[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 105 (Wednesday, July 17, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H7745-H7762]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                WELFARE AND MEDICAID REFORM ACT OF 1996

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of today 
and rule XXIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the 
Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the 
bill, H.R. 3734.

                              {time}  1640


                     in the committee of the whole

  Accordingly the House resolved itself into the Committee of the Whole 
House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill (H.R. 
3734) to provide for reconciliation pursuant to section 201(a)(1) of 
the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 1997, with Mr. 
Greene of Utah in the chair.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the order of the House of today, the bill 
is considered as having been read the first time.
  The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich] and the gentleman from Minnesota 
[Mr. Sabo], will each control 60 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich].
  Mr. KASICH. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Madam Chairman, today we have the beginning of a debate that really 
represents wonderful news for America. Frankly, the third time, they 
say in lore, is always a charm. Well, this is the third time we are 
going to bring to the floor, and we are going to pass, a welfare reform 
bill that ends welfare as we know it and provides a new level of 
opportunity for all Americans, opportunity for people who find 
themselves in need of assistance and opportunity for those folks who 
get up and go to work every morning and ask nothing from their 
government other than to have their level of taxation kept at a minimum 
and to have the maximum amount of personal liberty.
  Now, Madam Chairman, this welfare bill that we are about to consider 
today is something that I think Americans have been asking for 
virtually all of my adult life. And let me tell my colleagues what it 
is about. If is founded on the basis of Judeo-Christianity. Judeo-
Christianity says it is a sin not to help people who need help, but it 
also says it is equally a sin to continue to help people who need to 
learn how to help themselves.
  What we have in this bill is a generous amount of continued 
assistance for those people who find themselves in real need. I was 
born and raised in a community where we had a public housing 
development just down the street, and we always believed that it was 
necessary that people get the kind of help they need to lift themselves 
up by their bootstraps, to get the kind of help from those people in 
our society who have been successful, who have been blessed; and that 
from those people who are the most successful there is a need and a 
reason and, frankly, an ultimatum in some respects to make sure that we 
help those who, through no fault of their own, find themselves 
dependent.
  Now, at the same time, we also believed in the community where I was 
born and raised that we need to give people an opportunity to be able 
to lift themselves out of these situations that make them dependent. I 
think we all recognize in this country that if we have a program that 
traps people in dependence, it is wrong.
  In other words, we do not want to have created a welfare system in 
our country where people have learned to depend on it and not to be 
able to depend on themselves.

                              {time}  1845

  Frankly, it is not fair to those folks. It is certainly not fair to 
their children who get raised in an environment where they seem to get 
confused about the issue of dependency and independence. I believe 
virtually everybody in this country wants to be independent from help 
from others. I believe that virtually everybody in this country wants 
to have a job. But I think that we have created some systems, including 
the current welfare system, that have provided too many of the wrong 
incentives for people to avoid work or to be lulled into a sense of 
dependency. It is wrong. It is wrong for the people on the system. It 
is wrong for their children.
  So what we attempt to do in this welfare bill is to provide generous 
amounts of money so that the children of people on welfare can be taken 
care of while the people who are on welfare get trained and get a job. 
We say at the end of the day, you must go and find a job. We will train 
you. We will help you find a job. And at the end of the day, you are 
going to have to get off of welfare and you are going to have to go to 
work. I think that is what most people in this country want.
  Second, however, it will not just be a victory for those who have 
found themselves trapped in the system that in some respects has robbed 
themselves

[[Page H7746]]

and their children of the independence that they dream about. But this 
is a bill that in my judgment is a terrific victory for those who 
struggle every day to make ends meet.
  There are the mothers and fathers who take their kids to day care. 
These are the mothers and fathers who on every paycheck sit down and 
try to figure out how they can make their ends meet. And these are 
people who do not get anything from the Government. They do not get 
food stamps. They do not get any form of welfare, any kind of subsidy 
from the Federal Government. These people get up and they go to work 
every day, and they struggle every day just to keep their heads above 
water. Frankly, they are the ones that are truly the American heroes in 
this country.
  It is not the people who struck it rich and made a million dollars or 
in some cases made billions of dollars. It is not the NBA players who 
are signing contracts for $105 million. They are not our heroes. Our 
heroes are the mothers and fathers who fight their way off welfare. 
They are the mothers and fathers who have never been on it and work 
hard to stay off of it, and all they want to do is to raise their 
children in a God-fearing country with decent values and security.
  This bill today represents a terrific victory for those people who 
get up every day and go to work. That is who we are passing this bill 
for, for those who find themselves stuck in a system that has not 
allowed them to become independent and, second, for those Americans who 
go to work every day, the real American heroes.
  This bill is compassionate for those who really need the help. We 
recognize there are people in our society who, no matter what happens, 
are not ever going to get a job. Do you know what? We have got 
provisions that protect them. We recognize there are some people who 
will never become independent. That is a fact of life. We have got to 
deal with it. But we also recognize that, if we have a strong training, 
if we have a strong child care section and if we have a strong work 
requirement and we say to people, at some point you must go to work, we 
think that is also compassionate.
  So, we think we have a welfare bill that is balanced. We think also 
we have a welfare bill that essentially speaks to what Americans all 
across this country have wanted, help those who need help, but force 
those who need to learn how to help themselves to go to work. That is 
what this bill does. It is reinventing welfare as we know it.
  As the American people find out what is in this bill, and this bill 
will pass the House, it will pass the Senate, and it will be sent to 
the President, we hope and pray he will sign it. If he does, it is 
going to be a victory for everybody in this country, those concerned 
about those that cannot help themselves, those who need to learn to 
start helping themselves, and those who get up every day and work hard 
to make sure that they are independent.
  This is a good bill for America. This is a great day for the House. 
Let us keep our fingers crossed because the third time can be a charm.
  Madam Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from 
Kansas [Mr. Roberts], chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, and I 
ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Kansas be permitted to 
yield time to additional speakers.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Ohio?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. SABO. Madam Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to yield my first 
30 minutes to the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Roybal-Allard] and 
that she have the authority to yield time.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Minnesota?
  There was no objection.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman from California [Ms. Roybal-Allard] is 
recognized for 30 minutes.
  Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman 
from Arizona [Mr. Pastor].
  Mr. PASTOR. Madam Chairman, I want to thank my colleague for yielding 
the 2 minutes.
  We heard the chairman of the Committee on the Budget talk about a 
victory for America as we debate this bill and the consequences of it. 
I have to tell my colleagues that they are going to hear some Members 
speak to inform us that this victory is not shared by all Americans. 
Americans who work hard, Americans who want to take care of the 
families, people who have been in this country for many years but 
because of their status as legal immigrants will not be able to share 
this victory.
  There are a number of us who are concerned both on the substitute and 
also concerned with the base bill. We feel that the treatment of legal 
immigrants is very unfair. There is a misconception in this country, 
there is a misconception in this House that legal immigrants are people 
who recently came over and are here legally only for one reason, to get 
on public assistance. That is not the case. We will hear tonight that 
many of these people have been here for many, many years, have worked 
hard, have raised their children, and now, in many cases, will need the 
services and the opportunities that they have earned.
  We will also hear that there will be many children that will be put 
in very hard situations by these bills. As adults, as Americans, as 
parents, as family members, we are concerned about the children that 
will not savor this taste of victory.
  We will hear about other parts of the bills that will affect people 
on domestic violence, entitlements and will not savor the taste of 
victory.
  So, Madam Chairman, we will rise in opposition to both bills.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Madam Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Camp], a former member of the sometimes 
powerful House Committee on Agriculture, a current valued member of the 
Committee on Ways and Means.
  (Mr. CAMP asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. CAMP. Madam Chairman, today Congress is again attempting to end 
welfare as we know it. Over the last 19 months, my colleagues and I 
have twice written, debated, and adopted welfare reform legislation 
only to have our efforts vetoed by the President. How many more 
families will be trapped in the current system while time wastes in 
Washington?
  Our current welfare system has deprived hope, diminished opportunity 
and destroyed lives. After 30 years and billions and billions of 
dollars, I ask, has the Federal Government solved the problems of 
poverty and dependency?
  Just spending more money on the Washington welfare system will not 
work. Just spending more money on the current system will not help 
children. We need to start over. The bill before us today is a fresh 
start. It accomplishes five important goals for welfare reform.
  First, it requires work in exchange for benefits. It encourages 
independence and self-reliance for able-bodied people. To help those 
that work, the bill provides more child care funding than current law 
and more than the President's proposal for working families. We have a 
moral obligation to improve the lives of our children, and we must do 
all we can to change the culture of poverty that our current welfare 
laws have created.
  Second, this legislation also time limits welfare benefits to 5 
years. While the goal is to move all families from welfare to work, 
some families may need more time or more help. So we retain an 
effective safety net. Our bill allows a hardship exemption from the 
time limit for up to 20 percent of those on welfare. The hard-working 
families in the Fourth Congressional District of Michigan and across 
the country believe welfare should be a hand up, not a handout. They 
very much support the requirement that able-bodied welfare recipients 
work for the benefits so generously provided by the American taxpayer.
  Third, we do not give welfare to felons and noncitizens. Many people 
are not aware, the Federal Government sends checks to convicted felons 
serving time in prison. Cannot these tax dollars be better spent 
helping those families truly in need? Also many noncitizens have a 
proud tradition of hard work and achievement. They come to America to 
share in the American dream, which does not and should not include 
welfare dependency.
  Fourth, this legislation also provides States with the flexibility to 
meet the needs of its citizens. My State of

[[Page H7747]]

Michigan, under the leadership of Gov. John Engler, and other States, 
have made tremendous strides in moving people from welfare to work. 
These accomplishments, however, have come in spite of the Federal 
Government and the current welfare laws.
  For too long the Federal Government has maintained policies which 
have created a culture of poverty, dependence and despair. This bill 
brings control of welfare back to the people where it belongs.
  It is important to remember what the Government's role in promoting 
independence should be. While legislators can design programs to help 
those struggling to gain financial security, the Government cannot make 
them succeed. Changing one's attitude is something that can only be 
accomplished by that individual.
  Personal responsibility is the focus of this legislation. Individuals 
must accept responsibility for their actions and work with Government 
programs to improve their lives.
  The current Washington-based welfare system demands no 
responsibility, no work ethic, no learning, no commitment and, in the 
end, no pride. Instead, it promotes illegitimacy, rewards 
irresponsibility and discourages self-esteem. Our families and our 
children deserve better.
  I urge my colleagues to support the bill.
  Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Madam Chairman, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes.
  Madam Chairman, I, like other Members of this body, am in strong 
support of welfare reform. But I am not for reform regardless of the 
consequences. For that reason, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 
3734.
  This bill will have many unintended consequences to women, children 
and families in this country. One of those consequences is its impact 
on victims of domestic violence. Current studies reveal that 25 to 60 
percent of participants in welfare-to-work programs are victims of 
domestic abuse. For these women, the welfare system is often the only 
hope they have for escape and survival. This bill will effectively 
shred that safety net.
  By eliminating the guarantee status of AFDC and imposing inflexible 
time limits and work requirements, H.R. 3734 will force many battered 
women to stay with their batterers or return to them for financial 
support.
  With the passage of the Violence Against Women Act, Congress has 
taken a strong stance against domestic violence. Let us not turn our 
backs on the victims of this deplorable crime. The lives of battered 
women and their children depend on it.
  I hope that my colleagues will vote no on H.R. 3734.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Wamp].
  Mr. WAMP. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding the 
time.
  I want to just speak a moment to the separation of policy versus 
politics in this debate, because we know it is sound policy to address 
the welfare system in this country, replacing welfare with a working 
populous of able-bodied people. But there is also a political equation 
here. There has been for many months. We know that welfare reform has 
been passed twice by this Congress and vetoed both times. But our 
President, Bill Clinton, came into these chambers and delivered the 
State of the Union address in January, and he challenged us to send a 
clean welfare reform bill back to him.

                              {time}  1900

  There were some politics associated with whether or not he might sign 
it, take the credit and all of that. I want to say that as a freshman 
Member of this body, many of us have been very unfortunately blamed for 
some of the misfires of the last few months. We have been called 
unreasonable, radical, extremist. We, many of us, went to the 
leadership of our side, our party, Members like the gentleman from 
Nevada [Mr. Ensign] myself, and said let us disconnect Medicaid, health 
care for the poor, from welfare and do what the President asked us to 
do and send a clean welfare reform bill, and as the gentleman from Ohio 
[Mr. Kasich] articulated, the President is expected to sign this bill 
because we are sending him substantive welfare reform, effective and 
efficient welfare reform, but we are sending him the clean bill that he 
asked for. We did make that decision on this side of the aisle to 
disconnect the two so that he could not say I do not want Medicaid 
attached to this.
  This comprehensive bill provides the job training, the child care, 
the career education, those components that we all believe should 
accompany a comprehensive welfare reform bill. This is going to be one 
of the greatest successes of this Congress. Yes, he will get credit, 
but we will get credit. We are doing the people's business.
  Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the 
gentlewoman from California [Ms. Lofgren].
  Ms. LOFGREN. Madam Chairman, I, until this Congress, was a member of 
the local government that had responsibility for administering the 
welfare program, and I felt, coming here, that there were a lot changes 
I want to make. There is no doubt that a lot of things need to be fixed 
in welfare programs in this country. We need to put people back to 
work, we need to have expectations for work, we need to pay attention 
to child care, we need to change the whole system. But what concerns me 
is that once again the bill that we will deal with goes too far.
  As you know, I think, and I want to talk about legal immigrants, not 
illegal immigrants because they are eligible for nothing and should be 
eligible for nothing, but I want to talk about what is fair to 
taxpayers, and I will give my colleagues a couple of examples.
  In my district there are large numbers of Vietnamese freedom 
fighters, people who fought communism who came to this country as 
originally refugees, ultimately became residents, and under the bill 
before us, if after paying taxes for years and years and years, 14 
years, they get a stroke, they cannot get nursing home coverage.
  Let me talk about another example. An immigrant who comes in with her 
husband, and her husband works for 50 years and dies, and then as she 
is an old person, she is 65, she has a stroke, and she is not eligible 
to get the kind of nursing home care that the widow of every other 
taxpayer in America can look to get.
  Now, I do not think that is fair. There are some abuses among 
immigrant groups, and there are necessary steps that need to be taken, 
and in fact the Deal bill earlier this year did deal with those. But 
this is unfair. I think when we look at our taxpayers, if they are 
legal residents or citizens, we ought to make sure that people who have 
worked hard and paid their taxes are treated fairly, and this so-called 
reform bill fails in that regard.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Madam Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the 
distinguished gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Goodlatte] and take the 
House's time to thank him for his contributions in increasing the 
trafficking penalties and bringing integrity to the food stamp reforms 
that we have passed in the Committee on Agriculture and hope to pass on 
the House floor.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Chairman, I thank the chairman of the Committee 
on Agriculture for his kind words.
  Madam Chairman, I rise in support of the welfare reform bill under 
consideration today, especially the reforms to the Food Stamp Program. 
The Food Stamp Program provides benefits to more than 27 million people 
each month at a cost this year of more than $26 billion. It is growing 
out of control and badly in need of reform.
  The Committee on Agriculture held eight hearings during the 104th 
Congress to review the Food Stamp Program, and many of the reforms 
included in this bill are based on the testimony received in these 
hearings. Witnesses appearing before the committee and the subcommittee 
on department operations, nutrition and foreign agriculture represented 
a wide variety of organizations. They included the administration, the 
General Accounting Office, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of 
Inspector General, the United States Secret Service, Governors, State 
and local welfare administrators. Representatives from organizations 
providing direct food assistance to needy families testified. Testimony 
was also received from grocers, agricultural organizations, churches 
and advocacy groups.
  The following principles guided the committee in formulating the 
reforms

