[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 106 (Thursday, July 18, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8070-S8076]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY, WORK OPPORTUNITY, AND MEDICAID RESTRUCTURING 
                              ACT OF 1996

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate shall now 
proceed to the consideration of S. 1956, which the clerk will report.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 1956) to provide for reconciliation pursuant to 
     section 202(a) of the concurrent resolution on the budget for 
     fiscal year 1997.

  The Senate proceeded to consider the bill.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, we are now ready to go to the reconciliation 
bill. The chairman of the Finance Committee, the Senator from Delaware, 
Mr. Roth, is here, the chairman of the Budget Committee, Mr. Domenici, 
is here, and we have the ranking member, the Senator from Nebraska, Mr. 
Exon, here also. So we are ready to begin the debate.
  I hope we can make progress and reach some agreement on limiting 
time. We need to complete this legislation by noon tomorrow. We have 20 
hours of debate under the rules, plus amendments that could be voted on 
even after that 20 hours. So we have a lot of work to do between now 
and 12 o'clock tomorrow. But if we can continue to cooperate as we have 
been doing this week from both sides of the aisle, I am convinced we 
can do it, and that is what we should do. We have the distinguished 
ranking member of the Finance Committee here, the Senator from New 
York, Mr. Moynihan, here.
  I ask unanimous consent that the time between now and 1 p.m. be 
equally divided for opening statements only and that the majority 
leader be recognized at 1 p.m.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LOTT. I yield the floor, Mr. President.
  Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, first let me say to the distinguished 
majority leader, we will be working together with the Agriculture 
Committee and Finance Committee leadership, and we will try to live up 
to the Senator's desire that we finish this bill by noon tomorrow. I 
want to say, frankly, I do not see why we cannot.
  When the majority leader gets the floor, I assume one of the early 
items of business will be to strike the Medicaid provision. That might 
be debated, but there is an hour limit even on that, and then the bill 
will be a welfare bill.
  I think everybody should know that we have not seen very many 
amendments. Neither has the distinguished chairman of the Finance 
Committee. But this is a reconciliation bill, so it is not so easy to 
put an amendment together that meets the test of an amendment to a 
reconciliation bill. For those who have them, the sooner we can see 
them, the sooner we can analyze them from the standpoint of points of 
order, or we may be helpful in some respects. So that is how I see the 
ensuing time. I thank the majority leader very much.

  Having said that, I want to publicly first thank the two 
distinguished chairmen, the chairman of the Finance Committee, Chairman 
Roth, and the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, Chairman Lugar, 
and the ranking members. These two chairmen and their committees have 
crafted the legislation that meets the spending requirements given in 
the 1997 resolution adopted earlier this spring. Both of these chairmen 
will be here during the consideration of this legislation and will help 
manage amendments that might be offered in their respective parts of 
the bill.
  I also thank Senator Exon, ranking member of the Budget Committee, 
who voted with all the Republicans on the Budget Committee on Tuesday 
to report this bill from our committee to the Senate floor. I am fully 
cognizant of the qualification he attached. That was that in fact the 
Medicaid provisions were going to be stricken. I have, just once again, 
to the best of my ability indicated we are pursuing that. The Senate 
will have to vote nonetheless, and the Senate will make that 
determination. I assume it will be almost unanimous that we do that; 
perhaps not unanimous, but overwhelming.
  Mr. EXON. If I may speak there for just moment?
  Mr. DOMENICI. Certainly.
  Mr. EXON. I thank my friend for his kind remarks. I think it is 
important we move this matter along. I would like to add my plea to 
those on this side and those on the other side as well, to please give 
us the amendments that you have in mind as early as possible, hopefully 
maybe before noon. If we can get a list of the serious amendments that 
are going to be offered, then we are going to be in a better position, 
not only to fashion this bill that may eventually receive a substantial 
number of votes if some amendments can be agreed to, but also expedite 
the process. So I pledge my cooperation to every extent I can to the 
chairman of my committee, the chairman of the Finance Committee, and 
the ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee. I think the four of us 
working together with our usual understanding and cooperation can move 
this matter along. That is my desire.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I thank my colleague.
  Finally, I want to thank our former colleague and former Republican 
leader of the Senate, Senator Dole, who tried not once, not even twice, 
but three times in this Congress to get welfare reform enacted. I 
believe his leadership will be felt even in his absence from the 
Chamber today, as this legislation moves forward and, hopefully, this 
time secures the signature of the President of the United States after 
these earlier vetoes by the President of the United States.
  First, for those who may be watching this process, let me briefly 
explain what we are about to do today. After the President vetoed the 
Balanced Budget Act of 1995 last winter, and after the failure to find 
common ground on a plan to achieve balance in our budget, the process 
moved on and Congress again put together another budget blueprint that 
achieved balance in 2002. The blueprint, known as Concurrent Resolution 
on the Budget for Fiscal Year 1997, was adopted early in June. The 
budget resolution does not go to the President for his signature, but 
rather directs the action of the authorizing and spending committees on 
how to proceed for the remainder of the year to come into compliance 
with that budget blueprint and resolution. The budget blueprint also 
included instructions to 11 Senate committees to make changes in 
legislation in entitlement programs within their jurisdiction to cause 
fundamental reform of these programs, but also at the same time to slow 
the spending and achieve the deficit reduction envisioned in that 
budget plan.
  Today we begin debate on the first of three reconciliation bills that 
were prescribed by that budget resolution. The reconciliation bills are 
very special because they have protections and procedures that the 
Budget Act established for their consideration. And because of the need 
to have them enacted to implement that budget blueprint, they receive 
some very special consideration and are immune from some of the rules, 
and some of the privileges

[[Page S8071]]

that Senators have are denied with reference to these kinds of bills.

