund the work program in 2002 alone, assuming States maintain 
their safety net for poor children and the elderly. Over the 7-year 
period, funding for the work program would fall about $14 billion short 
of what the CBO projects will be needed. Furthermore, this bill also 
contains provisions which allow States to escape the work requirements 
the bill seeks to impose by cutting needy families off the rolls 
instead.
  This bill also makes deep cuts in basic benefits for the elderly 
poor. The conference report would likely deepen poverty among the 
elderly due to a series of provisions that would reduce or eliminate 
SSI, food stamps, and Medicaid for various groups of elderly people 
living below the poverty line.
  The conference agreement would raise from 65 to 67 the age at which 
impoverished elderly people can qualify for SSI, thus effectively 
eliminating SSI to eligible people 65 and 66 years old. Not be 
coincidence, the change in the age requirement for SSI eligibility 
would be raised in tandem with the scheduled increase to 67 at which 
retirees may receive full Social Security benefits. If the Social 
Security retirement age is raised in the future, the SSI eligibility 
would automatically raise as well. In addition, since receiving SSI is 
a qualification for Medicaid, persons denied SSI would most likely lose 
Medicaid coverage as well.
  This conference agreement also falls seriously short in that the 
provision of current law which assures that AFDC families receive 
Medicaid coverage would be repealed. Roughly 1.5 million children and 
at least 4 million mothers could lose Medicaid coverage as a result and 
join the ranks of the uninsured. Also, changes made in eligibility 
rules would mean a reduction in benefits for most disabled children by 
25 percent. This Medicaid provision was in neither the House nor the 
Senate bills.

  The school lunch and other child nutrition programs are programs that 
I have long supported and strongly believe that they have made 
considerable contributions to the overall improving health of our 
school-aged children. These programs must be maintained as they provide 
an important safety net for young children and establish a solid 
foundation for future development.
  However, the welfare conference report contains provisions that could 
undermine the school lunch program. The conference report would allow 
for seven States to block grant the school lunch program. In these 
States, sufficient funds would no longer be available in the event of 
an economic recession. States that have a history of budget reductions 
through proration, like Alabama, will be hard hit. In times of an 

[[Page S19158]]
economic downturn, the fixed amount going to these States would not be 
sufficient to provide adequate assistance to the rolls of the needy 
that would expand as a result of the recession. This could ultimately 
lead to the serving of lower quality meals in an effort to cut corners. 
This is absolutely not in the best interest of our young children for 
whom we are responsible.
  The bill also includes more than $32 billion in food stamp benefit 
cuts affecting the working poor, the elderly and disabled poor, and all 
others receiving food stamp assistance. There has been much talk about 
reducing the waste, fraud and abuse associated with this program. 
Actually, less than three percent of the bill's food stamp savings come 
from cutting administrative costs, reducing fraud or imposing tougher 
sanctions on people who fail to follow program requirements. Instead, 
these cuts would hit families with low incomes.
  Also, for no reason that I can see, food stamp benefits would be cut 
for those receiving low-income energy assistance.
  For the many reasons stated, and for many more that have gone 
unmentioned, I must oppose the conference report. This bill does little 
to encourage people to move from welfare to work by removing the safety 
net for individuals as they make that transition. Basic assistance for 
the elderly and child nutrition programs are cut without must 
consideration of the impacts that they will have on those that are 
least able to support themselves. We should not punish people for being 
young, or old or poor. We should, instead, provide for the necessary 
safeguards for people who want to move from welfare to work. This does 
not preclude our efforts to identify and deal with those taking 
advantage of the system, it simply signals our willingness to help 
those that are trying to help themselves and not punishing those that 
need our help.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I am deeply disappointed that the 
conferees refused to follow the path of the bipartisan welfare reform 
bill that was passed by the Senate by a wide margin last September.
  Instead of following the bipartisan framework set out in the Senate 
bill, the conferees produced a bill that is punitive in nature and is 
likely to hurt innocent children, rather than help their families move 
off welfare into the work force. I will vote against it.
  Mr. President, when I voted for the Senate-passed welfare reform 
bill, I expressed my hope that the conferees would return a bill that 
tracked the Senate measure and avoided the kind of mean-spirited, 
destructive provisions proposed by the House.
  Instead, we have a final product that slashes funding for the child 
care that is essential if we want to avoid leaving young children 
unsupervised and unattended while their parents are at work, that 
allows States to immediately reduce their contributions by 25 percent, 
thereby rewarding States which already spend low levels of their own 
funds for families while States like Wisconsin which make substantial 
investments will bear the burden of potential welfare migration, and 
imposes punitive provisions denying benefits for newborn infants. It 
also adds harsh new provisions slashing assistance for families with 
disabled children and an important safety net for impoverished elderly.
  This is not meaningful welfare reform. It is an abandonment of the 
bipartisan agreement reached in the Senate-passed bill that has focused 
upon helping families escape the welfare cycle and gain self-
sufficiency.
  I think the current system is broken and is badly in need of reform, 
but this is not the way to reform.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to oppose the conference 
report on welfare reform, H.R. 4. I would like to briefly explain my 
reasons for doing so.
  First of all, I regret that we are planning to vote on this 
legislation at this time. It is my understanding that the conference 
report we are considering was released on Wednesday. Two days later, we 
are voting on this important piece of legislation that would dismantle 
the social safety net we have known for decades, and replace it with 
block grants to the States loaded with numerous requirements limiting 
the amount of assistance to some of our society's most vulnerable 
members. Although I voted for the Senate-passed version of this 
legislation to send a message that our current system can certainly 
stand some improvement, I would be reluctant to support any conference 
report on such a complex issue without having an adequate opportunity 
to review it, and to get the best information on its likely impact on 
my State. I regret that we have not had adequate opportunity to do that 
sort of analysis on the legislation before us.
  Nevertheless, I have had an opportunity to review the broad 
provisions of this agreement, and I do not believe that is likely to 
result in a better system for welfare recipients, or the States and 
communities involved in the current system.


                           welfare recipients

  Mr. President, the current system is not serving its clients as well 
as it should. In too many cases, welfare and other public assistance 
has become a way of life, not a brief interlude of assistance. We have 
children growing up in a welfare culture, always living at the margin, 
and sometimes shuffled through the foster care systems of our various 
States. Their parents never seem to get the skills or opportunities 
that would enable them to support their families. Many of us have 
expressed the concern that too often, these parents are single parents 
trying to raise their families alone.
  Our current system, which knits together Aid for Families With 
Dependent Children [AFDC], Medicaid, food stamps, school lunch 
programs, and child protection moneys, seeks to provide a basic safety 
net. It seeks to ensure that in America, even the poorest of poor have 
food, shelter, basic clothing, safe homes for children, and an 
opportunity for something better. The main problem welfare reformers 
have sought to address this year is making sure that the safety net is 
not the primary means of support for families, and that people use this 
safety net for a short time before finding a means to become self-
sufficient. Again, I share these goals.
  But what have the conferees returned to us to meet these goals? They 
have given us a system that will limit the time a person may receive 
benefits to 5 years in a lifetime, and imposed unrealistic requirements 
to work. They have limited the amount of time a recipient can spend 
training to get the skills that will enable them to find work that will 
make them self-sufficient.

  Let me talk for just a minute about what this bill does not do for 
recipients. Every credible expert agrees that the work requirements 
will be very difficult to meet without additional child care dollars. 
We are asking States to ensure that the number of working single 
parents go from about 20 percent now to 50 percent by 2002. These 
parents are not going to leave young children alone, so they will need 
day care. Still, while we are expecting to increase the work force 
participation of single parents by 150 percent, we are only increasing 
the core child care money in this bill by a little more than 20 
percent--$1.9 billion over a baseline of $9.3 billion. This 
juxtaposition will prove to be totally unworkable.
  Another issue that has not been given adequate thought is why we 
assume merely taking an entry-level job will lead to economic 
independence for welfare recipients. I recently came across a 
University of Wisconsin-Madison Institute for research on poverty study 
on welfare recipients which reported that to replace the benefits 
received on welfare, the average mother will need a job providing at 
least $8 to $9 an hour. The average job available to a person with the 
skills of the average working mother is only about $5.15 per hour, with 
little hope of real advanement. Obviously, this leaves a huge gap in 
income if the family this mother heads is going to be able to keep its 
members fed, clothed, and sheltered. I want to emphasize that we are 
not talking about the wage needed to live the middle class dream of 
home ownership in a nice suburb and a vacation every year. We are 
talking here about maintaining a subsistence standard of living. If we 
adopt the provisions included in this conference report it is likely 
that many families that are somehow surviving now are going to find 
themselves making choices between shelter, food, and clothing. In all 
likelihood, as my colleague Senator 

[[Page S19159]]
Moynihan pointed out on this floor last week, we are going to see a 
surge in the number of homeless families within a few years.
  The obvious solution here is to ensure that recipients have the 
skills they need to get better jobs, and that economy produces high 
wage jobs that they can fill. This bill unreasonably limits the amount 
of time recipients can take to upgrade their skills.
  Another issue I would like to address is the cuts to the food stamp 
program included in this legislation. I have heard some of colleagues 
tout that food stamps will remain an entitlement in most States. What 
they fail to mention is that this legislation severely cuts that and 
other nutrition programs. Food stamps alone would be cut by $32 million 
under the legislation before us.
  Although there are many other concerns raised in how people currently 
served by welfare will be affected by these provisions, the final point 
I want to raise concerns child protective services. The advocates of 
this conference agreement have stated that funds for foster care 
support are not being block granted. They fail to note, however, that 
funds for investigations, court procedures, quality 
assurance, professional training, and other services are block granted 
and capped by this conference report. Inevitably, these provisions will 
result in less protection for children suffering from neglect and abuse 
in this Nation. In States like my own, where protective services are 
under State supervision, the capped block grants will likely be unable 
to pay for the changes mandates in these services.


                       the states and communities

  Clearly, the welfare proposal will not work from the perspective of 
welfare recipients. I doubt it will work from the perspective of the 
States and communities these recipients live in, either.
  I have not yet seen the final amount New Mexico will receive under 
the conference agreement. I believe, however, that the number touted by 
proponents for New Mexico under the vetoed budget agreement was about 
$135 million for the TANF portion of this welfare reform package. 
According to Department of Health and Human Services figures, however, 
New Mexico received $141.5 million in fiscal year 1995. Clearly, my 
State will not be getting a large increase in funding. Yet the mandate 
for child care inherent in the work requirements imposed by this bill 
are huge. New Mexico, and other States, will face a shortfall at a time 
when many States, including my own, are under extreme budget 
constraints already.
  The picture gets worse when one considers the other Republican 
proposals being tossed around the Capitol. The Republican budget 
contained significant reductions to the earned income tax credit. It 
also proposed substantial cuts in homeless assistance. At a minimum the 
Republican proposal cut homeless funding 32 percent. When eligibility 
for welfare runs out, and families are on the streets, they are going 
to have even fewer resources to draw on to help.
  I know that many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
believe that private giving and State resources will take up the slack. 
That is pure fantasy.


                               conclusion

  In short, Mr. President, I have yet to hear a coherent statement from 
the proponents of this conference report regarding how communities will 
meet the needs of poor children and their families that will be 
generated by this legislation. If it were to become law, we would be 
trading in an admittedly imperfect system for one that is certainly not 
better, and perhaps is much worse.
  It seems particularly ironic to me that we are considering this ill-
conceived legislation right before Christmas. Indeed, it is difficult 
not to think of Dickens' ``A Christmas Carol.'' I am particularly 
reminded of the statement of the ghost of Scrooge's business partner, 
explaining why he is fated to be a miserable ghost: ``Business! Mankind 
was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, 
forbearance, and benevolence were, all, my business. The dealings of my 
trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my 
business!''
  Meaningful welfare reform is our business, Mr. President. It is my 
understanding that the President intends to veto this legislation. I 
hope that after that veto, we can get down to that business.
  Until then, God bless us, every one.
  Mr. PELL. Mr. President, on September 19, 1995, after 2 weeks of 
floor debate and over 40 rollcall votes, the Senate passed welfare 
reform legislation by a vote of 87 to 12.
  At that time, I voted for the welfare reforms measure. I did, 
however, make it clear in remarks here on the Senate floor, that I was 
doing so with some reluctance. I was concerned that the legislation did 
not go far enough in protecting our children and in providing adults 
with the important tools needed to help them move off welfare and into 
meaningful, long-term employment.
  I voted for the measure because it included the Dole-Daschle 
compromise amendment, providing additional protections for children and 
families.
  I said at that time that I would oppose the conference report if it 
were to return from the conference committee without the moderating 
provisions found in the Dole-Daschle amendment. This final bill erodes 
the important protective safety net and it is punitive and harmful.
  In particular, I am concerned that the conference report is weaker on 
work requirements than the Senate-passed bill because of a $5 billion 
reduction of funds available to put people back to work. The report 
significantly reduces important child care protections, one of the 
major components of the Dole-Daschle compromise, and cuts food 
assistance guarantees to children by cutting almost $35 billion.
  I will, therefore, oppose the conference report.
  Mr. President, the current welfare system clearly needs to be 
reformed. I firmly believe that any system in place for 60 years needs 
updating and rethinking. It remains my strong desire to see a welfare 
system that celebrates, not mocks, compassion. I continue to support 
the provisions of the work first proposal put forth by Senator Daschle 
which emphasizes the significance of work for adults and the importance 
of protecting, not punishing, the children who have not chosen their 
parents or their circumstances.
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of the conference 
report on H.R. 4. This bill is the most significant piece of welfare 
reform legislation to come before Congress in more than three decades. 
The current welfare system is destroying the hopes and opportunities of 
thousands of Americans by trapping them in cycles of dependency. 
President Roosevelt, the hero of liberal welfare advocates, warned us 
what would happen if we structured our welfare system in a way that 
fostered reliance on the Government. Listen to what he said in his 1935 
annual message to Congress:

       The lessons of history, confirmed by the evidence 
     immediately before me, show conclusively that continued 
     dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral 
     disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national 
     fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a 
     narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit.

  Mr. President, that is exactly what the architects of the modern 
welfare state have done. They have created a welfare system that 
encourages people to view welfare as a way of life. The typical welfare 
family has already spent 6\1/2\ years on welfare, and will end up 
spending a total of 13 years on the rolls. Thirteen years, Mr. 
President. After 13 years on welfare, the average family has received 
at least $150,000 of taxpayers' money. No wonder President Roosevelt 
said this type of welfare was a narcotic that destroyed the human 
spirit.
  The reason welfare has become so addictive is because it completely 
destroys any incentive to work or become self-sufficient. The current 
system essentially says to its potential victims, if you do not want to 
work, have a child you are not able to support. If you do this, the 
Government will send you a check every month, pay your food bills, give 
you some free child care, pay all of your health care bills, your 
heating bills, your college bills, give you some WIC money, pay for 
your children's breakfast and lunch at school, and possibly provide you 
with your own apartment.
  In other words, Mr. President, the message is the Government will 
take care of you. You do not need to take 