[[Page H7748]]

to the Food Stamp Program. The Food Stamp Program is retained as a 
safety net. With other programs returned to the States in block grants, 
it is essential to be able to provide food as a basic need while States 
are undergoing the transition to State-designed welfare programs. 
States are permitted to use one set of rules for families applying for 
food stamps and AFDC. This provides one-stop service, making it more 
efficient. Therefore, the programs can become more taxpayer friendly by 
eliminating redtape.
  The Food Stamp Program is taken off automatic pilot. All automatic 
spending increases are ended except annual increases in food benefits. 
Able-bodied individuals without dependents must work. In keeping with 
the effort to encourage private sector employment and help people 
regain their independence, able-bodied people who are from 18 to 50 
years old with no dependents would be eligible for food stamps for a 
limited period of time and then must work or participate in a workfare 
or training program in order to receive food stamps.
  States are permitted to establish programs to encourage employers to 
participate in an improved wage supplementation program so that welfare 
recipients have the opportunity to work in real jobs. This means 
practical work experience in the real world.
  Forfeiture-of-property legislation, using forfeiture proceeds to 
reimburse law enforcement officials, is authorized. We want to stop 
criminals from profiting from the Food Stamp Program. Penalties for 
violating food stamp requirements are doubled, and the rules governing 
participation by retail and wholesale food stores have been tightened.
  Under certain circumstances States may operate their own Food Stamp 
Program. Once a State has implemented an electronic benefits transfer, 
EBT system on a Statewide basis, reduces rates of error to acceptable 
levels or pays that part of the food stamp error over acceptable 
levels, the State will have the option of operating a Food Stamp 
Program under a block grant.
  Madam Chairman, I urge my colleague to support this bill. The welfare 
system, including the Food Stamp Program, needs significant reform, and 
it is accomplished in this bill.
  Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the 
gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee).
  (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise 
and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Madam Chairman, I want real welfare reform. 
All of us have tried to work to respond to those who would come in good 
faith. But I want to simply appeal to the women of America, the 
families of America. This Republican bill cuts some almost $60 billion 
from individuals across this Nation who, each time we ask them, they 
say I would like to work, I would like to get off welfare, and, yes, as 
an American I want to contribute to what America has to offer.
  But these children are the ones that we are speaking about, children 
who may not have the child care necessary for their parents to 
transition from welfare to work because we lessen the opportunity for 
those families to have transitional child care. If the money runs out 
in the State, folks, if the bucket is empty, then they do not have an 
opportunity to go to work if the children are not cared for.
  And then when we look at Medicaid, we find that Medicaid will not be 
available for a period of time for those families. Medicaid equals 
health care. It is important to recognize that we are concerned about 
those families when we have a 5-year limit cutoff whether they will 
have the inability to carry Medicaid to insure good health for their 
children and for themselves.
  This is a bad bill. The Republican bill is a repeat, a deja vu, of 
cutting billions of dollars, but yet not responding to the fact that we 
all can compromise together insuring that families have child care and 
job training and, yes, work. This is short on work, and then when it is 
short on work, it is short on opportunity to protect our children. We 
do not give them good health care, we do not provide safe and warm 
places for them to stay while those parents, those mothers, are going 
out to work.
  I am reminded that my constituents to a one want welfare reform. I 
have voted for good welfare reform. Let us go back to the table and not 
cut $60 billion just to make us feel good. Let us make sure that we 
work for the American people, who want real welfare reform.
  Madam Chairman, I rise today to speak on H.R. 3734, the Republican 
welfare budget reconciliation, because of my concerns regarding some of 
the reform provisions.
  While this effort at welfare reform contains both a few improvements 
and some further steps backward, it still poses dangers to children. 
This bill will abandon the basic Federal assurances of aid for poor 
children and families, make deep cuts in food stamp and SSI benefits. 
This bill would cause older children to lose their AFDC benefits, and 
provide inadequate child care funding for parents who are required to 
work, and it would eliminate almost all help for legal immigrants in 
need.
  Welfare reform is synonymous with women and children which means that 
the $53 billion in spending cuts over 6 years will hurt them 
disproportionately. This bill will reduce food stamps by $23.2 billion, 
it will reduce Supplemental Security Income [SSI] by $9.6 billion and 
aid to legal immigrants by $17.1 billion.
  In the State of Texas alone, 137,641 children would be denied aid by 
the year 2005 because of the federally mandated 5 year limit on 
receiving welfare benefits. There will be 46,986 babies in Texas who 
would be denied aid in the next 4 years because they were born in 
families already on welfare, and another 89,327 children in Texas would 
be denied aid if the State froze its spending on cash assistance at the 
1994 levels.
  This bill would lead another 60,000 Texas children into poverty.
  This legislation is decidedly more mean spirited in its methods than 
any I have seen to date. It narrows the definition of disability for 
poor children seeking to qualify for Supplemental Security Income 
[SSI]. This bill would withhold vital cash aid for children with a wide 
range of serious disabilities including mental retardation, 
tuberculosis, autism, serious mental illness, head injuries, and 
arthritis.
  Food stamp benefits would be cut severely, and the Federal guarantee 
of food aid could be eliminated on the State level as an option given 
to them by this legislation. The cuts to the Food Stamp Program would 
hurt 14 million children.
  The victims of domestic violence and their children would still have 
no assurance that, if they escape the violence, they could at least 
survive with cash assistance until they are able to find work. This 
would cause many women and their children being forced by harsh 
economic realities back into the abusive environment they were 
attempting to escape.
  I would like to caution my colleagues to carefully consider their 
vote on this bill. I will continue to be committed to working for 
compassionate and fair welfare reform.
  Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Madam Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the 
distinguished gentleman from California [Mr. Torres].
  Mr. TORRES. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding this 
time to me.
  I was struck by the message that the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. 
Kasich], the distinguished chairman of the Committee on the Budget, 
talked about the parables of sin and that it is sinful not to help. At 
the same time, he said it is a sin not to help one's self, and he 
talked about his community and where he was born and raised and how he 
grew up and how that community pulled itself up by the bootstraps. And 
that is well and good; that is the story of our country.
  But what about when we have bad times? What about when we have 
depressions? What about my community when I was growing up, where I was 
born, when we had a Great Depression?
  My father was deported because he was from the other side of the 
border and he was working here as a copper miner. My mother was left 
alone with my brother and I. We were on welfare, we were on relief. We 
suffered, we were hungry. I wore corduroy pants. My colleagues remember 
that, those that remember the Depression. I wore those corduroy tennis 
shoes. We stood in lines for food.
  Thank heavens for relief or welfare, what it was called then, and, 
yes, we want to change welfare as we know it today, we want to reform 
the ills of people who exploit and cheat on welfare. But what about the 
people that cannot find jobs? What about the incapacitated?
  What about the homeless who have lost their jobs and because of that 
they have lost their homes and had to move and live out of their 
vehicles or live in parks?

[[Page H7749]]

  What about the elderly, who, as was mentioned here earlier, are legal 
immigrants who came here many, many years ago and worked hard and paid 
taxes and sent their sons and daughters to war to defend this Nation, 
and here they are in their time of need, elderly, widowed, alone, will 
not be given the kind of assistance because they are legal immigrants.
  What a shame, what a shame of this country. We cannot tolerate this.
  What about the children, the millions of children that will be put on 
the street because they will be pushed into poverty by this ill-
thought-of, ill-conceived Republican bill? In 70 percent of these 
families one of the parents is probably already working, but yet those 
children will be denied. What about the children of immigrants in this 
country, children who were born here or have the fault, if my 
colleagues will, of choosing the wrong parents and will be denied 
Medicaid or food stamps, or disabled children who will be denied SSI 
benefits all because, as I said, they made the mistake of choosing 
their parents?

                              {time}  1915

  This is unconscionable. We need to come back to the table and 
negotiate a welfare bill that is right for this country in these times. 
We need to send the President a bill that he can sign. I simply say we 
need to work harder at this. We cannot allow this bill to be passed.
  Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Madam Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the 
gentlewoman from California [Ms. Waters].
  Ms. WATERS. Madam Chairman, this is not welfare reform, this is 
welfare bashing. Welfare reform has become the political football in 
this election year. Children and families are going to be hurt if this 
bill is signed into law. Poor children in families will be hungrier and 
they will be poorer. Yes, some politicians will use this bill to get 
reelected, rather than spend their time to produce credible, sensible, 
welfare reform.
  Madam Chairman, I believe in welfare reform and I believe we can do a 
better job. This bill gets rid of all the entitlements. That means you 
can have a family who has worked hard, mother and father worked hard 
for the last 20 years and all of a sudden they are downsized on the 
job, they lose their job, the job exported somewhere to a Third World 
country for cheap labor. They could go in for welfare benefits and, 
because there is no entitlement, they can say I am sorry, I cannot give 
it to you. Money has run out. Sorry, there is none left for you. That 
does not make good sense.
  It puts a 5-year limit on the time that you can receive benefits. 
That does not make good sense. There are some people who could get off 
welfare in 6 months or a year, and some who may have college education 
and all they need to do is just get back into the workplace with a 
little assistance, a little experience. There are others who dropped 
out of school a long time ago, who may be illiterate. It is going to 
take them a longer time. They need to be job trained, they need to have 
their GEDs, they need to get some experience, they need to be helped to 
get back into the workplace.

  It does not make good sense, Madam Chairman, to treat everybody the 
same. We must assess each individual and determine where their 
strengths are, where their weaknesses are. Most welfare recipients want 
to be independent. They do not like being on welfare. We need to have 
credible child care, we need to have credible job training programs. 
They will get off.
  If politicians would simply use their time and their talent to create 
credible welfare reform for this country we could get people off 
welfare, but this is welfare bashing. This no entitlements, everybody 
off at the same time, this does nothing to deal with real welfare 
reform. Members are going to starve some children, they are going to 
take food stamps from a family of three that only makes about $6,200 a 
year, they are going to take food out of the mouths of hungry children 
in this election year, having people believing that they are protecting 
their taxpayer dollars.
  I want to tell the Members, nobody is going to be protected. What we 
are going to have is more desperate families out there, more desperate 
mothers and fathers who will say, ``I am not going to allow these 
children to be hungry, I am not going to allow them to be treated this 
way. I have done everything that I could. I worked hard every day.
  ``When I went to the welfare office after having worked 20 years, you 
told me there are no more entitlements. I cannot get any help.'' Is 
that fair? No.
  I will tell the Members what is fair. It is fair to have entitlements 
and equal application of the law. I ask my colleagues in the House to 
reject this non-credible nonsensical welfare bill.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Georgia [Mr. Kingston].
  Mr. KINGSTON. Madam Chairman, I have been listening to them, about 
children and so forth. This is the same rhetoric we heard from the same 
group when we passed welfare reform, when we tried to change some of 
the other entitlement programs, to not have a complete overhaul but to 
target the areas that are wasting money, to try to reduce the 
bureaucracy of Washington. Yet, we hear from the same people. To my 
knowledge, we have not heard from one Democrat who has ever supported a 
welfare reform bill on the floor of the House.
  Madam Chairman, I think what we are really hearing is people who are 
against welfare reform. I am a father of four children. I do not want 
to see any kids starving out on the street. I do not want to throw any 
elderly out. I am hearing people debate a bill that is not even on the 
floor of the House.
  I think it is time to get back to the fact that we are increasing 
food stamps. The school lunch program was mentioned. We are not even 
affecting the school lunch program by this bill. Madam Chairman, this 
Congress is concerned with a government policy that has spent over $5 
trillion fighting poverty, and it has failed. It has not moved us down 
the road. I would hope that these folks would say, listen, it is time 
to say welfare should not be a way of life; that able-bodied people 
should be required to work in order to get public assistance.
  One of the gentlemen earlier talked about coming to this country 
during the Depression. The FDR-type programs all had a work 
requirement. That gives people self-esteem. I heard President Clinton 
say one of the best things about people getting off of welfare is when 
the 12-year-old child at school, when he is asked ``What does your 
Momma do?'' instead of saying ``She is on welfare,'' they can say, 
``She works. Here is where she works.''
  That is what we want to do. We want to get the poor independent 
instead of keeping them dependent so bureaucrat after bureaucrat in 
Washington can benefit from a government poverty program. They are 
poverty brokers in Washington, they are not people who want to make the 
recipients independent.
  Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Madam Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the 
gentlewoman from California [Ms. Waters].
  Ms. WATERS. Madam Chairman, I think it is very important that we put 
the facts on the floor and that we not get so carried away with our 
rhetoric that we mischaracterize what has taken place here.
  Every Democrat has voted for a welfare bill. Remember the Deal bill? 
I am sure the gentleman is familiar with that. It had tougher work 
requirements in it. If the gentleman would like to correct the record, 
I know the gentleman does not want to go on the record misquoted or 
misunderstood. The gentleman just said we had never voted for welfare 
reform. I think the gentleman needs to correct that.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Madam Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?
  Ms. WATERS. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Madam Chairman, here is what I hear from Democrat after 
Democrat: We want welfare reform, but we----
  Ms. WATERS. The gentleman needs to correct the record.
  Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentlewoman would yield time, we can talk about 
it.
  Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Madam Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman 
from New Jersey [Mr. Payne], chairman of the Congressional Black 
Caucus.
  (Mr. PAYNE of New Jersey asked and was given permission to revise and 
extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PAYNE of New Jersey. Madam Chairman, I rise in opposition to H.R.

