[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 14 (Thursday, February 1, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S671-S672]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             WELFARE REFORM

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, someday, perhaps a year from now, we will 
finally achieve genuine welfare reform to change welfare from the way 
we have known it, but it will not happen today. Indeed, it may not 
happen this year, not while President Clinton continues to brandish his 
veto pen against all efforts to clean up the welfare mess, to encourage 
work, and to help people who need assistance to get off welfare and get 
a job.
  His first veto of welfare reform received little notice because it 
was part of our larger Balanced Budget Act. That legislation was long 
and complicated, touching upon many different programs. So the 
President was able to block welfare reform in the process of opposing 
other provisions in the bill.
  His second veto of welfare reform likewise received scant attention 
because much of the country was distracted by the blizzard of 1996. It 
was vetoed late at night, and there was not much press coverage because 
most of official Washington was not paying attention. They were still 
concentrating on the overall budget agreement.
  Now the President has promised a third veto of welfare reform, and he 
has done so in a way that blatantly violates his previous pledges on 
this issue. In an interview that appeared in yesterday's, that is 
Wednesday's, Washington Post, the President made clear that his earlier 
endorsement of the welfare reform bill that passed the Senate last fall 
is no longer operative.
  The bill that passed the Senate was H.R. 4, which this body approved 
on September 19, 1995, by a strongly bipartisan vote of 87 to 12. It 
sailed through 

[[Page S672]]
the Senate with the strong personal support of the President. But that 
was then, and now I guess his position has changed, based on this 
interview in the Washington Post. This is what Ann Devroy and John 
Harris reported in the Post interview:

       On welfare reform, Clinton said he has not given up hope 
     that a compromise bill acceptable to him will be approved 
     this year. But he set a new price for his signature on a 
     welfare system overhaul, asserting that the Senate proposal 
     he indicated he would support last fall will have to be 
     changed for him to support it now. He called on Republicans 
     to send him a revised bill that would contain fewer cuts in 
     funding for food stamps, provide child care for welfare 
     recipients who work and preserve current protections for 
     disabled children.

  This is another example of the President's acknowledged skill at 
packaging and repackaging his positions, but it is a far cry from what 
was actually involved in the legislation that we considered.
  The truth, as every Member of the Senate knows, is that the bill we 
passed last September was a compromise. A lot of work was put into that 
legislation by members of the committees involved, including the 
Senator from Connecticut, Senator Dodd. That is why it gathered 87 
votes on the Senate floor. It is why few Senators on both sides of the 
aisle opposed it.
  The truth is that the Senate-passed bill did provide additional 
funding for child care for welfare recipients. It earmarked $1 billion 
per year for child care assistance, and it provided another $3 billion 
over the next 4 fiscal years for child care in certain States. In sum, 
that was a few billion more than what President Clinton had called for 
in his budget.
  The truth is that the Senate-passed bill provided a base amount of 
$16.8 billion in welfare funding in each of the next 5 years; an 
additional $879 million for States with higher growth; a $1.7 billion 
revolving fund for special borrowing; additional funds as incentive 
grants to States which make the most progress in getting persons off 
the welfare rolls; a $800 million emergency assistance fund; a 
contingency fund of up to $1 billion; $150 million for second chance 
homes for unwed mothers and more.
  The truth is that by returning control of public assistance to the 
States, the Senate-passed bill did not weaken protections for disabled 
children. On the contrary, 87 Members of the Senate, from both sides of 
the political aisle, voted to give flexibility to States in meeting the 
needs of those children.
  The truth is that the Senate-passed bill required an 80-percent 
maintenance of effort--80-percent maintenance of effort--by the States 
to allay any fears that benefits to the needy might be recklessly 
reduced.
  In fact, we made so many changes, we put in so much more money, that 
it was just marginally possible for this Senator to even vote for the 
bill. But it was a compromise; it was a step in the right direction, 
and, like a lot of others on both sides, I went along with it.
  But, based on what we are hearing from the administration, all that 
goes down the memory hole. The President is now upping the ante, 
demanding that the Congress give him a version of welfare reform not 
worthy of the name. His goal in doing so is obvious. Having campaigned 
on a promise to end welfare as we know it, he has done his utmost to 
end welfare reform as we know it, substituting in its place a gutted, 
toothless, costly sham.
  As far as this Senator is concerned--and I am certain I speak for a 
number of other Members of Congress--that just cannot happen. We are 
not going to betray our promise to the American people in order to get 
the President's signature on a welfare bill.
  There is nothing worse than for Congress to say, as we have too many 
times in the past, that we have accomplished something with a bill, 
giving it a glorious sounding title, when there is no substance to it--
and when there will be no glorious results when it is actually 
implemented.
  There are some things worse than no welfare reform. Phony reform is 
the main one. A welfare bill that leaves AFDC as an entitlement is 
phony reform. A welfare bill that keeps control of welfare in 
Washington in the Federal bureaucracy, in my opinion, is phony reform. 
A welfare bill that makes dependency more attractive by providing more 
benefits to more people is not genuine reform.
  The President's latest comments on this subject present us with a 
stark choice between false reforms, misleading action, and nothing at 
all. He is probably hoping that, rather than return to the voters 
empty-handed, we will collude with him to give the public the 
appearance of reform, that we all declare victory, and it will be years 
before the taxpayers figure out they have been duped by what is called 
welfare reform.
  I do not believe the majority in Congress is going to play that game. 
We are not going to break faith with the American people on this issue. 
If welfare reform has to wait until next year, I guess it will be worth 
the wait. If welfare reform must wait until the veto pen has been 
removed from the President, then so be it. But that delay is not 
necessary.
  We can get genuine welfare reform. It can be one that will be 
supported in a bipartisan way, and it can be one that will be good for 
the people who now depend on the system and are looking for a way out. 
But that will take real cooperation. We must make sure that whatever we 
do is genuine reform that will produce the results we promised. Mr. 
President, I yield the floor.

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