  This first one addresses two major areas of public concern, welfare 
and the escalating costs of Medicaid. The bill before us at this moment 
makes very needed and fundamental reforms to our welfare system, a 
system that has clearly failed not only the American public as 
taxpayers, but also the very individuals and families and children that 
the system was supposed to help. Obviously, much more will be said by 
distinguished Senators on both sides of the aisle as to how that will 
be done in this bill.
  The bill before us also makes many needed changes in the escalating 
Medicaid Program, but obviously that will not be long before the Senate 
for, hopefully early this afternoon, since it is the wish of the 
majority and the leadership here, it will be stricken by will of the 
Senate.
  Federal spending under this bill before us today will still increase 
for both Medicaid and welfare from nearly $270 to $350 billion. That 
might surprise some. If we were to enact both of them, both of those 
programs would increase over the next 6 years from $270 to $350 
billion. But compared to what would happen without these reforms, the 
bill would save the American taxpayers $126 billion. We are not going 
to get all of that because the portion that would be forthcoming under 
Medicaid will be stricken, but I believe there would be $56 billion 
left--Senator Roth?
  Mr. ROTH. That is correct.
  Mr. DOMENICI. As the savings over the projected costs of the welfare 
program in all of its ramifications as contained in this bill.
  So, as we begin this debate, let me remind my colleagues that, 
because this is a privileged measure, a bill whose consideration is 
governed by rules established in the Budget Act, the amendments are 
limited both in time and scope. The total time on the bill under the 
statute is 20 hours. I would say right up front we, on this side, do 
not think we should use 20 hours. In fact, we do not believe we need 
much of our 10 hours allotted under this bill.
  First-degree amendments get 2 hours, and second-degree amendments 1 
hour, which is equally divided regardless of how much time is left on 
each side--an anomaly, but that is how it is. So if we had only an hour 
left and an amendment is forthcoming, we get half the time on the 
amendment. That is the way the timing is done on these amendments. We 
intend to move this along, but not to deny Members the opportunity to 
get their case before the Senate.
  Also, I should remind everyone--and we will hear more about this as 
the debate unfolds--that amendments may not violate the Byrd rule, 
named for our distinguished colleague from West Virginia. This rule is 
very restrictive and is designed to maintain reconciliation bills as 
truly budget-focused bills. So I ask that Senators work with the 
leadership and Budget Committee staffs to determine if amendments 
violate the Byrd rule. If they violate the Byrd rule, you can offer 
them, nonetheless they would be subject to a point of order and that 
means you would have to get 60 votes of the U.S. Senate to pass them 
over the Byrd rule, which limits their adoption.
  I should also say, the Budget Act does provide for the waiver or any 
point of order that might lie against a nongermane amendment, and that 
is a very, very heavy-handed test in this case, or an amendment that 
violates the Byrd rule. But that waiver requires 60 affirmative votes, 
as I have just indicated.
  Shortly, I will discuss some of the substantive provisions, but I 
will not do that on this bill until the distinguished chairman and the 
ranking member on the Budget Committee have had a chance to talk about 
it. I am hopeful most of the substance can be handled by the committee 
chairmen. I will be here to help them move this along and to make sure 
we are as fair as possible with reference to the many procedural 
implications of a reconciliation bill.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. EXON addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
  Mr. EXON. Mr. President, if I understand the unanimous-consent 
request, there is 1 hour equally divided between the two sides up to 1 
o'clock; is that correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Two hours ten minutes equally divided.
  Mr. EXON. Mr. President, at this time, I yield myself 12 minutes of 
that time. Following my remarks, I yield the remaining time, up to the 
1 o'clock time, to my friend and colleague from New York, the ranking 
member of the Finance Committee. We will be working jointly on the 
various amendments. I am grateful that both he and the chairman of the 
Finance Committee will be working jointly with us on this matter today.
  Mr. President, as the Democratic leader on the Budget Committee, I 
come to the Senate floor today with some truly mixed emotions. I am 
most relieved that the Republican majority has decided that they will 
strike the Medicaid language from the reconciliation bill. It was with 
that understanding that I joined my colleague and chairman, Senator 
Domenici, in reporting out this bill to the floor.
  Obviously, cooler heads in the Republican fever swamp prevailed. I 
trust this will be reflected in the vote. I salute my friend, the 
distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee, for his role. Might I 
suggest that Senator Domenici's good counsel had much to do with the 
decision to seek a more productive and less combative path. But I say 
somewhat wistfully that I wish his voice of reason had not been drowned 
out earlier in the budget process.
  For all their fluster and bluster, the Republican majority will walk 
away from the 104th Congress with precious little deficit reduction to 
show for it. There is no bipartisan 7-year budget plan. Far from it. 
Republicans made a lot of noise about balancing the budget. In the end, 
the Democrats made a lot more sense.
  At this time, I renew a plea that I have made oftentimes, and that 
is, in view of the fact that we have an economy today that is moving 
ahead progressively and well, with little or no inflation concerns, I 
simply hope in due time, maybe sometime in the next couple of weeks, 
the Federal Reserve Board will recognize the situation and maybe begin 
to ease at least slightly the interest rate problem which continues to 
bother many sectors of America, including the stock market.
  I do not think our decisions should be directly made here on what 
happens in any certain phase of our economy. But the facts of the 
matter are, as I just alluded to the fact we have no 7-year balanced 
budget plan. We do not have that because the Republican majority and 
their leadership in the House and the Senate have refused to meet with 
the President to see if we cannot come up with a bipartisan compromise.
  I have said time and time again, and I am not sure that Americans 
totally understand it--sometimes I wonder if the news media understands 
it from the reports I have been reading--that both sides have agreed 
basically to make the cuts that are necessary to balance the budget in 
7 years. It can be done, it should be done, and I appeal, once again, 
now that the Republican leadership of the House and the Senate have 
come out of their cocoon, to recognize this is the time to strike. 
Let's get together. Let's let the Republican leadership in the House 
and the Senate take up the offer of the President of the United States 
to meet and come up with a 7-year balanced budget plan.