[[Page H7750]]

3734. ``End welfare as we know it'' was what was said during the last 
campaign. Let us take a look at this question of ending welfare as we 
know it.
  On June 27, 1996, the Committee on the Budget released the Republican 
vision, and I use that word loosely, of welfare reform; and some of the 
details that have surfaced, they certainly need to be looked at more 
closely.
  Currently the welfare system in this country is one that in some 
cases does foster cycles of dependency. Many times an individual cannot 
get off of welfare rolls because she cannot get a job that will provide 
a living wage for herself or her family, get quality child care for her 
family, get adequate housing for her family, get adequate health care 
for her family.
  If we are going to end welfare as we know it, does this bill help to 
accomplish those things? The answer is definitely no. Providing jobs 
and job security will change this type of system to promote one that 
encourages self-sufficiency. However, we are unwilling and we are 
unable to invest the necessary resources in our families.
  However, without the adequate support in places, opportunity for 
employment, opportunity for day care, opportunity for an adequate 
salary, and to promote and encourage self-sufficiency, taking this 
punitive approach to drop people from the welfare rolls will certainly 
do more harm.
  In our subcommittee a resolution that was brought up to say that if a 
person cannot find a job when the time expires, will they be able to 
continue to have benefits, and the Republican Members of the committee 
all voted no, throw the children out.
  So because we are not addressing the root causes, the lack of 
adequate jobs, the underlying conditions of the problem will continue 
to exist. An experiment conducted in my home State of New Jersey and 
also in Illinois found that 80 percent of welfare recipients who found 
jobs were able to break the cycle of poverty. It was very simple. They 
were able to work their way out. Yet, only 2 percent of those that had 
to depend on the system were able to break the cycle of poverty. The 
answer is jobs.
  We had 100 jobs available in the city of Newark. Fourteen hundred 
people started to get in line at 6 a.m. for those 100 jobs. It was not 
even 100. They said possibly up to 100, but maybe 50. Fourteen hundred 
people went and waited for hours and hours to apply for the jobs. So 
the answer is certainly there. Remember, there are 9 million children 
who receive welfare, which is about 65 percent of the welfare rolls. 
Today there are over 14 million children living in poverty. One out of 
five children go hungry every day. Let us defeat H.R. 3734.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Madam Chairman, it is a pleasure to yield 2 minutes to 
the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Ganske], a gentleman whose testimony 
before the Committee on Ways and Means helped shape the reform bill 
that is now on the House floor.
  Mr. GANSKE. Madam Chairman, before coming to Congress I was a 
physician in Des Moines, IA. My wife is a family physician. My wife has 
helped 13-year-old girls deliver their babies. I have taken care of 15-
years-olds who have gunshot wounds to the head, and 17-year-olds who 
have needle track infections up and down their arms and probably have 
AIDS because of it.
  I took care of 15-year-old young women who would bring their babies 
into my office with a cleft lip, a cleft palate, a hand deformity, and 
there would almost never be a dad there with them. My heart would go 
out to them because they had a hard road ahead of them. It is one thing 
to take care of a little baby who is 2 years old as a single parent. It 
is quite another thing to take care of a 15-year-old boy who has never 
had the advantage of a dad, who gets involved with a gang, and then 
ends up shooting himself or somebody else.
  We have to do something about the illegitimacy problem. In Iowa alone 
there were 9,000 illegitimate births last year. Next to my office, in 
neighborhoods close to where I practiced, there was a 60-percent 
illegitimacy rate in Des Moines, IA. That is why I testified before the 
Committee on Ways and Means in February 1995. I advocated offering 
States an incentive to reduce their illegitimacy rates. Increase their 
block grant if they are successful.
  I am happy that such a proposal was in our reform bill. It was twice 
vetoed by the President, but it is in the current bill. Starting in 
1988, this bill increases a State's grants by 5 percent for lowering 
the illegitimacy rate by 1 percent, and 10 percent for lowering the 
illegitimacy rate by 2 percent below the 1995 level.
  This legislation is needed. We need to give States the incentives to 
address the illegitimacy problem. It is a two-person problem. It is not 
a problem with the young women. That is why in this bill there are 
strong provisions to make the young fathers responsible economically 
for their children. We need to pass this bill.
  Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Madam Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman 
from New Mexico [Mr. Richardson].
  (Mr. RICHARDSON asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
his remarks.)
  Mr. RICHARDSON. Madam Chairman, I would hope that we stop 
personalizing and politicizing this bill. All I seem to hear is 
Democrats, Republicans, do this. I want to talk to Members about 
people. I want to talk to Members about legal immigrants, men and women 
who are here legally, pay their taxes, serve in the military, but are 
taking the biggest hit in all of the bills we are debating today.
  The bill that is the centerpiece of the majority retains very harsh 
and uncompromising language. While we all support the strengthening of 
requirements and the sponsors of legal immigrants applying for either 
SSI, food stamps, or AFDC, the bill bans SSI and food stamps for 
virtually all legal immigrants and imposes a 5-year ban on all other 
Federal programs, including nonemergency Medicaid; imagine that, 
nonemergency Medicaid, for new legal immigrants. These bans would also 
cover legal immigrants who become disabled after entering the country, 
families with children, and current recipients.
  Madam Chairman, .3 million immigrant children, .3 million, are 
affected. That is not right. that is not the traditions of this 
country.

                              {time}  1930

  Madam Chairman, this bill unfairly shifts costs to States with high 
numbers of legal immigrants. The bill requires virtually all Federal, 
State and local benefits programs to verify recipients' citizenship or 
alien status These are new unfunded mandates for State, local, and 
nonprofit service providers and barriers to participation for citizens.
  Again, let us look at the facts. First of all, legal immigrants work 
hard and pay taxes. That has been documented. The foreign-born are more 
likely to work than the native-born, 77 to 74 percent.
  In 1992, Business Week estimates legal immigrants work and earn at 
least $240 billion a year and they pay over $90 billion in taxes.
  Legal immigrants are a net benefit to the economy. A new Urban 
Institute study: For every increase of 100 people in the native 
population, employment grew by 26 jobs; and for every increase of 100 
in the immigrant population, employment grew by 46 jobs.
  Research shows that immigrants actually complement native workers 
rather than substitute for native workers.
  If no Mexican immigration had occurred between 1970 and 1980, 53,000 
production jobs, 12,000 high-paying nonproduction jobs, and 25,000 jobs 
in related industries would have been lost. Again, this is the 
respected, bipartisan Urban Institute.
  Last, welfare among legal immigrants is low. Among nonrefugee 
immigrants of working age who entered during the 1980's, 2 percent 
report welfare incomes versus 3.7 percent of working age natives.
  Nonrefugee immigrants of working age are less prone to welfare use 
than natives according to a CATO study.
  Madam Chairman, all of us here want welfare reform. It is not true 
that these gentleman on this side and others on that side have not 
voted for welfare reform. That is the number one issue among our 
constituents. What we are doing now is targeting illegal and legal 
immigrants indiscriminately. What we are doing is turning the clock 
back to a darker time when people in America, but only certain people 
in

[[Page H7751]]

America, lived and worked under the shadow of second-class status. 
There is no justification for targeting immigrants who do not abuse the 
welfare system, who work hard, who play by the rules, who pay taxes, 
and who serve in the military at America's calling. Most immigrants are 
long-term residents who have lived in this country and have paid taxes 
for 10 years or more. Immigrants do not come to this country to take 
advantage of our welfare system.
  So, Madam Chairman, here we face a number of welfare reform bills, 
substitutes. Let me say that legal immigrants take a hit in all bills. 
So as a Hispanic American whose mother is Mexican and as many in this 
body that have an ethnic background that is not a pure American, I do 
not think there is one native American in this body--there is in the 
Senate--what we have and what we are doing is wrong, it should be 
rejected, and we should stand behind the best traditions of this 
country.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished 
gentleman from Nebraska [Mr. Barrett], chairman of the Subcommittee on 
General Farm Commodities of the Committee on Agriculture.
  Mr. BARRETT of Nebraska. I thank the chairman for yielding this time.
  Madam Chairman, despite having invested more than $1 trillion, the 
Federal Government's 30-year war on poverty has instead created a war 
of poverty. Along with giving States and communities more flexibility 
in designing welfare programs, H.R. 3734 will provide welfare 
recipients with a better coordinated system of child care. The bill 
will provide $4.5 billion more for child care than is currently 
available and it will consolidate 7 separate programs that have often 
left child care providers, and families, confused and without 
assistance.
  The bill is tough on getting welfare recipients back to work but 
without these improvements in child care assistance, welfare families 
may not be able to afford work and pay for child care at the same time.
  Madam Chairman, while the bill provides more funds for child care, it 
will make other needed reforms that should save $53 billion by 2002. I 
would encourage the House to support the bill and help end a way of 
poverty that has permeated our Nation's welfare system for more than 30 
years.
  Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Madam Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the 
gentlewoman from Hawaii [Mrs. Mink].
  Mrs. MINK of Hawaii. Madam Chairman, I thank my colleague from 
California for yielding me this time.
  Madam Chairman, it grieves me to be here this evening to see the end 
of a period of almost 60 years in which this country's beliefs in its 
responsibility to the poor is going to be shattered. I speak of that 
element in our Aid to Dependent Children's program which is referred to 
as the entitlement. It was the safety net, it was the guarantee that 
all children, no matter where they lived, whatever region of this 
country they came from, whatever their ethnic background, that they 
would have the assurance of a Federal program which allowed them the 
eligibility to participate. No political situation, no situation on a 
local level, no Governor, no State could alter that eligibility which 
the Federal Government assured that child.
  What we are debating here is a destruction of that very basic 
guarantee. If we destroy that guarantee, it will be 100 years from now 
before it ever can be restored. It was the genius of this country, as 
in the words of the chair of the Committee on the Budget, to understand 
that it was a sin not to provide for those less fortunate in our 
society that gave birth to this program. What is honored was the 
mothers of this country that found themselves without the necessary 
means to raise their children, and this country rose up to the 
responsibility and provided an entitlement program which said 
``Children everywhere in America, you will have this assurance,'' and 
we are about to break that guarantee by destroying that entitlement and 
putting the money simply into the State coffers without that guarantee. 
It is the destruction of that entitlement that troubles me the most.

  We started on this debate with an effort to try to reform welfare. 
Every single Democrat joined in that when we voted for the Deal bill. 
No one should leave this floor with a belief that Democrats are not 
interested in improving the welfare system, because we all voted for 
it. But now we see a bill coming from the majority which takes about 50 
percent of the cuts in this program from the hides of noncitizens of 
the United States. Is that fair?
  The Chairman of the Committee on the Budget also said that this is a 
victory for everyone in America. It is not a victory for the children 
that will be left out of this program, and it is certainly not a 
victory for legal residents of this country who came to America with 
the promise of liberty and equal treatment, and they are going to find 
themselves now without the protections if they become disabled, without 
the protections if they should become impoverished, as every other 
American. That is what is wrong. This is not welfare reform. It is 
destruction of the basic guarantees of our democracy.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Nevada [Mr. Ensign], a valued member of the Committee on Ways and 
Means.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Madam Chairman, we have to ask ourselves a few questions 
here. First of all, does the current welfare system help children as 
the last speaker talked about? She talked about a safety net. Is the 
current welfare system a safety net or has it become a spider web that 
just absolutely grabs onto people and creates a dependency cycle that 
destroys families? Is the current welfare system compassionate? The 
answers to all of these questions are an obvious no, the current 
welfare system is not compassionate and it does destroy families.
  What effect has our welfare system has on out-of-wedlock births? What 
effect has it had on crime rates? What effect has it had on the work 
ethic in America? Our bill gets people off welfare and into work. That 
is true compassion.
  Our bill does stop noncitizens from receiving welfare benefits. I am 
sorry. I believe that welfare benefits should only be reserved for 
citizens of the United States. It is currently law in the United States 
that if you are a noncitizen that comes here and you go on the 
Government dole, that is grounds for deportation, has been the law, at 
least during this century. That is grounds for deportation here. We are 
an opportunity society. We want to attract people from around the world 
to come here to better their own lives and to better this country at 
the same time.
  My mom when my parents were divorced when I was about 3 years of age 
would have made more money going on welfare because she had no child 
support. She had three kids to raise. But I saw my mom each and every 
single day get up and go to work, and that taught me a work ethic that 
we are robbing from welfare families today. The children of welfare 
families are losing that. That is not compassion. We want to be an 
opportunity society that takes people and provides them opportunities.
  Our bill provides money for child care, $2 billion more than the 
President, and also transitional health care for children in the time 
that these welfare moms and welfare families are getting off of welfare 
and into work.
  Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Madam Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to 
the gentleman from California [Mr. Becerra]
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from California is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. BECERRA. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman from California 
for yielding me this time.
  Madam Chairman, let me begin by first thanking many of my colleagues 
and the folks within my own leadership in the Democratic caucus of the 
House for the time and effort that has been spent with many of us who 
have had concerns about welfare and meaningful reform of welfare. I 
want to thank those who took the time to hear us out. Unlike some of 
the folks on the other side of the aisle, there has been a great deal 
of effort on the part of our leadership and many of the members of our 
caucus, from both sides of the spectrum, to try to address issues of 
grave concern to us all.
  As President Clinton has said, the current welfare system is broken 
and must be replaced. This is true for the sake of the people who are 
trapped by it as well as for the taxpayers who pay for it.