[[Page S19160]]
care of yourself. You simply need to sit at home and do nothing. That 
is a very cruel form of assistance. It destroys the natural inclination 
in every human being to reach their full potential. No private charity 
operates in that manner. No private charity simply mails people checks 
for having children they are not able to support.
  The bill before us today will begin to repair the broken welfare 
State; it will restore healthy incentives in our welfare system. It 
does not abandon poor Americans or their children. Rather, it requires 
adult welfare recipients to work in exchange for their benefits. If 
passed, these work requirements will be the first serious work 
requirements ever passed by Congress. This is not only healthy for the 
recipients, but it is good for their children to be raised in an 
environment where they see their parents getting up and going to work 
everyday. Work will become the norm among those receiving welfare, not 
the exception.
  While I am very optimistic about the results of the strong work 
requirements in this bill, I want to express my concerns with the lack 
of provisions to address the most serious problem facing our country 
today: the breakdown of the traditional family. Eighty percent of 
children in many low-income communities are born in fatherless homes 
and welfare is the dominant feature of these homes.
  For many poor people, the current welfare system makes bearing 
children out of wedlock a very practical alternative to the traditional 
method of raising a family--getting a job, a work skill, and finding a 
spouse committed to raising a family before having a child. If a young 
woman has a child before she has a work skill and a spouse, it will be 
almost impossible for her to ever escape the welfare trap. Mr. 
President, I regret that this legislation does not replace cash 
payments to teenagers with services to care for the child. But, I am 
glad we were able to at least give States the option to do that. It is 
my sincere hope that many States will pursue that option and will enact 
other policies to address the crisis of illegitimacy. I am glad that we 
were able to include the national prohibition against increasing cash 
payments to welfare recipients who have additional children while on 
welfare. Mr. President, if we do not contain the epidemic of 
illegitimacy, it will destroy the fabric of our society. America simply 
cannot survive without a strong family unit.
  This legislation represents real reform. It is a carefully 
constructed balance between those who would advocate a complete end to 
public assistance and those who would seek to expand the current 
welfare State. It is the boldest reform we could have taken in the 
current political environment, and I hope for the sake of our Nation's 
future, that all of my colleagues will support this bill and the 
President will sign it into law.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, we stand here today to debate and vote on a 
very important piece of legislation, one that could change the lives of 
America's needy families.
  Not since the Economic Opportunity Act was signed into law by 
President Lyndon Johnson on August 20, 1964, have we had such broad-
sweeping and radical change in our welfare system.
  Mr. President, we all know that the current war on poverty has not 
been successful. Since the war began, the number of children on the 
welfare rolls has grown from 3.3 million to 9.6 million in 1993. This 
was not the result of negligence, or a lack of trying. The combined 
Federal, State, and local spending on welfare in constant dollars 
increased from $38.4 billion in 1965 to $324.3 billion in 1993.
  The current system is not working. What was designed with good 
intent, has become a trap pulling the needy families of America into a 
cycle of dependency that eats at their self-esteem and their ability to 
become self-sufficient.
  The legislation before us today would change all that. This 
legislation moves the Federal Government out of the paper-pushing 
bureaucracy and moves it into a facilitator for families moving into 
self-sufficiency.
  This legislation will help empower our families, not pull them into 
perpetual dependency. Gone will be the days of welfare checks for 
nothing. Beneficiaries will now have to engage in work activities in 
order to receive assistance.
  This legislation retains the role of the Federal Government in 
overseeing the allocation of Federal money, but also gives the 
authority for designing the systems to the States. The States are in 
the best position to know the needs and environment of their unique 
constituencies. This legislation will allow them to design programs 
that coordinate resources and support families rather than just lead 
them through the blind maze of bureaucracy.
  Mr. President, we all agree that the current system must be changed. 
This legislation turns the welfare programs of this country into a 
cohesive system flexible enough to meet the varying demands of 
individual States and areas while protecting our families and our 
children. I urge my colleagues and the President to take the chance we 
have today to make good on President Clinton's campaign promise to 
``change welfare as we know it.'' Let us pass this legislation and 
enable it to become public law.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of the Indian 
provisions contained in the conference report to H.R. 4, the Personal 
Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1995. I commend the 
distinguished majority leader, Senator Dole, and the leaders of the 
Senate Committee on Finance and the House Committee on Ways and Means, 
for their efforts to overhaul our Nation's welfare system and for 
including provisions which responsibly address the unique needs and 
requirements of Indian country. They have taken great care to draft a 
welfare plan that effects real change in a system that is greatly in 
need of repair while ensuring that all citizens, including our Nation's 
American Indian and Alaska Native population, receive equitable access 
to necessary welfare assistance. The bill before us today honors in 
many practical ways the special relationship that the United States has 
with Native American tribal governments.
  There is no doubt in my mind that the so-called Great Society 
programs of the past have failed American Indians as much or even more 
than they have failed the rest of America's citizens. These programs 
have failed Indians because they have largely ignored the existence of 
Indian tribal governments and the unique needs of the Indian 
population. Recent attempts to fix this problem have been like placing 
a bandaid on a gaping wound. Under existing programs, Indians remain 
the worst-off and yet benefit the least. If we are to truly reform 
welfare then we cannot ignore Indians, who year-after-year rank the 
highest in poverty and unemployment.
  It is vital that we authorize Indian tribal governments to administer 
a welfare block grant for two reasons. First, in fiscal year 1994, only 
a fraction of the eligible American Indians and Alaska Natives received 
AFDC. But in States such as Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, and South 
Dakota, Arizona, and New Mexico, Indians and Alaska Natives are 
disproportionately represented as AFDC recipients. It is my belief, and 
that of many members of the Senate Indian Affairs and Senate Finance 
Committee, that Native American tribal governments are best able to 
address the needs of Indians and to provide accessible service to those 
who must travel great distances for service. They are, after all, the 
governmental units closest in proximity, culture, and values, to those 
they serve. Clearly, the impetus for the Congress to provide block 
grants to States also applies to Indian tribal governments--Indian 
tribal governments, not the States, know the most about the real impact 
of welfare on their communities and how best to design programs to meet 
their needs.
  If this bill is signed into law, for the first time in our Nation's 
history, tribal governments will be able to receive block grant funds 
to design and administer Federally-funded welfare programs. Indian 
tribal governments have sought that authority throughout history. The 
block grant approach in this bill is a practical way to implement the 
Federal trust obligation that we owe Indian tribes, a doctrine stated 
in the earliest United States Supreme Court decisions and grounded in 
the United States Constitution.
  The bill before us today promises greater hope for Indians because it 
allows their own tribal governments to 

[[Page S19161]]
serve Indians now living in poverty. It empowers tribes themselves to 
assist in ending the welfare dependency often created by existing 
programs by placing resources necessary to fight local welfare problems 
into the hands of local tribal governments. Mr. President, I believe 
this bill demonstrates a real commitment to ending welfare as Indians 
have known it. As I have said on many occasions, our successes as a 
Nation should be measured by the impact that we have made in the lives 
of our most vulnerable citizens--American Indians.
  Early in the 104th Congress, the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs 
held several hearings on the potential impact to Indians of various 
welfare reform proposals such as block grants. During these hearings, 
tribal leaders spoke out in strong favor of direct Federal funding 
which would allow tribal governments flexibility in administering local 
welfare assistance programs and stated their hopes of receiving no less 
authority than the Congress chooses to give to State governments in 
this regard. The Committee also received testimony from the Inspector 
General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services who 
testified to how poorly Indians fare under block grants as currently 
administered by State governments. In response to the record adduced at 
these hearings, the Indian Affairs Committee developed provisions for 
direct, block grant funding to tribal governments which are now 
contained in H.R. 4. These provisions reflect the efforts of many 
Members on both the Indian Affairs and Finance Committees, and to them 
I express my gratitude.
  Let me take several minutes to explain the Indian provisions related 
to temporary assistance for needy families contained in H.R. 4 and the 
goals and purposes of those provisions. In general terms, the bill 
authorizes Indian tribal governments, like State governments, to 
receive direct Federal funding to design and administer local tribal 
welfare programs. Let me be clear--an Indian tribe retains the complete 
freedom to choose whether or not it will exercise this authority. If it 
does not, the State retains the authority and the funds it otherwise 
has under H.R. 4. The following references are to new sections of law 
in Part A of title IV, which are set forth in Section 103 of the H.R. 
4.
  Section 412 is the main Indian provision setting forth the basic 
authority for tribal direct funding and the express requirements of 
tribal family assistance plans. It requires the Secretary to make 
direct funding available to Indian tribes exercising this option in 
order to strengthen and enhance the control and flexibility of local 
governments over local programs, consistent with well-settled 
principles of Indian Self-Determination. Section 412(b) provides that 
in order to be eligible to receive direct funding, an Indian tribe must 
submit a 3-year tribal family assistance plan. Each approved plan must 
outline the tribe's approach to providing welfare-related services 
consistent with the purposes of this section. Each plan must specify 
whether the services provided by the tribe will be provided through 
agreements, contracts, or compacts with intertribal consortia, States, 
or other entities. This allows small tribes to join with other tribes 
in order to economize on administrative costs and pool their talents to 
address their common problems. Each plan must identify with specificity 
the population and service area or areas which the tribe will serve. 
This requirement is designed to ensure that there is no overlap in 
service administration and to provide a clear outline to affected State 
administrations of the boundaries of their responsibilities under the 
Act. Each plan must also provide guarantees that tribal administration 
of the plan will not result in families receiving duplicative 
assistance from other State or tribal programs funded under this part. 
Each plan must identify employment opportunities in or near the service 
area of the tribe and the manner in which the tribe will cooperate and 
participate in enhancing such opportunities for recipients of 
assistance under the plan consistent with any applicable State 
standards. And finally, each plan must apply fiscal accounting 
principles in accordance with chapter 75 of title 31, United States 
Code. This last requirement is consistent with other Federal authority 
governing the administration by tribes and tribal organizations of 
similar block grant programs under authority of the Indian Self-
Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975, as amended. Section 
412(c) requires the establishment of minimum work participation 
requirements, time limits on receipt of welfare-related services, and 
individual penalties consistent with the purposes of this section and 
the economic conditions of a tribe's service area and the availability 
to a tribe of other employment-related resources. These restrictions 
must be developed with the full participation of the tribes and tribal 
organizations, and must be similar to comparable provisions in Section 
407(d). The remaining provisions of Section 412 further ensure that 
funding accountability will be maintained by tribes and tribal 
organizations in administering funds under an approved tribal family 
assistance plan.

  Section 412(a) establishes the methodology for funding an approved 
tribal family assistance plan, including the use of data submitted by 
State and tribal governments. This provision anticipates that the data 
involved is already collected or the added burden of data collection 
required will be de minimus. The funds provided to a tribe under 
Section 412 are deducted from the State allocation. Tribal plans are 
funded at levels that are based on the amounts attributable to the 
Federal funds spent by a State in fiscal year 1994 on Indian families 
residing in the service area of an approved tribal plan. Under Section 
405(b), the State is notified of any reduction to its block grant that 
has been made in order to fund a tribal plan. Having lost the Federal 
support for temporary assistance to needy Indian families in a tribal 
plan's service area, the State no longer has any responsibility under 
the bill for those families.
  The Indian Affairs Committee has been informed by various State 
representatives that it is administratively more difficult and costly 
for States to provide services to Indians who reside in remote 
locations of their States. While these States acknowledge a 
responsibility to provide services, circumstances such as geographic 
isolation make it more difficult to do so. States are, therefore, well-
served by these provisions, because if Indian families in a 
geographical area are identified in an approved and funded tribal plan, 
a State government no longer has the responsibility to serve those 
families unless the tribe and the State agree otherwise.
  Some tribal representatives have pointed out that some tribes may 
choose not to exercise the option to administer a tribal plan, because 
the bill does not require a State to provide State funding to 
supplement the Federal funding provided to a tribe. As originally 
drafted, the Indian provisions expressly permitted States to agree to 
provide State funding or services to an Indian tribe with an approved 
plan in order to maintain equitable services. It is my understanding 
that this language was deleted because other provisions in the bill 
provide sufficient guarantees that States will ensure the delivery of 
equitable services. But under the bill's current provisions, a State is 
not prohibited from entering into an agreement with a tribe for the 
transfer of State funds or the provision of specific State services to 
a tribe for the benefit of Indians within that State. Indeed, a State 
government may choose to enter into an agreement with a tribal 
government to induce the tribe to take over administration of these 
programs, and one of the inducements could be a transfer of State funds 
to the tribe that would otherwise have been used by the State to serve 
those who would now be served under the tribal plan. If State 
administrators are sincere about making real progress on welfare 
reform, and I think they are, I expect they will act responsibly and 
sensitively with tribes that wish to join the State in administering 
programs that end welfare dependency.
  Mr. President, it is important to point out that these Indian 
provisions are consistent with the overall purposes of H.R. 4. The 
Indian provisions do not seek to circumvent these purposes nor give 
preferable treatment to Indian tribal governments. The tribal plans 
remain subject to minimum requirements and penalties similar to those 
applied to State governments. 

[[Page S19162]]
 H.R. 4 also requires a tribe to comply with the fiscal accountability 
requirements of chapter 75 of title 31, United States Code and the 
Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975, as 
amended. I would also submit that giving tribal governments the 
authority to administer a tribal welfare program is consistent with our 
goal of empowering local government control over local programs. It 
only stands to reason that, like States, Indian tribal governments are 
most familiar with the problems that plague their local communities.
  Section 402(a)(5) of the bill requires a State to certify, as it does 
with several other important Federal priorities, that it will provide 
equitable access to Indians not covered by a tribal plan. This 
provision expressly recognizes the Federal Government's trust 
responsibility to, and government-to-government relationship with, 
Indian tribes.
  Section 412(a)(2) provides that the Secretary shall continue to 
provide direct funding, for fiscal years 1996 through 2000, to those 77 
Indian tribes or tribal organizations who conducted a job opportunities 
and basic skills training program in fiscal year 1995, in an amount 
equal to the amount received by such tribal JOBS programs in fiscal 
year 1995. These sums are in addition to the sums provided to State and 
tribal block grants for family assistance.
  Section 418 provides standard definitions of the terms ``Indian'', 
``Indian tribe'', and ``tribal organization'' in order to clarify the 
respective limits of State and tribal government responsibilities under 
the bill.
  Many of my colleagues in the Senate know that some Indian tribal 
governments may not have existing capacity or infrastructure to 
administer complex welfare programs. Consequently, H.R. 4 includes 
provisions authorizing tribes to enter into cooperative agreements with 
States or other tribal governments for the provision of welfare 
assistance. This will allow small tribes to join with other tribes in 
order to economize on administrative costs and pool their talents and 
resources to address their common problems. However, I believe it is 
very important to permit and encourage those Indian tribal governments 
that do possess such capacity to participate in these new welfare 
initiatives by addressing welfare issues at a local level.
  It should go without saying that any State may enter into any 
agreement it chooses with a tribe for the transfer of State funds to 
that tribe for the purpose of administering a welfare program that 
benefits Indians within that State. In my view, it is in both a State 
and a tribe's best interest to work out supplemental agreements for 
funding and services where necessary because to do otherwise could 
undermine the goals of the bill.

  I know that many Members in this body are aware that Indian Country 
has historically been plagued by high unemployment and therefore its 
residents suffer from extremely high poverty rates. H.R. 4 enables 
Indian tribes that are currently administering tribal JOBS programs to 
continue to do so. Section 412(a)(2) requires the Secretary to provide 
direct funding in an amount equal to the amount received by the 
existing tribal JOBS programs in fiscal year 1995. By keeping the JOBS 
programs in Indian Country intact, we will acknowledge the positive 
impact it has made in the lives of thousands of Indians. The Indian 
JOBS program has had measureable success. For instance, in fiscal year 
1994, in just one quarter, over 2,000 American Indians and Alaska 
Natives participating in the JOBS program obtained job placements. 
Indians residing in communities where a tribal JOBS program is in 
operation have experienced a new sense of hope by developing basic job 
skills that have helped them to secure stable job opportunities both on 
and off the reservation. H.R. 4 also contains provisions in Titles VI 
and VIII which provide continuing resources for programs that have 
proven successful in Indian Country, such as the Child Care and 
Development Block Program as well as new programs that are critical to 
ending the high Indian unemployment rates such as the proposed 
workforce development and training activities. These provisions, along 
with the JOBS component will greatly assist in helping Indian Country 
contribute to the goals of welfare reform and the purposes of the Act.
  Mr. President, I believe it is important to point out that with 
passage of these provisions in H.R. 4 the Congress will discharge some 
of its continuing responsibilities under the United States 
Constitution--the very foundation of our treaty, trust, and legal 
relationship with the Nation's Indian tribes, and which vests the 
Congress with plenary power over Indian affairs. I was deeply troubled 
to learn that earlier this year, the House passed its version of H.R. 4 
without addressing the unique status of Indian tribal governments or 
the trust responsibility of the Federal Government to the Indian 
tribes. There was no House debate on the status of the ``welfare 
state'' on many Indian reservations nor the impact that the proposed 
changes to welfare programs would have on access to services already in 
existence in Indian Country. Nor was there any mention made in the 
House welfare debate of the significant legal and trust responsibility 
that the Federal Government has to the Indian tribes. I am pleased that 
the House conferees agreed to adopt much of the Senate approach on 
Indians.
  As the Chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee, I feel it is my 
responsibility to take a moment to briefly expand my remarks to a 
discussion of the responsibilities of the Congress toward Indians under 
the United States Constitution. The Constitution provides that the 
Congress has plenary power to prescribe Federal Indian policy. These 
powers are provided for pursuant to the Commerce and the Treaty Power 
clauses. Sadly, over the last two centuries, the Congress has poorly 
exercised its power and responsibility--subjecting Indian tribal 
governments to inconsistent or contradictory policies--policies of 
termination and assimilation. These policies have served to weaken well 
established Indian systems of government and, in my view, have greatly 
contributed to the welfare state that exists today on most Indian 
reservations.
  I know that time and time again, I have stood on this floor to recite 
grim statistics revealing that Indians are, and consistently remain--
even in 1995--the poorest of the poor and always the last to benefit. 
Today, I will withhold from reciting that data because I believe that 
this bill begins to turn the tide in this Nation's treatment of Indians 
and their tribal governments. Similar to the unfunded mandates bill we 
enacted into law earlier this year, H.R. 4 will treat tribal 
governments like State governments by allowing them the flexibility and 
authority to directly administer their own programs free of Federal 
bureaucratic intrusion and control. Due in large part to the leadership 
of the late President Nixon, the Congress for more than two decades has 
responsibly exercised its plenary authority by replacing the distorted 
and dismal policy of termination of Indian tribal governments with 
empowering policies of Tribal Self-Determination and Self-Governance--
policies that respect and honor the government-to-government 
relationship between the Federal government and the Indian tribes--
policies that are consistent with the Federal trust responsibility and 
that set a new course of fairness in the Federal Government's dealings 
with Indian tribal governments.
  Given the renewed commitment by Congress to deal fairly with the 
Indian tribes, I fully understood why many tribal leaders became 
concerned when the Congress earlier this year began moving toward a 
system of block grants to States. The concerns were that if the 
Congress did not revise the block grant model to reflect its 
responsibility to Indian tribal governments, the government-to-
government relationship between the tribes and the United States would 
be soon eroded and the Federal trust responsibility held sacred in our 
Constitution and the decisions of our Supreme Court would be relegated 
to the States.
  These tribal concerns are likewise valid in a practical sense. A 
Federal Inspector General's report issued in August 1994 found that 
Federal block grants to States, in some instances have not resulted in 
equitable services being provided to Indians. That report found that in 
15 of the 24 States with the largest Indian populations, eligible 
Indian tribes did not receive funds even though Indian population 
figures were used to justify the State's receipt of 

[[Page S19163]]
Federal funding. In addition, findings of the Senate Committee on 
Indian Affairs revealed that even when States were attempting to serve 
Indians, the programmatic and administrative costs of providing welfare 
services to Indians are often greater than providing local services to 
others. What these findings revealed to me is that when either the 
Federal or State governments have administered programs for Indians, 
Indians have not received an equitable share of services.
  Mr. President, the whole purpose of welfare reform is to provide the 
tools to State governments to design and administer local welfare 
programs. After all, we have come to understand that local governments 
want and have the ability to create local solutions to address what 
are, in essence, local problems. I would suggest that this policy is no 
different that the Federal Indian policies of Tribal Self-Determination 
and Self-Governance. I also know that elected tribal officials have a 
great love of country and an incredible desire to contribute to the 
Nation's goal of elevating members of their communities out of the 
depths of poverty. Given the tools to do so, I believe that 
Indian tribes will make a great contribution to the Nation's war on 
poverty.

