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




   THE ESSENTIAL 30-DAY COMMENT PERIOD IN WISCONSIN BEFORE ACTION ON 
                     WELFARE REFORM WAIVER REQUEST

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I have the following one-word reply to the 
gentleman who just spoke: Baloney. A two-word reply: Double baloney.
  I represent Wisconsin. I take a back seat to no one in wanting to see 
massive welfare reform. I know that taxpayers are tired of seeing 
people collect money on welfare who are not willing to work to earn it, 
and I know that people are tired, and justifiably so, of seeing people 
in this society who often have their hand out but who are not willing 
to go to work in order to improve their own condition. I believe in 
personal responsibility, and I believe that people ought to be willing 
to accept the consequences of their own actions in their own lives.
  But I want to make a few remarks that correct some of the wildly 
inaccurate statements just made by the previous speaker. There is no 
30-day deadline for the President to consider Wisconsin's W2 program. 
There is simply, thanks to the fact that the Congress did not eliminate 
it, as the majority party tried to do, there is still the protection in 
law that allows every single one of my constituents in Wisconsin to 
have at least 30 days to comment on the deal that the politicians put 
together at the State level in Wisconsin. That 30-day requirement is 
simply a 30-day minimum requirement during which the public has a right 
to speak out before the politicians and the bureaucrats make their 
final decisions. I make no apology for insisting that that 30-day 
public comment period be retained. My citizens have the same right to 
comment that citizens from every other State have had before waivers 
were granted for their welfare reform proposals.
  I wonder if the gentleman knows that in the original W2 waiver 
request which this party demanded that we pass, sight unseen, without 
any Member having read it on this floor, I wonder if the gentleman 
knows that Wisconsin later had to, at least the Governor and the 
welfare director, had to indicate they made a mistake in the 
presentation they made to the national government, and they recognized 
it needed to be amended.
  Why? Because the press discovered during that 30-day public comment 
period that they tried to wipe out on that side of the aisle, the press 
in Wisconsin discovered that the W2 waiver proposal would have allowed 
employers to cut the hours of their regular workers, to cut the 
benefits of their regular workers, in order to make room for welfare 
workers in those plants.

  It also inadvertently would have allowed employers to cancel 
promotions for their regular workers and, instead, give those promoted 
jobs to welfare recipients newly hired by the company. The State 
admitted that that was a mistake, but that mistake would not have been 
corrected if this House had rammed through the Senate the legislation 
which the majority party tried to ram through.
  You bet workers are tired of seeing tax dollars gobbled up by people 
on welfare who will not work. You bet taxpayers are tired of that. But 
I can tell the Members something taxpayers do not want to see even 
more. They do not want to see their jobs gobbled up by welfare 
recipients.
  So if we are going to solve welfare reform, let us solve it by 
correcting the behavior of people whose behavior needs to be corrected. 
Let us not solve it by whacking the ability of workers to maintain 
their wages, to maintain their hours, to maintain their benefits at 
work, and to maintain their rights to be considered for promotion 
before newly hired workers who just the day before were on the welfare 
rolls.
  I would simply say that I want Wisconsin's welfare program to be 
approved, but only after my constituents have had ample time to examine 
that waiver request to make certain there are no other mistakes which 
wind up threatening the welfare of workers.

                          ____________________