[[Page H7752]]

  But when we began to consider reforming welfare, discussions centered 
on providing sufficient child care to enable recipients to leave 
welfare for work, on rewarding States for placing people in jobs, on 
restoring the guarantee of health coverage for poor families, on 
requiring States to maintain their stake in moving people from welfare 
to work, and on protecting States and families in the event of economic 
recession and population growth. But this House bill has failed 
miserably in achieving these goals.
  Instead, it relies on catchy slogans and soundbites of setting time 
limits so you are off if you do not make it, if you do not cut it. We 
block grant in this bill, give you a lump sum of money which looks good 
but never is enough to cover your needs in the States. And we talk 
about, as we have heard some of the Members on the other side of the 
aisle say, the noncitizen alien, and they use as graphic a term as they 
can to try to describe these human beings who are in this country, one, 
legally; are in this country, two, paying taxes; are in this country, 
three, willing and ready and obligated to serve in time of war, as many 
have, and are prepared to die, as many have, for this country even 
though they have yet not become U.S. citizens.
  The effect of this bill, well, it is weak on work. They force people 
off of welfare, but they do not help them get into work. It will shove 
more children into poverty, and we know that from many of the studies, 
and everyone across the board says that.
  Let me focus finally for the rest of my time on this one last issue: 
The hidden tax that you do not hear many people talk about. There is a 
tax in this bill. Let us go ahead and disclose it now.

                              {time}  1945

  Thirty billion dollars of the so-called savings that amount to $60 
billion comes from a particular population of people, not because they 
are lazy and do not work, not because they have come into this country 
without documents. These are folks who happen to be immigrants; they 
haven't yet reached the stage of becoming citizens. But this population 
of legal residents in this country who are entitled to be here because 
this country has granted them permission has now been told you are 
going to pay a tax of about $2,000 per person, about $30 billion is 
being extracted from the hides of people who are entitled to be here, 
who are working and paying taxes.
  Why? Well, they do not vote. They do not have a say in this place and 
chances are they are not going to contribute money to the coffers, 
campaign coffers of people who are hitting them. So there is no stake 
here or negative stake here in going after the legal immigrant.
  So what we see is that these individuals are being told, and their 
children are being told, no, you have worked 5 years, 10 years, 15 
years and now all of a sudden you have been hit by a car and you need 
some assistance with the medical bills because you cannot pay them all 
yourself, sorry. You happen to not yet have become a citizen, even 
though you have worked here for quite some time and paid taxes, and 
that hidden tax will cost those individuals about $2,000 per person, 
and if you exclude children, it is a much heavier hit for the adults.
  More than 200 years ago we had some folks toss some tea over a harbor 
because of the issue of taxation without representation, yet we see it 
being done here today but in a very concealed way.
  Finally, let me close by saying the following things: For some reason 
this Congress this session has decided it wants to hit my family in 
virtually everything I have to come up here to discuss, and in 
committee as well. It seems that I am having to defend my parents or my 
relatives. My parents who migrated to Sacramento, CA, would face many 
of the situations that are in this bill that would deny them services, 
even though my parents have worked hard in this country for decades. I 
am not sure why I have to constantly try to explain to my father that 
the Congress of the United States and this noble country is out to get 
them. They are fortunately now citizens, so they will not be impacted. 
But isn't it ironic just because they happen to have that day been able 
to become citizens things have changed?
  It is a hidden tax. It is an unfair tax and that must change. We need 
meaningful reform. Let's change welfare as we know it, as the President 
said, but let us do it in a way that includes all Americans.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Madam Chairman, I think it is obvious that we all know that welfare 
reform is a front-burner topic, not only on this floor in this town, 
but certainly all throughout the Nation, and the American people want 
change.
  I think the House of Representatives has responded to the American 
public. I believe that real welfare reform is represented in the bill 
that is being considered today. This bill represents real change.
  I want to congratulate the members on the Committee on Agriculture 
and all Members who have worked so diligently on reforming the Food 
Stamp Program. That is the part of welfare reform for which the 
Committee on Agriculture is responsible. The very first hearing held by 
me and my Republican majority in the committee was on enforcement in 
the Food Stamp Program, and following that hearing, the chairman of the 
subcommittee, our late and beloved colleague, Mr. Bill Emerson, held 
four hearings on the Food Stamp Program. Bill was an expert in regard 
to the Food Stamp Program.
  From the testimony received in these hearings, the committee 
formulated the principles that really guided our reform. The bill being 
debated today simply reflects those principles.
  First, keep the Food Stamp Program, that was a tough fight, as a 
safety sunset so that food can be provided as a basic need while States 
are undergoing the transition to State-designated welfare programs.
  Second, second principle, to harmonize welfare and the Food Stamp 
Program for families receiving benefits from both programs, not on a 
separate track. We streamlined that.
  Third, take the Food Stamp Program off of automatic pilot. Started 
out 12 years ago at about $12 billion, went up to $27 billion and was 
ever increasing.
  Fourth, able-bodied participants, able-bodied participants without 
dependents must work in private sector jobs.
  Lastly, tighten controls on waste and abuse. Out of the $27 billion 
in the Food Stamp Program, estimated by the new Inspector General at 
the Department of Agriculture, anywhere from $3 billion to $5 billion 
is now going to fraud and abuse. So we are tightening those controls, 
and we curb the trafficking with increased penalties.
  Now that is real reform. It is essentially the same bill that was 
approved by the House on December 21, last year, by a vote of 245 to 
178. One significant exception, the food stamp funding cap is 
eliminated.
  Now, that cap was eliminated as a concession to and at the request of 
the National Governors' Association, the Clinton administration, and 
the Secretary of Agriculture. We sat down and we worked with all of 
these folks. Food stamp reforms still include measures to control the 
cost of the Food Stamp Program, however.
  The bill represents sound policy. The program is retained as a 
Federal safety net. States are allowed to harmonize their AFDC and Food 
Stamp programs. As I indicated, the food stamps are taken off of 
automatic pilot, except for the annual food benefit increases; able-
bodied persons without dependents must work; and there are increased 
penalties for trafficking and fraud.
  It is a good package. Through the reforms in this bill, the committee 
will meet its target under the 1997 budget resolution. But, first and 
foremost, we reform the program.

  Last April, the Clinton administration submitted its welfare reform 
bill. There are many similarities between the two bills, since we 
adopted many of the USDA proposals and they in turn adopted many of 
ours. A review indicates that 55 percent of the provisions are 
identical; 72 percent are either identical or very similar--72 percent 
in agreement with the USDA and the Clinton administration. We worked 
hard to do that.
  There are some differences. We take the Food Stamp Program off of 
automatic pilot for all but annual food increases. If needed, we can 
come back in; we can appropriate the funds, and the administration bill 
does not.

[[Page H7753]]

  We have a strong work requirement. We expect able-bodies persons, no 
dependents, between the ages of 18 and 50 to work or be in a training 
program after 4 months of food stamp benefits. The administration's 
work requirement, as far as I am concerned, is very weak. We allow 
States to operate work supplementation programs and the administration 
does not.
  This program now provides benefits to an average of 27 million people 
each month at an annual cost of more than $26 billion. Everybody should 
agree that for the most part these benefits go to families in need of 
help and are used to buy food. There is no question in my mind that the 
Food Stamp Program helps poor people and those who have temporary 
fallen on hard times. However, there is also no question in my mind 
that the program is in need of real reform.
  As I have indicated, this bill reflects the principle that the Food 
Stamp Program should remain a Federal program. States will be 
undergoing a transition to State-designed welfare programs. During this 
period, this Food Stamp Program will remain as a safety net and be able 
to provide food as a basic need. The program will remain at the Federal 
level and equal access to food for every American in need is still 
ensured.
  Now, I mentioned we had taken the program off of automatic pilot 
except for the annual increases. The food stamp deductions are kept at 
the current levels instead of being adjusted automatically. Food stamp 
benefits will increase to reflect the increases in the cost of food. 
Food stamp spending will no longer grow out of control. Out of control: 
1984, $12.4 billion, 232.4 million people participating; 1996, $26.4 
billion, 27.5. Under this bill, 1997, $26 billion; by the year 2002, 
$30.4 billion. It increases, does not decrease.

  It is a transition, but we stop that annual growth increase. If the 
economy goes down, food stamps went up. If the economy went up, food 
stamp spending went up and the participants went up.
  The food stamp deductions, as I have indicated, are kept at the 
current levels, and as I have indicated, the spending will certainly no 
longer grow out of control. Oversight from the Committee on Agriculture 
is essential so that when reforms are needed, why, the committee will 
act.
  I want to talk about the strong work program. Again, able-bodied 
persons between the ages of 18 and 50 years, no dependents, will be 
able to receive food stamps for 4 months. Eligibility will cease at the 
end of this period if they are not working at least 20 hours per week 
in a regular job. The rule will not apply to those who are in training 
programs such as approved by a Governor of a State.
  A State may request a waiver of these rules if the unemployment rates 
are high or there is a lack of jobs in the area. Please remember that. 
We are not heartless. We just expect able-bodied people between 18 and 
50 who have no one relying upon them to work at least half the time if 
they want to continue to receive the food stamps.
  It is essential to begin to restore integrity to the program. 
Incidences of fraud and abuse and losses are steadily increasing. The 
public has lost confidence in the program. There are frequent reports 
in the press and on national television in regard to abuse. We held the 
hearing in the House Committee on Agriculture. The Inspector General of 
the Department, the new Inspector General, Roger Viadero, came down 
from the Department, showed on television the massive fraud in many 
food centers that were not food centers, they were trafficking centers 
for organized crime.
  Abuse of the program usually occurs in three ways: Fraudulent receipt 
of benefits by recipients; street trafficking in food stamps by 
recipients; and trafficking offenses made by retail and wholesale 
grocers. We double the disqualification periods for food stamp 
participants who intentionally defraud the program. First offense, the 
period is changed to 1 year. Second offense, the disqualification 
period is changed to 2 years. And then if you are convicted of 
trafficking food stamps with a value over $500, adios, you are 
permanently disqualified.

  As I have indicated, the trafficking by unethical wholesale and 
retail food stores is a serious problem, had it on tape, national 
television, sickened the American public, not fair to the recipient, 
not fair to the taxpayer. Also, benefits Congress appropriates for 
needy families are going to others who are making money from the 
program. Therefore, the bill limits the authorization period for stores 
and provides the Secretary of Agriculture with other means to ensure 
that only those stores abiding by the rules are authorized to accept 
food stamps. It is amazing that that was not changed before.
  Finally, the bill includes a provision that all property used to 
traffic in food stamps and the proceeds traceable to any property used 
to traffic in food stamps will be subject to criminal forfeiture. They 
have to give it up.
  This bill and the Committee on Agriculture's contribution to the 
bill, I think, represents good policy. We have kept the Food Stamp 
Program as a safety net for families in need of food. We have taken the 
program off of automatic pilot. We save $23 billion. Congress is back 
in control of spending on food stamps. States are provided with an 
option to harmonize food stamps with their new AFDC programs. We take 
steps to restore integrity to the Food Stamp Program by giving law 
enforcement and the Department additional means to curtail fraud and 
abuse. We encourage and facilitate the EBT programs. We begin a strong 
work program, again, so that able-bodied people, no dependents, between 
the ages of 18 and 50 years can receive food stamps for a limited 
amount of time without working.
  This represents good food stamp policy and reform. I hope all Members 
will agree with me and support this bill.
  Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SABO. Madam Chairman, how much time remains on both sides?
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Sabo] has 30 minutes 
remaining, and the gentleman from Kansas [Mr. Roberts] has 2\1/4\ 
minutes remaining.
  Mr. SABO. Madam Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute and 30 seconds.
  Madam Chairman, as a State legislator in the 1970's, I regularly came 
to Washington to participate in meetings on welfare reform. It is 
something we have understood that needed to be done for many, many 
years, but there is a right way to do it and there is a wrong way to do 
it. Unfortunately, the majority Republican plan is one that does it the 
wrong way. It is weak on work and it punishes children.
  Tomorrow we will have an opportunity to vote for a better 
alternative. The Castle-Tanner substitute, a genuine effort by some 
Democrats to work with some Members of the Republican side to develop a 
truly bipartisan plan. It is a plan that is fairer to children, tougher 
in requiring people to go to work, understands the diversity of this 
country, requires States to maintain their efforts, rather than 
allowing the States to pull billions of dollars out of the program, as 
the Republican plan does.
  Madam Chairman, this country would be well-served if tomorrow a 
majority of this House in a bipartisan fashion would vote for the 
bipartisan substitute amendment that is going to be offered.

                              {time}  2000

  Mr. SABO. Madam Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed 
to yield the remainder of my time to the gentleman from Texas, Mr. 
Stenholm, and that Mr. Stenholm have authority to yield to other 
Members.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Greene of Utah). Is there objection to 
the request of the gentleman from Texas?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Madam Chairman, it has been stated numerous times already tonight 
that the House now has a historic opportunity to move toward enactment 
of meaningful welfare reform legislation, discouraging the cycle of 
dependency and moving welfare recipients into work. I could not agree 
more. But I believe the legislation I am supporting is the best way for 
the House to realize that opportunity.
  There is a bipartisan welfare reform alternative that can be 
supported by a strong majority of members on both sides of the aisle 
and can be signed into law. That's how historic opportunities are 
realized.