  Mr. President, I want to acknowledge a group of Senators that I 
believe have demonstrated a great level of understanding and commitment 
to the importance of addressing the needs of Indian tribes in the 
Nation's welfare reform movement. Senators Hatch, Dole, Roth, Inouye, 
Domenici, Simon, Murkowski, Pressler, Campbell, Baucus, and Kassebaum 
have contributed to the efforts to ensure that Indian tribes are not 
overlooked and abandoned in the current welfare reform efforts.
  Two members of the Indian Affairs Committee deserve particular 
recognition: my good friend from Kansas, Senator Nancy Landon Kassebaum 
and my good friend from Utah, Senator Orrin Hatch. Senator Kassebaum, 
as chairwoman of the Labor and Human Resources Committee, worked 
closely with the Indian Affairs Committee and Senator Simon to ensure 
that provisions for direct Federal funding would be available to Indian 
tribes in her Committee's employment consolidation bill and that tribes 
would continue to receive funding through the Child Care and 
Development Block Grant program. Senator Kassebaum's leadership has 
greatly contributed to the fairness with which Indian tribes are 
treated under H.R. 4 and the progress that has been made by the 
Congress in its treatment of Indian tribes. While there is still some 
question about the impact of the bill's overall reductions on the 
current level of child-related funding made to Indian tribal 
governments, I am pleased by the Conference Committee's action, taken 
at the urging of Senator Kassebaum, to make all child care funds 
throughout the bill available to Indian tribal governments.
  Although there are many Indian tribal provisions that I strongly 
support in the bill, I was extremely disappointed that it does not 
include a provision to address the concern of State Child Support 
Administrators and Indian tribal governments that tribes have been left 
out of efforts to provide uniform child support enforcement. The 
amendment offered by myself and several others, including the vice 
chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, Senator Inouye, and 
the Senate minority leader, Senator Daschle, was unanimously agreed to 
by the Senate but it was not adopted by the Conference Committee. 
Nonetheless, I am pleased to know that the National Council of State 
Child Support Administrators has agreed to continue to work with me to 
address our mutual concern. Unless something is done to include tribes 
in these efforts, we will deprive Indian children of necessary child 
support services and funding, and we will perpetuate a uniform child 
support system that truly does not provide uniformity in Federal 
funding or services.
  In addition, I am concerned that no provisions were made to provide 
direct funding to Indian tribes for Title IV-E Foster Care and Adoption 
Assistance funds. The Congress had abundant evidence of the great need 
in Indian Country for these funds. One stark example is the 1994 Office 
of the Inspector General's report that documented that Indian children 
are disproportionately represented in substitute care. However, Indian 
tribes must rely on State governments to share Federal funding for 
Title IV-E funds; yet the OIG report found that most Indian tribal 
governments have received little or no Title IV-E funding. It is my 
hope that States with Indian tribes within their boundaries will make a 
good faith effort to share these funds equitably in order to improve 
the Nation's overall rate of children in substitute-care.
  Finally, I want to give particular thanks to my good friend from 
Utah, Senator Orrin Hatch. Senator Hatch has worked tirelessly with me 
over the last several months to shape and enhance tribal welfare 
provisions that could be acceptable in any welfare reform plan. Senator 
Hatch is a member of the Senate Finance Committee and he is a new 
member of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. He has demonstrated a 
great level of understanding and commitment to the betterment of the 
lives of Indian people, and I commend Senator Hatch for his steadfast 
leadership in ensuring that Indian tribal governments are fairly 
treated in the welfare reform debate.
  Overall, I support the bill. It contains many important advances in 
the way our Nation treats tribal governments. Several months ago when 
the bill passed the Senate with these Indian provisions, many Democrats 
joined with Republicans in supporting this measure. While we may 
disagree on many things, I was glad to see that the Indian provisions 
gained broad, bipartisan support. That reflects a principle I believe 
should guide the Congress in all matters affecting Indian affairs: 
Indian issues are neither Republican nor Democratic. They are not even 
bipartisan issues--they are nonpartisan issues. They are day-to-day 
human issues which require understanding and support from both sides of 
the aisle. Whatever new form this Nation's welfare system takes, 
providing equal access to the Nation's Indian population through tribal 
block grants is not only the right thing to do, it honorably discharges 
some of our continuing responsibilities under the United States 
Constitution. I urge my colleagues, and the officials in the Clinton 
Administration, to ensure that this approach is maintained as we reform 
welfare.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, despite some concerns, I voted to support 
the welfare reform bill which passed the Senate with overwhelmingly 
bipartisan support on September 19. I did so because I believe our 
current welfare system needs to be reformed and because substantive 
improvements were made to the bill on the Senate floor. I also wanted 
to advance the bill to a conference with the House where I hoped 
additional improvements would be made. Before the vote, however, I 
stated that I could not support a final bill unless it guaranteed that 
innocent children were protected. Regrettably, the bill which has 
emerged from the Senate-House conference fails to meet that test.
  I am disappointed that the conference committee did not build on the 
bipartisan legislation which passed the Senate. Instead, we have before 
us a bill which, in my view, abdicates our moral responsibility to 
ensure that children are not punished for the mistakes of their 
parents. There ought to be a safety net to protect children. This bill 
shreds the safety net and instead gambles with the lives of poor 
children by failing to guarantee their security.
  On September 19, I stated that there were several improvements 
contained in the Senate bill which would have to be retained or 
improved upon in conference or I would oppose final passage. 
Unfortunately, many of these provisions were substantially weakened or 
removed altogether from the bill by the conference committee. I would 
like to point out just a few of the fatal flaws in the bill before us 
today.


                               Child Care

  Every expert will tell you that the biggest obstacle in moving people 
from welfare to work in this country is the lack of adequate child 
care. Child care is the linchpin for successful welfare reform.
  While the bill proposed in the Senate added more money for child 
care, it fell significantly short of the amount that the Congressional 
Budget Office estimated would be needed in order for the States to meet 
the stringent requirements in the bill for moving welfare recipients 
into the work force quickly. 

[[Page S19164]]
 To address this shortage of child care funding, the Senate added an 
additional $3 billion just prior to final passage. While that amount 
was still well below the amount needed for child care, it was a small 
step in the right direction. Yet the small amount of money added by the 
Senate for child care was reduced $1.2 billion in conference. The 
Congressional Budget Office tells us that the shortfall for child care 
over the next seven years will be almost $12 billion. That just doesn't 
make sense. If we want to move welfare recipients into the work force, 
we must provide for their child care needs. The bill before us is 
woefully inadequate in meeting those needs.
  To make matters worse, the conference agreement lets States off the 
hook. As adopted by the Senate, this extra pot of child care funding 
was made available only to States which agreed to spend in future years 
100 percent of what they spent for child care in 1994. The conference 
committee slashed that State requirement to 75 percent, thereby further 
reducing the amount of money available for child care. Again, this just 
doesn't make sense.


                       Mothers of Small Children

  The Senate bill, wisely in my view, allowed States to reduce the work 
requirements for mothers with children under age six to 20 hour per 
week instead of the 35 hours per week required of other recipients. 
Unfortunately, the conference agreement deletes this crucial Senate 
provision. Giving mothers the ability to spend more time at home to 
nurture their children during their most formative years of development 
is the right thing to do. It also meets the test of common sense. The 
Senate-passed bill required these mothers to work, but allowed them to 
balance work responsibilities with family obligations. The bill before 
us does not, and families will suffer because of this.


                         Fiscal Accountability

  Welfare has always been a Federal-State partnership. Under current 
law, States contribute about 45 percent of total welfare expenditures. 
Without States continuing to contribute their share, the pot of money 
currently available for welfare could be reduced by almost half 
overnight. To make sure that this did not happen, the Senate bill 
required States to contribute at least 80 percent of the money they 
spent on welfare in 1994 in order to be eligible for their block grant 
money. That requirement was reduced to 75 percent by the conference 
committee. What this means is that States will be able to cut their 
funding by approximately $17 billion over the next 5 years. The end 
result is that cash assistance could be denied to as many as 1 million 
needy children. I am simply not willing to gamble with the life of one 
child. We can and should do better than what is being proposed here.


                            Child Protection

  The conference committee also rejected the Senate bill's protections 
for extremely vulnerable children. While the conference agreement 
maintains the entitlement status of room and board costs for foster 
care and adoption, it establishes block grants for all other funding 
critical to ensuring that children are safe, including removing abused 
and neglected children from unsafe homes and placing them in licensed 
facilities and permanent homes, and training for foster parents.
  The conference bill also ends the Federal entitlement responsibility 
for all other child protection programs, which the Senate had 
maintained in its bill. Instead, they are combined into two block 
grants--which will undoubtedly pit preventative services against crisis 
and treatment programs in a battle for limited funding. I find these 
two provisions unconscionable. I have no doubt in my mind that they 
will result in more children living in abusive homes and in danger.
  The current welfare system serves no one well--not recipients, not 
their children, not American taxpayers. The current system has trapped 
too many people in a cycle of lifetime dependency. Any meaningful 
welfare reform must be grounded on the basic premise that government 
assistance is a way ``up and out''--not a ``way of life.'' It must be 
viewed as a temporary assistance program for people who are down and 
out on their luck and need a helping hand to get them back on their 
feet and back to work.
  In crafting meaningful welfare reform, however, protecting the 
children of poor mothers must be a priority. Let's not forget that 9 
million children will be affected by this legislation. Let's not forget 
that more than 20 percent of America's children live in poverty. And 
let's not forget that the Office of Management and Budget estimates 
that an additional 1.5 million children will fall into poverty if this 
conference agreement is enacted. Protecting innocent children is and 
ought remain a Federal responsibility and a national priority. 
Unfortunately, the conference committee has failed to meet this 
responsibility. There is simply no safety net for poor, innocent 
children in this bill. For this reason, it is with great disappointment 
that I simply cannot support this conference agreement. Having said 
that, I remain optimistic that a responsible welfare bill which puts 
people to work but protects innocent children can be crafted during 
this session of Congress. I remain committed to that goal.


                  The Milking of Our Children's Future

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, America is waking up to what the Contract 
With America is really about. But that has not stopped the Republican 
Congress from forging ahead with their ideological war, that in the end 
will hurt not just low-income children and families, but our country as 
a whole.
  The bill before us is rhetorically called ``welfare reform''. Its 
supporters claim they want to get people off welfare and into a job, 
but this is undermined by the fact that the bill does not give States 
the resources to follow through on this claim.
  What this bill does do is provide billions less than what is 
necessary for States to provide child care and meet work requirements. 
This bill cuts assistance for the poor, disabled children and the 
elderly, and cuts funds that are needed to rescue children from abusive 
homes. It cuts over $30 billion from the food stamp program and 
provides for optional block grants that will not allow States to 
respond to increased need during periods of higher unemployment--over 
80 percent of food stamp benefits go to families with children.
  Vermont initiated its own welfare reform plan a year ago, aimed at 
getting people off welfare and into the work force. Vermont's program 
is working--because the State lowered the rhetoric, left off the sound 
bites, and got the job done. The cuts included in this bill will be a 
step backward and could dismantle the programs that have been working 
in Vermont. It will also be a step backward for the work accomplished 
by Vermont Campaign to End Childhood Hunger and other Vermont 
children's advocacy groups.
  To highlight what this bill is really all about I want to talk about 
just one--perhaps seemingly minor--aspect of the agreement reached on 
the school lunch program. A few years ago, the Reagan administration 
tried to block-grant the school lunch program. They also tried to say 
that ketchup was a vegetable. Americans resented people in Washington 
playing politics with school lunches.
  Now the Republicans in the House of Representatives, and a few here 
in the Senate, are playing the same kinds of political games. Their 
block grants would end the 50-year-old requirement that schools provide 
a carton of milk with every school lunch.
  Milk has been required in the National School Lunch Program ever 
since the program began in 1946. The law could not be clearer on this 
subject: ``Lunches served by schools participating in the school lunch 
program under this act shall offer students fluid milk.''
  Milk is essential to a child's healthy development. It builds strong 
bones and healthy bodies. Serving every child a carton of milk every 
day teaches children a crucial lesson about eating healthy meals.
  Schools now serve about 40 million half-pints of milk per day in the 
school lunch and school breakfast program. Children in the school lunch 
program drink 454 million gallons of milk per year. By comparison, all 
the dairy farmers in the State of Vermont produce 279 million gallons 
of milk per year. The milk provided through school lunches accounts for 
over 7 percent of all fluid milk consumed in the United States.
  In my 8 years as chairman of the Agriculture Committee, during two 
full 

[[Page S19165]]
rewrites of the child nutrition law, I never once heard anyone complain 
that the school lunch program was serving too much milk.
  Yet this bill sets up block grants, and then provides them with 
insufficient funds to provide a healthy meal, including milk, to every 
child who needs one.
  When the financial crunch hits, States are likely to stop serving 
milk to children--they will replace it with cheaper and less healthy 
substitutes like soda.
  By the way, under this Republican welfare bill, any State--not just a 
block-grant State--can obtain a waiver to serve junk food and soda in 
school cafeterias. I fought for 8 years to keep junk food out of the 
school lunch program.
  I want to read from a letter that the Senator from Kentucky, Senator 
McConnell, and myself sent to the chairman of the Agriculture 
Committee, Senator Lugar, on December 6 supporting his stance against 
school lunch block grants. The letter was also signed by 9 other 
Republicans and 11 other Democrats.

       We oppose mandatory or optional block grants for the child 
     nutrition programs. The school lunch program provides healthy 
     meals every day for 25 million American children. Block 
     grants could undermine the nutritional value of those meals, 
     threaten the guarantee of free meals for needy children, and 
     provide inadequate funding for the program during recessions 
     and other times of need.