  I know there is a great deal of haste right now, Mr. President, to 
get out of town, to leave things here because we want to go about 
campaigning. Certainly, I believe that there is nothing that could 
better serve the United States of America--the great two-party system 
that has served us, with all its warts, quite well over the years than 
if we can, before we leave here, have a balanced budget agreement. It 
is clearly within our grasp if we would just get on, put aside some of 
the egos and come to some kind of understanding. I make that plea once 
again.
  Mr. President, I believe that the Republican majority had little 
choice but to yank the Medicaid portion of this bill out, as we and the 
President had suggested. One did not have to read the tea leaves to see 
that it was certainly headed for a veto without that change. It was a 
plan hatched by the far right that reneged on the promises of providing 
health coverage to low-income Americans and those most in need of it--
the elderly, children, and the disabled. Many of the Governors could 
not

[[Page S8072]]

accept the plan because funding did not automatically adjust for 
changes in enrollment. I am glad that this unreasonable scheme has been 
laid to rest.
  Now that the shackles of the Medicaid plan have been released, we 
have a good opportunity to work together and fashion a bipartisan 
welfare reform bill that will win not only the approval of the Congress 
but the signature of the President as well and I believe would have a 
good chance of receiving near universal support from the American 
people as well.
  I compliment the majority for making some substantive and key changes 
in their previous welfare plan. For example, child care resources that 
were woefully lacking in their earlier efforts have been shored up, at 
least some. But the majority should know also that those of us on this 
side do not plan to spend the next 20 hours singing hosannas to their 
bill. We intend to offer amendments that we believe could significantly 
improve this bill and make it acceptable to a broad spectrum of 
Senators on both sides of the aisle.
  I add, I would have preferred to deal with welfare reform outside of 
the reconciliation bill. Welfare reform is a policy issue, not a 
budgetary matter. In fact, there are no budgetary savings. I emphasize 
again, Mr. President, there are no budgetary savings from what most 
people believe as welfare. I, of course, reference aid to families with 
dependent children. The savings in this bill come from food stamps, 
child nutrition, denying SSI and food stamp benefits to most legal 
immigrants.
  I hope in the future the majority will not feel the need to hide 
behind reconciliation skirts when every tough issue comes down the 
pike. I point out, too, that last year, we were able to come to a 
bipartisan agreement on welfare reform outside of the context of the 
budget reconciliation.
  I emphasize once again, Mr. President, I think that while we are 
going to do this, making this part of the budget bill and the 
reconciliation process is not the way that this should have been 
handled. It should have been a freestanding bill. It should have come 
out of the Finance Committee which, I think, would have been the proper 
course of action. But, obviously, for many reasons that was not to be.
  Mr. President, we have heard a great deal in this Congress about 
returning power to the States. Under the rubric of devolution, we have 
seen some thoughtful proposals, such as restrictions on unfunded 
mandates and others that are played bad, like the Medicaid plan.
  But the clear signal we are getting from the townhall meetings and 
the State houses is the need for greater flexibility in dealing with 
these problems. I believe the Democrats answered that challenge in our 
updated ``Work First'' welfare plan that will shortly be offered as an 
amendment to this measure. It gives the States the flexibility to 
consolidate and streamline welfare operations yet protects children and 
saves $50 billion in the process.
  As a former two-term Governor of Nebraska, I have more, Mr. 
President, than a passing acquaintance with the problems that are faced 
daily by the Nation's Governors. I have done my able best to help them 
where I could. I was an original cosponsor of the unfunded mandates 
bill. But as sympathetic as I may be to our Governors, we must ensure 
that welfare reform does not just meet their needs, their needs being 
the Governors. It must continue to meet the needs of the innocent 
children who have become pawns, unfortunately, in this debate.
  In this regard, there are still areas of concern about the Republican 
package. I will not address all of them today. I am not wedded to any 
particular amendment, but I do want to touch upon a few concerns today 
that have a common thread. That common thread, that important thread, 
is kids in need. Children should not be an afterthought in welfare 
reform. Protecting children should be right up there with requiring 
able-bodied men and women to earn their keep.
  The first issue in the voucher program is important. The Republican 
measure prohibits--prohibits, Mr. President--any assistance once a 
parent has been on the welfare rolls for a time limit to be determined 
by the individual States. This, Mr. President, could be anywhere from 
60 days at a minimum to 5 years at the outside.
  Under the Republican bill, no vouchers would be allowed for families 
reaching the time limits set by the individual States. They would be 
locked in to whatever State they were a resident of. In my book, this 
is draconian. We should not cut and run on our poor kids. Depriving a 
child of the bare necessities in life, such as food and clothing and 
shelter, serves no useful purpose. The Government is not punishing the 
parents; it is the children who would suffer. We should not visit the 
sins of the parents upon their children. I see no reason why we cannot 
design some sort of a voucher or noncash aid for these children. Under 
the Democratic work first plan, the States would provide a minimal 
safety net. That would be an enormous improvement to this bill.
  My second criticism involves the inflexibility of the Republican plan 
during hard economic times. This bill cries out for more flexibility 
during recessions. Under the preferred Democratic proposal, children 
are entitled to assistance based on their household incomes, not 
whether the States have exhausted their funding due to increased needs 
during a recession or other uncontrollable events. This would be a 
reasonable and a desirable addition to the welfare reform package and 
something that I hope the Senate will accept.
  My third concern, Mr. President, revolves around the food stamps and 
the optional block granting of the program. It is a good idea to 
encourage electronic benefit transfers and to reduce fraud and abuse in 
the Food Stamp Program as is called for in the Democrat work first 
plan. We should throw the book at violators, but I cannot say that I am 
as understanding about the Republicans' insistence on block granting 
food stamps.
  It is evident to this Senator that States devote radically different 
levels of effort to our needy children. They do not treat them with the 
same level of compassion. By removing the Federal entitlement and block 
granting food stamps, we could knowingly exacerbate these differences. 
I am also concerned that block granting does not completely take into 
account the changes in the caseloads or regional economic trends.
  Mr. President, many thoughtful observers have also suggested that the 
instigation of block granting would trigger a so-called race to the 
bottom. Let us understand that term. We are very much concerned that 
the way this is written now, it would almost guarantee a so-called race 
to the bottom among the States seeking to lower services to the poor so 
as not to attract more of them. Even worse, some States may reject the 
dwindling block grants and drop the whole burden on to the narrow 
shoulders of the counties and the local governments below them. We 
should not be abetting such a shirking of responsibility if it should 
happen.

