[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 104 (Tuesday, July 16, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H7647-H7648]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     FIXING A BROKEN WELFARE SYSTEM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Longley). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from California [Mr. Riggs] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. RIGGS. Mr. Speaker, before my colleague from Texas departs the 
floor, I just want to quickly hasten to point out that this Congress, 
the 104th Congress, has made reform a priority. In fact the reforms 
that we have enacted to date, a few of which the gentleman alluded to, 
have been enacted through this House of Representatives on an 
overwhelmingly bipartisan basis: The Congressional Accountability Act, 
which applies the same laws to Congress as the rest of the country and 
basically makes Congress work under the same laws that it imposes on 
American families and businesses; the very strict gift ban that was 
enacted last year; and very comprehensive lobbying reforms.
  So it is a shame, really, that the gentleman comes to the well and 
attempts to make congressional reform and campaign reform a partisan 
issue. But to the extent that it becomes a partisan issue, I should 
tell the gentleman that I very well remember from my service in the 
102d Congress the House of Representatives under Democratic control, 
and I very well remember the House bank and post office scandals that 
sort of gave new meaning to the term ``the check is in the mail,'' at 
least back here in Washington.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to talk, though, about our broken welfare system. 
I subscribe to the old adage that if it ain't broke, don't fix it, but 
our Nation's outdated and failed welfare system is definitely broken 
and it is in desperate need of major repair. We must fix it now. Time 
is simply running out.
  In 1965, our country launched a war on poverty. The intentions were 
good, but this led, I think we know now, to the creation of the welfare 
state as we know it and this whole political constituency of dependency 
in our country. Thirty-one years and $5.4 trillion later, we have 
nothing really to show for the war on poverty but more poverty, 
despair, hopelessness, broken families, and a very damaged work ethic 
in American society. Doing nothing and allowing this destructive system 
to continue is one of the most uncompassionate things we can do.
  Eighteen months ago, the new Republican majority in this Congress set 
out to truly reform welfare. We tried to help the Democratic President 
make good on his campaign promise to end welfare as we know it. 
But twice our efforts were stopped by Presidential vetoes. However, 
this week we are trying again.

  Our welfare reform plan is built upon five principles; we call them 
pillars. We believe that welfare should not be a way of life; we feel 
that welfare should be replaced with work; we want to shift

[[Page H7648]]

power and flexibility back to the States so that they can run their own 
welfare programs for their own residents; we believe that noncitizens 
and felons should not receive welfare; and we think that personal 
responsibility should be encouraged in order to halt rising 
illegitimacy rates in America. Make no mistake about it, our present 
welfare system has contributed to soaring rates of illegitimacy and 
family disintegration in America to the point where today almost one 
out of three births are out of wedlock.
  We believe that welfare should be a helping hand in times of trouble, 
not a handout that becomes a way of life. So our plan would impose a 5-
year lifetime limit for collecting welfare benefits. Although a family 
will no longer receive cash benefits after that time, the safety net 
remains in place. They are still eligible after the 5-year limit on 
welfare benefits, cash benefits, for Medicaid and nutrition assistance. 
And recognizing the need for hardship cases, our plan would allow the 
States to exempt up to 20 percent of welfare parents or welfare 
families from the 5-year limit.
  We really believe that this is a good program and in order to make 
sure that welfare is temporary assistance in time of need, we emphasize 
work over welfare. Our plan has welfare parents, many of whom struggle 
against heroic odds, working within 2 years or they lose their 
benefits; 15 percent of welfare parents must work in this fiscal year, 
with 50 percent required to work by 2002. The nonpartisan Congressional 
Budget Office estimates that our plan will require 1.3 million working 
parents to work in 2002 compared to 900,000, or 30 percent, under 
President Clinton's bill.
  Make no mistake about the President's dilemma here. He is in a real 
predicament because he is going to have to choose when this legislation 
reaches his desk between doing the right thing, making good on that 
campaign promise to end welfare as we know it or alienating the left 
wing of his own political party, which is his political base. We hope 
that the President will come forward and do the right thing. We hope 
that he will join us so that no longer will States have to spend 
countless hours filling out required bureaucratic forms hoping to 
receive permission from Washington to implement their own welfare 
programs.
  We hope that we can reduce and streamline the welfare bureaucracy so 
that we can crack down on waste and fraud in the system. We hope that 
our plan will help reverse illegitimacy by requiring welfare recipients 
to assist in the identity of the fathers, establishing paternity in all 
cases and requiring the parents to participate.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a good solid plan we will take up this week that 
allows individuals to reach out and help their neighbors. If we fix 
this destructive welfare system now, future generations of children 
will thank us later.

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