  The National School Lunch Program is a program that works. 
Americans--both Democrats and Republicans--support it. It answers a 
vital need. So why do we need to end the Federal commitment to feeding 
children and replace it with a block grant? The American School Food 
Service Association believes that school block grants are a step in the 
wrong direction and has urged members to vote against this bill.
  Underfunded block grants, whether for school lunch, food stamps, 
child protection, Medicaid or aid to families with children do not give 
States the tools they need to respond to increased needs during periods 
of higher unemployment. State taxpayers will be the ones to pick up the 
tab.
  This bill needs to be vetoed so we can start working on a real 
welfare reform bill in a bipartisan fashion. We must come together and 
we must agree on the basic principles that can guide our efforts. In my 
view, the only way to begin this discussion is for President Clinton to 
veto this bill.
  I trust that the President will do so in the interest of American's 
children and America's future.
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, 3 months ago, the Senate voted 
overwhelmingly to bring about fundamental change to welfare in this 
country.
  The entitlement status of cash welfare is ended in this bill. This is 
the most important step we can take if we want to successfully end the 
cycle of dependency. As Marvin Olasky noted in his recent book, ``The 
Tragedy of American Compassion,'' effective welfare requires the 
ability to distinguish those who have fallen on hard times and need a 
helping hand from those who simply refuse to act in a disciplined and 
responsible manner. When welfare is a Federal entitlement, it is very 
difficult to make these distinctions.
  However, ending the entitlement must be accompanied by the support 
necessary to get welfare recipients into jobs. In considering our 
welfare system, I think it is useful to distinguish beneficiaries by 
three major groups.
  First, there are those in need of temporary assistance. People who, 
while they are generally able to support themselves and their families, 
they have fallen on hard times. Food stamps and other assistance must 
be there to provide temporary help when unforeseen economic crises 
occur.
  The second group includes those whom most of us would agree cannot 
work. These individuals--through no fault of their own, are simply not 
able to economically provide for themselves. They have disabilities 
that warrant our compassion not our scorn. The welfare system should be 
there for them.
  The third group consists of people who fall somewhere in between the 
first and second groups. They have been on and off the welfare rolls 
for years, yet they don't seem to fit the profile of someone whom most 
would agree cannot work.
  It is this third group that should be the focus of the current 
welfare debate. The debate has often been extremely polarized. Many on 
the left are reluctant to vest any sense of personal responsibility in 
welfare recipients. They view them as unwitting victims of societal 
injustices, refusing to acknowledge the role that personal behavior may 
play.
  On the other hand, many on the right are reluctant to acknowledge 
that no person is an island--that each of us thrives or fails to 
thrive, to some extent, as a result of our environment. Some on the 
right naively believe that we all have the same opportunities and that 
a failure to succeed is simply evidence of laziness.
  For many beneficiaries in this third group, one of the most essential 
ingredients for self-sufficiency is the availability of child care. I 
am of the opinion that we cannot mandate strict work requirements 
without providing States with a reasonable amount of child care 
funding.
  During Senate debate on welfare, I worked on a bipartisan basis with 
other Members to increase funding for child care. Even under the 
current system of entitlement, there are more than 3,000 children of 
working parents already waiting to receive child care assistance in 
Maine. While the conference agreement decreases the Senate funding 
level by about $200 million, that decrease in funds is balanced by a 
reduction in the work requirements in the early years of 
implementation. Rather than the 25 percent level called for in the 
Senate bill, States will be required to place 15 percent of their 
caseload in work activities.
  In addition, the conference agreement will add $1.6 billion in 
funding for the social services block grant. This block grant has been 
used in many States to fund additional child care services for low-
income families and this funding will allow States to furnish 
additional services for child care and to promote economic self-
sufficiency.
  The provision for child care services in the agreement continues to 
provide protections for children who are not yet in school by 
prohibiting States from penalizing mothers who cannot work because 
there simply is no child care available.
  We have been criticized on all sides for providing too much and 
providing too little in this legislation. We do not know how States 
will react to this new flexibility and independence in setting policy. 
This legislation reflects the philosophy that Washington does not have 
all the answers. We should no longer assume that one-size-fits-all 
Federal solutions offer better hope than granting more freedom to 
States to design approaches that address a State's unique set of 
circumstances.
  Having said that, I believe we have a common and national interest in 
assuring an effective social safety net for all Americans, regardless 
of where citizens may reside. So I would not support any effort to 
completely remove the Federal Government from the welfare system.
  Through Government, we have an obligation to try to counter the 
negative influences which impact some of the poorest members of our 
society. Many Americans are born into environments of drugs, crime and 
severe poverty. And regrettably, too many of our young people are 
growing up without two parents involved in their lives. The correlation 
between single parenthood and welfare dependency is overwhelming. 
Ninety-two percent of AFDC families have no father in the home.
  Society must also acknowledge the correlation between crime and 
fatherlessness. Three-quarters of all long-term prisoners grew up 
without fathers in their homes or active in their lives. When 24 
percent of children born today are born to unwed mothers, we cannot 
avoid this issue if we hope to break the cycle of poverty and crime 
that permeate some of our communities.
  Unfortunately, no one really knows how to stop that cycle. For this 
reason, I do not support efforts to attach a lot of strings to the 
welfare block grants, including provisions ostensibly designed to curb 
illegitimacy. It is clear that welfare reform cannot disregard the 
growing incidence of out-of-wedlock births, teen pregnancy, and absent 

[[Page S19166]]
fathers, but it is also clear that we don't know what will counter this 
trend. Accordingly, we ought not prescribe a Federal solution that 
would hamstring the ability of States to try different approaches.
  This legislation does bring a new national presence to the collection 
of child support and establishing paternity for children born out-of-
wedlock. By taking a tougher stand to establish and then enforce child 
support orders, some of the families currently tied to the welfare 
system may be able to get loose. Financial support cannot replace the 
presence of a good father in a household but it will relieve some of 
the burdens placed on single mothers.
  I support the general thrust of the pending welfare legislation to 
turn more decisionmaking authority over to the States. Consistency 
would suggest that we not at the same time put a lot of requirements on 
States on how and who to spend Federal welfare dollars. I do think that 
it is important to ensure that States share responsibility with the 
Federal Government by investing dollars at the State level in welfare 
programs. For this reason, I supported a strong maintenance of effort 
requirement which remains largely intact in the conference report.
  Block-granting AFDC to the States is not a panacea. A welfare system 
that has clearer lines of responsibility and accountability will be 
more effective. But this is not the end of the welfare debate. 
Hopefully, we will enact legislation this year that will make 
meaningful improvements in the current system. But turning these 
programs over to the States will not itself fix the problems. Congress 
and the President must continue to work with States to improve the 
welfare system to make sure that a safety net is there for those who 
need it but is denied to those who abuse it.
  I intend to support the conference agreement, but I do have 
reservations regarding some of the changes that were included in the 
final agreement. We have been put on notice that this legislation will 
be vetoed by President Clinton. If the President follows through on his 
promise, it is my hope that we can revisit those important issues when 
the legislation returns to Congress.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, the welfare reform conference report 
before us today should be defeated. It should be defeated because it 
does not adequately address our Nation's needs and particularly the 
needs of my State; it endangers the Nation's children; it does not help 
people move from welfare to work.


              Inadequate Attention to Unemployment, Growth

  Compared to the bill we previously passed, this bill gives short 
shrift to my State's needs.
  First, the Senate bill created a contingency fund of $1 billion to 
help States with high unemployment. This conference agreement reduces 
this fund to $800 million. California had an unemployment rate stood of 
8.8 percent in November, while the national rate was 5.6 percent. In 
the last 5 years, my State's unemployment rate has never dropped below 
7 percent, reaching 10 percent in 1994.
  Second, the bill's underlying funding formula fails to recognize high 
growth rates in poverty. I offered an amendment to redistribute funds 
by the change in poverty population each year. The conference agreement 
does not rectify this problem. California's population is expected to 
grow from 30 million in 1990 to 42 million in 2010 and 49 million by 
2020.
  Third, under this bill, States will contribute less. The Senate bill 
required States to maintain 80 percent of their 1994 funding of cash 
assistance [AFDC]. Under this bill, States can drop their funding to 75 
percent. Thus, they can reduce their funding by 25 percent. This would 
allow States to reduce State spending by $5 billion.


                Protecting Neglected and Abused Children

  Programs providing services to neglected and abused children are an 
important part of this bill. These are services that have removed 
children from unsafe homes, placed them in protective settings, 
provided periodic reviews of their status, and trained child protection 
staff.
  Child protection services are included in a block grant and cut by 
$1.3 billion over 7 years. These are services like training for foster 
parents, child abuse emergency response, and other services that try to 
keep families together and protect children in foster homes.
  There are at least half a million of these children in California.
  From 1988 to 1993, nationally, the rate of reported child abuse and 
neglect rose 25 percent. The foster care caseload grew 50 percent. From 
1983 to 1993, the number of children in child protection grew by two-
thirds. Los Angeles last year responded to more than 165,000 reports of 
abused and neglected children.
  This bill will weaken support for these, our most vulnerable 
children.


                     Not Helping Mothers Be Mothers

  The Senate bill allowed States to limit the work requirement to 20 
hours a week for mother with children under age 6. This bill requires 
mothers of small children to work at least 35 hours a week.
  While work requirements are appropriate for many people, mothers are 
the most important influence in a young child's life. Work requirements 
should be compatible with raising a family and guiding young children. 
I believe a 20-hour work week requirement for mothers with young 
children, rejected by this bill, is reasonable.


                           No Health Coverage

  The conference version, unlike the previous Senate bill, ends the 
guarantee of health insurance or Medicaid for women on AFDC and their 
children over age 13.
  In California, 290,000 children and 750,000 parents would lose 
coverage, according to the Children's Defense Fund. This represents 18 
percent of all children in the United States losing coverage.
  By ending this health insurance, we will add to our State's uninsured 
population which is already the third highest in the Nation at 22 
percent. Without health insurance or the ability to purchase it, sick 
people end up in hospital emergency rooms and we all pay through tax 
dollars or our private policies.


                   Work Requirements, Resources Weak

  The bill's goal, a goal I endorse, is to move welfare recipients from 
dependency to work. The bill requires States to have 50 percent of 
recipients participating in work by 2002. But the bill falls short in 
several ways.
  First, the conference agreement, unlike the Senate bill, does not 
require personal responsibility contracts, agreements that obligate the 
recipient and move him or her toward self-sufficiency.
  Second, the conference agreement deletes the Senate provision giving 
bonuses to States for job placements.
  And third, and most importantly, the bill does not provide adequate 
funds for child care programs to support the requirements that States 
put welfare recipients into work.


                               Child Care

  Child care is the linchpin to self-sufficiency for mothers on 
welfare. The fact is that mothers cannot go to work without child care 
programs for their children. There are two serious problems in this 
bill, the first is funding and the second is standards.
  Currently in California, 80 percent of eligible AFDC children are 
unserved. The bill before us exacerbates this already dire situation. 
To support the work requirements of the bill, the bill falls short from 
$6 billion to $13 billion.
  Child care experts in California tell me that this means our State 
would be $1.3 billion short of what is needed to meet the increased 
demand caused by the work requirements of the bill.
  Under current law, to qualify for Federal child care funds, States 
must set quality standards that address things like caregiver to child 
ratios, sprinkler systems, plumbing standards, hygiene.
  The Senate bill retained this requirement, but the conference 
agreement before us eliminates it. This means that there is no 
guarantee that young children will be in safe and healthy environments.


                          Innovative Programs

  California has some of the most innovative welfare programs in the 
country.
  We have the GAIN program--Greater Avenues for Independence--in 
Riverside, that has returned $2.84 to the taxpayers for every $1 spent.
  In Los Angeles, the GAIN program has a job placement rate of 34 
percent. 

[[Page S19167]]

  San Mateo and San Diego Counties have successful job-search programs.
  San Mateo, last year, put 85 percent of the people in the program to 
work.
  The Senate adopted my amendment to allow HHS to negotiate directly 
with large counties to establish innovative programs. Unfortunately, 
the conferees deleted this provision.


                               Conclusion

  No one has a right to welfare. Welfare was never intended to be a 
permanent way of life. It was intended to be a lifeboat for people in 
temporary emergency situations. In my State, there are almost 2.6 
million people receiving welfare or 18 percent of the U.S. caseload in 
a State that has 12 percent of the population. I want to reform 
welfare. I want families to be secure and self-sufficient. But this 
bill does not do it. I cannot support it.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I rise today in strong opposition to the 
conference report for the Personal Responsibility Act of 1995.
  I gave my qualified support to the Senate welfare reform bill, the 
Work Opportunity Act of 1995, because I believed it contained important 
improvements from the draconian House welfare reform measure.
  Without the Senate-passed protections, I can no longer support the 
welfare reform efforts of this Republican Congress. This bill simply 
goes too far toward what I believe will be a dark development for poor 
families as spending for needy families with children will be reduced 
by approximately 18 percent.
  I would like to take this opportunity to further explain why this 
conference agreement is unacceptable to me and should not be passed by 
the Senate.


                             CHILD WELFARE

  Mr. President, abused and neglected children have no place in efforts 
to reform welfare. To try to squeeze out savings from programs which 
protect the most vulnerable in our society is not only wrongheaded, but 
mean-spirited as well.
  The House bill would create two child protection block grants to 
States--ending the total Federal guarantee of foster care and adoption 
assistance to the children who are the most desperately need of our 
help. The Senate-passed bill left current law on these programs 
unchanged.
  It has been demonstrated that in times of economic downturns, the 
need for child protective services rises commensurately. When there was 
a 6 percent decrease in AFDC California in 1992, there was a 10 percent 
increase of children into the welfare system and a 20 percent increase 
in child abuse reports in Los Angeles County. However, this conference 
agreement takes a short-sighted approach by capping spending on child 
welfare programs at a time when the need for them could increase 
dramatically.
  The conferees wisely retained the Federal guarantee for title IV-E 
foster care and adoption assistance maintenance payments for abused and 
neglected children who qualify. But the conference agreement caps the 
costs to administer the foster care and adoption assistance program, 
regardless of additional burdens which may be placed on the system. 
This will mean $1.3 billion over 7 years will be slashed from serving 
abused and neglected children. That is a disgrace.
  Mr. President, I want to explain what constitutes ``administrative 
costs'' under the foster care and adoption assistance program. I think 
we can all agree that where needless paperwork and red tape can be 
eliminated, we should encourage it. But in the case of the title IV-E 
foster care and adoption assistance program, administrative costs are 
used for activities such as the training of foster care and adoptive 
parents, investigations, referrals, and appropriate child placements.
  Title IV-E administrative costs would be folded into a Child 
Protection Block Grant, and capped, together with the Family 
Preservation and Independent Living Programs.
  Mr. President, the Family Preservation Program is having a positive 
effect in the State of California. In Los Angeles County, the Family 
Preservation Program has served 10,000 children in 3 years. Through 
more extensive supervision by law enforcement and social workers and 
violence prevention, the Los Angeles County Preservation Program can 
claim an approximate 50 percent decrease in child abuse deaths in 3 
years and serves more at-risk families with less money than the 
traditional foster care program.
  This welfare bill will hurt innovative programs such as Los Angeles 
County Family Preservation Program by capping it arbitrarily.
  The story of 6 year-old Elisa Izquierdo in New York is the kind most 
of us hope to never have to read. Young Elisa fell through the cracks 
of the New York City child welfare system--one of the largest in the 
country. Her story is a tragic example of what can happen in an 
overburdened child welfare program.
  Mr. President, we have an obligation to ensure that every child is 
protected from an unsafe household. The conference agreement will 
seriously undermine the ability of child welfare agencies to meet this 
obligation. To endanger the lives of vulnerable children is not worth 
the few savings these provisions will bring.


                                  WORK

  This bill is weak on work. The conference agreement strips out 
provisions added to the Senate bill which would get serious about 
putting welfare recipients into the workforce. This legislation gives a 
person 2 years before they have to work--not 3 months, as in the Senate 
bill.
  The conference agreement also does not contain the bonus to States 
for exceeding the targeted work participation rates as provided under 
the Senate bill.
  The debate on welfare has centered around ``personal 
responsibility.'' Yet the conference agreement fails to require welfare 
recipients to sign a personal responsibility contract in order to 
receive their benefits.
  On the other hand, the conference agreement removes some of the most 
important protections for welfare families transitioning to work. I 
supported the provisions in the Senate bill which would have recipients 
to go to work after 3 months of receiving benefits. However, where a 
woman's safety could be threatened, the Senate bill would permit an 
exemption for battered women from the overall work requirement.
  The Violence Against Women Act, which I introduced and passed last 
Congress, went a long way toward assisting battered women who were in 
unsafe households. Removal of this important exemption demonstrates the 
failure to understand the dangers many battered women face and the 
circumstances which keep them from leaving their abusers.
  In addition, the final bill forces 35 hours of work per week for 
parents with young children without sufficiently funding child care.
  And where a family is subjected to circumstances of extreme hardship, 
I support a more generous exemption for such families from the time 
limit on benefits. While the Senate bill would have permitted States to 
exempt up to 20 percent of their welfare caseload under a hardship 
exemption, the conference agreement only permits the exemption of 15 
percent of the caseload. Based on HHS estimates, this could mean up to 
500,000 more children than the Senate bill will be denied benefits due 
to the expiration of time limits under the lower 15 percent exemption.


                               CHILD CARE

  Mr. President, the conference agreement is inadequate in meeting the 
child care needs of welfare families. CBO estimates that this bill 
contains $6 billion less than what is needed by families to meet the 
bill's own work requirements. HHS estimates that the funding level is 
$13.6 billion less than what will be needed to meet the work 
requirements.
  The agreement does not contain the important provision in the Senate 
bill which would allow States to require mothers with children under 
the age of 6 to participate in work programs for 20 hours per week 
instead of 35 hours per week. Removal of this exception will mean 
significantly greater demands will be placed on the child care funds 
contained in the bill, hindering the efforts of parents trying to get 
off of welfare.
  In addition, child care health and safety protections contained in 
current law and retained in the Senate bill would be eliminated.
  The quality set-aside, used by States to promote and assure the 
availability of safe and affordable child care, is less than half the 
amount passed in the 

[[Page S19168]]
Senate bill. Without safe and affordable child care, parents are faced 
with terrible alternatives: leaving their young children with siblings 
too young for the responsibility, or worse yet, allowing their young 
children to stay at home unsupervised. No responsible parent wants to 
be faced with that decision. In some cases, such decisions could meet 
with dire consequences.
  Mr. President, simply put, child care is the absolute linchpin to any 
successful welfare reform effort. Without adequate child care, there is 
little reason to believe that welfare families have any real hope of 
working their way off of welfare and staying off. Working families with 
children today understand this need better than anyone else.
  California already has a serious shortage of safe and affordable 
child care. Today, 30,454 children in California are served under 
Federal child care programs. But thousands more sit on waiting lists. 
In fact, only about 14 percent of eligible children are currently being 
served by child care programs in California.
  Combined with the title XX Social Services Block Grant funding cut of 
10 percent in the budget reconciliation measure--which many states use 
to fund child care activities--the severe underfunding of child care in 
the conference bill will further exacerbate the problem of underserved 
families in California.


