[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 207 (Friday, December 22, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S19178-S19180]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY AND WORK ACT OF 1995--CONFERENCE REPORT

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the conference report.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I yield to my gallant friend from 
Massachusetts.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KERRY. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, this is a profound and important debate about welfare 
reform that tests our resolve to change a system that is in need of 
change, but it is a debate which also tests our commitment to community 
to the sick and the hurting--to the elderly and the thousands of people 
who are looking for a helping hand from a government that will help 
them help themselves
  Every Senator here today knows the importance of helping families get 
back to work--get on the job and off the dole; but they also know the 
devastation of poverty--the lack of hope and the despair and 
frustrations that all of use see in our States.
  Unfortunately the bill which we passed to reform welfare has turned 
for the worse in conference and threatens to injure children and people 
with disabilities.
  Mr. President, this conference bill will increase poverty--not 
decrease it. It will increase despair and destroy hope among some of 
the poorest, sickest, and weakest Americans.
  I cannot in good conscience--and I will not--vote for such an ill 
advised retreat from real reform--no matter how well intended it may 
be--no matter how deeply some or the other side of the aisle might feel 
about it.
  This bill eats away at the strength of America because the strength 
of America is not found in its willingness to separate the rich from 
the poor.
  No, the strength of America, as Hubert Humphrey said:

       Lies with its people. Not people on the dole but on the 
     job. Not people in despair but people filled with hope. Not 
     people without education but people with skill and knowledge. 
     Not people turned away but people welcomed by their neighbors 
     as full and equal partners in our American adventure.

  This is our strength, but this bill we are asked to vote on today 
does not play to that strength.
  Mr. President, we all want to move people from welfare to work. But 
the conference report reduces the ability to put people back to work.
  This conference bill is wrong because it's too harsh and it will 
injure children and families in significant ways.
  It reduces SSI benefits for a large majority of disabled children by 
25 percent. These are kids, Mr. President, with cerebral palsy, kids 
with Down's syndrome, muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis and AIDS.
  I'm told that by the year 2002, some 650,000 low income children 
would be affected by this cut. In real numbers that means that the 
benefits to seriously disabled children would be cut from 74 percent of 
the poverty line to 55 percent of the poverty line; and with all due 
respect to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that cut was 
not in the Senate bill.
  The current law ensures that AFDC families receive Medicare coverage. 
Under this bill that provision of the law would be repealed, leaving 
1.5 million children at risk--and at least 4 million mothers would lose 
health coverage.
  This conference bill undermines the school lunch program. It denies 
school lunches to certain categories of immigrant school children, 
including legal immigrants, and it would create an entire bureaucracy 
to determine the status of the children.
  It would deny SSI and food stamps to immigrants who are legal 
permanent residents of the United States.
  The bill includes $32 billion in food stamp benefit cuts to the 
elderly and working poor--which means about a 20-percent cut to those 
families who are already working, who are struggling to make ends meet 
on a minimum wage job or with a Social Security check struggling to pay 
for basics to keep them from losing their apartments and ending up 
homeless and on the street.
  When fully in effect the food stamp cuts will lower the average 
benefit level from 78 cents per person per meal to 62 cents--62 cents a 
meal.
  Mr. President, what are we doing? Is this the kind of nation we have 
become?
  The whole point of welfare reform was to identify the people who are 
on welfare but who are capable of working, and getting them off welfare 
and into jobs.
  This conference bill does not accomplish that goal in the way we did 
in the Senate passed bill.
  This bill hurts children, the sick and the elderly.
  It hurts dependent children, more than half of whom live below the 
poverty line. It hurts disabled children, sick children, hungry 
children, children without a chance and often without a prayer for 
survival.
  It hurts disabled elderly people, who deserve more in their old age, 
who seek only a little dignity and a little respect.
  This bill raises the age at which impoverished elderly people could 
qualify for SSI, from 65 to 67 or even higher--and who does this 
affect? It is aimed 

