[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 104 (Tuesday, July 16, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H7646]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          REAL WELFARE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Longley). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentlewoman from North Carolina [Mrs. Clayton] is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. CLAYTON. Mr. Speaker, this week this House will consider H.R. 
3734, a bill which proposes to reform welfare. Our welfare system needs 
to be reformed. Reform, however, implies improvement, correction for 
the better. The bill we will consider, which is H.R. 3734, does not 
move families and children forward into the future. It keeps them 
trapped in the past. it does not provide mainstream methods, it 
dispenses extreme measures.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to vote for a welfare reform bill, but I intend 
to vote for a bill that supports children and enables parents to work 
by providing job training and day care. But I will not vote for H.R. 
3734, a bill that is sightlessly cutting $50 billion from programs from 
the poorest in our Nation in a blind march to balance the budget and to 
give money to the richest in our Nation.
  Mr. Speaker, there is a bipartisan and bicameral alternative, the 
Castle-Tanner proposal, that ought to be considered by the House when 
we vote on welfare reform. Although the Castle-Tanner has provisions on 
immigration that need to be improved, it is a far better reform bill 
for our current welfare system.
  Last week, this House refused to spend $30 million, just $30 million, 
requested by the President to help control and prevent the alarming 
growth of teen pregnancy. Yet, we spend $6.4 billion annual on programs 
once teenager are pregnant and have children. We will not spend one-
half of 1 percent to prevent a problem that will cost us more than 200 
times that amount in the long run. The logic of this attitude escapes 
any reason, and it certainly escapes me.
  What does the House propose to do in the face of this illogical 
spending? In the welfare reform that is before us, families that have 
additional children will be denied cash welfare payments and children 
will suffer. Unmarried parents under the age of 18 who have a child 
will be denied cash welfare payments under certain conditions, and the 
children again will suffer.
  We say parents must work, and they should work if work is available 
and they are able to work, and day care is provided for their children. 
But where are the jobs? Where are the resources for day care? Once 
again, the children will lose. We all know the old adage, ``An ounce of 
prevention is certainly better than a pound of cure.'' Why, then, are 
some insisting on punishing children, rather than preventing pregnancy, 
especially among our adolescents?
  Do these Members ignore the fact that every 2 hours in American a 
child is killed by firearms, every 4 hours a child commits suicide, 
every 5 hours a child dies from abuse or neglect? There are reasons why 
our children are killed, commit suicide, and die under tragic 
circumstances. There is a connection with the fact that every 32 
seconds a bay is born in poverty, every 1 minute a child is born to a 
teen mother, every 9 seconds a child drops out of school, and every 14 
seconds a child is arrested.
  Mr. Speaker, we can stop this vicious downward spiral of lost lives. 
We can move our children from under this dark cloud of planning their 
funerals to the bright sunshine of planning their future.
  At this time, when so many of our children are at their lowest and 
worst point, we need to call on the very highest and best efforts of 
this country. Thirty percent of all out-of-wedlock births are to 
teenagers below the age of 20. Every 1 minute a child is born to a teen 
mother. We have a national campaign whose goal is to reduce teenage 
pregnancy by one-third by the year 2005. This is a goal that is 
essential. This is a goal within our reach.
  We do need a welfare reform system, but we need one that encourages 
work and protects our children, and a consideration of the Castle-
Tanner proposal certainly is a far better alternative than the 
Republicans are offering.

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