                            LEGAL IMMIGRANTS

  California is home to the approximately 38 percent of the total 
number of all immigrants in the United States. Legal immigrants 
comprise more than 12 percent of the total population of California for 
an estimated 4 million total number of legal immigrants. Legal 
immigrants make up approximately one-sixth of the total Los Angeles 
County population.
  The conference agreement will cut off a variety of benefits to legal 
immigrants. The California legislative analyst's office estimated that 
the legal immigrant provisions of the House and Senate-passed welfare 
bills would reduce Federal funds to the State of California by $6.6 to 
$8.3 billion over 5 years. The restrictions on benefits to legal 
immigrants would comprise more than half of the total loss of Federal 
welfare funds to the State ($3.6 to $5.3 billion).
  The loss of these funds will result in a tremendous cost shift to the 
State of California and its local governments. Under California State 
law, counties are mandated to provide cash and medical assistance to 
low-income persons who are otherwise ineligible for Federal assistance.
  In sum, the conference agreement goes too far in restricting benefit 
eligibility for legal immigrants, many of whom have been in the country 
for years and paid taxes. It will also transfer billions of dollars in 
costs to the already overburdened local governments of California.


                          MEDICAID ELIGIBILITY

  The conference agreement quietly severs the link between AFDC and 
Medicaid eligibility. Under this bill, women and children over age 13 
receiving cash assistance would no longer be guaranteed Medicaid 
coverage. Neither the Senate nor the House-passed welfare bills would 
have gone so far as to eliminate the longstanding guarantee of Medicaid 
coverage for needy citizens.
  Elimination of this link, combined with ending the entitlement to 
cash assistance and shrinking spending for other services for our 
needy, will render the safety net for the most vulnerable in our 
country virtually non-existent.


                            CHILD NUTRITION

  House Republican efforts to end Federal School Lunch and School 
Breakfast Programs and replace them with capped funding to States are 
both ill-advised and unpopular. Again, the Senate approach wisely 
maintained the Federal child nutrition programs.
  For nearly 50 years, the School Lunch Program has fed hungry 
children. School-based feeding programs are sound investments in 
childrens' health and their education. Studies show that children who 
go to school hungry tire easily. They have trouble concentrating, do 
worse on standardized tests and are more likely to miss class due to 
illness. Every day, 25 million school children in America get a well-
balanced, nutritious meal through the Federal school lunch program--2 
million of these children are in California.
  Despite widespread public support for the National School Lunch and 
School Breakfast Programs, the conference agreement would permit 7 
States to receive funding for their programs in the form of a block 
grant. Children in those 7 States would no longer receive a Federal 
guarantee to a nutritious meal which may be the only one they eat all 
day.
  The Los Angeles Times published a series of articles on hunger in 
southern California late last year. One of the most moving pieces told 
the stories of the many hungry children at Edgewood Middle School in 
the city of West Covina. The piece recounted the problems of serious 
hunger and malnutrition among students in what is considered to be a 
middle-class bedroom community.
  After the story was printed, there was a huge outpouring of public 
support for feeding the hungry students at Edgewood. Citizens donated 
boxes of food, and money, and the West Covina Unified School District 
voted for the first time to sign up for the School Breakfast Program. 
Shortly thereafter, 60 California school districts followed suit and 
applied for the Federal School Breakfast Program.
  The conferees' decision to open the door to ending National School 
Lunch and School Breakfast Programs flies in the face of widespread 
public support for child nutrition programs, as evidenced by the 
Edgewood Middle School example.


                            SSI FOR CHILDREN

  The conference agreement goes beyond the Senate-passed bill to reduce 
Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits by 25 percent for 65 
percent of the children who are on SSI. The agreement would create a 
two-tier benefit structure, cutting the SSI program for disabled 
children by $3 billion over 7 years more than under the Senate bill. 
This cut will have a dramatic impact on low-income families who use SSI 
to help pay for their disabled childrens' needs.


                         MAINTENANCE OF EFFORT

  The Senate passed a requirement that States must spend at least 80 
percent of their previous fiscal year's spending in order to receive 
their full block grant allocation. The conference agreement lowers the 
requirement to 75 percent. In effect, this will permit States to reduce 
their welfare spending by $5 billion over the next 7 years more than 
under the Senate-passed bill.


                               FAMILY CAP

  Real welfare reform makes work pay and provides incentives for 
families to transition out of the system. This bill takes the reverse 
tack of punishing welfare families for being poor. Take for instance, 
provisions to impose mandatory family caps. Family caps prohibit States 
from providing additional cash assistance to families who have more 
children while on welfare.
  The Senate spoke on this issue by voting to remove a mandatory family 
cap provision. The conference agreement subverts the Senate vote by 
requiring States to impose family caps unless the State legislature 
explicitly votes otherwise--making it extremely difficult to provide 
additional assistance to affected children.
  The family cap has not sufficiently proven itself to be a successful 
way to drive down the number of births to women already on welfare. A 
preliminary study done by Rutgers University of the New Jersey State 
family cap revealed that the policy did not reduce births to women on 
AFDC, but did drive children in such families even further below the 
poverty line.


                             CHILD SUPPORT

  The conference agreement does not contain the amendment which passed 
unanimously in the Senate which would eliminate benefits to deadbeat 
parents. The amendment, which I offered, would make noncustodial 
parents who are more than 2 months behind in their child support 
ineligible for federally means-tested benefits unless they enter into a 
schedule of repayment for arrears owed. This provision would have sent 
a message to get tough with parents who do not take their child support 
obligations seriously. 

[[Page S19169]]



                               CONCLUSION

  Combined with proposals to severely cut back the Earned Income Tax 
Credit, Medicaid, and Head Start, this welfare reform bill will not 
reform the flawed welfare system, but create more serious barriers for 
families trying to work their way out of welfare.
  This conference agreement extracts approximately $60 billion from 
programs serving the poorest among us at a time where the Republicans 
want to give tax breaks to the wealthiest among us. I do not agree with 
these priorities. Moreover, the bill's dramatic underfunding is unfair 
to both States and poor families.
  And while I support welfare reform that gets tough on work, this one 
fails even that test.
  In summary, I cannot support legislation which will throw countless 
children into poverty. No one expects us to solve the welfare problem 
by punishing children for being poor.
  The President has pledged to veto this welfare bill. And for the 
reasons I have stated, I must vote against the final welfare reform 
bill as well. I urge my colleagues to do the same.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I am proud to be an original cosponsor of 
the Dole Work Opportunities Act and am proud to have worked with the 
current occupant of the chair, the Senator from Pennsylvania. I do 
believe that this welfare reform act will, as the President said months 
ago, ``end welfare as we know it.''
  As early as 1935, President Roosevelt recognized that the welfare 
system was not working. At that time he said:

       The lessons of history, confirmed by the evidence 
     immediately before me, show conclusively that continued 
     dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral 
     disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national 
     fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a 
     narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. It is 
     inimical to the dictates of sound policy. It is a violation 
     of the traditions of America.

  Unfortunately we find ourselves, today, some 60 years later, with 
millions of Americans on welfare. In my State, 39,000 Alaskans are on 
welfare sometime during the year. That includes many foreign citizens, 
who are residents of our State.
  What is worse, once people go on welfare they seem to stay on it. The 
average person is on welfare for a mind-boggling 13 years, once he or 
she gets on welfare.
  Teenage girls get welfare checks, but only if they become pregnant. 
Instead of discouraging teen pregnancy, our Government actually rewards 
it with a cash bonus.
  Today, the out-of-wedlock birth rate is a startling 33 percent. Half 
of the teenagers who have babies end up on welfare before their babies 
are a year old.
  The current welfare system rewards idleness instead of work, rewards 
teenagers who have babies out of wedlock instead of those who practice 
abstinence, and rewards foreigners who illegally enter the country.
  The war on poverty's chief casualty has been the American taxpayer. 
Over $5 trillion, in constant 1993 dollars, has been spent on welfare 
programs in the 30 years since its inception.
  I supported some of those activities under that program, but I am 
convinced now that the American people are fed up with this Federal 
welfare system that contradicts values: It discourages marriages, 
penalizes work, and encourages illegitimacy. Its results speak for 
themselves.
  In Detroit, in 1993, 50 percent of all children in that city received 
AFDC benefits at some time during the year. And an astounding 67 
percent of all the people of that city received AFDC payments during 
the year. Mr. President, 50 percent of all children in the city were 
receiving benefits at a given point of time, and 67 percent received 
them at some point during that year. I am quoting from the statistics 
from the Department of Health and Human Services.
  The current welfare system is not a temporary way station for many. 
Instead, it has become a multigenerational way of life. According to a 
1986 study by David Ellwood, currently an Assistant Secretary at the 
Department of Health and Human Services, 82 percent of AFDC recipients 
on the rolls at a given time had been there for more than 5 years, and 
65 percent for 8 years or more.
  The breakdown of the family, the glue that has traditionally held our 
American society together, is another casualty of this welfare system. 
Teenagers, too young to have a driver's license, are having babies and 
moving into apartments of their own, financed by the taxpayers, and 
having more babies. And children born out of wedlock are three times 
more likely to be on welfare when they grow up.

  The existing system breeds discontent and idleness. It is a fertile 
ground for abandoning personal responsibility for one's life, one's 
children, our society, or our way of life.
  Mr. President, I grew up in the Depression when everyone had to work 
to survive. We had to work hard. From the time, literally, we were 6 or 
7, my brothers and sister and I worked at odd jobs to keep our family 
going. Things were tough, but my grandmother taught us that the way for 
us to get ahead and stay ahead was through hard work.
  I think it is time to put my Grandma Stevens' horse sense back into 
our public policy.
  The bill Bob Dole and I, and the occupant of the Chair, cosponsored 
charts a bold new course designed to reverse decades of perverse 
incentives and failed policies. Our bill will restore a sense of ethics 
to our social fabric, especially the ethics of work, responsibility, 
and family integrity.
  This bill will end welfare as an entitlement. The bill will return to 
the concept of a helping hand to those truly in need, temporarily, 
until that person has a chance to get back on his or her own two feet.
  It will impose a 5-year lifetime limit on receiving welfare benefits, 
require welfare recipients to work as soon as they are trained, 
provides $18 billion for child care to enable welfare mothers to work, 
terminates benefits to those who refuse to work, requires teenagers who 
have babies to stay in school and live under adult supervision to 
qualify for benefits, denies welfare payments to drug addicts and 
alcoholics, reduces the Federal bureaucracy by transferring the 
programs to the States to run.
  This measure provides the flexibility to allow States to address the 
needs of those truly in need. We will all agree, I hope, that the 
disabled veteran, the elderly widow, or the learning-disabled child 
should continue to receive our help, and will under this bill.
  Nothing in this bill prevents States from exempting recipients from 
the work requirement if they are physically or mentally unable to do 
the work. This bill also gives the States the option to cut off 
benefits to mothers who have more children while on welfare to 
discourage illegitimate births. As harsh as that sounds, it was the 
recommendation that came to me personally from school nurses in my 
State.
  This is the family cap concept. Some folks in the media, I think, 
have misconstrued this section of our bill. Our bill does not say the 
States cannot institute a family cap--it says let the States decide 
whether to institute it or not. That is what this debate is all about.
  For too long, Washington has dictated welfare policy to individual 
States. My State is a good example of the flexibility that is needed in 
administering laws such as this.
  States have the right to experiment and decide the best way to 
discourage welfare abuse and yet meet the needs of their citizens. By 
mandating caps, we would go down the failed road of ``Congress knows 
best.''
  This bill is not a Congress knows best bill. It is a ``States know 
best'' bill. And that is what the 10th amendment is all about. It is 
simple. It says:

       The powers not delegated to the United States by the 
     Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are 
     reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

  The 10th amendment is fulfilled by this bill that we have before us, 
the Work Opportunities Act. It leaves to the States the powers reserved 
to them, and I am proud to support it.
  I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, this year, I have consistently argued 
for reform of the welfare system. Today, I voted against legislation 
that misuses the label ``welfare reform'' and deserves to be soundly 
rejected.
  I am extremely disappointed that an extremist faction of Congress 
managed to turn a historic chance for enacting welfare reform into 
another way to 

[[Page S19170]]
pursue an agenda that will hurt children, weaken families, and cripple 
State budgets. To pursue this mean-spirited program so close to 
Christmas makes it all the sadder and more shameful.
  I am determined to press on for real welfare reform that promotes 
work, reduces dependency, and protects innocent children. I have 
personally worked to promote welfare reform for many years as Governor 
of West Virginia and in the U.S. Senate, and I will not give up.
  In 1982, as Governor, I helped establish one of the first workfare 
programs in the country, which continues in West Virginia today. In 
1988, I was a conferee who helped forge a bipartisan agreement to 
promote work in the Family Support Act. This year, I have been eager to 
work in a bipartisan manner to promote even bolder initiatives for 
welfare reform that could build on the innovations started by the 
Family Support Act, and state-led experimentation.
  My fundamental principles for reform are that parents should accept 
personal responsibility and work, but that children must be protected, 
not punished. We should never forget that two-thirds of the people on 
welfare are children, and 70,000 of them live in my State of West 
Virginia. They are the innocent ones, and they should not be punished 
because of their birth.
  I was an original cosponsor of the Work First plan, sponsored by 
Senators Daschle, Mikulski, and Breaux, because I strongly felt that 
this program was the best initiative to promote work and still protect 
the millions of children who depend on welfare for basic needs of food, 
clothing, and shelter. When our Democratic alternative was not adopted, 
I was willing to work in a bipartisan manner in the Senate to try and 
forge an agreement. I voted for the Dole-Daschle leadership amendment 
and the bipartisan Senate welfare bill. It was not perfect, and no 
comprehensive bill can be. It was a sincere effort to reform our 
welfare system and retain some fundamental safety net programs for 
children, especially child welfare and foster care.
  Unfortunately, the bipartisan approach taken in the Senate was not 
adopted by the conference committee. As Senator Moynihan, the ranking 
member of the Finance Committee said in his statement, the conferees 
were not consulted. In fact, one of the Senate Republican conferees did 
not even sign the conference report. Several Republican Senators have 
expressed serious concerns about disturbing policy changes tucked into 
the conference report that do not belong in a welfare reform bill.
  Having served on the conference committee in 1988 for the Family 
Support Act, which passed the Senate with a strong bipartisan vote of 
96 to 1, I am disappointed that this was not the model for negotiations 
on this legislation. The conference committee for the Family Support 
Act included hard work and tough decisions, but it was a sincere, 
bipartisan effort and it produced modest success, and the framework for 
innovation that led to this debate.
  There are many issues involved in this debate and the conference 
report. Many of the cuts are in programs beyond our current general 
welfare program, called Aid to Families with Dependent Children, 
[AFDC]. Personally, it is the cuts and drastic changes to the other 
programs that trouble me greatly.
  For example, this conference report eliminates assured Medicaid 
eligibility for poor children over 13 years old, and poor mothers. As 
someone who has fought to expand health care coverage for families, 
this is too much of a step backwards. This report cuts child nutrition 
in general and allows for block grants of the successful school lunch 
program in seven States as a demonstration. What happens in those seven 
States when a recession hits and more children qualify and need school 
lunches, but Federal funding doesn't increase? The harsher cuts in 
Supplemental Security Income [SSI] for disabled children and the two-
tier benefit structure that reduces benefits by 25 percent for the 
majority of disabled children are disappointing, given the bipartisan 
Senate position on SSI for disabled children.
  Throughout this year and the general debate on welfare reform, I have 
focused much on my time and energy on the Federal programs for abused 
and neglected children--child welfare services, foster care, and 
adoption assistance for children with special needs. Children served by 
these programs are among the most vulnerable in our society. They are 
children at risk of abuse and neglect, often in their own homes by 
their parents, and I deeply believe that we have a moral obligation to 
protect these children.
  But this conference report does not adequately protect such 
vulnerable children, and I do not believe that it reflects the 
bipartisan approach to child welfare programs strongly endorsed in the 
Finance Committee and on the Senate floor. In this Chamber, a strong, 
bipartisan coalition supported retaining current law for child welfare 
and foster care in recognition of the special needs of these children.
  The conference report on child welfare and foster care falls woefully 
short of the needs of abused and neglected children. A broad range of 
child advocates and bipartisan groups oppose the block grants suggested 
in the conference report. Mr. President, I will ask unanimous consent 
that a list of these advocates be printed in the Record.
  Having served as chairman of the National Commission on Children, my 
goal is to improve services to abused and neglected children as 
suggested our unanimous, bipartisan report, not work to dismantle, 
effective programs. For example, the conference report would eliminate 
the Independent Living program, a small but effective program offering 
an alternative to foster care of teens. The conference report would 
eliminate the promising Family Preservation and Family Support Program 
which I helped to create in 1993, and this program has received good 
initial reviews from the Government Accounting Office [GAO]. 
Additionally, the conference report would block grant and cap vital 
Federal funding for foster care placement services, including 
recruiting foster care parents and other essential services. This is 
the wrong direction for child welfare, and it is the wrong time to 
undercut these program if we are to move ahead on bold reform of 
general welfare, known as AFDC.
  For West Virginia, the stakes in this debate are high. My State is 
eager to promote work and has already been approved by the Clinton 
administration for a waiver to create the Joint Opportunities for 
Independence [JOIN] to encourage private employers to hire welfare 
recipients. Having personally met with the top officials in the 
Department of Human Resources, I know of their interest to reform 
welfare. West Virginia also has regions of high unemployment and 
difficult transportation issues. My State is struggling to cope for a 
Medicaid funding crunch and can ill afford to lose hundreds of millions 
of dollars in social service programs and at the same time be slapped 
with higher work requirements for welfare families. West Virginia wants 
to, and is already, moving families from welfare to work, but my State 
needs continuing Federal investments in child care and support services 
to run effective programs. Even the Congressional Budget Office [CBO], 
acknowledges that this conference report is $6 billion short on the 
funding needed to child care to move parents into work.
  Let me reiterate. I want to enact meaningful welfare reform that 
moves parents from welfare to work. Since the President has already 
said he will veto this bill, it is time to make a New Year's resolution 
for 1996 that Congress will revive the bipartisan cooperation and 
effort needed to accomplish the kind of welfare reform that Americans 
have every right to expect.
  Mr. President, I now ask that the aforementioned list be printed in 
the Record.
  There being no objection, the list was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

  List of Organizations Who Have Written Letters in Opposition to the 
Conference Report Provisions on Child Welfare Services and Foster Care:

       American Bar Association.
       National Conference of State Legislatures.
       American Public Welfare Association.
       Adoption Exchange Association.
       Adoptive Families of America.
       Alabama Council on Child Abuse (Montgomery, AL).
       American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
       American Academy of Pediatrics.
       American Association of Psychiatric Services for Children.
       
