Congressional Record, Volume 142 Issue 106 (Thursday, July 18, 1996)

[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 106 (Thursday, July 18, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8076-S8104]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

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

The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.
Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, let me move on to the issue before us of
welfare reform. It is never easy to follow the Senator from New York
when talking about this issue, because there is no one on the Senate
floor who knows more about this issue than the Senator from New
York. But I was struck by one of the comments he made. I felt compelled
to respond to that comment, when he made the comment that the bill
before us invites calamity. I am quoting him. He used the term
``invites calamity.''

I found it odd that he used the term, that the bill before us invites
calamity, right after a very eloquent and fact-filled dissertation on
the calamity that has been created by this welfare system, that
calamity of illegitimacy in our civilization.
He suggested there is no solution, at least we do not know the
solution, and, therefore, we should not try anything. I assume that is
the conclusion. Since we are not absolutely sure what causes
illegitimacy, then we should not even attempt to bring it up since we
do not have the answer.
I suggest that the Senator from New York should have been here in the
1960's when in fact we did not know the solution for poverty but we
went ahead and tried the Great Society programs anyway. We went ahead
not knowing

[[Page S8077]]

what the answers would be, and for the last 30 years, in my opinion,
ignoring--ignoring--the results of the Great Society programs, the
welfare component of the Great Society programs in particular.
So if we are going to talk about not knowing what the future holds
with the bill before us, then let us talk about not knowing back in the
1960's what the welfare state that we created would do, and now
refusing to change it, when we know it has created the calamity that
the Senator from New York eloquently described. He only described, in
my opinion, one element of that calamity.
Oh, it is a very serious one--illegitimacy. I suggest it may be the
great social ill that can be the cancer within to destroy this
civilization. So I think he does highlight a most important issue. It
is one that we attempt to address in this bill, which I suggest we
attempt to address in a very modest way. We have not gone out with a
right wing extreme agenda, whatever that is, to deal with this issue.
We have taken steps like saying that people who are on welfare, if
they want to have more children, they should not necessarily get more
money for having more children out of wedlock. The States can enact a
law under our bill to pay them money if they want. But the presumption
is that if you are on AFDC and you are not married, and you are
receiving benefits and you have additional children, you are not
automatically going to get a pay raise.
The second thing we do is we look at mothers who have children out of
wedlock and do not cooperate with the Government in telling us who the
father is. One might suggest that that probably is not a very likely
occurrence. The fact of the matter is, having visited many agencies in
my State that deal with this problem, that is a very common occurrence
for a variety of reasons.
The most common reason is because usually there is a relationship
between mom and the boyfriend. Mom does not want to jeopardize that
relationship by giving the boyfriend a legal responsibility for the
child. The Government is willing to pay. Why rely on a tenuous
relationship, sometimes, between the boyfriend and the mom, to track
down someone who may not have regular work to provide for that, when
you have a Government who is going to consistently provide for that
child? You may even work out something that has been told to me on many
occasions, where the Government provides, and under the table the real
dad provides some money, too.

It works out best for everybody except for the fact that the child is
without a father. That is a little glitch that somehow gets glossed
over. Like it or not, in our society--I know some do not believe it--
but I think fathers are important. I think we need mothers and fathers
to raise children.
I happen to believe one of the big problems in our society of youth
violence among young males is because we do not have fathers in the
household. They do not have the example of a father to help guide them
through the very difficult time of growing up.
Yes, we do some things that are untested. Sure, they are untested,
granted. We do not know whether making mom cooperate with authorities,
forcing the mother to give us the name of the father--sanction her if
she does not--will in fact help. We do not know. But, my God, we should
start trying.
We cannot turn our back and say, just because we do not know, we
should not try. Donna Shalala says, Well, you know, there may be people
who fall off welfare because they did not cooperate, and that is a
tragedy for the children. What the tragedy for the children is is they
have no father. That is a tragedy. We run around and we hide behind
children. The liberals hide behind children, when it is the children
who are hurt the worst by this system that does not care. It is not
loving and compassionate. Passing out a check behind a bulletproof
window in a welfare office is not compassion, is not how we solve
problems in this society when it comes to the poor.
We give States a bonus if they reduce their illegitimacy rate. So we
provide an economic incentive for States to begin to try things to help
reduce the number of illegitimate children. And they cannot do it
through abortion.
That is illegitimacy. That is only one of the calamities that we now
have as a result of this system.
How many people believe that, in the last 30 years, as a result of
the welfare state, the neighborhoods in which people on welfare reside
are safer, that crime is less, that the values of the people who are on
welfare in second and third generations are better than they were
before? If you want to look into the eyes of those values, look into
the eyes of the senseless and indiscriminate juvenile crime that we see
in our society, the lack of values between right and wrong, the lack of
respect for human life in our society.
Drugs. Are there less drugs? Are drugs less of a problem in these
communities than they were 30 years ago? Is education better in these
communities than it was 30 years ago? Is the family structure better
than it was 30 years ago? Oh, what progress we have made, what a system
we should defend. And, oh, we dare not try anything that is untested. I
would agree with the Senator, maybe he is right, maybe we should not
try anything that is untested, because the last time we tried something
that was untested, we got a horrible result. But the problem is, we are
stuck with that system right now. We must--we must--face that and
change that.
Here is how we change it. As I said before, we deal with the issue of
illegitimacy and in a modest way--I have to repeat that--in a very
modest way.
Secondly, what we say is that we are going to require people who are
able-bodied to work. I talked about the values in communities. One of
the most important values that you can pass on to your children is a
work ethic. You can pass it on by talking about it. But you parents
know you can tell your children all sorts of things--I have three
children; I tell them lots of things--but they are more interested in
watching you and seeing what you do and following your example.
How many times do you catch your kids saying things that you say, and
you say, ``Gosh, do I say that that much that they actually pick it
up?'' I tell them not to say it, but they say it, so I guess I do, too.
I do this, so they do it, too. Work is one of those things. The most
important thing for economic success for children is to have a mom and
a dad--or mom or dad--go to work every day. So we require work because
we think that is a value that is important for people to exit poverty.