[[Page H7754]]

  My objections to the Majority bill come down to two simple concerns: 
I believe their proposal is weak on work and tough on kids. In my book, 
that's a bad equation that is fixed by the Castle-Tanner substitute.
  This substitute achieves $53 billion in savings in welfare programs 
as required by the Majority-approved budget, while protecting children 
and providing States with the resources that CBO says they need to put 
welfare recipients to work.
  Let me repeat. CBO says they need. How many times have we in this 
body heard unfunded Federal mandates. I would ask my friends on the 
other side of the aisle to take a good hard look at their language 
because CBO says it falls short regarding the very States we are 
attempting to work with. In fact, the Castle-Tanner substitute is the 
only proposal that has real work requirements that the Congressional 
Budget Office says States will be able to implement to move welfare 
recipients to work.
  Madam Chairman, over the last two years, I have solicited the views 
of welfare providers, recipients, and local citizens in my district on 
what Congress should do to allow local communities to implement 
effective welfare reform. The citizens in my district expressed a very 
strong desire for local flexibility and adequate funding to design a 
workable welfare delivery system that would more efficiently and 
effectively move welfare recipients from welfare to work.
  I am proud of the work performed by my constituents. They invested 
their time and energy, they engaged in dialogue with individuals of a 
different perspective, they developed common goals, and they promoted 
concrete suggestions for improvements. They did the work I asked of 
them and now it's my turn to do my part here in Washington. That is 
precisely how I ended up one of the strongest supporters of the Castle-
Tanner substitute. It is the only welfare reform alternative that 
provides local communities with the support they need to move welfare 
recipients to work.
  The welfare reform bill proposed by the majority falls well short of 
giving state and local governments that flexibility or the resources 
they need to implement welfare reform proposals. The National Governors 
Association adopted a resolution yesterday expressing ``concerns about 
restrictions on states flexibility and unfunded costs'' in the work 
requirements of H.R. 3734.'' That is the Governors' Association. The 
Republican bill rejects the NGA recommendations for state flexibility 
in developing work programs appropriate for local communities and does 
not provide any additional funds for states to meet the increased work 
requirements.
  CBO has estimated that the Republican bill would fall $12.9 billion 
short of the funding for work programs necessary to meet the work 
requirements in the bill, and $800 million short of the costs of 
providing child care assistance to individuals required to work. The 
CBO report accompanying the Republican bill states:

       CBO * * * concludes that most states would fail to meet 
     these [work] requirements * * * most states would simply 
     accept the penalties rather than implement the requirements.

  That is CBO. The same CBO we talk about day in and days out that we 
need to pay attention to. The Castle-Tanner substitute ensures that 
states would be able to meet the work requirements in the bill by 
providing $3 billion in additional mandatory funds that states can 
access in order to meet the costs of moving welfare recipients to work. 
In addition, Castle-Tanner adopts the recommendations of the National 
Governors Association regarding state flexibility in meeting work 
requirements.
  Rhetoric about tough work requirements is either an empty promise or 
the greatest unfunded mandate Congress ever imposed if it is not 
backed up with funding for states and local governments to meet the 
work requirements. Welfare reform will fail to meet the goal of ending 
the cycle of dependency and moving welfare recipients to work if states 
do not have sufficient resources to operate work programs. As the CBO 
report makes abundantly clear, the work requirements in H.R. 3734 are 
illusory because states will not be able to implement them. If you 
support breaking the cycle of dependency and actually moving welfare 
recipients into work instead of just talking about it, vote for the 
Castle-Tanner substitute.

  The Castle-Tanner substitute proves that it is possible to 
dramatically reform the welfare system in this country without harming 
children, while still achieving substantial budgetary savings.
  As we said, we do have an historic opportunity to reform our failed 
welfare system. We cannot afford to waste this opportunity. The House 
can take a tremendous step toward ending the political gridlock and 
finding a bipartisan solution to the problems of our welfare system by 
passing the Castle-Tanner bill tomorrow. I urge my colleagues to vote 
for the bipartisan Castle-Tanner substitute.
  Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from 
Florida [Mrs. Fowler].
  (Mrs. FOWLER asked and was given permission to revise and extend her 
remarks.)
  Mrs. FOWLER. Madam Chairman, I have a few questions for the defenders 
of the present welfare system.
  Is there compassion in a system run by Washington bureaucrats?
  Is there compassion in a system that encourages illegitimacy and 
undermines traditional values like work and family?
  Is it compassionate for generation after generation to be trapped in 
dependency and despair?
  The answer is: No. Compassion is not measured by dollar signs. For 
thirty years, we have poured trillions of dollars into a system that 
does not work. It destroys families: devastates women; and crushes the 
hopes and dreams of children. There is nothing compassionate about our 
current welfare system.
  The bill we are considering today replaces Washington bureaucrats 
with caring social workers at the State and local level. It gives 
States flexibility to develop their own solutions for helping the 
needy. It provides child care for welfare mothers who want to work. It 
rewards work while retaining a safety net for those who fall on hard 
times, and it provides for comprehensive child support enforcement.
  I strongly encourage my colleagues to support this measure, because I 
believe it will save lives, restore hope, and help those who want to 
experience the American dream.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Madam Chairman, I yield the remainder of my time to the 
gentlewoman from Kansas [Mrs. Meyers], the distinguished chairman of 
the Committee on Small Business, the original author of welfare reform, 
and I ask unanimous consent that she be authorized to yield additional 
time to other Members.
  Mr. CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Kansas?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Virginia [Mr. Payne].
  Mr. PAYNE of Virginia. Madam Chairman, I thank my colleague from 
Texas for yielding me this time.
  Madam Chairman, Republicans and Democrats all agree that the current 
welfare system does not work. Instead of requiring work, it punishes 
those who go to work; instead of instilling personal responsibility, it 
encourages dependence on the Government; and instead of encouraging 
marriage and family stability, it penalizes two-parent families and 
rewards teenage pregnancies. We all agree that welfare must be 
dramatically reformed, and that welfare should only offer transitional 
assistance leading to work, not a way of life. Real welfare reform must 
be about replacing a welfare check with a paycheck. Tomorrow we will 
have two choices before us, the Republican welfare bill, and the 
Castle-Tanner bipartisan substitute. The bipartisan bill is the bill 
that will ensure that welfare reform really works.
  The bipartisan bill gets people into the workforce as quickly as 
possible, while providing money for work requirements to be effective. 
It includes the provisions that are necessary to make transition to 
work a reality and not just rhetoric. The Castle-Tanner bipartisan bill 
provides $3 billion in supplemental funds for states to meet

[[Page H7755]]

the costs of work programs for welfare recipients. This is money in the 
bank, not just an authorization backed by a hope that someday we might 
actually find this money.
  The bipartisan bill requires individual responsibility, by requiring 
welfare recipients to sign a contract with their State which outlines 
the individual's responsibility to move to private sector employment.
  The Castle-Tanner bill requires community responsibility as well, by 
requiring the States to certify that local governments have been 
involved in developing the State plan, and that no unfunded mandates to 
local government will result from its implementation.
  The Castle-Tanner bipartisan bill provides real welfare reform that 
really works. I urge my colleagues to support it tomorrow.
  Mrs. MEYERS of Kansas. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I 
may consume.
  Madam Chairman, I rise in strong support of this legislation to 
reform welfare. Let me talk for a minute about what this bill is based 
on and why I think it takes us in the right direction to achieve really 
meaningful welfare reform.
  First of all, we need to admit that Washington does not have all the 
answers. We have tried that. During most of the 30 years the answer to 
every problem and the meaning of every reform by Congress was to create 
another Federal program and today we have literally hundreds of Federal 
programs intended to help people of limited incomes with separate 
regulations, separate applications, separate eligibility rules, and 
separate reporting.
  In this bill we return power and flexibility to the States to create 
welfare systems that work best in their States. What works best in 
Kansas will not be identical to what works best in New York. This bill 
recognizes that. At the same time as we give States flexibility, we 
hold them accountable in the two most important areas for reducing 
welfare dependency, increasing work and reducing out-of-wedlock births.
  Let me just say that some people have tried to claim that our 
emphasis on reducing out-of-wedlock births puts the blame only on the 
mothers. That is not true.
  This bill has very strong paternity establishment and child support 
enforcement provisions, provisions that are long overdue. Fathers must 
and will be held accountable. But it is also true that we must stop 
sending conflicting signals.
  I have met in my district with young women on welfare. We are not 
serving these young women well. We say that they should stay in school 
and not have a child until they are married and have a degree. Then we 
turn around and offer them money if they do exactly the opposite. We 
all know which part of that message a lot of young women hear.
  I am pleased that in this bill reducing out-of-wedlock births is 
recognized as an important and essential part of reducing welfare 
dependence. I am pleased that the Subcommittee on Procurement, Exports, 
and Business Opportunities has helped to craft the very strong work 
requirements in this bill, and I hope that we do not hear any claim in 
this debate that this bill is weak on work. Any such claim is simply 
untrue.
  The bill calls for more people in work than any other proposal that 
has been offered this year, including the President's, and under this 
bill the emphasis is on real work. It is clear from experience and 
studies that the best way to move from dependence to independence 
through work is to get work experience, a real job, and that is the 
emphasis of this bill.
  I am also pleased that the Subcommittee on Procurement, Exports, and 
Business Opportunities portion of the bill makes major critical reforms 
in Federal support for child care. We address the current maze of child 
care programs. We have multiple child care programs and each one has 
its own eligibility rules. Under this bill there would be a single 
child care program so that our expenditures for child care can be an 
important help rather than an obstacle to independence from welfare.
  We increase the amount of money for child care. That is the second 
false claim I hope we do not hear in this debate, that the bill is 
short on child care. We have $4.5 billion more than the current law and 
almost $2 billion more in guaranteed money for child care than does the 
President's plan.

                              {time}  2015

  So I hope we do not hear any claims from the other side that the bill 
is short on child care. Let me talk about two other parts of the bill 
that were reported by the Committee on Economic and Educational 
Opportunities. One is the child protection block grant. Child abuse is 
a terrible problem in this country. Despite the fact that there have 
been a lot of programs set up at the Federal level, our efforts at 
preventing child abuse have not been very effective in large part 
because it is made up of numerous small disparate single-purpose grant 
programs. The bill consolidates six of those programs into a block 
grant with increased funding.
  In addition, instead of keeping most of the money in Washington, the 
bill sends most of the money to the States, which, of course, are the 
ones who actually deal with the problems of broken families and broken 
homes.
  Finally, let me address the child nutrition area. We make no changes 
in reimbursements for school lunches or breakfasts. Our bill saves 
money in the child nutrition area, primarily by means testing the 
family day care food program. This is currently the only child 
nutrition program which is not income tested, meaning that we currently 
pay the same full subsidy to buy lunches and breakfasts for children of 
millionaires as we do for the children of the poorest families. This is 
long overdue reform that is included in this legislation.

  Madam Chairman, no issue is more important for us to address than is 
welfare reform. That is why we are determined to give the American 
people welfare reform despite President Clinton's vetoes of our earlier 
bills. He has no more excuses to oppose welfare reform. I urge my 
colleagues to support this legislation, and I urge the President to 
sign welfare reform so that we can at long last begin to fill a well-
intentioned but too often destructive system.
  Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Madam Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Maryland [Mr. Wynn].
  Mr. WYNN. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Texas for 
yielding me the time.
  I agree, the current welfare system does not work. It should be 
changed. As a result of the current welfare system, its recipients have 
lost self-respect. We have a created a system of dependency and put 
welfare recipients outside the mainstream of American society. If all 
we were talking about was putting able-bodies people to work and 
solving food stamp fraud, we would not have much of a debate.
  The fact is today that the Republican bill is seriously flawed. It 
lacks compassion. It hurts children. And it reflects a continued 
pattern of extremism.
  Let us talk about the children. Children are going to be harmed by 
this bill because it makes no provision for the reality that, when 
benefits run out or their parents are put out of the program, these 
children still have to eat. There are no vouchers. I am here today to 
support the Tanner-Castle alternative because I believe it does contain 
compassion in that it provides for these circumstances by requiring 
States to offer vouchers when benefits run out so that children are not 
harmed.
  Let me be blunt. I do not believe we should target legal immigrants, 
but I am pressed with the Tanner-Castle bill, Tanner-Castle amendment, 
excuse me, because it addresses the concerns of immigrant children. 
Under the Republican plan, 300,000 immigrant children will be hurt. 
They will starve because they will be denied food assistance. This 
problem is corrected under the Tanner-Castle alternative. Those 
children will be able to get food assistance under that program. 
Disabled immigrant children will also be able to get assistance under 
the Tanner-Castle substitute.
  Also under the Republican plan, 1.2 million women and children will 
lose Medicaid coverage as they transition from welfare to work. This 
problem is also corrected by the Tanner-Castle