[[Page S19171]]

       American Civil Liberties Union.
       American Ethical Union, Washington Ethical Action Office.
       American Humane Association, Children's Division.
       American Jewish Congress.
       American Jewish Congress Commission for Women's Equality.
       American Jewish Committee.
       American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children.
       American Psychiatric Association.
       American Psychological Association.
       American Red Cross.
       The Arc.
       Arkansas Advocates for Children (Little Rock, AR).
       Asistencia para Latinos (Glenwood Springs, CO).
       Association of Children's Services Agencies.
       Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law.
       Beech Brook (Cleveland, OH).
       Behavior Sciences Institute/Home Builders (Federal Way, 
     WA).
       Bienvenidos Children's Center, Inc. (Altadena, CA).
       Boarder Baby Project (Washington, D.C.).
       Bridgeport Child Advocacy Coalition (Bridgeport, CT).
       California Association of Children's Homes (Sacramento, 
     CA).
       California Association of Services for Children 
     (Sacramento, CA).
       California Consortium to Prevent Child Abuse (Sacramento, 
     CA).
       Catholic Charities, USA.
       Center for the Study of Social Policy.
       Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice.
       Child Abuse Council (Moline, IL).
       Child Care Association of Illinois (Springfield, IL).
       Child Welfare League of America.
       Children Awaiting Parents.
       Children First, Florida Legal Services.
       Children's Action Alliance.
       Children's Defense Fund.
       Children's Research Center/National Council on Crime and 
     Delinquency.
       Children's Rights, Inc.
       Citizenship Education Fund.
       Coalition for Family and Children's Services in Iowa (Des 
     Moines, IA).
       Coalition for Juvenile Justice.
       Coalition on Human Needs.
       Colorado Association of Family and Children's Agencies, 
     Inc. (Denver, CO).
       Colorado Coalition for the Protection of Children (Denver, 
     CO).
       Colorado Foundation for Families and Children (Denver, CO).
       Communities for Children (Boston, MA).
       Connecticut Center for Prevention of Child Abuse.
       Council for Exceptional Children
       Council of Family and Child Caring Agencies (New York City, 
     NY)
       Council on Child Abuse and Neglect
       Council on Social Work Education
       Damar Homes, Inc. (Camby, IN)
       David and Margaret Home, Inc. (La Verne, CA)
       DAWN for Children (Providence, RI)
       DC Action for Children
       Delawareans United to Prevent Child Abuse
       Demicco Youth Services (Chicago, IL)
       The Episcopal Church
       Families' and Children's AIDS Network
       Family Preservation Institute, Department of Social Work, 
     New Mexico State University
       Family Resource Coalition
       Family Service America
       Florida Committee for Prevention of Child Abuse 
     (Gainesville, FL)
       Florida Foster Care Review Project, Inc. (Miami, FL)
       Foster Family Ministries (Kansas City, MO)
       Four Oaks, Inc. (Cedar Rapids, IA)
       Friends Committee on National Legislation
       Gary Community Mental Health Center (Gary, IN)
       General Board of Church and Society, United Methodist 
     Church
       General Federation of Women's Clubs
       Generations United
       Georgia Council on Child Abuse
       Georgians for Children
       Gibault School for Boys (Terre Haute, IN)
       Girl Scouts USA
       Hamilton Centers Youth Service Bureau, Inc. (Noblesville, 
     IN)
       The H.E.L.P. Group (Sherman Oaks, CA)
       Hillsides Home for Children (Pasadena, CA)
       Hollygrove Children's Home, Los Angeles Orphans Home 
     Society
       Home-SAFE Child Care, Inc. (Los Angeles, CA)
       Hoosier Boys' Town (Schereville, IN)
       Illinois Action for Children
       Indiana Association of Residential Child Care Agencies 
     (Indianapolis, IN)
       Institute for Black Parenting
       Intensive Family Preservation Services National Network
       Julia Ann Singer Center (Los Angeles, CA)
       Juvenile Law Center (Philadelphia, PA)
       Kansas Children's Service League
       Kentucky Council on Child Abuse
       KidsPeace National Centers for Kids in Crisis 
     (Indianapolis, IN).
       The Law Center (TLC) for Children of Legal Services of 
     North Virginia, Inc.
       Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago.
       LeRoy Haynes Center (La Verne, CA).
       Louisiana Council and Child Abuse.
       Lutheran Child and Family Services, Indiana/Kentucky 
     (Indianapolis, IN).
       Lutheran Office for Governmental Affairs.
       Luzerne County Children & Youth Services (Wilkes-Barre, 
     PA).
       McKinley Children's Center (San Dimas, CA).
       Maryland Association of Resources for Families and Youth.
       Maryland Foster Care Review Board.
       Maryvale (Rosemead, CA).
       Masada Homes (Torrance, CA).
       Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty (New York City, NY).
       Michigan Federation of Private Child & Family Agencies 
     (Lansing, MI).
       Minnesota Committee for Prevention of Child Abuse.
       Minnesota Council of Child Caring Agencies (St. Paul, MN).
       Missouri Chapter, National Committee to Prevent Child 
     Abuse.
       Missouri Child Care Association (Jefferson City, MI).
       Moss Beach Homes, Inc. (San Carlos, CA).
       National Adoption Center.
       National Association of Child Advocates.
       National Association for Family Based Services.
       National Association for Foster Care Reviewers.
       National Association for Homes and Services for Children.
       National Association of School Psychologists.
       National Association of Service and Conservation Corps.
       National Association of Social Workers.tional Baptist 
     Convention, USA.
       National Black Child Development Institute.
       National Center for Children in Poverty.
       National Center for Youth Law.
       National Collaboration for Youth.
       National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse.
       National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse, New York State.
       National Committee for Rights of the Child.
       National Council of Churches.
       National Council of Jewish Women.
       National Court Appointed Special Advocates Association.
       National Crime Prevention Council.
       National Education Association.
       National Family Planning and Reproductive Health 
     Association.
       National Foster Parent Association.
       National Independent Living Association.
       National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council.
       National Network of Children's Advocacy Centers.
       National Network for Youth.
       National One Church One Child.
       National Parents and Teachers Association.
       National Resource Center on Special Needs Adoption.
       National Respite Coalition.
       NETWORK: A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby.
       New Jersey Association of Children's Residential 
     Facilities.
       New Jersey Foster Parents Association.
       New Mexico Advocates for Children and Families 
     (Albuquerque, NM)
       New York State Citizens' Coalition for Children, Inc.
       North American Council on Adoptable Children.
       North Dakota Committee to Prevent Child Abuse.
       NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund
       The Ohio Association of Child Caring Agencies, Inc. 
     (Columbus, OH).
       Oklahoma Committee to Prevent Child Abuse.
       Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy.
       Ounce of Prevention Fund (Chicago, IL)
       Parents Anonymous, Inc.
       Parents and Children Together (Honolulu, HI).
       People Against Child Abuse, Inc.
       Pleasent Run Children's Homes (Indianapolis, IN).
       Polk County Decategorization Advisory Committee (Des 
     Moines, IA).
       Presbyterian Church.
       Prevent Child Abuse, Hawaii.
       Prevent Child Abuse, Illinois.
       Prevent Child Abuse, Indiana.
       Prevent Child Abuse, North Carolina.
       Prevent Child Abuse, Vermont.
       Prevent Child Abuse, Virginia.
       Project Family of Kitcap County (Bremerton, WA).
       Project Vote.
       Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (New York, 
     NY).
       Reiss-Davis Child Study Center (Los Angeles, CA).
       Rosemary Children's Services (Pasadena, CA).
       Society for Behavioral Pediatrics.
       South Carolina Association of Children's Homes and Family 
     Services (Lexington, SC).
       Southwest Indiana Regional Youth Village (Vicennes, IN).
       Spaulding for Children.
       State Communities Aid Association (Albany, NY)
       Texans Care for Children
       Texas Association of Licensed Children's Services (Austin, 
     TX)
       Texas Committee to Prevent Child Abuse (Austin, TX)
       Tompkins County Department of Social Services (Ithaca, NY)
       Union of American Hebrew Congregations
       Union Industrial Home for Children (Trenton, NJ)
       Unitarian Universalist Association
       Unitarian Universalist Service Committee
       
[[Page S19172]]

       United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism
       Villages of Indiana, Inc. (Indianapolis, IN)
       Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services (Los Angeles, CA)
       Voices for Illinois Children (Chicago, IL)
       Wake County Department of Social Services (Raleigh, NC)
       West Virginia Child Care Association
       Wheeler Clinic (Plainville, CT)
       Whitington Homes and Services for Children & Families (Fort 
     Wayne, IN)
       Women's Legal Defense Fund
       Working to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect (WE CAN, 
     Inc.), (Las Vegas, NV)
       Youth Law Center
       Youth Services, Center of Allen County (Fort Wayne, IN)
       YWCA of the USA
       Zero to Three, National Center for Clinical Infant Programs
       Zero to Three Hawaii Project, Imua Rehab (Wailuku, HI)

  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, today, on the Friday before Christmas, the 
Senate will vote on dramatic, sweeping changes in our welfare system.
  Unfortunately, in a pre-holiday perversion of the legislative 
process, the U. S. Senate will vote on this major conference report 
without the opportunity for thoughtful review. As of last evening, 
Members of the Senate did not even have printed copies of the 
legislation.
  So, for starters, we yearn for more information about exactly what is 
contained in this major piece of legislation, touted as a centerpiece 
of the majority's legislative package for 1995.
  But, as we prepare to vote under these challenging circumstances, I 
want to state clearly my objections, based on what I do know about this 
ill-advised so-called reform.
  Some have made the curious claim that this welfare reform conference 
report is a marked improvement from that which came before the Senate 
before the Thanksgiving recess.
  However, it is clear to me that the product that has come from the 
conference committee is a step backwards, and therefore, I will oppose 
the legislation as reported from conference.
  Much of what I will say today, I relayed earlier in my statement on 
the reconciliation conference report. Further, I make this statement 
knowing that the President has made clear his opposition to this 
legislation, and has issued a statement announcing his intention to 
veto the measure in its present form.
  I support welfare reform. I want to see Congress pass a welfare 
reform measure, and I want the President to sign welfare reform 
legislation into law.
  My support for sweeping change in our Nation's welfare system is a 
matter of record. As recently as September 19, 1995, I joined 86 of my 
colleagues in supporting the Work Opportunity Act of 1995. I voted in 
support of this bill, even though I had reservations, to keep the 
welfare reform effort alive in this Congress. Unfortunately, the 
conference agreement is worse than the Senate version of the bill we 
considered 3 months ago.
  My consideration of the conference report focuses on three concerns. 
First, will it work? Welfare reform, when it is executed well, works. 
Florida is proud of two successful welfare pilot projects, the largest 
in America in instituting a ``time limited benefit.'' Florida, in fact, 
has been one of the pioneers in the ``two-years-and-you-are-out'' 
approach.
  I visited Pensacola to observe one of Florida's pilot programs. 
Earlier this year, President Clinton met with some of the participants, 
and he touted the program.
  These pilots are succeeding because there is a front-end investment 
in the lives of those affected by the program change. Whether it is day 
care, job training, temporary transportation assistance, or health 
care, the welfare recipient is given a hand up instead of a hand out. 
One of the lessons learned from these pilot projects is that 
transitional support is needed to move people from welfare to work. My 
concern is that the legislation before us would jeopardize these 
successful experimental efforts, and would fail to provide adequate 
transitional support to meet the goals of the legislation.
  Second, is this conference report fair to States? The formula to 
allocate funds to the States continues welfare as we knew it. It treats 
poor children differently, depending upon which State they reside in. 
The conference formula says that if your State spent a lot in the old 
days, and thus built incentives to keep people on welfare, you will be 
given a leg up on every other State under welfare block grants in the 
future.
  The formula, titled against growth States, is flawed if not rigged. 
High-growth States like Florida would be set up to fail.
  Third, how would the reform proposal treat legal immigrants and what 
effect would the immigrant provisions have on States with large 
immigrant populations? The city of Miami had more legal immigrants 
admitted last year than 20 States combined. Thus, the prohibitions and 
timetable on certain benefits would shift to Miami costs that once were 
shared by the Federal Government.
  The State of Florida does not set America's foreign policy, nor its 
immigration policy. The State of Florida did not negotiate with Cuba to 
accept 20,000 legal immigrants per year. But the State is now being 
told the following: we are going to stick you with hundreds of millions 
of dollars in costs for legal and illegal immigration, even though you 
have no control over these foreign policy decisions that affect 
immigration.
  Today, I join the President in his commitment to pass welfare 
legislation. We should be honest with the American people and not call 
something reform which is in reality is an abdication of our 
responsibility for providing a sensible framework for moving people 
from welfare to work.
  It is my hope that when the President vetoes the welfare conference 
report and the question of welfare reform is reopened, that the 
concerns I have outlined today will be addressed.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, our welfare system is broken. It is 
failing the taxpayers and those who are on welfare. It must be 
reformed. And I have been working hard to bring about bipartisan 
reforms that will work. I worked to enable innovative reforms in my 
State of Iowa. I introduced, along with Senator Kit Bond of Missouri, 
the first bipartisan welfare reform bill 2 years ago based on successes 
in our states. And I worked to support and improve the comprehensive 
reform bill that we passed in the Senate earlier this year by an 
overwhelming bipartisan vote of 87 to 12.
  Unfortunately, all of the hard work done by the Senate to design 
bipartisan common sense reforms has been lost in the conference 
agreement before us. Not only will this bill fail to move people from 
welfare to work and self-sufficiency, it is filled with provisions that 
have nothing to do with welfare reform.
  How does raising the retirement age for individuals to receive SSI 
from 65 to 67 get welfare recipients off the dole and into jobs? Or is 
it a foot in the door for Newt Gingrich and his followers to raise the 
Social Security retirement age?
  How does cutting school lunch assistance to children reform the 
welfare system?
  How does gutting protections for abused and neglected children and 
major revisions to programs to assist in the adoption of abandoned 
children fix welfare?
  Well, the answer is clear. Those provisions do not do anything to 
reform welfare. Nor do many of the other provisions of the pending 
legislation.
  And I said, this bill will not move people from welfare to self-
sufficiency and it will not require responsibility from day one. 
Central to this is the failure to include the Senate bill provision 
added by an amendment I offered to condition the receipt of welfare 
benefits on the signing of a strong personal responsibility contract. 
As we require in Iowa, welfare recipients would have been required to 
accept responsibility from the first day on welfare by signing a 
binding contract stating what they must do to get off of welfare and a 
date by which welfare benefits will end. Responsibility would begin on 
day one, not year two. Failure to abide by the terms of the contract 
would mean termination from the welfare rolls--immediately.
  Each individual starting a new job is given a job description which 
outlines precisely what is expected to receive a paycheck. At the 
present time, an individual on welfare is simply sent a check without 
requiring anything in return.
  We need to fundamentally change welfare as we know it. Welfare is 
not 