I am not interested in taking care of people on poverty as the
solution to poverty. My solution to poverty is to get people out of
poverty. That is how we should measure a successful system--not how
many children we take care of--by how many families are no longer
needed to be on the system. That, to me, is a successful poverty
program, not going around looking and saying, ``Look at all the people
we have on welfare and we are taking care of all these people now.'' I
have not met very many people on welfare who tell me that life on
welfare is a lot of fun or is what they desire for their life. Why
should it be the goal of the Government to put people or to capture
people in a system which they do not want to be in, and which the
public resents paying for, because it is a dead end? That is not a
solution.
Our goal is to get people to work and to self-sufficiency, to instill
the values that make America great. So, yes, after 2 years we require
work. For 2 years the State, through this bill, will have resources
available for education, for training, for searching jobs. There are a
lot of people who get on welfare, are job-ready, and there are some
that cannot, they need their GED, to get some training, it takes time.
Some people take more than 2 years.
The Senator from New York said we are going to put these rigid time
limits on people of 2 years, and after 5 years no more benefits. The
Senator from New York knows very well within this bill there is what is
called a hardship exception. What the State can do is exempt 20
percent, 20 percent of the people in this program from the time limit.
The time-limited program only applies to 50 percent of all the people
in the program. That is not for 7 years. It starts out at 25 percent of
the people.
I know it is a lot of numbers, but let me suggest there is lots of
flexibility here for hard cases, for people who are really trying, and
just cannot seem to find a job. We understand that happens. We
understand it happens in a lot of urban areas and rural areas where
unemployment is scarce. We provide an

[[Page S8078]]

exception, but it is an exception to the rule. Sometimes it is
important to establish a rule, an expectation of what we desire out of
everyone. Set the bar a little higher. Instead of just saying you are
all incapable of providing for yourself, so we will provide for you.
I ask the Senator from New Mexico for 3 additional minutes.
Mr. DOMENICI. I yield 3 additional minutes to the Senator from
Pennsylvania.
Mr. SANTORUM. It is important to set that standard. We set that
standard. We do it with the understanding that we know not everybody
can meet that standard. We give the States and the communities, and, I
hope, and the Governors assure me, this is not going to be just one
Federal bureaucratic program transferred to 50 State bureaucratic
programs.
Frankly, I am not that much comforted, I am somewhat comforted, but
not significantly comforted, to know that this is a Federal program run
by Federal bureaucrats that now is going to be a State program run by
State bureaucrats. State bureaucrats may be marginally better than
Federal bureaucrats, but that is not enough. The Governors understand,
at least the ones that are talking to me, that they need to go further.
They need to get down into the local communities, into the nonprofit
organizations, into the folks who really have compassion, because it is
their neighbors and their friends they are providing for. Those are the
organizations we have to empower through this bill, and give them the
resources to solve the problems that are in their community. We believe
this is a vehicle with the flexibility that is in this bill to make
that happen.