  Mr. President, there are, of course, many other issues, bones of 
contention, in this legislation that we will be addressing. Senators on 
both sides of the aisle will be talking about them and, undoubtedly, 
offering amendments. But I do believe that, with a few modifications, 
we could have a bill that sits well with both sides and with the 
American people. To pass their test, it will have to be a bipartisan 
effort that requires work while still protecting children. Those are 
the tricky waters that we still have to navigate over the next few 
hours. I trust that we will be successful.
  Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time and yield it, as I 
have previously indicated, to the Senator from New York.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gregg). Who seeks recognition? Who yields 
time?
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I think, in the interest of symmetry and 
the fact of seniority and the overwhelming presence of the 
chairmanship, that the Senator from Delaware should speak now. In any 
event, I would like to hear him in the hopes that I might think of 
something to reflect upon.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is the Senator from Delaware seeking time?
  Mr. ROTH. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may take.
  Mr. President, this is the beginning of the end to the lengthy debate 
in the

[[Page S8073]]

104th Congress about the current welfare system. The issue of welfare 
reform has been frequently and passionately debated over these past 
months, and rightly so. The effects and consequences of the welfare 
system in some way touch us all.
  Mr. President, it would be difficult to estimate exactly how many 
thousands of hours the Congress has devoted to this issue over the past 
months. The various committees in the Senate and the House of 
Representatives have taken testimony from Governors, Members of 
Congress advocating their own particular brand of reform, Cabinet 
officials, outside experts, advocacy groups, and so forth.
  But of all of these, perhaps the clearest message for welfare reform 
I have found comes from a newspaper article about Sharon Stewart, a 33-
year-old single mother who has been on welfare for nearly 12 years. In 
a Richmond Times-Dispatch article last month, Ms. Stewart was quoted as 
praising Virginia's new 2-year time limit on welfare benefits. She 
said, ``I feel like I can actually accomplish something again. This is 
something I'm doing and nobody else is just giving me a handout.''
  With simple eloquence, Ms. Stewart told the Times-Dispatch, ``this 
program should have been in effect when I [first] went on AFDC. It 
means people''--it means people--``are going to be independent. At 
first they're real scared and kind of back off, but I believe it will 
help in the long run.''
  In the same article, Tracy James, a mother of four children, also 
voiced her support for the time limit on benefits. She summed up the 
situation better than any of the experts when she stated, ``The old law 
was too easy. I settled for it. [Now] it's either get yourself together 
or you're just stuck.''
  Eloise Anderson, the very distinguished director of the California 
Department of Social Services, recently responded to a reporter who 
asked whether time limits were a form of ``tough love.'' Miss Anderson 
responded, ``It's the real world.''
  Mr. President, this is the fundamental philosophy upon which our 
welfare reform package is based. We will help families through the 
crisis which forced them into poverty. But that assistance is only 
temporary, and they must again help themselves.
  Welfare reform will restore the dignity to families who want more 
than to ``just settle'' for what the welfare system will give them.
  The current AFDC program, as it was designed in the 1930's, abandoned 
many families long ago as a statistic of long-term dependency in 
contemporary society. The current welfare system has failed the very 
families it was intended to serve. Look at the record. The record 
speaks for itself. Unfortunately, in 1965, something like 3.3 million 
children received AFDC benefits. In 1990, more than 7.7 million 
children received AFDC. This growth occurred even though the total 
number of children in the United States had declined--I underscore 
``had declined''--by nearly 5 million between 1965 and 1990. In 1994, 
nearly 9.6 million children received AFDC. Last year, the U.S. 
Department of Health and Human Services estimated that 12 million would 
receive AFDC benefits within 10 years under the current welfare system.
  I think it is clear that the present system has not worked. To the 
contrary, rather than giving a lifting hand and helping people back to 
work, back to the mainstream, we find the record is consistently an 
increase in the number of families, the number of children, caught in 
the web of welfare.
  If the present system was working well for children, we would, 
frankly, not be here today. I do not think anyone wants to make a claim 
that the existing system is good for children.
  While the present welfare system is full of excuses, the welfare 
reform legislation being presented to the American people today is a 
bold challenge. While the present system quietly accepts the dependency 
of more than 9 million children, our proposal speaks loudly to them and 
insists they, too, are among the heirs to the blessing of this great 
Nation.
  The key to their success will not be found in Washington, but, 
frankly, in the timeless values of family and work.
  Mr. President, 90 percent of the children on AFDC live without one of 
their parents. Only a fraction of welfare families are engaged in work. 
The current welfare system has cheated these children of what they need 
most.
  The reason the States will succeed in welfare reform where Washington 
has failed is because State and local officials see the faces of their 
neighbors, while Washington only sees caseload numbers. The bureaucracy 
in Washington is too detached, too removed, too far out of touch to 
reform the welfare system.
  The opponents of welfare reform believe the States lack either the 
compassion or the capacity or both to serve needy families. They are 
wrong.
  We understand that there is not a singular approach to welfare 
reform. We believe if families, if children, are going to escape from 
the vicious cycle of dependency, they must be enabled to find their own 
way out. Welfare reform is not simple because human beings are complex.
  The goal of welfare reform for all families is for all families to 
leave welfare. The path on how they get there is not necessarily a 
straight line. Nor, under our approach, must all families follow the 
same path.
  In contrast, this is precisely why Washington will never be able to 
end welfare as we know it. The existing system is designed more for the 
convenience of the bureaucracy than for the needs of the individuals. 
Washington wants to put its one shoe on every foot. That simply does 
not work. In the tradition of scientific management, everything must be 
reduced to bureaucratic rules, procedures, and mathematical equations. 
This is why, if we are truly seeking the answer to end dependency, 
Washington is the wrong place to look.
  The causes and cures of poverty involve some of the most intimate 
acts in human behavior. What many families on welfare need cannot be 
sent through the mail or reproduced in the Federal Register. There is 
no flaw in admitting we do not understand how or why individuals will 
respond to the various incentives and sanctions present in everyday 
life in modern society. The mistake is believing, especially after 30 
years of evidence to the contrary, that Washington does know how to 
apply these incentives and sanctions to the lives of millions of 
people.
  Under the present system, welfare dependency is allowed to become a 
permanent condition. This is one of the cruelest features of the 
welfare system because it saps the human spirit.
  Welfare reform will help free families from the present welfare trap 
and save future generations from its affect. To do this, we must give 
the State and local governments all of the tools they need to change 
the existing welfare system. What works in Delaware may not work in 
Virginia or New York and the States that demonstrated that it is time 
to move beyond the waiver process.