[[Page H7756]]

proposal, which extends Medicaid benefits during this transition 
period.
  The Republican plan is flawed on a second count. It provides 
inadequate work programs. There is no support for work, only a lot of 
rhetoric. The CBO, their favorite source, says that the bill is $12 
billion short of what is needed for work requirements. This creates a 
large unfunded mandate, something they also say they abhor because 
States will have to bear the burden. Tanner-Castle again responds to 
this concern by being the only bill that provides additional funds to 
States so that they can implement work requirements. That is why we say 
the Republicans are weak on work.
  The Republicans also are inadequate in child care. Again CBO says 
they are $800 million short of the child care assistance necessary to 
provide for real transition to work.
  The problem is they are not serious about putting people to work. The 
Tanner-Castle substitute on the alternative provides sufficient child 
care assistance, an additional $2 billion for child care assistance to 
ensure that people who want to go to work and have children can do so.
  CBO concludes that under the Republican bill, rather, States would 
fail to meet their work requirements.
  Reject false welfare reform. Adopt a realistic and sound alternative.
  Mrs. MEYERS of Kansas. Madam Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Cunningham].
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Madam Chairman, many have spoken about the 
destruction of the welfare system. I think Republicans and Democrats 
alike can view this as not destruction but the rebirth of a failed 
system. Ninety percent of the American people believe that the current 
system has failed, and we need to work on it.
  Republicans do not have a key on the welfare system plan. We produced 
in the House of Representatives a bipartisan plan. It passed this 
House. In the Senate, Senator Dole worked and passed a bipartisan 
welfare plan. They did that twice, bipartisan. And both times the 
President vetoed it.
  Then the Governors of this great country all got together. They said 
that if Congress cannot do it, let us have the Governors, that have got 
the direct responsibility in their States to take care of it, produce a 
plan. And they did so. In a bipartisan manner, Republican and Democrat 
Governors worked together, produced a plan and the President would 
still not sign that plan. Even today, the Governors are working, again, 
to come up with a plan.
  I would say that I used to teach in Hinsdale. We had three great 
schools: Hinsdale, Evanston, and Newtrier. Just a few miles away there 
are miles and miles of Federal housing. I would say to my colleagues, 
those children do not carry books. They carry guns. Their ideologues 
and their role models are pimps and drug dealers. What chance, what 
opportunity, what portion or even the pursuit of happiness do those 
children have? next to none.
  The pregnancy rate, I rode on an airplane with an African-American. 
And he told me, he said, ``Duke, our neighborhoods used to be proud 
neighborhoods. We had industry next to us. The people had jobs. They 
took pride in those neighborhoods, whether it was Harlem, whether it 
was Chicago, whether it was any of our major great cities.'' The 
welfare system, people started not working. Then what you had was a 
follow-on of generation and generation, where the person did not work 
and did not take the responsibility.
  Pretty soon the businesses started moving out of those communities. 
So I think the biggest welfare reform is reestablishing, like Jack 
Kemp, one idea of the enterprise zones to bring the businesses back 
into the inner cities so that we can have those jobs for people to 
work. We can work on that together. The substitute, there is no reason 
why we cannot come together. I think we have a good bill. But education 
is another one.
  Let me tell my colleagues in California how welfare and education and 
a lot of different things have been hindered. I have almost 800,000 
illegals, K through 12; 800,000. Take just 400,000, half of that. At 
$5,000 a child, that is $2 billion a year. Take 7 years. What we could 
not do with our school systems. I truly believe that education has a 
vital role in keeping people off of welfare. If you do not believe 
that, I think you are on the wrong tree.
  Over half of the children born in Los Angeles are to illegals. Take 
the School Lunch Program that you fight for. My priority is the 
American citizen and the American children. The School Lunch Program at 
half the number we actually have, take two meals, not three at $1.90, 
that is $1.2 million a day for illegals keeping us from welfare reform 
in California.
  We want the State to have the flexibility and we think that this 
reform bill is gentle to children and a rebirth.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Madam Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman 
from North Carolina [Mrs. Clayton].
  Mrs. CLAYTON. Madam Chairman, we have a rare opportunity in this 
Congress, an opportunity to support a bill that is both bipartisan and 
bicameral. We must and we will have welfare reform. The question is, 
how will we have welfare reform?
  But the bill the majority is putting forth, H.R. 3734, does not 
provide the kind of constructive changes found in the Castle-Tanner 
alternative that we will also consider. We need reform that makes a 
difference. We do not need reform that merely is different but makes a 
difference in lives.
  Reform means improving, making better, perfecting. Reform of our 
welfare system should reflect our most basic values: the importance of 
work, the responsibility of parents to care and provide for their 
children, and nurturing the hope of a better life in their communities, 
both for their children and their parents.
  That is why I believe Castle-Tanner is much preferred over H.R. 3734. 
Castle-Tanner gives us real reform and it also gives compassion.
  For example, Castle-Tanner provides real protection for children.
  If a family that has been on welfare for less than 5 years is removed 
by the State, Castle-Tanner requires that the State provide vouchers 
for the needs of the children of that family.
  And, if a family that has been on welfare for more than 5 years is 
removed by the State, Castle-Tanner gives that State the option of also 
providing vouchers for the needs of the children of that family.
  Castle-Tanner protects children.
  If a family loses Medicaid coverage because of a time limit, Castle-
Tanner makes provision for continued Medicaid coverage.
  And, while I believe the immigration provisions of Castle-Tanner need 
to be strengthened, I am encouraged that Castle-Tanner exempts 
immigrant children from food stamp and SSI bans and provides food 
assistance to thousands of immigrant children who would otherwise be 
denied under H.R. 3734.
  In addition, Castle-Tanner makes clear that States must allow for 
appeals, with full due process protections, when individuals are denied 
welfare assistance.
  And, the Secretary of Health and Human Services is given the power to 
enforce the appeal protections.
  Castle-Tanner also protects children who are exposed by block grant 
funding when there is an economic downturn. This is done with the 
establishment of an uncapped contingency fund that States can use when 
there is a national or a severe regional recession.
  More importantly, Castle-Tanner preserves the national food stamp 
safety net and rejects the optional food stamp block grant contained in 
H.R. 3734.
  In addition, Castle-Tanner contains provisions that will give a 
realistic opportunity of welfare participants moving from welfare to 
work.
  Castle-Tanner provides $3 billion in additional and mandatory funding 
that States can make use of in ensuring an effective transition from 
welfare to work.
  And, Castle-Tanner contains sufficient funding for child care, a 
vital component if we truly expect mothers with dependent children to 
be able to go to work without jeopardizing the interests of the child.
  There are many other strong points in Castle-Tanner when compared to 
H.R. 3734, such as the 85 percent mandatory State commitment level 
rather than 75 percent; the requirement that the Secretary of HHS must 
approve State plans, thereby ensuring a single standard; and the 
requirement that State plans do not impose unfunded mandates on local 
governments.

[[Page H7757]]

  Castle-Tanner has support among Democrats and Republicans in the 
House and in the Senate.
  We do need to discontinue our current system of welfare. But, we do 
not need to abandon our children. Castle-Tanner will give us change 
that improves the lives of all Americans, not just change that enriches 
the lives of some. The savings in the Castle-Tanner alternative meet 
the mandate of the budget resolution.
  I urge all of my colleagues to support welfare reform that works, 
welfare reform that protects the children, welfare reform that gives us 
a better system.
  Support Castle-Tanner. It will make a difference.

                              {time}  2030

  Mrs. MEYERS of Kansas. Madam chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Smith].
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Madam Chairman, I thank my friend from Kansas, 
Mrs. Meyers, for yielding this time to me.
  I would like to offer my strong support for H.R. 3734, the Personal 
Responsibility Act. Welfare hurts people. It hurts those who receive it 
by creating a culture of dependency that crimps people's desire to 
benefit themselves and improve their own lives.
  American taxpayers are willing to help those who need it. But we have 
grown increasingly tired of footing the bill for those who will not 
help themselves.
  Perhaps the most fundamental requirement of America's immigration 
policy is that immigrants be self-reliant, not dependent on the 
American taxpayers for support. Since 1882, for over 100 years, those 
who are likely to become public charges or participate in the welfare 
system have been inadmissible to our country. Since 1917 noncitizens 
who become public charges after they enter the United States have, in 
fact, been subject to deportation.
  Many immigrants come to America for economic opportunity. In fact, 
most of them do. However, others come to live off the American 
taxpayer. Noncitizen welfare recipients of supplemental security income 
have increased 580 percent over the last 12 years. When all the major 
welfare programs are added together, studies show that immigrants 
receive $26 billion each year in welfare assistance.
  Now, should not those funds rather be going to needy American 
citizens?
  This bill complements the House immigration reform bill, H.R. 2202, 
which passed the House by a vote of 333 to 87. H.R. 2202 prevents 
illegal aliens from receiving public benefits, enforces the public 
charge exclusion and deportation provisions of current law and 
encourages immigrant sponsors to fulfill their financial obligations.
  It is critical for Congress to send both H.R. 3424 and H.R. 2202 to 
the President this year. The American people are depending on us to 
reform America's welfare and immigration policies.
  President Clinton, after promising to end welfare as we know it, has 
twice this year vetoed proposals to do just that. Let us hope the 
administration will finally keep its promise to the American people and 
sign this bill.
  Mrs. MEYERS of Kansas. Madam Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the 
gentleman from Delaware [Mr. Castle].
  Mr. CASTLE. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman from Kansas for 
yielding this time to me, and I thank those that said nice things about 
the bill I presented, I have sponsored with the distinguished gentleman 
from Tennessee [Mr. Tanner], and I support both the Castle-Tanner 
proposal and the Republican welfare reform proposals, and I will speak 
probably of the Castle-Tanner more tomorrow.
  But I would like to share with my colleagues my strong beliefs in the 
need to improve welfare, but also what I believe is tremendous hope and 
opportunity for people in America.
  Now, I learned this from practical experience. When I was fortunate 
enough to be Governor of Delaware, I worked with the Governor of 
Arkansas at that time in 1988 with the Governors, heading up a group to 
work on welfare reform, and that was Bill Clinton, and from that came 
the Family Support Act. And I got into it, jumped in with both feet, 
and I said we are going to do this in Delaware, and we did something 
not many States had done at that time. We wrote letters to people in 
which we said, ``If you're going to continue to receive welfare, you're 
going to have to come to our classes,'' and I shuddered a little bit at 
some of those reactions, and I went to the first class after about 4 or 
5 weeks. It was 18 women and 1 man, as a matter of fact, and I remember 
it vividly. But I was stunned by the fact that virtually everyone I 
spoke to, I think everyone I spoke to that day, said very positive 
things about the fact that we have given them opportunity. I expected 
them to be very upset and disconcerted by the fact that we had said 
that they would have to work.
  And I found from that and then from going back to graduations and 
then from talking to many of these people who I saw on the street 
thereafter that this truly was opportunity for them. It truly lifted 
their self-esteem, it truly gave them family pride because their kids 
realize that they were given that opportunity, and they could go 
forward.
  And I think it has made a difference in Delaware. About a third of 
the individuals in Delaware have now been able to go to work in some 
way or another.
  I have a letter here today from a lady in Bridgeville, DE, and I am 
not going to read the whole thing. It might seem a little bit self-
serving, but she said: ``In 1992 I found myself on food stamps and 
thrust into your First Step program.'' She did not like it, I guess at 
that time.

       When I graduated from First Step, I found myself on the 
     stage with you at Del Tech, each giving our speech. To me it 
     was perhaps the turning point in my life. Because of your 
     faith in me and in humanity, I found myself enrolled in 
     Delaware State University. I was fortunate to participate in 
     several of the welfare reform panels, and that led to a most 
     wonderful woman who saw my picture in the paper and who was 
     my benefactor for books and school supplies for my college 
     education.

  An unusual story, but a story of an individual who is able to be 
educated and is now out in the workplace and is supporting her family. 
And this has happened on many occasions. It is not going to happen on 
every occasion. But our welfare reform bills, the ones we have before 
us, give that opportunity, and they tell people that they are going to 
go out and they are going to get a job, and I would just tell those who 
are concerned about this being draconian and hardhearted that I think 
it does provide a lot of opportunity.
  On the other hand, these bills are not easy. We are going to change 
welfare. We are going to change it as we know it today. We are going to 
limit benefits for certain able-bodied adults to 2 years of assistance 
without work, and we are going to limit their lifetime benefits to a 
maximum of 5 years. People need to understand there is going to be 
change. But let me just make it clear that in both of these bills about 
20 percent of those people would be accepted.
  There are many other good aspects to it, but I would encourage all of 
us to consider welfare reform. It is in the best interests of this 
country.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Madam Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from 
Tennessee [Mr. Tanner], the other half of the Castle-Tanner team.
  (Mr. TANNER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. TANNER. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Texas, and I 
want to publicly thank the gentleman from Delaware [Mr. Castle]. We 
have worked very had on the so-called Castle-Tanner bill. It is the 
only bipartisan, actually bicameral, bill that we have before the 104th 
Congress. This bill has been introduced specifically and in the same 
wording that we have in our bill in the Senate by Senator Biden and 
Senator Specter.
  I want to compliment the Republicans for moving off of H.R. 4. The 
gentleman from Delaware [Mr. Castle] spoke to that. I am not yet ready 
to make that leap, but I want to commend some movement and some 
willingness to work on the part of the Republican majority, but I want 
to spend most of my time talking about what I think the Castle-Tanner 
bill is a better bill for the country and for the people that are both 
paying for the welfare system and those who are trapped or otherwise a 
part of it tonight. I want to speak more tomorrow about the 
differences, but let me just say this: Any system that we try to do in 
the Castle-Tanner bill is in some respects very

