[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 101 (Wednesday, July 10, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H7244-H7245]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            REVISED 602(a) ALLOCATIONS AND BUDGETARY LEVELS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KASICH. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to section 606(e) of the 
Congressional Budget Act of 1974 (Budget Act), as amended by the 
Contract with America Advancement Act (P.L. 104-121), I hereby submit 
revised 602(a) allocations and other appropriate budgetary levels. 
Section 606(e) of the Budget Act provides for an adjustment in the 
various budgetary levels established by budget resolutions to 
accommodate additional appropriations for conducting continuing 
disability reviews (CDRs) under the Supplemental Security Income 
program.
  Section 606(e) of the Budget Act directs the Chairman of the 
Committee on the Budget to revise the discretionary spending limits, 
602(a) allocations, and the appropriate budgetary aggregates when the 
Appropriations Committee reports appropriations measure that provides 
additional new budget authority and additional outlays to pay for the 
costs of CDRs.
  For fiscal year 1997, the adjustment reflects $25 million (and $160 
million in outlays) specified for additional CDRs in the report 
accompanying H.R. 3755, a bill making appropriations for the 
Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education and 
related agencies, as reported by the Committee on Appropriations on 
July 8.
  These revised levels will supersede those established by H. Con. Res. 
178 and the accompanying joint statement of the managers (H. Rept. 104-
575) and shall be binding for purposes of enforcing sections 302(f) and 
311(a) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.
  The revised allocations and other budgetary levels are as follows:

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                     Budget authority       Outlays     
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Discretionary spending limits.....            492,692            535,699
602(a)/302(a) allocations.........            497,375            538,772
Budget aggregates.................          1,311,309          1,307,081
                                                                        
------------------------------------------------------------------------

       If you have any questions, please contract Kathy Ormiston 
     or Jim Bates at extension 6-7270.

[[Page H7245]]



                            WORKING FAMILIES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Weldon] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, before I speak on the issue of 
working families and what is happening to working families in my 
district and what I think is happening to working families all over the 
Nation, I yield briefly to the gentleman from California [Mr. Riggs] to 
make some additional comments about the Wisconsin welfare reform plan 
and Republican plans to truly reform welfare, to stop talking about 
reforming welfare and actually start doing it.


                    wisconsin's welfare reform plan

  Mr. RIGGS. I thank the gentleman for yielding, Mr. Speaker. It is 
unfortunate that just when I thought we were hopefully going to have a 
constructive debate on welfare reform, the gentleman from Wisconsin 
marches off the floor. He has taken his ball and apparently he is going 
home. If he was still here, my response to him would have been baloney, 
double baloney, and triple baloney, or see your baloney and raise you 
one, because the reality is he is not going to support welfare reform 
in any form or in any version.
  He not only has voted with the Democrats twice against our welfare 
reform proposals, but he is actively now attempting to thwart and to 
delay and to obstruct the efforts of the Wisconsin State legislature 
and the Governor of Wisconsin, Tommy Thompson, the Governor of his own 
State, to obtain a reasonable welfare reform waiver from Washington, 
the big government bureaucracy back here.
  Mr. Speaker, the reality is he talks about taxpayers and working 
people, but the current welfare system is fundamentally unfair to 
working American families. It pays for non-work, it reinforces personal 
abhorrent behaviors and values which harm parents, children, and 
families. It is another classic ``Let's rob Peter to pay Paul'' 
scenario.
  The Washington liberal establishment, make no mistake about it, 
despite all his populist rhetoric the gentleman from Wisconsin is very 
much a part of that Washington liberal establishment, and they refuse 
to accept the fundamental reforms demanded by a majority of Americans.
  Where has the Democratic Party in the last 3\1/2\ years that 
President Clinton has been President and the leader of their party, 
where have they been on welfare reform? They did not put forward a 
welfare reform proposal in the last Congress when they had control of 
both the legislative and executive branches of Government. The 
gentleman from Wisconsin could have been a leader in those efforts, had 
he had the courage of his convictions and brought forward a proposal.
  So let us be real clear whose interests are being served here by 
protecting the status quo: the current welfare system. It is the whole 
political constituency of dependency we have built up in this country. 
We are not addressing the concerns of workers whose taxes have paid for 
the unfair and broken welfare system, but we are, of course, seeing the 
consequences of preserving a system which the President and his liberal 
allies in the Congress are desperately fighting to protect.
  What we believe, and I thank the gentleman for yielding to me, we 
believe that we ought to respond to the demands of hard-working 
American men and women. That is why we have passed welfare reform that 
restores individual dignity by requiring able-bodied recipients to work 
in exchange for their benefits, encouraging personal responsibility by 
discouraging illegitimacy, and toughening child support enforcement, 
putting time limits on welfare benefits, because we want welfare to be 
a safety net, not a permanent trap into dependency, empowering those 
closest to the problem, States and local communities to address welfare 
needs with innovative and flexible solutions, that is the very essence 
of W2 or the Wisconsin plan.
  I just would remind Members again and remind the gentleman from 
Wisconsin [Mr. Obey], if he wants to walk his talk, in 1992 candidate 
Clinton appealed to working families. This was one of the things that 
allowed him to posture himself as the centrist new Democrat. He 
appealed to working families with a promise to end welfare as we know 
it; yet since his election and during the last Congress when the 
Democrats had sole control over this House, lock, stock, and barrel, or 
should I say House Bank and Post Office, going back to my first term in 
office, the President aligned himself with the Washington liberal elite 
and has repeatedly vetoed legislation that would end welfare as we know 
it.
  It is too bad that the President and the gentleman from Wisconsin and 
their liberal Washington friends want to defend a failed welfare system 
rather than work with millions of hardworking taxpayers who want real 
welfare reform.

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