  One of the basic flaws in the existing system is, while State 
officials have the responsibility to administer these programs, they do 
not--I emphasize the word ``not''--have the authority they need to 
effectively run the program. That authority is dispensed by Washington 
one drop at a time, and this is no longer acceptable. Waivers are no 
substitute for an authentic welfare reform.
  Since President Clinton vetoed welfare reform for a second time, we 
worked with the Nation's Governors to construct a comprehensive welfare 
reform package, which, of course, included Medicaid. And a compromise 
last February was supported by the most liberal Governor and the most 
conservative Governor and everyone in between. No one liked everything, 
but there was something for everyone. That is the essence of 
bipartisanship.
  When this legislation was marked up in the Finance Committee, I 
included more than 50 Democratic amendments. Nearly half of all the 
Democratic amendments were incorporated into the legislation. Those 
changes still did not gain Democrat support in committee. And, of 
course, the administration still refused to compromise on Medicaid. So 
we are now separating Medicaid from the rest of the welfare package.
  Let me say, Mr. President, although I am supporting and have 
supported the separation, it is a matter that I personally believe need 
not happen. The President, on several occasions, in addresses to the 
Governors, stated that many, many people on welfare would

[[Page S8074]]

not take themselves off the rolls because they were fearful that they 
would put their children at risk, that they would not be covered by 
Medicaid. I think there is great truth in that statement. But, for that 
reason, it seems to me critically important that we deal with welfare 
and Medicaid as a package. That is what the Senate Finance Committee 
did, and that is what we have before us. But, as I stated earlier, we 
will be separating Medicaid from the rest of the welfare package.
  Mr. President, we have a bipartisan bill. There is no need to look 
any further than the measure before us. Frankly, this legislation will 
look very familiar to my colleagues, as it closely resembles H.R. 4, as 
it was passed by the Senate last September by a vote of 87 to 12. In 
other words, it is basically similar legislation which received broad 
bipartisan support when they voted for H.R. 4 last September. With 
regard to such issues as work requirements and time limits, this 
legislation is nearly identical to the Senate-passed bill.
  Mr. President, it has been 41 months since President Clinton outlined 
his welfare reform goals to the American people. Welfare reform was not 
enacted in 1993 or in 1994. Welfare reform is not about claiming 
political credit. We need to enact welfare reform for families like 
those of Sharon Stewart, Tracy James, and their children. If we do 
nothing, more children will fall into the trap of dependency. That is a 
certainty of what the current system will bring.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  (Mr. ASHCROFT assumed the chair.)
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I yield to myself whatever time I may 
require. I will express, once again, my admiration and gratitude for 
the tone of thoughtful inquiry which the chairman brings to these 
discussions. We will not agree today. We have not in a whole year in 
this regard, but we certainly are trying to lay out arguments and 
information as best we understand it. I think we know where we are 
going today, but it does not preclude us from one last effort. There is 
still hope. You may yet change your mind, but I do not think so today.
  Mr. ROTH. Will the distinguished Senator yield?
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. I am happy to do it.
  Mr. ROTH. I want to say what an honor and privilege it has been to 
work on these matters with the distinguished Senator from New York. 
There is no one on either side of the aisle who brings greater 
knowledge, understanding, and depth than Senator Moynihan. Now, 
frankly, sometimes his conclusions are wrong, but that is 
understandable, and that is what makes for the democratic process. But 
I do want to say that working with them, in an effort to bring a 
solution, to be compassionate, to take care of the needs of the many 
children who are without is our common goal. I know he seeks that with 
all his intelligence and being.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, as I rise today, I find myself thinking 
of the passage with which Hannah Arendt begins her classic work, ``The 
Origins of Totalitarianism.'' She speaks of the disasters of the First 
World War, and then the Second World War, and now the prospects of a 
third, final encounter between the two remaining world powers. She 
says, ``This moment of anticipation is like the calm that settles after 
all hopes have died.''
  If I sound subdued today, I hope it will be taken in that light, 
rather than any diminished sense of the importance of what we are about 
to do, because we are all somehow subdued today. The Senate floor is 
all but empty. I see four Senators.
  The lobbies are empty. There is no outcry against what we are doing. 
Two fine editorials appeared this morning in the Washington Post and 
the New York Times saying, ``Do not do this.'' But those are rare 
voices at this moment.
  We learn in the press that the President is concerned that there be 
vouchers made available for diapers. This is commendable, but scarcely 
a suggestion that something fundamental is about to happen. What is 
about to happen is we are going to repeal title IV-A of the Social 
Security Act, the provision established in 1935 in the act, aid to 
families with dependent children.
  This will be the first time in our history that we have repealed a 
core provision of the Social Security Act. Further, we are choosing to 
repeal the provision for children. It is as if we are going to live 
only for this moment, and let the future be lost.
  I said that there were few voices. Actually, there is one unified 
voice: that of every national religious group and faith-based charity. 
But we seem unable or unwilling to listen. They all oppose ending the 
entitlement. Catholic Charities USA and the Catholic bishops, 
especially, the National Council of Churches, Bread for the World, have 
persisted in this matter. Other organizations, as I say, are once again 
silent. Having briefly aroused themselves, they have sunk back into 
apathy, or resignation--or agreement with what is about to be done. We 
will not know if we do not hear.
  Yesterday, Members of Congress received a letter from Father Fred 
Kammer, president of Catholic Charities USA, who wrote:

       The welfare reform proposal before you reflects ignorance 
     and prejudice far more than the experience of this Nation's 
     poorest working and welfare families. This bill would end the 
     basic guarantee of protection to our neediest families, and, 
     in the words of Milwaukee's Archbishop, Rembert Weakland, 
     OSB, nullify ``America's 60-year covenant with its poor 
     children and those who nurture them.'' It would also punish 
     children born to welfare parents, legal immigrants, and 
     desperately hungry citizens.
       Welfare reform is acutely needed in this country, reform 
     which is designed genuinely to move people who can do so from 
     welfare to work. Today's proposals are largely a sham 
     designed to appease the ignorant and to pander to our worst 
     prejudices in an election year. There is little here to 
     recommend to believers, for whom Jesus of Nazareth said, 
     ``Whatever you do to the least of my sisters and brothers, 
     you do to me.''

  And then Father Kammer says:

       Please stop this so-called ``welfare reform'' now lest 
     election and budget politics shred the fabric of this 
     Nation's protections and supports for its most vulnerable 
     families.
       Again in the words of Archbishop Weakland, ``This is not 
     welfare reform, but welfare repeal.''
       The Nation, its historians, and its poorest families will 
     little remember what you say here, but they will long 
     remember what you do here.
       Sincerely, Fred Kammer, S.J. President, Catholic Charities 
     USA.

  This is an extraordinary statement by the president of one of the 
Nation's leading charities. But then he knows too well the profound 
impact this legislation will have on poverty and on children.
  It is children we are talking about. I have been trying for most of 
this Congress to describe the consequences for children in ending 
support after 5 years. The average AFDC recipient will receive benefits 
for 13 years.
  Ten months ago, as the distinguished chairman has observed, on 
September 19, 1995, the Senate passed a welfare bill providing just 
that. That bill, H.R. 4, as amended, was, as the chairman just said, 
nearly identical to the bill now before us. Again, to quote the 
chairman, ``It was basically similar legislation.'' At that time, we 
had no data before us to give us a sense of what we were doing. There 
were 11 Democrats who voted against that bill--11. I hope one day we 
might see their names listed in a place of honor.

  A few weeks later I learned that there was, in fact, in the 
Department of Health and Human Services, as you would expect, an 
analysis of H.R. 4 that addressed itself to the poverty impact of the 
bill.
  Then on October 24, at the first and only meeting of the House-Senate 
conference on the legislation, I put it this way. I said:

       Just how many millions of infants we will put to the sword 
     is not yet clear. There is dickering to do. In April, the 
     Department of Health and Human Services reported that when 
     fully implemented, the time limits in the House bill would 
     cut off benefits for 4,800,000 children. At that time, the 
     Department simply assumed that the administration would 
     oppose repeal. But the administration has since decided to 
     support repeal. HHS has done a report on the impact of the 
     Senate bill on children, but the White House will not release 
     it. Those involved will take this disgrace to their graves.

  During the following 2 days, the administration denied the existence 
of the HHS report. But then, on October 27, on the front page of the 
Los Angeles Times, there was an article by Elizabeth Shogren entitled, 
``Welfare Report Clashes with Clinton, Senate.''
  It began:

       A sweeping welfare reform plan approved by the Senate and 
     embraced by President Clinton would push an estimated 1.1 
     million children into poverty and make conditions

[[Page S8075]]

     worse for those already under the poverty line, according to 
     a Clinton Administration analysis not released to the public.