I want to talk about just a couple of other things. No. 1, child
care. It has been argued on this floor, and I think well argued on this
floor by Members, frankly, on both sides of the aisle, that the key to
making work work is child care. That there are millions of women out
there who would like to go to work but because of the barrier for safe,
affordable day care, they simply cannot do it. We provide $4 billion
more in child care in this bill than under current law, and even more
money than what the President is suggesting. Under this bill, work will
work, and people will be able to succeed.
The other two things I will quickly go through, first is child
support enforcement. There is uniform agreement on both sides to
improve, toughen child support enforcement, including wage withholding,
and is included in here, among other things. This gets back to, again,
requiring fathers to take responsibility for their children. Again,
setting the bar high, but, my goodness, we should have standards high
for fathers when it comes to providing for their children.
Finally, the issue of noncitizens. The Senator from New York said no
civilized society would cut off these benefits for noncitizens like we
do in this bill. He is absolutely right. Do you know why? Because there
is no civilized society that provides the benefits in the first place.
We are the only society that gives benefits to people who are in this
country who are not citizens of the country. What we are saying is we
will provide benefits to refugees, to asylees, but to people who come
in under sponsorship agreements, the sponsors, who signs that document
will be the one who takes care of them, not the Federal Government.
Mr. DOMENICI. There is time left on both sides; could you tell us how
much each side has?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The side of the Senator from New Mexico has 17
minutes and 17 seconds and the other side has 7 minutes and 18 seconds.
Mr. DOMENICI. I have Senator Frist here. Does the Senator from
Florida want to speak during that time, during that 7 minutes?
Mr. GRAHAM. I have not had an opportunity to talk to the floor
manager, Senator Exon, but I will request time to speak. If Senator
Frist is prepared to proceed, that is fine.
Mr. DOMENICI. I yield 6 minutes to Senator Frist.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, it is with much disappointment that I rise
today to mark the apparent, the apparent, demise of what was a
carefully considered, carefully crafted, bipartisan agreement on
Medicaid. Despite the historic agreement among the Nations 50
Governors, we are compelled by the President's veto threat to separate
Medicaid reform from welfare reform.
Ultimately, comprehensive welfare reform must include health care and
health care reform for the poor. The face of that woman with her child
in her arms who is below the poverty level, who wants to go back to
work, is just inextricably combined and connected to that welfare
system. Our Medicaid plan, which was based on this Governors'
bipartisan proposal, would have indeed preserved the safety net for
women, children, our senior citizens, and for individuals with
disabilities.

Mr. President, I stand here today also, along with my colleagues and
before the American people, to assure them that we will continue to
work for a strong, for a secure, and for a simplified Medicaid Program.
After the election, when all of the partisan passions have subsided, we
will find a way to work together and give relief to States burdened to
the point today of bankruptcy by out-of-control skyrocketing Medicaid
costs. For the sake of our children, for the sake of their families, we
must find a way to put policy before politics.
Before coming to the U.S. Senate, I performed transplant surgery, and
a third of my transplant patients received Medicaid. That gave me a
perspective of those patients on Medicaid also on welfare. As chairman
of the Tennessee State Task Force on Medicaid Reform, I grappled with
those issues before coming to this body from a State perspective.
Medicaid today takes up nearly 6 percent of the total of all Federal
spending. State by State, it is approximately 20 percent of all State
spending. Unless we act, we can expect an over 150 percent increase in
just 10 years. The increase in Medicaid spending from last year alone
is more than we spent on mass transit, criminal investigations,
pollution control and abatement, or the National Science Foundation.
Yes, Medicaid is bankrupting our State budgets and will ultimately
drive the Federal budget into bankruptcy, unless something is done.
Now, nothing in the budget reconciliation plan reported to the Senate
constitutes a cut in Medicaid. President Clinton and Republicans both
attempt to reign in the excessive growth in spending and, at the same
time, protect eligible populations.
The chart that I have beside me shows just how close we in Congress
are with what the President has proposed. This chart depicts overall
Medicaid spending growth over a period of time, comparing what has been
spent from 1991 to 1996, a total of $463 billion, to what we have
proposed, the U.S. Congress, from 1997 to 2002, the Republican budget
proposal, to spend $731 billion, which is very close to what the
President has proposed to spend from 1997 to the year 2002. The
difference between the yellow bar, what the Republican proposal has put
forth, and what the President has proposed is less than 2 percent. We
are very, very close. But the difference is that the Republican plan
was based on the National Governors' bipartisan proposal. It passed
their assembly unanimously. It was designed to specifically protect all
current law eligibles, and included an umbrella fund for emergencies as
well. And to truly preserve this safety net, there is $56 billion more
in this bill than was in last year's budget resolution.
The program will continue to grow. Nothing is going to be cut. It is
going to continue to grow at a rate of about, on average, 6.2 percent a
year, and that is more than twice the rate of inflation. And it will
grow a total of 43 percent over the 5-year period from 1996 to the year
2002.
When I came to this body, the U.S. Senate, I came as a physician out
of the private sector, as a citizen legislator, unfamiliar with the
political machinery that can block this type of positive advance. At
that juncture, I hoped to work with my colleagues, Republican and
Democrat, to address these issues that will affect our future and the
future of our children. We have made progress, and I am glad we have
made progress. But I am disappointed that we cannot enact a combined
Medicaid Program with welfare, facing the realities that, again,
Medicaid is inextricably woven to our welfare program. That is
something that is close to my heart. But we shall return next year to