[[Page S19179]]
primarily at poor elderly women--widows with limited work experience 
outside the home. These poor women, already on the edge, would have the 
principal component of their small safety net ripped away. They could 
lose their Medicaid. And many of them will be forced into severe 
poverty and bouts of homelessness.
  Does this sound like welfare reform? Is this what the American people 
had in mind when they think of welfare reform?
  In other words, Mr. President, this bill goes for the easy targets. 
It hurts the people who can't fight back. In the end it hurts America.
  There is not enough in this bill about helping people find work, but 
there are plenty of sweeping cuts to impress constituents with hollow, 
vicious attacks on people that anyone can attack.
  This bill raises the suffering level and lowers the promise of hope 
and of jobs.
  The bill simply does not provide adequate resources for work 
programs.
  According to CBO estimates, funding will fall $5.5 billion short of 
what is needed to fund the work program in 2002 alone, and that's 
assuming that the States maintain their safety net for poor children.
  Over a 7-year period, funding for the work program will fall about 
$14 billion short of what is needed.
  Is this a job program?
  The original Contract With America recognized this problem and 
provided $10 billion for work programs--but that money is not in this 
bill.
  Mr. President, I am voting against this legislation because it steps 
back from important safeguards that were contained in the Senate bill--
safeguards for children, for elderly, for work--that are the true heart 
of welfare reform.
  Mr. President, I voted for the bill that left the Senate. I will not 
vote for this conference report today. And I will not vote for it 
because there are some dramatic differences between this conference 
report and what we voted for. Most importantly, this conference report 
takes away a fundamental guarantee in this country that children will 
have health care.
  It takes away a fundamental guarantee about standards in this country 
with respect to health and safety for child care.
  In addition to that, it reduces the most important lifeline that we 
guaranteed in the Senate bill, that those who are required to go to 
work who have children will be able to find the proper care for their 
children. And that has been reduced in this bill. In addition to that, 
it takes away the personal responsibility contract and it reduces the 
child nutrition program.
  This bill will hurt children, and for that reason, Mr. President, as 
a conference bill I cannot vote for it. I hope we will return to the 
Senate with a more appropriate conference at some point in the future.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Who yields time?
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. I thank my friend from Massachusetts. It is truly hard 
to conceive that we might be for such business 3 days before Christmas.
  Mr. President, if the majority leader does not wish to speak at this 
moment, the Senator from Connecticut will do. I yield 1 minute to my 
able friend from Connecticut.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair advises the Senator he has 45 
seconds remaining.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator 
from Connecticut may have 1 minute.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DODD. I thank my colleague from New York.
  Mr. President, let me just address the Senate on the children's 
issues and the child care issues and try to put this in perspective. As 
most of my colleagues know, I have spent a lot of time, along with many 
others, on the issue of child care, and I just want to put it straight. 
When we passed out the Senate version of this bill on child care, we 
had provided $8 billion for child care over 5 years. This conference 
report has $7 billion for child care over 5 years. It is a $1 billion 
reduction over that 5-year period. And so it is a cut in the child care 
funds.
  But almost as egregious as the cut in the child care funds is the 
elimination of the health and safety standards, something that we 
fought very hard on over these years. Now, to eliminate health and 
safety standards where young children are being cared for, whatever 
other views you have, you do not do it. You do not take away the basic 
health and safety standards for child care in this country. So the 
money is one thing. That is a cut of $1 billion. But to put these 
children all day long in a situation where they are not safe and they 
are not healthy, getting the proper kind of care is just wrong-headed 
and for that reason alone this bill ought to be rejected.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time, 
which does not exist, with a plea that this legislation not be 
approved.
  Mr. DOLE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I think this is a good bill and pretty much 
like the bill that passed the Senate by a vote of 87 to 12 with 1 
absentee.
  We have heard many times that the President is going to end welfare 
as we know it. This is an opportunity the President has. Everybody 
ought to ask the question--and I know it has been addressed on the 
other side--does this conference report have the core principles and 
needed reforms that were in the Senate-passed welfare bill? The answer 
in my view is yes. We supported that bill in September, the Work 
Opportunity Act, as I said, by a vote of 87 to 12. We stood behind it 
in a bipartisan way.
  During this time before our vote, I also ask that we once again 
remember two overriding facts. First, our current welfare system has 
failed; and, second, it is our duty to fix it.