  A subsequent administration analysis of the conference report on H.R. 
4, after the House and Senate provisions had been reconciled, estimated 
that it would plunge 1\1/2\ million children into poverty.
  On December 22, 1996, when the conference report on that bill came 
back to the Senate, every Democrat save one voted ``no.''
  Now, with these facts in front of them, Senators on our side--and not 
only on our side--voted almost unanimously against the bill.
  I should point out that in some ways the bill before us, although 
basically identical to last year's legislation, as the chairman of the 
Finance Committee has said, is even worse in that it provides for very 
harsh measures against legal immigrants who are noncitizens. The 
Congressional Budget Office makes this point in its report on the 
measure. It says:

       Chapter 4 would limit the eligibility of legal aliens for 
     public assistance programs. It would explicitly make most 
     immigrants ineligible for SSI and food stamp benefits. 
     Savings would also materialize in other programs that are not 
     mentioned by name.

  This must be noted as a regression of genuine importance. In the 
beginning of this century, Western nations began the practice, and 
after a while, by treaty, international labor conventions, and such 
like, of extending social services available in a particular country to 
legal visitors or immigrants from another country. It was seen as a 
part of the comity of nations, part of the standard civilization which 
we had attained.
  Now, sir, I had the opportunity to speak with our distinguished 
Secretary of Health and Human Services this morning, the Honorable 
Donna E. Shalala. She tells me that this bill will cut off some 200,000 
legal immigrants currently receiving supplemental security income 
because of severe disabilities--cut them off. It will cut off women 
receiving services in battered women clinics, said Dr. Shalala. Things 
that civilized nations do not do, save perhaps when carried away, as 
Father Kammer said, by ignorance and prejudice.
  Now to the present legislation. I recall the long and difficult 
effort to get the executive branch to follow its normal practice of 
providing a report on legislation saying this is what this legislation 
will do, this is why we support it or do not support it, or whatever.
  Since May of this year, Representative Sam Gibbons, ranking member of 
the Committee on Ways and Means, and I have been asking for a similar 
analysis of the poverty impact of the new Republican welfare bill. We 
asked for the poverty effects because they have a clarity for Members 
that perhaps more diffuse issues, such the operation of time limits. It 
is a usage with which we are familiar. Last winter, when Democratic 
Senators found out what the effects of H.R. 4 were, having voted for 
the bill, they turned around and voted against it. The President, 
having indicated he would support the bill, turned around and vetoed 
it.
  So, since May of this year, Representative Gibbons and I have been 
asking for a similar analysis of the effects of the new Republican 
welfare bill. Despite three separate written requests, no report has 
been forthcoming. But we did receive a letter on June 26 from Jacob L. 
Lew, the Acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget, in 
which he wrote:

       As you recall, the administration's analysis of the 
     conference report on H.R. 4 estimated that it would move 1.5 
     million children below the poverty line. Based on that 
     analysis, it appears that improvements in the Roth/Archer 
     bill would mean that somewhat fewer children would fall below 
     the poverty line. But many of the factors that would move 
     children below the poverty line remain the same in both 
     bills.

  So we have before us a bill that in the administration's own judgment 
would impoverish over 1 million children. But I remind you, Mr. 
President, we do not have an analysis, and we read in this Sunday's New 
York Times, by Robert Pear, an eminently respected reporter in this 
area, that the White House had given instructions to HHS that there was 
to be no report. I had not ever thought I would be standing on the 
Senate floor stating my understanding, that an administration has said 
we will not tell the Senate what it is doing. If we knew what it was 
doing, we would not do it. That is precisely what happened on our side 
of the aisle, and not just on our side of the aisle, between September 
and December of last year. If we knew what we were doing, we would not 
dare to do it, and therefore the information is being withheld.
  I would say that Dr. June O'Neill, Director of the Congressional 
Budget Office, has been very forthcoming, but that is an institution 
within our ranks, as it were, and with which we have normal 
cooperation.
  I talked about the problems of poverty, but I would like to make the 
point that this is not really the issue here.
  Most children on AFDC are already poor. Those who are above the 
poverty line are part of that portion of the AFDC population which 
works part of the year, loses jobs, goes on welfare, goes back. Time 
limits would drop them completely below poverty because there would be 
no available income when they were not working.
  Might I say we have an AFDC population that is made up of roughly 
three groups. One is a sizable number in which adult, mature families 
break up, and a mother finds herself with children and needs income for 
a relatively brief period. It is the equivalent of the mill closing and 
men out of work. Within 2 years' time, they are back on their own. They 
do not need any advice, they do not need any counseling. It is income 
insurance for them, and it works.
  There is a second, middle group which cycles on and off: Works, finds 
the work does not work out--jobs are lost, plants close and that kind 
of thing--then they go back onto welfare. Work comes along, they go 
off. And it is back and forth.
  Then there is another group. In overall terms, it is much the largest 
group. This group is on welfare for a very long, continuous time. 
Thirteen years is the average.
  The essential problem with this legislation is that it imposes time 
limits without any real provision for the heroic efforts that are 
required to take people who have been on welfare for a long while, get 
them off and keep them off.
  I have no problem with that proposition, that work is what we should 
seek, independence is what we should seek. Some years ago, I wrote a 
long book on this subject, which began: ``The issue of welfare is the 
issue of dependency. Whereas most people stand on their own two feet, 
dependent persons, as the buried image of the word implies, dependent 
people hang.''
  This very week Time magazine chose, on its page called ``Notebook,'' 
to reproduce a cover of Time from July 28, 1967. It is called, 29 Years 
Ago in Time: DOGGED CONSISTENCY. There is a picture of the Senator from 
New York, and I am arguing the case--this is at a time when I was 
director of Joint Center for Urban Studies at MIT and at Harvard--that 
we have a crisis in our cities and it was getting worse.
  I am quoted:

       We are the only industrial democracy, he told a Senate 
     subcommittee, that does not have a family allowance. And we 
     are the only democracy whose streets are filled with rioters 
     each summer. The biggest single experience anyone has is 
     working.