[[Page S8079]]

move forward on this very important issue of preserving Medicaid and
improving Medicaid for the future generations.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Mr. GRAHAM addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
Mr. GRAHAM. The Senator from Nebraska has yielded to me the remainder
of time under his control.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Seven minutes remain.
Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I wish to speak to one section of this
bill to which I will intend to offer an amendment, and that is the
section that deals with the rights of legal aliens who are in the
United States.
As my colleagues will recall, this is not a new issue. In fact, we
have spent weeks on the Senate floor debating the question of what
should be the eligibility of legal aliens for a variety of Federal
benefits. This Senate, by an overwhelming vote, passed on May 2 an
immigration control bill, which laid out with great specifics what
would be the rights of legal aliens--Mr. President, I underscore the
word ``legal''--to various Federal benefit programs. That legislation
passed after extensive hearings and markups in the Judiciary Committee
and exhaustive floor debate that lasted well over a week. Similar
actions were taken in the House of Representatives, and now this
legislation is before a conference committee.
While all of that has occurred, we now receive this welfare bill,
which has a redundant, conflicting, and, I think, draconian set of
provisions relative to the rights of the very same people who were the
subject of our debate just a few weeks ago--legal aliens in the United
States.
Mr. President, I am going to propose that we should strike this
section from the bill and leave the question of what should be the
eligibility rights of legal aliens to the process of resolution in the
conference committee and our final action on the results of that
conference committee. There are extreme differences between the
provisions in the immigration bill that the Senate passed in May and
what we are now being asked to consider in July. Let me just mention
two of those principal differences.
The essential concept of eligibility in the immigration bill was the
concept of ``deeming.'' Deeming is the responsibility of the sponsor
who has made it possible for the legal alien who comes into the United
States to have the sponsor's income added or deemed to be part of the
income of the legal alien, in determining whether the legal alien is
eligible for Federal needs-based programs.
This bill uses a different concept, and that is a concept of a
prohibition of legal aliens for a variety of Federal benefit programs.
I might say, Mr. President, that much of the debate on the question
of rights of legal aliens is a result of the report that was originally
sanctioned by this Congress called ``U.S. Immigration Policy: Restoring
Credibility,'' often referred to as the ``Barbara Jordan report,''
after our esteemed recently-passed colleague. In the report--the Jordan
report--it states, ``The safety net provided by needs-tested programs
should be available to those whom we have affirmatively accepted as
legal immigrants into our communities.'' It points out that it is
appropriate to look to the sponsor to be the primary caregiver for
those they have sponsored into the United States. They endorse the
concept of deeming. But they say that under circumstances where a
sponsor is not available, the sponsor has died, the sponsor has
suffered illness, or some other incapacitating condition that made them
unable to meet their obligations, that immigrants should continue to be
eligible. ``A policy that categorically denied legal immigrants access
to such safety nets, based solely on alienage, would lead to a gross
inequality between very similar individuals and undermine our
immigration goals to reunite families and quickly integrate immigrants
into American society.''

So that is one fundamental difference. This is a difference, Mr.
President, which will have real impact on the lives of real residents
of our country.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the
circumstances of Polyna Novak, a legal immigrant who has come to the
United States as a refugee from persecution in the Soviet Union and how
the difference in the immigration bill's use of deeming and this bill's
use of an absolute bar would have an impact on her life.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

Polyna Novak is a legal immigrant who came to the United
States as a refugee from Russia 16 years ago (1980). She
currently lives by herself in an apartment in Marina del ray,
California. Her daughter Dina lives nearby and is her
mother's full time care giver.
Polyna is 74 years old, has Alzheimer's disease and also
has great difficulty walking. She speaks and reads basic
English. She receives SSI and Medicaid.
In November, she tried to become a naturalized citizen
under the 1993 rules exempting persons with cognitive
disability from some of the testing requirements. The INS
examiner refused to administer the oath, however, because of
her cognitive impairment, claiming that she could not
understand what she was doing.
Mrs. Novak is in a catch-22 situation-too disabled to
naturalize, under this Welfare bill, she will lose her only
source of Income, her SSI benefits. There is no deeming, it's
simply an unfeeling, outright ban, with no consideration for
tragic individual cases such as this one.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, in my State of Florida, we are now
receiving thousands of refugees and people seeking asylum from
countries such as Cuba, generally under agreements that have been
reached between the United States Federal Government and foreign
governments, and now the Federal Government is going to take the
position that it washes its hands of the financial responsibilities
that flow from that.
The second big difference is the impact on State and local
governments. The bill that we passed would have had a cost transferred
to State and local governments of approximately $5.6 billion over the
next 7 years. This bill, if you would believe it, would have a cost
transfer to State and local governments of up to $23 billion over the
next 7 years.
I suggest, Mr. President, in respect to the work that this Senate has
already done on the immigration bill and the efforts that are currently
being made in conference to reconcile the House and the Senate
versions, that it is inappropriate for us at this hour under these
constrained parliamentary procedures to take up a provision that would
fundamentally change the decisions that we have already made, increase
the cost to State and local governments by potentially three times or
more than in the legislation that we have already passed, and place
literally hundreds of communities and tens of thousands of people in
serious jeopardy by our ill-considered actions.
So at an appropriate time, Mr. President, I will ask, as will
colleagues, including Senators Murray, Simon, and Feinstein, that those
provisions that relate to the eligibility of legal aliens be deleted
from this bill and rely upon the immigration bill to come to an
appropriate policy resolution.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record
an editorial from today's Los Angeles Times on this subject, and other
materials that relate to legal aliens.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