           Common Sense, Core Principles For Dramatic Reform

  The Senate bill and the conference report both take a commonsense 
approach. Both bills establish core principles: strong work 
requirements; strengthening families and requiring personal 
responsibility; providing protection for children; giving States the 
flexibility they need to design programs that best meet the needs of 
the people, and that can best reduce our alarming illegitimacy rate; 
and assuring States receive necessary Federal support.
  Let me take a moment to review the similarities in the commonsense 
policies in the Senate bill and the conference report.
  They both require able-bodied welfare recipients to work for their 
assistance as soon as the State determines they are ``work ready'' or 
within 2 years, whichever is earlier.
  They both put a 5-year lifetime limit on welfare benefits, so that 
welfare does not become a way of life.
  They both require single teenage parents who have children out of 
wedlock to stay in school and live under adult supervision in order to 
receive benefits.
  They both provide $75 million to States for abstinence education 
programs.
  They both grant our States the ability to try and reduce America's 
alarming illegitimacy rate.
  They both give States the option of exempting families with a child 
under age 1 from the work-participation rates.
  They both prevent States from sanctioning a single custodial parent 
for failure to work if the parent shows a demonstrated need for child 
care.
  They both include important provisions on locating and tracking 
absent parents, establishing paternity and enforcing support orders.
  They both give our States the flexibility to devise programs that 
meet the specific needs of their citizens.
  They both provide a $1.7 billion supplemental loan fund. States may 
borrow from it up to 10 percent of their welfare block grant amount.
  They both provide a $1 billion contingency grant fund for States over 
7 years.
  They both put a cap on spending, because no program with an unlimited 
budget will ever be made to work effectively and efficiently.


               Child Care and State Maintenance of Effort

  During the Senate debate and establishment of these policies, two 
major issues emerged as central to the bipartisan support that emerged: 
first, access to child care and second, requiring 

[[Page S19180]]
States to maintain some level of their spending effort.
  The child care provisions in the conference report provide $1.8 
billion more than current law and $1 billion more than the Senate-
passed bill. Specifically, a child care block grant is established that 
includes $11 billion in mandatory spending for welfare recipients and 
$7 billion in discretionary spending for low income families. Spending 
on child care increases from $1.3 billion in fiscal year 1997 to over 
$2 billion in fiscal year 2002.
  In the conference report, States are required to maintain their 
spending effort for the life of the new cash block grant at 75 percent 
of what they spent in fiscal year 1994 for the programs that are in 
this block grant. This seems to represent the objective of the majority 
of Members in the Senate.


                    Conference Report Modifications

  Now let me touch on some of the areas that have been modified since 
the Senate first passed welfare reform. No doubt about it, there has 
been much speculation over the savings that will come out of this 
reform. I can tell you this: The savings realized from the conference 
report are about the same as those realized from the Senate bill.
  The conference report does require States to deny more cash to 
mothers who have more children while receiving welfare. However States 
have the flexibility to opt-out. As Senator Santorum said last night, 
this provision asks State legislatures to make a decision.
  Let us make no mistake about it, the conference report does establish 
a child protection block grant that combines mandatory funding for 
existing child welfare programs while maintaining current law 
protections. However foster care and adoption maintenance payments 
remain open entitlement and the enactment of the block grant is delayed 
to fiscal year 1997. Funding for these programs are $1 billion more 
than the Senate passed Balanced Budget Act.


                             New Provisions

  Let me list a few additions to the Senate-passed bill now in the 
conference report before us.
  The effective date of the new cash welfare block grant is delayed to 
fiscal year 1997 yet allows States to opt-in during fiscal year 1996.
  We have also included a 10-percent reduction in the social services 
block grant which was proposed by President Clinton. This will provide 
$1.6 billion in savings over 7 years.
  The eligibility for States to receive food stamp block grants is 
tightened up. States which have implemented electronic benefit transfer 
statewide will be eligible. States with an error rate of less than 6 
percent are also eligible.
  The controversy surrounding block grants for child nutrition programs 
is settled by allowing a pilot project for seven States to participate 
in an optional block grant program. Authority expires in 2000. Block 
grants could then be revisited.


                GOP Governors Back Conference Agreement

  Thirty Republican Governors sent a letter to President Clinton on 
December 20 urging him to support this conference agreement. They 
write:

       While each State will have its own reform strategy, this 
     legislation helps to accomplish those goals by setting forth 
     these guidelines:
       Families must work for benefits and States that get 
     families working are rewarded.
       No family can stay on welfare after 2 years without 
     working.
       The total time a family can collect cash benefits is 
     limited to 5 years unless States, because of their own unique 
     circumstances, opt out of this limit.
       And States will have the option to pay cash benefits to 
     teen parents, but they must live at home and stay in school 
     to receive those benefits.

  I urge my colleagues to support the conference report to H.R. 4. The 
core principles and policies necessary for dramatic reform contained in 
it are consistent with the Senate-passed bill and consistent with the 
needs of Americans.
  So, Mr. President, it seems to me we have been able to retain nearly 
every provision that was in the Senate-passed bill. I know for some of 
my colleagues, because the President says he is going to veto it, maybe 
for that reason they feel compelled to support the President. But my 
view is we have a good bill. We ought to vote for it. We ought to send 
it to the President, and then try to persuade the President that this 
is a bill he should sign.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________