  No one argues that. But to put a time limit on, when you do not have 
provision for seeing that people have work, is to invite an urban 
crisis unlike anything we have known since the 1960's. It may be it 
will bring us to our senses. But it will be a crisis.
  Here are the numbers. The Congressional Budget Office, in the cost 
estimate of the bill, said it would cut Federal welfare rolls by 30 to 
40 percent by the year 2004. If we follow the estimates of the Senator 
from Delaware, and they are quite accurate, of course, by the year 
2005, we will have over 10 million children on AFDC. Cut off 40 
percent, and you have 4 million children dropped.
  CBO estimates that, under the bill we are dealing with, we will cut 
off 3.5 million children by the year 2001. By the year 2001--5 years 
from now.
  That would be an unprecedented experience, and its impact would be 
quite disproportionate in racial and ethnic terms. Two-thirds of those 
affected would be minorities: 49 percent black, 19 percent Hispanic.
  I said in the Finance Committee, in March of this year, that to drop 
these

[[Page S8076]]

children from our Federal life-support system would be the most 
``regressive and brutal act of social policy since Reconstruction.''
  Think of what it means for our cities. Remember, not all these 
children will be 4 months old or 4 years old. Many will be 14 years 
old. In 5 years' time, you will not recognize Detroit, Los Angeles, New 
York. These are cities where a majority of births are out of wedlock. 
The average for our largest 50 cities is 48.0 percent.
  What is going on is a profound social change which we do not 
understand, just as we could not comprehend the problem of unemployment 
in the first part of this century, and ended with the crisis of the 
world depression, which almost destroyed democracy. It was a very close 
thing. Now, we are putting the viability of our own social system at 
risk.
  This year the National Center for Health Statistics reported that the 
nonmarital, out-of-wedlock ratio of births in the United States has now 
reached one-third, 32.6 percent. That was for 1994, so it is a third 
today. In Detroit, that number is 75.3 percent; in Los Angeles, it is 
50.1 percent; in New York City, 52.3 percent; in Chicago, 56 percent; 
in New Orleans, 64 percent. I think Detroit and New Orleans are 
probably the highest. No society in history has ever encountered this 
problem. These numbers a half century ago were 4 percent. New York 
City, 4 percent half a century ago, 52 percent today; Manhattan, 54 
percent.
  Nobody understands. Something like this is going on in Britain, in 
Canada, in France, in Germany. We are undergoing an enormous social 
change which we do not understand. Although it does not happen at all 
in Japan. Ratios were 1 percent in 1940 and 1 percent today.
  Yet, we are acting as if we do understand. The basic model of this 
problem in the minds of most legislators, and most persons in the 
administration, is that since we first had welfare and we then got 
illegitimacy, it must be that welfare caused illegitimacy. And they may 
be right. I do not know. But neither do they.
  I have stood on this floor and argued for the Family Support Act, 
which one Senator after another invokes as a measure that works, 
getting people out of dependency, into jobs. It could continue to work. 
But not this sharp cutoff--bang, 2 years, you are off; 5 years, you are 
off forever. That invites the kind of calamity which it may be we are 
going to have to experience in order to come to our senses.
  I said on the floor last September that we will have children 
sleeping on grates if this becomes law. I repeat that today. I hope I 
shall have been proved wrong. I hope.
  We will have a chance to track it. In the Social Security Act 
Amendments of 1994, I was able to include a small, but significant, 
provision to try to get us some accumulation of information and then 
perhaps theoretical knowledge about this situation. We enacted the 
Welfare Indicators Act of 1994. It requires the Secretary of Health and 
Human Services to start producing an annual report based on the 
Economic Report of the President, which derives from the Employment Act 
of 1946.
  We will have the first interim report due October 31 of this year. It 
takes a long time for these institutions, if I can use that word, to 
mature, but we will have documentation of what this legislation did. We 
will know, unless we are reduced to concealing the truth, which we are 
getting very close to in this debate. Administration officials saying, 
when asked for the report, ``There is no report''; when the report is 
published saying, ``Well, I guess there was a report''; then saying, 
``No more reports.'' We are standing here on the Senate floor with no 
report from the administration. Shame.
  One of the comments I have made throughout this debate, over the last 
year and a half, is that it has been conservative social analysts who 
have been most wary of what we are doing. They have consistently warned 
us that we do not know enough to do this. They have asked us to be 
conservatives and not take this radical step, putting at risk the lives 
of children in a way we have never done.
  After we allowed a system to develop in which children are supported 
in this manner, to suddenly stop that support based on some very vague 
notion of human behavior--that if you are going to suffer awful 
consequences, you will change your behavior. We will be making cruelty 
to children an instrument of social policy. Lawrence Mead of NYU said 
you don't know enough to do this. Lawrence Mead, no liberal he; a 
career telling the liberals they were letting this situation get out of 
hand.
  But 52 percent of the children born in the city of New York are to a 
single parent. John J. Dillulio, Jr., at Princeton saying, 
``Conservatives should know better than to take such risks with the 
lives of children.''
  And then George F. Will. George Will of unequaled authority as a 
commentator on the difficulty of social change and the care with which 
it is to be addressed. He wrote of the vote last September:

       As the welfare debate begins to boil, the place to begin is 
     with an elemental fact: No child in America asked to be here. 
     No child is going to be spiritually improved by being 
     collateral damage in a bombardment of severities targeted at 
     adults who may or may not deserve more severe treatment from 
     the welfare state.

  I end on that proposition. No child in America asked to be here. Why, 
then, are we determined to punish them?
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, how much time remains?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico has approximately 
36 minutes remaining.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I yield 15 minutes to the Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Thank you, Mr. President. I thank the chairman.

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