[From the Los Angeles Times, July 18, 1996]

Passing the Buck on Welfare

Tucked into the Republicans' welfare reform package in
Congress is a wrongheaded proposal to cut benefits and social
services to most immigrants who are legally in the United
States but who have not yet become citizens. Under the
proposal, Washington, which is seeking ways to finance
federal welfare reform, would shift billions of dollars in
costs to states and counties. The provision should be
rejected.
Sen. Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat, plans to offer an
amendment to the bill to strike out restrictions on public
benefits to legal immigrants. A host of eligibility issues
ranging from student aid to Medicaid for legal immigrants
already is part of a separate immigration bill now in
conference committee. There is no logic in including those
matters in a welfare bill. The two issues should be handled
separately.
The welfare bill now proposes to help finance the costs of
reform by cutting $23 billion over six years in benefits to
legal immigrants, including children and the elderly. This
would be an unfair and punitive move against legal immigrants
who have played by the rules.
The bill would make most legal immigrants now in the
country ineligible for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and
food

[[Page S8080]]

stamps. Future legal immigrants (except for refugees and
asylum seekers) would be inteligible for most other federal
means-tested benefits (including AFDC and nonemergency
Medicaid services) during their first five years in the
country.
The cutbacks would disproportionately hit California,
Florida, New York and Texas, the states with the biggest
immigrant populations. California alone could lose $10
billion, or about 40% of the proposed $23 billion in benefit
reductions. Those ineligible for such benefits would have to
turn elsewhere for aid. In Los Angeles County, for example,
if all affected SSI recipients sought general assistance
relief instead it would cost the county $236 million
annually. The cost shifting could have potentially disastrous
results for the already fiscally strapped county.
The immigration bill now under consideration already
includes $5.6 billion in savings from tightening eligibility
requirements for legal immigrants on a variety of federal
programs, including Medicaid. The attempt to use welfare
reform to slip through further curbs on public assistance to
legal immigrants should be called what it is--a deplorable
money grab by Washington that can only hurt California.
____