[[Page S19173]]

about getting something for nothing. It is about responsibility and 
accountability.
  But not this bill. There is no contract. There is no accountability. 
My amendment corrected that situation, but my provision requiring a 
personal responsibility contract is gone.
  For the past several weeks we have been told by Newt Gingrich that we 
need to listen to the Congressional Budget Office [CBO] because they 
are the experts. There analysis is accurate and should be trusted.
  Well, the CBO tells us that this new Republican welfare bill will not 
work. Their analysis indicates that most welfare recipients won't be 
put to work. They say that states would be forced to cough up a whole 
lot more of their money to meet the mandates in the legislation and 
that this won't happen.
  CBO says that the bill falls $7 billion short of what would be 
required to put welfare recipients to work. Further, work programs will 
also cost more money than is provided by the legislation.
  So in spite of a lot of nice sounding rhetoric by Newt Gingrich and 
his supporters, if we pass this bill, welfare will not be reformed in 
most states. Taxpayers and welfare recipients will not see the promised 
changes in the system and local communities will be left paying the 
bills.
  Iowans pay taxes that go to support those on welfare in New York, 
Texas, California, and other states. This bill shirks our 
responsibility to insist that those tax dollars aren't just wasted 
away. That is not acceptable.
  This conference report makes deep cuts in essential safety-net 
programs for children. It provides deeper cuts in food stamps and child 
nutrition programs than were proposed by the Senate bill. It also 
unfairly cuts assistance to fully 65 percent of children with 
disabilities. In addition, changes to the foster care and adoption 
programs will place abused and neglected children at greater risk of 
harm. Ronald Reagan advocated the maintenance of a safety net for 
children. This bill shreds that safety net.
  I have always thought that things worked best when we all worked 
together. For months, in fact for several years, I urged my colleagues 
to work together in a bipartisan manner to reform welfare. That's the 
way we did it in Iowa, and it is working. We had bipartisan cooperation 
for a brief time in September. And working together outside of partisan 
politics we put together a good, commonsense plan.
  But that sentiment quickly deteriorated and the pending legislation 
was negotiated behind closed doors without any significant bipartisan 
cooperation. We we are left with a phony, partisan bill.
  The President has said he will veto this legislation and has called 
for bipartisan cooperation on welfare reform. Again, I implore my 
colleagues to heed his words.
  Let us make a New Year's resolution to stop the partisan sniping and 
work together in a bipartisan manner on this issue as well as the many 
other items on our agenda in the second session of the 104th Congress.
  Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, the House and Senate conferees have 
reported from conference a welfare reform proposal which ends the 
welfare program as we know it. I agree with the Republican agenda which 
takes on the difficult issues in welfare reform, but I differ on some 
of the finer points included in this agreement. Welfare has become a 
terrible cycle which engulfs impoverished parents who raise children in 
poverty. Those children who do not have adequate access to quality 
education, which would break the cycle of dependency, continue to be 
chained in poverty, languishing there, thus continuing this vicious 
cycle.
  Mr. President, my generation grew up in era where there was no 
government safety net, instead there was family and community. We 
relied upon each other for help and we took any job we could find. We 
may have gone hungry for a short period of time until the next paycheck 
arrived, however, nobody starved. Today, that sense of community has 
changed, largely because of our Federal welfare efforts. All people 
have a smidgen of pride implanted in their being and it burns as a fire 
within. We are fueled by this fire to become better people. We educate 
ourselves, we move forward above and beyond what we are today and 
strive to become even better tomorrow. Unfortunately, through our 
welfare program, we have only succeeded in taking away incentive for 
people to work by dousing that fire-in-the-belly that drives us all.
  We must first address the root problems of poverty before we can 
discuss the cure for poverty; lack of education, lack of affordable and 
adequate child care, and access to upward social and economic mobility 
and stability. A successful society allows its citizens the opportunity 
to educate themselves, to increase their opportunities and knowledge. 
It is of no benefit to society to remove welfare recipients and place 
them into jobs with no upward mobility. Without the prospects of 
advancement they can only maintain the status quo at best and as 
history has taught us the cycle possesses a powerful habituation to 
welfare.
  This bill takes a step in the right direction by requiring those who 
can work to work. This is a policy goal I have long supported and 
advanced. I believe this will make a difference in our welfare system 
and that States should be rewarded for their efforts at matching 
individuals with jobs. My own State of Oregon has chosen to link public 
assistance functions with welfare-to-work services, providing a 
seamless link amongst the differing human resource agencies. The 
measurement of their success is declining welfare rolls and increasing 
placement of former welfare recipients into unsubsidized employment.
  I also support limiting welfare as an entitlement program. As 
chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee I know all too well the 
dire consequences of continuing our spending levels on entitlement 
programs that we do not and cannot control. We can no longer keep 
spending until all needs are met. Yet, in our effort to reform programs 
from entitlement spending to other forms of financing, we cannot cut 
indiscriminately. I am concerned that some aspects of this conference 
report are inconsistent with our policy goals.
  The Congressional Budget Office has analyzed this report and found 
that, over the next 7 years, funding levels would fall far short of 
what would be needed to cover the child care costs associated with the 
work requirements of the bill. In my view, adequate funding for child 
care is a necessity, in order for parents to work.
  In addition, I am concerned that the conference agreement does not 
reflect the Senate's position of requiring States to continue Medicaid 
coverage for families who would have received AFDC if it still existed 
on March of this year. The agreement before us repeals current law and 
does not require States to provide Medicaid coverage for those in AFDC 
families who do not otherwise qualify--those children over the age of 
12 and women who are not pregnant. While I understand the conferees' 
attempt to delink Medicaid from welfare, to be dealt with later, I am 
not confident that this basic safety net will be preserved.
  Finally, I have received a letter from the Oregon Department of Adult 
and Family Services raising several concerns with this conference 
agreement. I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the 
Record following my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I am told the President intends to veto 
this bill, which will bring it back before us. I expect we will have an 
opportunity to work further on some of the finer points of this 
agreement. I am committed to do so. Our obligation to bettering the 
standard of living for those in poverty must not waiver. The Federal 
Government should encourage, not impede innovation and creativity in 
the States and private sector.

                               Exhibit 1


                        Oregon, Department of Human Resources,

                                     Salem, OR, December 21, 1995.
     Hon. Mark O. Hatfield,
     U.S. Senator, Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Hatfield: I am writing to you out of concern 
     over the most recent language in the Welfare Reform Bill, HR 
     4. As you may know, Oregon is a leader in Welfare Reform, and 
     this State's Legislature, with my support, recently passed a 
     sweeping Welfare Reform Bill that is very much in keeping 
     with the thrust of HR 4. However, there are several technical 
     areas of the Bill in which language should be clarified to 
     allow 
     
[[Page S19174]]

     States full latitude in implementation, including:


                         maintenance of effort

       While I am supportive of a Maintenance of Effort provision, 
     any State expenditure which directly supports the achievement 
     of self-sufficiency or temporary assistance to low-income 
     families should be counted in the calculation of that 
     maintenance of effort. To do otherwise directly imposes a 
     special Welfare Reform design on States that significantly 
     impedes their flexibility.


                 Federal Restrictions on State Spending

       States must be free to spend State dollars on their self-
     sufficiency programs as they deem appropriate. There are many 
     provisions of HR 4 which appear to restrict not only the 
     State expenditure of federal funds but the expenditure of 
     State funds as well. Surely this is not the intent of 
     Congress.


         work participation credit for unsubsidized employment

       One of the hallmarks of the Oregon program is the number of 
     placements into unsubsidized employment that not only move 
     families off of welfare but also move them out of poverty. 
     What was six months of participation credit for such families 
     in earlier versions of HR 4 appear to be deleted in the 
     Conference version. Since employment is the best way to 
     accomplish Welfare Reform, states should be given proper 
     credit for helping low-income families accomplish that goal.


        child care necessary for participation in work programs

       We work very hard with our low-income families to obtain 
     safe child care. If such care is not available, we do not 
     require their participation in our JOBS program. However, the 
     current wording of HR 4 suggests that if any particular type 
     of care is not available or convenient then no participation 
     can be required. In fact, even if the type of care that is 
     not available is not one that the participant ordinarily 
     uses, it remains grounds to refuse to participate in 
     employment and training programs. Wording should indicate the 
     participation is required if any safe (under State law) child 
     care can be arranged.
       Again, while these are technical areas, they remain 
     important to States that will be charged with implementing 
     the most sweeping changes in welfare since the advent of the 
     Social Security Act. With your continued help, we can produce 
     Welfare Reform that works, allowing states to assist low-
     income families to escape poverty through self-sufficiency. 
     If you or your staff members have any questions regarding our 
     concerns in these areas, please feel free to contact Jean 
     Thorne of the Governor's Office or Jim Neely, Assistant 
     Administrator of Adult and Family Services Division. Thank 
     You.
           Sincerely,
                                               Stephen D. Minnich,
     Administrator, Adult and Family Services Division, Assistant 
                          Director, Department of Human Resources.

  Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, we spent many months negotiating the 
contents of the Senate welfare bill, which was approved 87-12, with 
overwhelming bipartisan support. I believe that measure, which the 
President indicated he would sign, was a tremendous victory for all 
parties.
  Regrettably, the final conference agreement strays in several 
respects from the Senate-passed welfare reform bill. As a consequence, 
President Clinton has indicated he will veto this legislation.
  Today I voted to send the conference report to the President because, 
while far from perfect, this legislation is still better than current 
law, which only encourages and perpetuates dependency. For example, 
this bill provide for time-limited benefits, so that individuals know 
they must make every effort to become self-sufficient by a date 
certain. It also includes much stronger child support enforcement 
mechanisms to require parents to assume financial responsibility for 
the children they bring into this world. Importantly, it also gives the 
States needed flexibility to develop innovative programs to help their 
citizens break the cycle of dependency associated with the present 
welfare system.
  However, I am still not satisfied with this legislation, and continue 
to believe it can be improved, and intend to work toward that end 
following the President's veto. The areas in which I will seek 
improvement are as follows:


                     afdc eligibility for medicaid

  The conference agreement severs the link between AFDC eligibility and 
Medicaid. Under this provision, which was not included in either the 
House or Senate version of the legislation, States would no longer be 
required to provide Medicaid coverage to millions of AFDC eligible 
women and their children over the age of 13. Only those women who are 
pregnant and on AFDC, and children under the age of 13, would be 
guaranteed Medicaid coverage.
  While I am pleased that the conference report retains Medicaid 
eligibility for foster care and adoption assistance children, 
eliminating mandatory Medicaid coverage for other AFDC beneficiaries is 
counterproductive. This provision is troubling and should be dropped.


             children's supplemental security income (ssi)

  This program took a big bite in the Senate bill. A more restrictive 
definition of disability was adopted to ensure that only those children 
who are truly disabled qualify for cash assistance. On top of this, the 
conference agreement adds a new two-tiered system of eligibility which 
will result in a 25-percent reduction in SSI benefits for 65 percent of 
the children on the program. The distinctions in this two-tiered 
program are arbitrary and make no practical difference to a family 
where one parent must give up his or her job to remain at home with a 
severely disabled child. This provision should be modified.


                              foster care

  While I am pleased that the conference agreement maintains the 
Federal entitlement for foster children and adoption assistance--a 
position which I strongly supported--this bill would block grant and 
cut funding for the administrative and preplacement costs associated 
with these programs. These costs, which represent nearly half the cost 
of the overall program, are far from purely administrative. They cover 
such critical services as licensing and recruitment of foster homes and 
foster parents, services needed to remove children from abusive and 
unsafe homes, monitoring children in out-of-home placements, and court 
expenses to qualify special-needs children for adoption. These 
provisions need to be improved.


                               child care

  The final conference agreement provides reduced funding for child 
care and drops Federal health and safety standards in the Child Care 
and Development Block Grant [CCDBG]--two significant and troubling 
changes from the Senate-passed bill. Given the enormous importance of 
child care to the success of welfare reform, these provisions should be 
reexamined.


                            legal immigrants

  While I was able to secure some improvements on the treatment of 
legal immigrants in the conference report, the final bill still goes 
well beyond the Senate-passed bill. The tough new eligibility 
restrictions for Federal programs that this legislation would impose 
upon legal immigrants are excessive and should be further modified.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, just a few months ago I stood with a 
bipartisan group of my colleagues in the Senate in passing, 87 to 12, a 
compromise welfare reform bill which I believed represented a 
constructive effort at achieving meaningful change in the current 
welfare system. I voted for the bill because I believe the current 
system is broken and needs to be fixed. It needs to be fixed in a way 
that does at least two things: requires able-bodied persons to work and 
protects children in the process.
  Mr. President, the Senate compromise bill met this challenge. It 
would fundamentally change the current system by replacing a system of 
unconditional, unlimited aid with a system providing conditional 
benefits for a limited time. It would do so without abandoning the 
national goal of preserving the important safety net for poor children. 
It moves able-bodied people into work, tightens child support 
enforcement laws, and provides adequate child care resources for 
children of parents making the transition into work and to low-wage 
working families that seek to remain off of welfare.
  I was particularly pleased that the compromise bill contained an 
important work provision I've been promoting, cosponsored by the 
majority leader, requiring that unless an able-bodied person is in a 
private sector job, school or job training, the State must offer, and 
the recipient must accept, community service employment within 3 months 
of receipt of benefits, not the 2 years contained in the original 
legislation proposed by majority leader.
  Mr. President, I had great hopes that the bipartisan achievements in 
the Senate compromise proposal could be sustained through the 
conference with the House. Regrettably, this conference report is weak 
on work and it does not 

[[Page S19175]]

adequately protect children. I cannot support it.
  The American taxpayers want people who are on welfare and are able-
bodied to work. So it is quite perplexing to me that despite House 
Republicans continuing claims of being ``tough on work,'' the 
conference dropped the Levin-Dole work requirement from the bill. If we 
are serious about work, Mr. President, we must have the kind of 
provision that requires it: not 2 years down the road, not 1 year down 
the road, but 3 months from receipt of benefits for those persons who 
are not in school or job training or in an exempt category.
  And, Mr. President, the punitive proposal before us cuts $14 billion 
more our of programs for poor children and their families than the 
bipartisan compromise Senate bill, causing millions of children to lose 
their eligibility for important safety-net programs.
  The changes in eligibility rules would reduce benefits for most 
disabled children by 25 percent, sets lower levels of funding for 
child-care programs than the Senate proposal, and eliminates important 
health and safety standards. Many of the more than 300,000 children 
covered by Medicaid, because they receive foster care or adoption 
assistance, also would be placed in jeopardy.
  It also significantly reduces the benefits to children and families 
who receive support from the food stamp and child nutrition programs, 
which could have serious consequences for the health and well-being of 
millions of children, working families, and elderly.
  The optional block grants undermine the basic framework of the lunch 
and breakfast programs by eliminating low-income children's guarantee 
of access to free meals, weakening nutrition standards, and removing 
the programs' ability to respond to changing economic circumstances.
  For some reason, totally unrelated to welfare reform, House 
Republicans are jeopardizing programs that for decades have fed 
millions of children in schools and child care centers in America. Do 
we want to erode the safety net for the 5 million poor children who are 
served nutritious breakfasts at school? What about the 24 million 
children who receive nutritious school lunches? Nearly half of theses 
lunches are provided to poor children free of charge, and nearly 2 
million lunches to low-income children at reduced prices.
  Mr. President, the answer is ``No.''
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I strongly believe that we must reform our 
welfare system. I have devoted a great deal of time and energy to 
examining the broken welfare system and developing meaningful solutions 
to address the deficiencies. I presented a welfare reform proposal, the 
Work and Gainful Employment Act, and worked with my Senate colleagues 
to improve and strengthen the Senate version of H.R. 4.
  Central to each of the welfare reform proposals I've supported were 
the basic principles of work, responsibility, and family. The proposals 
were built in a framework of increased State flexibility while not 
placing the health and safety of our Nation's children at risk. They 
had tough work requirements, and promoted personal responsibility while 
protecting children and the disabled.
  Because of my sincere interest in reforming the welfare system, I 
look upon the welfare reform conference agreement with great 
disappointment. The conference agreement on H.R. 4 falls far short of 
upholding these core principles and meeting these goals. It is weak on 
work and places abused and neglected children in danger. Additionally, 
the conference agreement on H.R. 4 cuts too deeply into the programs 
that provide the lifeline for the most vulnerable in our society. 
Yesterday, I joined a bipartisan group of colleagues to develop a plan 
to reach a balanced budget by the year 2002. The conference agreement, 
however, proposes far greater cuts than the bipartisan group of 
Senators deemed reasonable. It is for these reasons that I oppose this 
severely flawed approach to reforming the welfare system.
  I firmly believe that among the most critical issues facing our 
Nation is the future of our children. It is of crucial importance that 
families and communities equip children with the skills necessary to 
face the increasing challenges of the 21st century. Children must be 
taught the value of work.
  The conference agreement on welfare reform is weak on work. The 
supporters of this legislation claim it will move welfare recipients 
into work without providing resources sufficient to make it happen. In 
fact, instead of strengthening the work and child care provisions of 
the Senate-passed welfare bill, the conference agreement reduces 
funding in these areas.
  Additionally, both my WAGE Act and the Senate-passed welfare reform 
proposal included a personal responsibility contract that welfare 
recipients had to sign as a condition of receiving welfare benefits. 
The personal responsibility contract was a binding agreement that the 
recipient would make meaningful steps to move off of welfare and take 
responsibility for his or her actions and well-being. I ask you, why 
would the conferees remove the contract between the welfare recipient 
and the Government to move the recipient off of welfare? The conference 
agreement is weak on work and does nothing to develop personal 
responsibility.
  Perhaps the most disturbing and mean-spirited provisions of this 
proposal are the ones that place the most vulnerable and helpless 
children in our society at risk. On top of providing inadequate 
resources for child care services, this legislation eliminates Federal 
health and safety standards for child care facilities. It slashes 
funding by $1.3 billion for child protection services for abused, 
neglected, and abandoned children and children in foster and adoptive 
services. Additionally, it proposes draconian reductions in the SSI 
program for low-income children with disabilities. HHS has estimated 
that by the year 2002, 750,000 low-income disabled children who are 
eligible for SSI benefits will have their benefits cut by 25 percent. 
Finally, the conference agreement eliminates the requirement for States 
to provide Medicaid benefits to children whose families are eligible 
for cash assistance. This extreme provision was not in either the 
Senate- or House-passed bills and threatens the health and future 
productivity of our poorest children. These program changes are cruel 
and rip the safety net from under the most vulnerable children in our 
society.
  Mr. President, I want to reemphasize my commitment to balanced and 
reasonable welfare reform. The welfare system should be tough on work 
and personal responsibility, should promote families and family values, 
and should maintain basic health and safety protections for our 
Nation's children. I say to my colleagues in the House and the Senate: 
Let us reform the welfare system; however, let us target the programs 
and not the children.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I yield 1 minute to my colleague on the 
Finance Committee, and good friend, the Senator from Louisiana.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. (Mr. Inhofe). The Senator from Louisiana is 
recognized.
  Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I thank the chairman for yielding. In 1 
minute I will try to say eloquent things about why this bill should not 
be adopted.
  Mr. President, put me down as being conservative when it comes to 
welfare reform. The current system, in my opinion, has not worked very 
well for the people who are on it, nor has it worked well for the 
people who are paying for it. It has to be changed.
  But the goal of welfare reform has to be to put able-bodied people to 
work and at the same time protect innocent children. This bill does not 
do that. It fails in a couple of fundamental manners.
  No. 1, the bill cuts benefits for disabled children on SSI by 25 
percent. That is not reform. It is a step backwards.
  Second, the bill, in changing the rules for abused and neglected 
children, is contrary to every bipartisan recommendation that this 
Congress received from the Governors and from the State legislative 
bodies. This is a step in the wrong direction.
  Finally, this is the wrong bill at the wrong time. It should be in 
the context of the budget negotiations. There is more money going to be 
available in that context. We know what we are doing with the EITC, the 
tax cuts, and other changes that are being made to fundamental policy. 
This welfare bill today should be turned down and come back, and we 
should do it in the context of the budget negotiations. 