[[Page H7758]]

much like the Republican bill. We are time limited, we give the States 
flexibility, we are interested in work, we require work and so forth, 
as the gentleman from Delaware suggested in his remarks. But there are 
three or four things that we do that we think will make it work better, 
and CBO happens to agree with us.
  We have a stronger maintenance-of-effort factor in the Castle-Tanner 
bill. This is important because welfare reform must truly be, in our 
opinion, a Federal-State partnership, and we do not want to, it seems 
to me, give the States money and they do not match it and make welfare 
more a Federal program than it perhaps already is in the minds of some.
  The other thing we do has to do with children. We restrict the 
transferability of these block grant funds that go to the States so 
that they must be used for child care. After all, if anybody gets 
unintentionally hurt by our best intentioned efforts to reform the 
welfare system and demand that able-bodied adults work, it is going to 
be children who have no other opportunity, who have no other means to 
support themselves than they came into the world and happen to be born 
to what some might consider deadbeat parents. This is our main concern, 
and Castle-Tanner, I think if my colleagues carefully read it, does a 
better job, even though the Republicans are trying to do better, a 
better job of trying to put that safety net in society for people who 
otherwise have no recourse and no opportunity or ability to help 
themselves.
  Another area about the children is in the area of vouchers. The 
Republican bill, unfortunately, prohibits Federal involvement for 
vouchers for children whose parents have been cut off because they 
refuse to work or otherwise are not cooperating, refuses or prohibits 
using Federal money for vouchers after the 5-year cutoff time.
  Now, I understood at the outset that we were trying to give the 
States flexibility, that we were trying to give to the States a block 
grant for them to fashion programs that were better than this one-size-
fits-all Federal program, and so we do that, and yet then we say, 
``But, by the way, you cannot use Federal money to help kids after 5 
years.'' I do not understand the logic of that proposal, but maybe we 
can continue to work on that. I hope so.
  And bottom line: I think we have a historic opportunity in this 104th 
Congress. I think we have an opportunity to change the system so that 
people are, as the gentleman from Delaware said, better off then they 
are now.
  This system is broken, everybody knows it, nobody defends status quo, 
and we are trying to change it. If we could move the Castle-Tanner 
bill, if we could move toward it just a little bit more, I think we 
could get a bill that the President would sign and actually become law. 
That, I think, is the bottom line.
  Let us quit throwing brickbats at each other and trying to threaten 
vetoes or not threatening vetoes or we are going to make this political 
statement, and try to come together as we have tried to do with 16 
Democrats and 16 Republicans to seek an American solution to an 
American problem. I believe that is what our people that sent us here 
would like to see happen, and I think we have a chance to do that if we 
can continue to tweak this thing and work together.
  I believe we have a historic opportunity.
  Mrs. MEYERS of Kansas. Madam Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the 
gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Talent].
  Mr. TALENT. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding this 
time to me, and I want to speak in the same vein as my friend, the last 
speaker, the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Tanner]. I agree with one 
thing he said, certainly that we have a historic opportunity in this 
Congress, disagree with another thing he said, that nobody here is 
defending the existing system. I think that there are a lot of Members 
who quite sincerely are giving ground inch by inch, if at all, fighting 
furiously almost like a covered retreat to try and save as much of the 
system as they can, and I thought it would be useful to take a look at 
the system that we have created in this country over the last 30 years.
  Madam Chairman, in the immediate postwar era, poverty in this country 
was 30 percent. It declined pretty steadily until it reached 15 percent 
in 1965 when the Federal Government declared war on poverty. In the 
last 30 years we have spent $5 trillion on means-tested entitlement 
programs, and the poverty rate is 15 percent.
  Poverty has stayed the same. It is more intractable now, it is more 
ugly now, but it has not gone down. What we have gotten instead is a 6-
fold increase in illegitimacy, an illegitimacy rate of 32 percent 
compared with about 6 to 7 percent in 1965. That is the kind of system 
that we have now and that we need to change.
  As my colleagues know, I could talk about statistics, about what that 
means for kids, about how much more likely they are to go to prison or 
to be on drugs. But I would rather talk about a story, the story of 
Eric Morris, a 5-year-old boy who was raised in a Chicago housing 
project. He was a good boy, had an older brother named Derrick. He 
refused to shoplift for kids who wanted him to steal candy, and so 
these older kids, these 10- and 11-year-old kids, lured him to a room 
in the 14th floor of that public housing project, dangled him out the 
window, and when his brother tried to help him, they fought his brother 
and they dropped him deliberately and killed him. And Eric died.
  Madam Chairman, Eric Morris did not need the system that we have 
given him. He did not need individual employment plans. He did not need 
subsidized day care. He did not need counseling. He did not need all 
the other 78 programs that we are fighting over today.

                              {time}  2045

  He needed a dad. That is what Eric Morse needed. That is what the 
other kids in his housing project needed. What our system has done is 
taken away the dads from these kids and given them government instead. 
Senator Moynihan said 30 years ago that a society that does that asks 
for and gets chaos.
  It is time, and I agree with the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. 
Tanner], to stop fighting, to stop engaging in politics, to stop 
defending this system, to change it, this system that is destroying the 
kids and the families and the neighborhoods of America. That is what 
this bill is designed to do. Let us pass it. Let us send it to the 
President. Let us urge him to sign it. Let us make sure there are no 
more Eric Morses.
  Mrs. VUCANOVICH. Madam Chairman. I yield 2 minutes and 30 seconds to 
the gentleman from Arkansas [Mr. Hutchinson].
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding 
time to me.
  Madam Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Republican welfare 
reform plan. Some on the other side have complained that the work 
requirements contained in the Republican plan are too strong, and the 
States will not be able to meet them. What are those work requirements? 
It would require over a period of years, over the next 6 years, to have 
50 percent of the caseload working. I suggest if we tell the American 
people that those standards are too tough, they will find that 
statement laughable. Most people say, why should it not even be 
tougher? Why only 50 percent?
  One provision in the GOP welfare plan that I think is very good is 
the ability of the Governors to count the net reduction of the caseload 
toward their participation rates. In other words, if a State has 40,000 
on welfare one year and they drop that caseload to 30,000 the next 
year, those 10,000 cases they have reduced on their welfare rolls can 
be counted towards their work participation rate. That is our goal, to 
see a net reduction, to see people permanently leaving the welfare 
rolls.
  One of my concerns about the Castle-Tanner substitute, which I assume 
will be offered tomorrow, is that their approach would gut the idea of 
a net reduction in the caseload. They would allow the Governors to 
count routine caseload turnover toward the work participation rates, so 
any AFDC recipient who obtained work for a period of 6 months after 
leaving the rolls could be counted toward the participation 
requirement.

  This would make the work requirements virtually a sham. There is 
always, there is always a regular turnover in AFDC caseload. Hundreds 
of

[[Page H7759]]

thousands of recipients obtain jobs and leave AFDC every year, and an 
equal number, almost an equal number, enroll on our caseload every 
year.
  By claiming credit for individuals who obtained a job and left AFDC, 
a Governor would automatically meet at least 10 percent of the 
participation requirement without in any way altering the existing 
welfare system. Nearly all States would be able to meet their 
requirements for the first and second years without the least change in 
the status quo.
  I do not believe that is what the American people want. I do not 
believe the American people want a welfare reform system that says it 
is not really reform, it is just more of the status quo when it comes 
to work.
  We have success in the drug war, not when we get people off drugs, 
but when we keep young people from ever getting on drugs. It is the 
same way in welfare reform. The greatest success is not just in 
turnover, getting them off and having them come back on. The greatest 
success in welfare is when we dissuade people from ever getting on 
welfare. That comes from real work requirements.
  The President said: Give me a bill with real work requirements, tough 
work requirements that is good for children, and I will support it. We 
have such a bill. Let us pass this tomorrow. Let us not take a 
substitute.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Madam Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman 
from Florida [Mrs. Thurman].
  Mrs. THURMAN. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Texas for 
yielding me this time.
  Madam Chairman, I honestly believe that tomorrow this is going to be 
one of the most important votes we take in this Congress, and maybe for 
some of us, in our careers. I think welfare changes make no sense if we 
deform, rather than reform, the current system. The only bill this 
House will have the opportunity to debate that actually reforms the 
system is the bipartisan Castle-Tanner bill.
  Reforming welfare means assessing the policy impact of a proposal and 
considering what these changes will mean for real people, like our 
Nation's children. The best way for us to deform the system is to say 
you want to cut $60 billion, and then start cutting the vital programs 
that form our social safety net without any concern for who gets hurt. 
This is the key difference between Castle-Tanner and the majority's 
bill. In the Castle-Tanner bill, we worried about people. We made 
certain that innocent children would not be hurt. The majority worried 
about numbers and only numbers.
  For example, when I raised the issue in the Committee on Agriculture 
about the leadership's freeze on the vehicle allowance for welfare 
recipients, something, by the way, that all States have asked for in 
their waivers, Members from the other side of the aisle seemed 
surprised and somewhat discouraged that this was in the bill. But they 
told me they could not do anything about it, because the freeze helped 
them reach their arbitrary budget target. The ability of welfare 
recipients to actually have transportation to get to work did not 
matter.
  Let me remind many people here there are a lot of places that do not 
have mass transit or buses. What mattered, again, was how much money 
could be saved by ignoring this problem. Similarly, the majority's bill 
retains the excess shelter deduction cap which clearly disadvantages 
families with children who have high utility costs or high rent costs. 
Kicking children out of their homes may save some money, but you cannot 
call it responsible public policy.
  Worst of all, among the food stamp programs in the majority's bill is 
the optional block grant. These poorly funded block grants will force 
children to lose their access to the food necessary to keep them 
healthy and alive. If we had allowed these block grants in 1990, 8.3 
million children would not have received decent nutrition. Castle-
Tanner rejects block grants, but it still retains the same language for 
fraud and abuse.
  The bottom line is not only how much money we save but how many 
people we successfully move from welfare to work. In Castle-Tanner we 
guarantee a strong nutritional safety net for families and children 
while successfully getting people into the job market.
  Madam Chairman, we care about reform and we care about families. By 
the way, we also save $53 billion. Support Castle-Tanner. It is 
responsible welfare reform.
  Mrs. VUCANOVICH. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman 
from New Jersey [Mrs. Roukema].
  (Mrs. ROUKEMA asked and was given permission to revise and extend her 
remarks.)
  Mrs. ROUKEMA. Madam Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 3734, budget 
reconciliation legislation that contains a comprehensive welfare reform 
package.
  Last April, I supported the initial House version of welfare reform 
legislation with some reservations. I was very pleased to see 
subsequently that the conference committee report on H.R. 4 last 
November included many significant improvements from the Senate-passed 
bill, which have properly been retained in the legislation before us 
now.
  There should be no question that we must enact strong welfare reform 
legislation this year. The American people are demanding that we 
restore the notion of ``individual responsibility and self-reliance'' 
to a system that has run amok over the past 20 years.
  Above all else, I want to stress my goal has always been to require 
self-reliance and responsibility, while ensuring that innocent children 
do not go hungry and homeless as a result of any Federal action--this 
bill meets that test, too.
  Block grants can work as long as we establish maintenance of effort 
standards where the safety net and food stamps are protected. Block 
grants must not become a blank check for the Governors while still 
gaining the benefits of flexibility at the State level.
  First, this bill requires welfare recipients to work--a big step in 
the right direction.
  Second, this bill places times limits on welfare benefits--no longer 
will people be allowed to live their lives on welfare.
  Third, this bill keeps the family cap in place, which means that 
mothers on welfare don't get extra cash benefits for having babies.
  In other words, the United States will no longer be the only nation 
in the western world that pays young girls to have babies.
  New Jersey already has this policy in place, and I am pleased to see 
that H.R. 3734 retains this worthwhile reform--I should mention that 
the New Jersey family-cap law was sponsored by a Democratic State 
legislator, and gained strong bi-partisan support and was ultimately 
signed into law by a Democratic Governor.
  Fourth, they bill has a strong and effective child support 
enforcement reform title, which is something that I have worked on here 
in Congress for more than 10 years.
  As I have long maintained, strong child support enforcement reforms 
must be an essential component of any true welfare reform plan, because 
improved child support enforcement is welfare prevention: One of 
primary reasons that so many mothers with children land on welfare 
rolls is that they are not receiving the child support payments they 
are legally and morally owed.
  Failure to pay court-ordered child support is not a victimless crime. 
The children going with these payments are the first victims. But, the 
taxpayers who have to pick up the tab for deadbeat parents evading 
their obligations are the ultimate victims.
  The core of these child support enforcement reforms is the absolute 
requirement for interstate enforcement of child support, because the 
current, State-based system is only as good as its weakest link.
  Specifically, I want to note that the Roukema amendment on license 
revocation, which the House overwhelmingly approved last April, 426 to 
5, has been included in this bill. It requires States to implement a 
license revocation program for deadbeat parents who have driver's 
licenses, professional licenses, occupational licenses, or recreational 
licenses.
  This reform has worked very well in 19 States--the State of Maine, in 
particular, has been a leader--that already have it in place, and if 
license revocation is implemented nationwide I am convinced it will 
work even more successfully.
  Later tonight, I will ask the Rules Committee to include a second 
child support enforcement proposal--a requirement that States enact 
criminal penalties of their own design for willful nonsupport of 
children--as part of the manager's amendment to H.R. 3734. I hope that 
the Rules Committee will do the right thing, and include this tough 
reform in the legislation we will vote on tomorrow.
  Fifth, I believe that the legislation's reforms for nutrition 
programs represents significant progress in maintaining the safety net 
for those in our society who are unable to provide for themselves.
  During both Opportunities Committee markup and floor debate on 
welfare reform last year, I repeatedly attempted to protect the current 
safety net for school lunches so that, during times of recession, when 
more families

[[Page H7760]]

move toward or beyond the poverty level and become eligible to 
participate in the school lunch program, additional money would be 
available to provide nutrition services.
  Thankfully, the Senate saved the House from itself with its decision 
to preserve the current Federal safety net for school lunches, and H.R. 
3734 follows the Senate position on this issue, which I wholeheartedly 
support.
  I have always preferred to see the school lunch program completely 
maintained at the Federal level, and this legislation correctly does 
just that!
  I am also extremely pleased that the welfare reform package before us 
does not block grant nutrition services for WIC, the nutrition program 
serving low-income, postpartum women with children and infants.
  Finally, I am gratified to see that this bill incorporates a ``Rainy 
Day Fund'' for those States that suffer a recession or economic 
downturn.
  Last year, I repeatedly advocated that this kind of provision be 
included in any kind of welfare reform package that contains block 
grants in order to ensure that those who truly depend on our safety net 
programs can continue to rely on them during times of economic 
distress.
  Earlier this spring, the National Governors Association called upon 
the Congress to put $2 billion of funding into the ``Rainy Day Fund'', 
and this legislation meets the goal--I enthusiastically support this 
provision.
  We have been so close to passing meaningful welfare reform for so 
long. Let us today finally move that process forward one more step by 
passing this comprehensive welfare reform bill.
  This is the bill. This is the time. The people of America should not 
have to wait any longer. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting 
this important package.
  Mrs. VUCANOVICH. Madam Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman 
from Florida [Mr. Weldon].
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for 
yielding time to me, and I rise in support of H.R. 3734, the Republican 
welfare reform bill.
  In my opinion, Madam Chairman, our reform bill is a very good start. 
I think further reforms will probably be needed in the future to 
ultimately get the Federal Government out of the business of trying to 
help the poor, because the Federal Government is completely incompetent 
and incapable of helping the poor.
  Indeed, I feel that the current system is almost criminal, and the 
victims are children. That point was very vividly driven home to me 
when I had the opportunity a few years ago to meet a businessman in my 
district who had recently relocated from Oklahoma. I remember him 
describing to me how he had taken part in a program in Oklahoma where 
he went into the inner city in Oklahoma and took part in a program 
where they would read books to these young children ages 5, 6, and 7, 
you can help improve their reading scores. We all know how important 
reading is to overall academic performance.
  He told me a story that totally amazed me. When he first started 
taking part in the program he would frequently ask these kids what they 
wanted to be and what they wanted to do when they grew up. A fairly 
high percentage of them said they wanted to be on welfare and they 
wanted to collect a check.
  Contrary to what most children learn when they are growing up, that 
they want to either become a fireman or a policeman or a mother or a 
daddy and work, these kids had actually learned that they did not want 
to work. It has been said by many people, kids will frequently model 
what you do and not what you say.
  The current system, I think all we need to do is go into our inner 
cities and see what is going on: The high crime rates, the high drug 
abuse rates that are very, very closely linked to our welfare system 
and the high incidence of fatherlessness. I believe that the Federal 
Government is completely incapable of helping these people, contrary to 
all the claims that are made by people on the other side of the aisle.
  My colleague from California made a comment about making sure 
children are alive, well-fed, and healthy. We are certainly making sure 
they are alive in the current system, but we are certainly making sure 
they are not healthy. There is a tremendous spiritual poverty that goes 
with the current system, and I believe our bill, H.R. 3734, which has 
some serious work requirements and seriously tries to address the 
terrible issue of illegitimacy, is a good bill. It is a good start on 
dealing with the welfare disaster that currently exists today.