June 24, 1996.
Hon. Bob Graham,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Graham: As health care providers caring for
millions of Americans in rural and urban areas, we are
writing to express our concerns about provisions in the
welfare reform legislation the Senate Finance Committee plans
to mark up this week. The provisions at issue would
completely bar legal immigrants from receiving any Medicaid
coverage for five years, and would effectively deny Medicaid
coverage to most legal immigrants for an additional five
years.
These provisions will force hundreds of thousands of legal
immigrants off of Medicaid, creating a new population of
uninsured low income individuals at a time when the number of
uninsured Americans is approaching 40 million. Furthermore,
the loss of Medicaid coverage means that the amount of
preventive care provided to legal immigrants will be
drastically reduced, thereby exposing entire communities to
communicable diseases while increasing the overall cost of
providing necessary care. We urge the Committee to drop these
provisions when it marks up the welfare legislation.
In particular, the bill would bar legal immigrants from
eligibility for Medicaid (and other assistance programs) for
five years. After five years, the legislation would require
that the income and resources of a legal immigrant's sponsor
and the sponsor's spouse be ``deemed'' to be the income of
the legal immigrant when determining the immigrant's
eligibility for Medicaid.
If a low income legal immigrant is barred from receiving,
or deemed out of the Medicaid program, he or she may have no
other means to pay for health care. Most low income
immigrants cannot afford private health insurance. Many
sponsors may be unable or unwilling to help finance the
health care costs of the immigrants they sponsor. Yet,
because of the five-year ban and the deeming requirements,
legal immigrants will be ineligible for Medicaid, although
they will still need care. This is a cost shift from the
federal government to state and local entities and providers
of care. And this cost shift will disproportionately fall on
providers in states with large numbers of legal immigrants--
states such as California, Texas, Florida, New York, New
Jersey, Massachusetts, and Illinois.
We understand provisions dealing with benefits in the
welfare bill are based upon the recommendations of the United
States Commission on Immigration Reform, a bipartisan
commission appointed by Congress in 1990 to study and make
recommendations on national immigration policy. But the
Commission opposes any broad, categorical denial of public
benefits to legal immigrants such as the pending welfare
bill's five-year ban to Medicaid eligibility. In its
recommendations to Congress, it firmly states that ``the
Commission rejects proposals to categorically deny
eligibility for public benefits on the basis of alienage.''
It expressly stated that ``special consideration should be
given to the issue of medical care.'' Specifically, the
Commission's recommendation was very clear:
``The safety net provided by needs-tested programs should
be available to those whom we have affirmatively accepted as
legal immigrants in our communities . . . circumstances may
arise after an immigrant's entry that create a pressing need
for public help--unexpected illness, injuries sustained due
to a serious accident. . . . Under such circumstances, legal
immigrants should be eligible for public benefits if they
meet other eligibility criteria. We are not prepared to
remove the safety net from under individuals who, we hope,
will become full members of our polity.''
We recognize the importance of regulating legal and illegal
immigration into the United States. But it must be
accomplished through means that will not pull the health care
safety net from under legal immigrants, create a public
health threat, or impair the ability of health care providers
to provide essential services to their communities.
Therefore, we urge the Finance Committee to honor the
Commission's recommendations and exempt Medicaid from the
five year eligibility bar and deeming requirements.
Sincerely,
American Hospital Association, American Osteopathic
Healthcare Association, American Rehabilitation
Association, Association of American Medical Colleges,
California Association of Public Hospitals and Health
Systems, California Healthcare Association, Catholic
Health Association of the U.S., Federation of American
Health Systems, Greater New York Hospital Association,
InterHealth, National Association of Children's
Hospitals, National Association of Public Hospitals and
Health Systems, Premier, Inc., Private Essential Access
Community Hospitals, Texas Association of Public and
Non-Profit Hospitals, Texas Hospital Association, VHA
Inc.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, how much time do we have?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Ten minutes.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I yield 6 minutes of that to the Senator
from Missouri. Might I yield myself 1 minute before I yield to him?
Mr. President, I thank Senator Frist for his comments on the floor,
and I add one thought to it. Frankly, I, too, have a real concern about
not doing anything this year about Medicaid. But I think the die is
cast. However, it seems to me that the next episode that is going to
push us to do something significant is not something that leadership
should feel very proud of because I think we are going to be pushed by
States that cannot afford to pay for the programs.
We have all been talking about what is happening to the
beneficiaries; how we are going to modify the program, make it more
efficient, and what about the delivery system? But there has been very
little talk about the fact that many States cannot afford the Medicaid
Program.
I note in my own State that there was a major story. People are
confused when you talk about Medicaid not having enough money because
they almost always believe that is us, the Fed's. But in my State the
story was our State has not appropriated enough money for its share. We
happen to be one of those States where only 25 percent is our burden;
75 is the Federal burden. We cannot even afford to pay for the program
in its current form, and we are concerned about whether the Federal
Government ought to reform it so that it becomes more efficient. We are
the ones getting accused, with reference to fixing that, of being
neglectful of some parts of our population.
The truth of the matter is education at home is suffering. Pretty
soon they cannot pay for education because the States do not have
enough money if they have to pay for Medicaid and programs of that
sort.
So I think the Senator's suggestion that perhaps it would have been
good if we would have challenged the President and others and proceeded
with that Medicaid provision was a good one. Our job will get done
soon, I am sure, thanks to people like the occupant of the chair.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
Mr. ASHCROFT. I thank the Chair. I commend the Senators from Mexico
and Tennessee each for mentioning this important component of reform
which is literally pressing and demands that the system will require
it. We must undertake those reforms immediately.
I am struck by the fact that our debate is not a debate about
restructuring a government program. Our debate is about rescuing our
culture from a tragedy, a tragedy the dimensions of which have been
eloquently outlined and defined by speaker after speaker on this floor.
The Senator from New York eloquently and tragically defined the
problem. He said that 75 percent of some of the births in some cities
in this country are births to incomplete families.
The welfare system, which has been designed or hoped for as a way of
helping people, has become a way of ensnaring people. A net can be
something that saves you from a fall. It can be something in which you
are caught. I believe we have a system where we have seen that the
welfare system is one where people are caught. It is not where people
are saved.
When he rather dramatically ended his speaking earlier, the Senator
from New York talked about the children. What about the children? I
think we

[[Page S8081]]

have to ask the question. What about the children? What about the one-
third of all children in this country who are born to incomplete
families without fathers in the home? What happens to those children?