[[Page S19176]]

  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, may I simply respectfully suggest that 
the budget negotiations are much too narrowly based with five or six 
persons in one room for the kind of bipartisan effort on welfare which 
President Clinton called for when he said he would veto this bill. We 
achieved consensus through such effort when we passed the Family 
Support Act of 1988 by a vote of 96 to 1.
  I am happy to yield 1 minute to my good friend, the distinguished 
Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, thank you.
  First, let me commend the Senator from New York for his tremendous 
leadership on behalf of the children in the welfare reform bill.


                     welfare: reform; don't renege

  Mr. President, it is with sadness today I must tell the American 
people their Congress has failed them in its attempts to reform public 
assistance in this country. Welfare reform is important, but the bill 
before us today was written with so little compassion it must be 
stopped.
  The American people know we must change welfare. They know welfare 
must give a hand-up, not a hand-out. But no one I have talked to, not 
the most conservative welfare-basher, would stand where I am standing 
and vote to hurt children like this bill will.
  You have heard the estimates: this bill will throw an additional 1.5 
million children into poverty in this country. It will eliminate the 
guarantee to basic services to children at a time when we should be 
improving the safety net. Children need the guarantee to assistance. 
Children need the safety net.
  I supported a welfare bill out of this Senate, a bill I had 
fundamental disagreement with, because we were able to make some 
improvements before it left the floor. I fought hard for child care 
funding, for money for job training, for domestic violence language. 
When these improvements had been made, I held my nose and voted for the 
bill, knowing some people would think I had done something horrible, 
because I naively thought the majority might be listening.
  I thought after all our fighting, the majority party might get a hint 
about what kinds of things we thought were important in a bill to 
actually reform welfare. I said at the time--if this bill got worse in 
negotiations with the House, if the majority did not improve this bill 
dramatically, then it would not have my support. And it will not. This 
bill is a slap in the face of every person in this country trying to 
get off public assistance, and I will vote ``no.''
  The conference report is so lacking, if I pick out just one thing to 
focus on, there won't be time to tell you about any others. But let us 
look at what the conference report proposes to do about child care:
  First, remember that child care faces major problems today, before 
this welfare bill sends many new people into the work force. Child care 
is not always easy to find, you cannot always depend on the quality, 
you cannot always afford quality when you find it, and sometimes you 
cannot afford to pay at all, so a relative or friend takes care of your 
kids. But that's all today. Here's what the conference report will do 
tomorrow:
  Over the next 7 years, the work requirements in this conference 
report will create the need for an additional $14.9 billion worth of 
child care. But, the report only funds $1.9 billion of new money, 
leaving a $13 billion shortfall, according to HHS. The result is many 
people will have no place to leave their child when they go to work.
  If you are lucky enough to get your child into child care, the 
conference report cuts funding for child care quality standards more 
than 50 percent from the Senate bill. This money pays for improvements 
in quality and access to child care: training providers, inspecting and 
monitoring facilities, helping parents to find child care, providing 
grants to buy cribs and other equipment to start child care businesses, 
and beginning school-age programs.
  The result is, you as a parent will have to worry about whether your 
child care worker is well-trained, and whether your child is healthy 
and safe when you return from work.
  This conference report also allows welfare recipients to count 
providing unpaid child care toward meeting the work requirements, 
essentially, to babysit other people's children without meeting any of 
the standards of a child care facility or home day care business. There 
is no money for training or certification for people setting up home 
child care under this provision.
  What is worse, the conference report repeals a state's ability to 
regulate health and safety in child care, including these small in-home 
child care situations, which is where most of the abuse problems in my 
state occur.
  If you are unlucky enough to be a child in a child care situation 
where there is a problem, this conference report cuts the abuse 
enforcement that might protect you. It block grants child protection 
and foster care, and cuts the very functions that allow States to help 
children who need foster care, to recruit and train parents, to place 
children, and to monitor quality. The $3.7 billion reduction over seven 
years will cut Child Protective Services, family preservation money for 
preventing problems, and money for older youth.
  Finally, the conference report significantly cuts the child and adult 
care food program, by as much as $3 billion over seven years. Providers 
in my state tell me these cuts will effectively close the doors of many 
small day care businesses, and lead to cost cutting that will affect 
child nutrition. We will have more people competing for less child 
care, and nutrition declining in the centers which stay in business.
  Who here on the floor of the Senate can honestly say they speak for 
children? We have lobbyists for every issue, but infants and children 
do not get to vote. If you cut child protection, what constituency will 
rise up in protest? Not the children themselves; I will guarantee it.
  This conference report has many problems. One of them is the assault 
on child care. I will be voting against this report.
  Mr. President, I speak against the welfare conference report, and I 
do so as someone who voted for the Senate welfare reform bill, but I 
did so because I thought the majority would understand that our yes 
vote meant that we strongly supported child care funding language for 
domestic violence and job training funds. Those are not in the final 
bill. It is $13 billion short in child care money. That is not just 
money; that is children who will be out there on the streets with no 
one to take care of them.
  Mr. President, this Congress will not be remembered for passing 
welfare reform. They will be remembered for endangering the lives of 
thousands of American children.
  I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this conference report.
  Mr. ROTH. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished 
Senator from Pennsylvania.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania is recognized.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. President, I do not know where to begin. Last night I spoke at 
length about the difference between the Senate bill that passed and the 
bill that is now before us. I think I laid out the points, but I will 
try to be consistent and lay them out today.
  The bill that is before us actually moves more toward the Democratic 
side than the bill that we passed here. I am somewhat at a loss as to 
why we see all these objections raised here when if you go down the 
changes that were made in the conference, we actually move toward the 
Democratic side of the aisle than the bill that passed the Senate. I 
will go through them.
  If you look at child care, so much is being talked about in child 
care. The child care funding in this bill is more than the child care 
funding that passed under the original Senate bill. In fact, over the 
first 5 years in the Senate bill that passed child care funding was 
$15.8 billion. Under this bill, it is $16.3 billion. Over 7 years we 
spend $1 billion more in child care under the conference report than we 
did in the Senate bill.
  I do not understand the concerns that somehow we are now 
shortchanging child care when before we had adequate child care 
dollars. We have more money in child care.
  Second, maintenance of effort. We heard so much concern and 
consternation about the maintenance-of-effort provision. There was a 75 
percent maintenance-of-effort provision in here, which is exactly what 
both sides agreed 

[[Page S19177]]

was an adequate level for State support in the Senate bill. Again, I do 
not understand the concerns. We kept the Senate proposal.

  Third, funding. We talked about this welfare program being slashed. I 
refer you to this chart. Here is welfare funding today. Under current 
law, it will go up by 58 percent. Under our bill, it goes up 34 
percent. That is 4 percent a year. That is almost twice the rate of 
inflation.
  Welfare spending will go up under this bill. If anyone is concerned, 
yes, welfare spending will go up, but we have more people in the 
system. No. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office has said that 
under our bill, the number of people in the system will be maintained 
at a constant level. There will not be an increase. Therefore, spending 
per person in welfare will go up over the next 7 years. We will have 
more child care. We will have a maintenance of effort. Spending will go 
up under this bill. You would think that I am describing the Democratic 
proposal. But, no, we are describing the conference report.
  The work requirements that so many people on both sides of the aisle 
wanted are the same in the Senate bill. We kept the entitlement to 
school lunches. We kept the entitlement to family-based nutrition 
programs, something desperately wanted by the other side of the aisle 
that was not in the House bill. The House conceded to us on that.
  We kept title requirements. In fact, we put in title requirements for 
food stamp block grant eligibility. In the Senate bill we passed a 
block grant option for food stamps given to all States. Under the 
conference report, we make it much tougher to get a block grant of food 
stamps, and we put very tough error rate standards in there, so many 
States will not, in fact, be able to qualify, something many Members on 
the Democratic side of the aisle wanted to see.
  We kept the population growth fund intact, which many Members on the 
other side wanted.
  Contingency funds for employment--the same as in the Senate bill.
  We kept ``no transferring out'' of the child care block grant, 
something that was very important to Members on the other side of the 
aisle. Every dollar in child care must be spent in child care. And, in 
fact, there can be a transfer of money but only into child care, not 
out of child care.
  I heard a concern about SSI and about throwing children off SSI. I 
would remind Senators on the Democratic side of the aisle that the same 
provisions that are in this bill were in the Democratic substitute on 
this floor and voted for by every Member on the other side of the 
aisle. Those same children not being cut off was something that every 
Member on the other side of the aisle voted for in their substitute and 
the 87 Members of this body voted for in the Senate bill--the same 
provision. The only difference in the children portion of the SSI bill 
is that for children who do not need round-the-clock care to be able to 
stay at home, we reduce the amount of benefit by 25 percent.

  I would remind Members that the adult benefit for SSI, which is 
supposed to be an income supplement to maintain someone who is an adult 
so they can live independently, is the same amount that a child gets 
when living at home. So what we said is that, if you are a child living 
at home which does not need 24-hour care but is still considered 
disabled, we are going to reduce your benefit somewhat versus a child 
that needs 24-hour child care. We think that is a reasonable thing to 
do, and certainly it is not going to be hurting children.
  A lot has been made about the child protection portion of this bill. 
We do some tremendous things. First of all, we spend more money on 
child protection in this bill than in the Senate bill. The Senate bill 
that passed that got 87 votes cut $1.3 billion out of this program. The 
conference report cuts $0.4 billion.
  We spend more money on child protection services. We allow in this 
agreement so much that has been talked about.
  I ask for an additional 2 minutes.
  Mr. ROTH. I yield 2 more minutes.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I thank the chairman.
  As I said before, we spend more money on child protection services, 
No. 1. No. 2, we allow so much. So much has been made about the Elisa 
case in New York, a tragic case. But one of the reasons that case 
happened is because police agencies and social agencies cannot share 
information about abuse. In this bill you can. And it was not even in 
the Senate bill, an improvement over the Senate provisions.

  We gave a concession from the conference report that appeared in the 
reconciliation bill to current law standards for child protection and 
citizen review panels, again another concession to the other side.
  We gave again greater flexibility to use administrative funds on 
services, something that cannot be done today. Fifty percent of all the 
money spent in child protection is spent on administrative and overhead 
costs--50 percent. No wonder a lot of people do not want to change it 
because a lot of people make a lot of money off child protection 
services in this country. Fifty percent is spent on staffing. What we 
do is we give a block grant and allow that money to be used for 
services, allow that money to be used to help direct payments to people 
who need assistance, again a dramatic departure, something I know many 
people on the other side of the aisle want to see done.
  We think this bill not only is a better bill than passed the House--
much better--a better bill than passed the Senate but moves more in the 
direction of Members on the other side of the aisle. I am absolutely 
astounded to hear Members get up and talk about how this bill is worse 
than what passed the Senate. It is not. It moves much more toward the 
Democratic side of the aisle, and I urge their support.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Who yields time?
  Mr. ROTH. Mr. President, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished 
junior Senator from Kansas.
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. I thank the chairman of the Finance Committee.
  Mr. President, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act 
of 1995 represents a turning point in how this country will respond to 
the needs of poor children and their families. For far too long, 
welfare has failed--failed the families dependent upon Government 
assistance to give them a new start in life and failed the American 
taxpayers who have been asked to help those in need. Welfare reform 
does not need to be mean spirited, and the welfare reform provisions of 
this bill are not. Change is always difficult and this legislation will 
produce tremendous changes in how government helps those in need.
  This legislation shifts primary responsibility for welfare to the 
States, a move I wholeheartedly endorse. The need for welfare 
assistance and the solutions to moving people off welfare and into work 
are closely tied to the economic conditions, opportunities, and 
resources in a community. That has been one of the biggest problems 
with the one-size-fits-all approach to welfare necessitated by a 
heavily mandated Federal program. I believe that States are in the best 
position to make decisions about how best to help families in poverty 
gain economic self sufficiency. We do not know what works--what types 
of programs are the most effective in moving people off of welfare. I 
believe over the next few years we will see many diverse solutions to 
the problems of welfare and poverty. Some of these solutions will work, 
some will not--but much will be gained through the experience. Since 
the current welfare system has failed so miserably, it is worth the 
risks involved.
  The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act is a 
comprehensive bill which changes not only welfare cash assistance, but 
many other Federal programs as well. As is the case with any major 
bill, no member is completely satisfied with every single provision. 
Ultimately, a decision is based on one's judgment that the positives 
outweigh the negatives. Clearly, in my mind, the fundamental reform 
offered by this legislation makes it worthy of support.
  It is my understanding that President Clinton has made a different 
calculation regarding the merits and demerits of this legislation and 
has indicated he will veto it. In that event, we will be back at the 
drawing board. Given a second opportunity to put together a bill, I 
would hope that several concerns could be addressed. 

[[Page S19178]]

  My first concern lies in the area of child protection. The 
legislation significantly reduces the funds available for recruiting 
and licensing foster homes, monitoring children in foster care and 
other alternative placements, completing the court processes needed to 
free children for adoption, training and recruiting child protection 
caseworkers, and other activities necessary to maintain an adequate 
program for abused and neglected children. The cap on child protection 
funds will put further strain on our already overburdened child 
protection system and could seriously inhibit states' ability to 
respond when a child is abused or neglected.
  I am also concerned about whether the funds available for child care 
assistance are adequate to meet the needs of families as they move off 
welfare and into work. The availability of safe, affordable child care 
is essential to successful welfare reform. At the same time, we need to 
ensure that low income working families have access to child care 
assistance.
  My third concern is about the extent of the changes in the 
Supplemental Security Income [SSI] program. The legislation will 
eliminate SSI eligibility for an estimated 21 percent of the children 
currently receiving benefits and reduce benefits for about 75 percent 
of the remaining children. While the creation of a two-tiered benefit 
system distinguishes between the most disabled children who require a 
higher level of services and those who are moderately and mildly 
disabled, the legislation places an overwhelming emphasis on physical 
disabilities. I believe the criteria used to differentiate between 
those receiving full benefits and those receiving reduced benefits 
should be reexamined.
  I am relieved that the effective date for the cash assistance 
provisions in the bill has been changed to the 1996 fiscal year. This 
should give States adequate time to make the legislative and 
administrative changes needed to adjust to the block grant. Successful 
welfare reform will require careful consideration and planning, and 
States must be provided the opportunity for a thoughtful, deliberative 
process regarding how they want to proceed.
  I believe that these concerns can be effectively addressed. The 
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act is a bold move to 
change the way in which government responds to people in need of 
assistance--a move that needs to be taken.

                          ____________________