  I encourage all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support 
the bill, and the President of the United States to do what he said he 
was going to do, and that is sign welfare reform.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Madam Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Madam Chairman, I take this time to make a comment or two regarding 
some of the allegations about some of the statements that have been 
made from this side of the aisle. To the best of my knowledge this 
evening, no one on this side has suggested, by any other standard other 
than CBO or the National Governors Association, that the proposal of 
the majority has some problems with work. We did not make this up. The 
Congressional Budget Office has carefully analyzed their proposal and 
suggests that it is going to come up short regarding the work 
requirements.
  Also, regarding the allegations on child care and children, we are 
not making this up. This is the Congressional Budget Office analysis of 
the proposal that is before us. This is why we say that the bipartisan 
attempt by the gentleman from Delaware [Mr. Castle] and the gentleman 
from Tennessee [Mr. Tanner] to address some of these concerns is worthy 
of serious consideration by both sides of the aisle. I want to make 
that point, Madam Chairman, so the rhetoric of this body does not 
overshadow the facts.
  Madam Chairman, I would make a few other observations. Statements 
have been made by a few this evening about the vetoing of the welfare 
reform bill twice by the President. I think most reasonable citizens of 
the United States, when they look at the original bills that were 
vetoed by the President and compare them with the two bills we will be 
considering tomorrow, they will see the wisdom of those vetoes, because 
I think any fair-minded person on either side of the aisle will see 
that as a result of having to go back to the drawing board and take 
another look at how we might make welfare reform more workable, we will 
see that both proposals are significantly better than the proposal that 
was vetoed twice. That is progress, that is not a subject for 
criticism.

  Madam Chairman, Castle-Tanner, as has been said many times, and I 
think it bears repeating, is bipartisan and bicameral. If we are truly 
serious about getting a bill, which we are, and let me make this 
observation, every single Member of the House of Representatives has 
voted with their name on the board, with a green light, for significant 
welfare reform. We have differences of opinion, and that is to be 
expected in a body of 435 as diverse as we are in the representation of 
the people of the 50 States of the United States.
  But it is not a fair statement to say to anyone that anyone on either 
side of the aisle is not serious about welfare reform, because we are. 
Those of us who support very strongly the Castle-Tanner believe that it 
merits the support, merits the support because it is stronger on work, 
particularly by making certain that the mandate that we place on the 
States under the giving of the flexibility to the States, that we send 
the money with the mandate, rather than saying to the States, ``You do 
it, and by the way, if there is not enough money, that is your 
problem.''

                              {time}  2100

  Clearly my people at home, my constituency have said, ``Please, no 
more unfunded Federal mandates.'' We believe a careful analysis of 
Tanner-Castle will show that it is superior.
  The criticisms that we offer tonight are based on CBO, and that is my 
final comment to make tonight, whether it is talking about work 
funding, child care, who is tough and who is not tough, what works and 
what will not work, the shelter cap, for example, all of the other 
areas. We believe that CBO and their careful analysis should cause most 
Members to support the Castle-Tanner and we hope that that will be the 
verdict tomorrow.
  If we can send that bill to the Senate and the Senate works their 
will and then a conference, there is no doubt in this Member's mind 
that we will have the most significant welfare reform bill that will 
meet the test of what all of our constituents want us to do. The 
current system is broken and it needs

[[Page H7761]]

to be fixed. Castle-Tanner in our opinion does the best job of fixing 
it.
  Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mrs. MEYERS of Kansas. Madam Chairman, I yield myself the balance of 
my time.
  Madam Chairman, I would just like to comment that the work 
requirements in our bill are in fact very tough. States are going to 
have to work harder than they ever have in order to assist welfare 
recipients into work. Work requirements that are not challenging like 
the ones that are currently in place do nothing to really reform this 
system.
  What the gentleman from Texas was referring to in terms of the CBO 
estimates, CBO assumes a 30- to 40-percent reduction in the welfare 
case load under our bill, but they do not factor that in in the cost of 
the work program. That is the discrepancy that I think the gentleman is 
referring to, and I do not understand it either.
  I would like to just close by saying that if we make no changes in 
the way we handle welfare, Madam Chairman, by 2000, just 4 years from 
now, 80 percent of minority children and 40 percent of all children in 
this country are going to be born out of wedlock. That is because of 
Federal programs that were intended to be a help over a difficult spot 
in someone's lives and instead they have become an incentive that 
actually attracts people into the system, it pulls people into the 
system. Of course, with 40 percent of our children born out of wedlock, 
there is a tremendous dollar cost to this country, but more than that 
there is an enormous human cost. These children are born and raised in 
their early years without a father, without much structure in their 
life, sometimes without enough food and clothing. By the time they are 
old enough to go to school, they are already disadvantaged, many of 
them, in terms of their ability to learn and their health.
  I think our bill resolves that problem. It ends the incentive nature 
that welfare has grown to be. I think our welfare programs were started 
with the best of intentions, but when you say to a young woman, if you 
will have two children with no man in the house, we will give you 
$18,000 a year, that is more of an incentive than most of our teenagers 
can resist.
  Our bill has more money for child care, it has more people in real 
work. I urge my colleagues to support the bill.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of H.R. 
3437 the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act. This 
historic welfare reform bill will end welfare as we know it. During the 
past 30 years, taxpayers have spent $5 trillion on failed welfare 
programs. What kind of return have the taxpayers received on their 
investment? The rate of poverty has not decreased at all. Furthermore, 
the average length of stay on welfare is 13 years. Today's illegitimacy 
rate among welfare families is almost 50 percent and crime continues to 
run rampant. Current programs have encouraged dependency, trapped 
people in unsafe housing, and saddled the poor with rules that are 
anti-work and anti-family. Clearly, those trapped in poverty and the 
taxpayers deserve better.
  This bill overhauls our broken welfare system. This plan makes sure 
welfare is not a way of life; stresses work not welfare; stops welfare 
to noncitizens and felons; restores power and flexibility to the 
States; and seeks to half the rise in illegitimacy.
  By imposing a 5-year lifetime limit for collecting AFDC, this bill 
guarantees that welfare is a helping hand, not a lifetime handout. 
Recognizing the need for helping true hardship cases, States would be 
allowed to exempt up to 20 percent of their caseload from the 5-year 
limit. In addition, H.R. 3437 for the first time ever requires able 
bodied welfare recipients to work for their benefits. Those who can 
work must do so within 2 years or lose benefits. States will be 
required to have at least 50 percent of their welfare recipients 
working by 2002. To help families make the transition from welfare to 
work, the legislation provides $4.5 billion more than current law for 
child care to help parents who work.
  Under this bill noncitizens will no longer be eligible for the major 
welfare programs. Felons will not be eligible for welfare benefits and 
State and local jails will be given incentives to report felons who are 
skirting the rules and receiving welfare benefits.
  Our current system has proven that the one-size-fits-all welfare 
system does not work. H.R. 3437 will give more power and flexibility to 
the States by ending the entitlement status of numerous welfare 
programs by block granting the money to the states. No longer will 
States spend countless hours filling out the required bureaucratic 
forms hoping to receive a waiver from Washington to implement their 
welfare program. States will also be rewarded for moving families from 
welfare to work.
  Finally and most importantly, this bill addresses illegitimacy by 
allowing States to limit cash benefits for teen mothers. States will be 
allowed to set family caps that would stop the practice of increasing 
welfare payments for every additional child a recipient has while on 
welfare. States can also stop payment to unmarried teens and make them 
conditional on the mother staying in school and living with an adult. 
This legislation seeks to reverse the increase in illegitimacy by also 
increasing efforts to establish paternity and crack down on deadbeat 
dads.
  The sad state of our current welfare system and the cycles of poverty 
and hopelessness it perpetuates are of great concern to me. I believe 
this bill goes to the heart of reforming the welfare system by 
encouraging and helping individuals in need become responsible for 
themselves and their family. I wholeheartedly support this bill become 
it makes welfare a helping hand in times of trouble, not a handout that 
becomes a way of life. I truly believe that this reform will give 
taxpayers a better return on their investment in helping those in need.
  Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, House Democrats and Republicans, 
Senate Democrats and Republicans, and President Clinton share a common 
goal--all agree that welfare reform is urgently needed. Reform is 
needed not only for the recipients of welfare, who many times are 
trapped in a cycle of poverty from which they cannot escape, but also 
for the American taxpayers who deserve a better return on their 
investment in our future.
  Over the last year, the food stamp provisions in the various welfare 
reform proposals have come to look very much alike. We have reached 
agreement on dozens of provisions. Yet, there continues to be serious 
policy differences on several key issues. We must resolve these 
differences so that we will have real welfare reform that works for 
both low income families and American taxpayers. We want congressional 
passage of a bill that the President will sign.
  Determining food stamp reform in the context of budget reconciliation 
causes us to loose sight of the people the Food Stamp Program is 
intended to serve. We must remember that our goal is to reform welfare 
in order to move people toward self-sufficiency. Reform by itself is a 
hollow word. Reform for reform's sake is meaningless. We aren't OMB, 
CBO, or GAO. We can't work in the vacuum of numbers only. We cannot let 
the bureaucrats with the green eye shades determine what path reform 
will take. We are Members of Congress. It is our responsibility to put 
faces with these numbers. We must interject the human element into the 
process in order to ensure that real need is addressed in welfare 
reform. We must ensure that our children and the aged and disabled are 
not left unprotected. We must remember that a dollar spent now can 
actually result in saving thousands of dollars later, if we help 
produce a future taxpaying citizen.
  We must determine the policy that will move people toward self-
sufficiency. This must be a policy-driven bill, not one that is driven 
by empty, faceless numbers that are wrong as many times as they are 
right.
  Our constituents don't want a handout. They want jobs. They want 
economic development. They want the American dream. These are the 
people we must help. These are the people for whom we must redesign 
these programs to help them achieve their desire of becoming successful 
citizens.
  We are particularly concerned that this bill will jeopardize the 
nutritional status of millions of poor families because of a basic 
misunderstanding of how the program works. The perception is that this 
program is out of control, that hundreds of thousands of families are 
added to the food stamp rolls every month. The reality is something 
very different. Over the last year and a half, as the economy has 
improved, food stamp participation has actually dropped by over 1 
million people. This vital program is clearly filling a very real need. 
If the need isn't there, the program doesn't continue to expand, but if 
the need is there, the program is there to meet it.
  The block grant provisions in H.R. 3734 sets funding at levels well 
below that necessary to feed hungry families in times of recessions or 
if food prices increase. The total loss of food stamp funding to States 
that choose the block grant will be over $2.5 billion. If block grants 
had been chosen by all States in 1990, the Food Stamp Program would 
have served 8.3 million fewer children. Castle-Tanner does not include 
the block grant authority.

  To assure adequate nutrition and the good health of our poor 
families, the calculation of food stamp benefits must take into account 
extremely high housing expenses. H.R. 3734 limits this calculation, 
leaving poor families with children who pay more than half of their 
income for housing with less money to buy food. This provision alone 
will reduce benefits

[[Page H7762]]

to these families by over $4 billion over 6 years, resulting in more 
hungry children. Castle-Tanner does not include this harsh limitation.
  We all want people on welfare to be self-sufficient--they want to be 
self-sufficient. But, the way to help people become self-sufficient is 
not to deny them food stamps after 4 months. Eighty percent of the 
able-bodied recipients between the ages of 18 and 50 receive food 
stamps on a temporary basis already, they leave the program within a 
year. H.R. 3734 will simply kick 700,000 people off the program each 
month, without a helping hand to find a job. What these people need 
most is the opportunity to work--job training, or a job slot. Castle-
Tanner will give them that helping hand if they are unable to find work 
on their own after 6 months.
  The Castle-Tanner alternative achieves significant deficit reduction. 
The food stamp provisions save $20 billion over a 6-year period. The 
majority's bill last year was intended to achieve $16 billion over 7 
years. Castle-Tanner goes well beyond that level of savings, and yet we 
have been accused of not supporting welfare reform.
  The American people are not mean-spirited. They do not want children 
to be poor and hungry. We must remember that we are reforming the 
programs that impact the most vulnerable of our constituents. We must 
remember the faces of the poor and hungry of our Nation.
  Let the record show that the minority strongly supports welfare 
reform, but not at the cost the Nation's poor families and children, 
not at the cost of the Nation's future.
  The CHAIRMAN. All time for general debate has expired.
  Under the previous order of the House of today, the Committee rises.
  Accordingly the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr. 
Hayworth) having assumed the chair, Ms. Greene of Utah, Chairman of the 
Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union, reported that 
that Committee, having had under consideration the bill (H.R. 3734) to 
provide for reconciliation pursuant to section 201(a)(1) of the 
concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 1997, had come to 
no resolution thereon.

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