I was reminded about one child whose story I read. Her name was Ariel
Hill. She was one of five children of a welfare family that lived in an
apartment beyond description in Chicago public housing. The parents
were 22-year-old, drug-using high school dropouts. They did not have
jobs. The mother had her first child as a teenager, obviously. She was
one of five children. The father grew up on welfare. The source of the
income to the family was the $900 per month in public aid checks.
What tragically impressed me was after she died at the hands of her
mother, the investigators came in to look around the apartment to see
what they could find. They went into the apartment and found a paper
listing the welfare dollars that each child had brought into the
family.
We are literally living with a system which has taught people to
value children for the kind of incomes those children could attract to
the family through the welfare system.
This is not something that recommends our future. It is not something
upon which we should build. It is something which we must change.
The Senator from Pennsylvania made it very clear and eloquently
argued that we may not know everything about what we want to do and we
maybe cannot be assured that it will work completely. But we do know
one thing with a certainty. That is that the current system of welfare
is a tragedy. It has entrapped individuals. It has seen the
skyrocketing rate of individuals born into homes without families. It
has found more and more people in circumstances of dependence.
The War on Poverty, started years ago, addressed the situation where
fewer children were in poverty then than are in poverty now. It seems
to me that we must take action to change the status quo. We are dealing
with a tragedy. If every time we say, ``Well, we cannot reform welfare,
we are not sure that what will happen will be a perfect solution,'' we
are allowing the potential for perfection to paralyze us. And to say
that we will not act at all, it is pretty clear to me with individuals
who have begun to make careers--and not only careers for one individual
but careers for individuals generation after generation in families--of
a system which has ensnared them and not saved them, that we have the
wrong kind of net here and that we have to restructure it. We have to
provide some of the very tough motivations for people who lead this
system to be involved in the ladder of opportunity rather than the net
of ensnarement.
I believe that is what welfare has to be. It has to be a transitional
system.
So I think it is time for us to limit the amount of time that people
can be on welfare. It is time for us to provide disincentives to bear
children out of wedlock. It is time for us to provide powerful
incentives for people to go to work. It is time for us to say that, if
you are on welfare, you should be off drugs. It is time for us to say
that, if you are on welfare, your children should be in school. It is
time for us to say that, if you are on welfare, your children should
have the immunizations that are available to them free of charge. You
have to be responsible for what you are doing. We are not going to
continue to support you in a way in which you abdicate, you simply run
from, you hide from, your responsibility as a citizen.
As we look at where we are, we see a system the carnage of which is
written in the lives of children. It is written in the lives of adults
who have been ensnared by a net which was designed to arrest their
fall.
But instead of being a net of saving, it tends to be a net of
trapping, a net of ensnarement, and it is time for us to make this
system one of transition. It is time for welfare to be a ladder of
opportunity, and I believe the measure that is before us today gives us
the opportunity to make that the truth for the American people. They
are asking us to reform the welfare system. It is time to get about the
business and get it done.
I thank the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
All time has expired.
Mr. DOMENICI. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The absence of a quorum has been suggested.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The
majority leader is recognized.

Point of Order

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, the net effect of provisions reported by the
Finance Committee is that the committee fails to achieve its
reconciliation instruction for the year 2002. The Medicaid supplemental
umbrella fund increases outlays in the year 2002. Pursuant to section
313(b)(1)(B) of the Budget Act, I raise a point of order against
Section 1511 of the Social Security Act as added by section 2923 of the
reconciliation bill from page 772, line 13, through page 785, line 22.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The point of order is well taken, and the
provisions are stricken from the bill.

Amendment No. 4894

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I move to strike all of subtitle B,
Restructuring Medicaid, from title II of the reconciliation bill from
page 663, line 9, through page 1027, line 20.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
Mr. MOYNIHAN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. I believe there are Democratic Senators who would like
to speak on this measure. I do not know their names.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
The bill clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Mississippi [Mr. LOTT] proposes an
amendment numbered 4894.

The amendment is as follows:

On page 663, strike line 9, through page 1027, line 20.
Mr. LOTT. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President. I believe that this
would be debatable for up to 1 hour?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The debate will be 2 hours.
Mr. LOTT. Two hours equally divided. So if the distinguished Senator
from New York has Senators who wish to speak, they would have that
opportunity.
I would like to be recognized just briefly, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I personally feel very strongly that we
should act on the need to improve and reform Medicaid.
I had hoped we could get that done this year. I think that we could
have a better program, and I think that we could control the rate of
growth in such a way that it would help us move toward fiscal
responsibility and a balanced budget, but a number of considerations
have come into play.
The Senate and the House majority are very much committed to genuine
reform of welfare, requiring work, also giving flexibility to States as
to how this program is administered, also trying to move toward a
situation where welfare is not a way of life but there is an
opportunity for people in this country to get off welfare, get the
necessary training and education that will allow them to get into a
full-time job.
Unfortunately, in view of the opposition and threat of a veto from
the President if we had these two combined, we felt it was the best
thing to do at this time to move forward with welfare. We are committed
to getting that done. We are committed to getting it through the Senate
today or tomorrow and then going to conference as soon as possible and
completing action on this very important legislation before we go out
for the August recess.
There are a lot of factors that have come into play here, and I know
we will hear more about it from the distinguished chairman of the
Budget Committee and the chairman of the Finance Committee, but I just
wanted to make those brief remarks. I think all things considered, this
is the right thing to do at this time, and I hope the Senate will act
quickly on it and move on to further consideration of the welfare
reform package.
I yield the floor.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, before the majority leader leaves, we
have

[[Page S8082]]

heard from the Democratic side that they want a vote on this. I wonder,
while the leader is still here, if we could get the yeas and nays.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. If the Senator will give me just 3 minutes.
Mr. DOMENICI. He will come back with an answer.
I yield the floor. I thank the leader.
Mr. ROTH addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware [Mr. Roth], is
recognized.
Mr. ROTH. I yield myself such time as I might take.
Mr. President, I rise in support of the leader's motion to separate
Medicaid from this welfare reform legislation. Leo Tolstoy once said
that ``Life and the ideal are hard to reconcile. To try to make them
follow the same path is a life's work.''
I have to say that this observation has taken on new meaning for me
as we have worked diligently to craft welfare reform in a way that is
workable and meaningful.
In the case of welfare reform, the ideal, of course, is a proposal
that breaks the back of dependency, a proposal that reverses the
perverse incentives in the current program, and empowers men, women and
families to find security through work. The ideal program returns
authority to state and local governments--allowing them to unleash
their creativity, to be innovative, effective and, of course,
compassionate. This is where the people live; it is where their needs
are best met; it is where they are seen as individuals rather than as
statistics.

Likewise, Mr. President, the ideal welfare reform program contains
real and necessary reforms to Medicaid. In the past, President Clinton
has expressed why Medicaid reform is necessary for real welfare reform.
The Nation's Governors, liberal and conservative, have been eloquent
and persuasive as to why: Medicaid is quickly overtaking education to
be the number one expense in State budgets. Medicaid as it is currently
administered leads families to impoverishment, as they find it
necessary to qualify in an ``all-or-nothing'' way. Federal Medicaid
spending will be over $827 billion in the next 5 years, Mr. President,
challenging our Treasury, our taxpayer resources, as well as America's
economic well-being.
The ideal would be to have Medicaid reform attached to welfare
reform. I have made no secret of this. In trying to keep Medicaid a
part of this proposal, we have compromised time and again to give the
President a bill he could sign. In fact, the President himself proposed
to cut Medicaid by $59 billion. In our proposal to reform Medicaid, we
came within 2 percent of this number--2 percent--the difference of
about two dimes a day per beneficiary. And in our compromise we
continued to increase spending in the Medicaid Program--increase it
faster than Social Security. But, unfortunately, despite all this,
President Clinton maintains that Medicaid reform is a ``poison pill.''
Many of the President's allies in Congress support him. In their
arguments, they suggested that they could support welfare reform, and
the President would sign welfare reform, if the two were decoupled.
We have separated, or are in the process of separating Medicaid
reform from this legislation. Welfare reform is so important to the
American people that they are willing to accept compromise. Like
Tolstoy, they understand that ``life and the ideal are hard to
reconcile.'' While it may take a life's work to achieve the ideal, it
will certainly take the best efforts of this Senate to eventually
return to Medicaid reform when the time comes. We cannot leave undone
something so important and declare complete victory.
Medicaid, in my opinion, must be addressed, if not now, later. Anyone
who looks at the spending trends, anyone who looks at how this one
program is threatening the States, anyone who sees how it leads
families to choices, behaviors that are counterproductive to their
well-being and long-term success can understand that Medicaid must be
changed. It must be improved. It must be administered in a way that
allows States to be more flexible, more creative, and more effective in
helping families.
For the time, we must move forward. This is what the American people
want. We must pass this welfare reform legislation, a bill that takes a
very important first step toward meeting the needs of those most
vulnerable among us, a bill that returns common sense to the welfare
system, a bill that gives greater flexibility to the Federal and State
governments to help people help themselves. The time is right for this
legislation. At another time, we will revisit Medicaid, but for the
moment we must move on.
Mr. President, it is no secret that I firmly believe that it is
vitally important that both welfare and Medicaid reform should go
together. I believe there are compelling reasons for Medicaid reform.
The Governors, Democratic and Republican alike, have been strong
advocates of including Medicaid with welfare reform. President Clinton
himself for more than 3 years has talking about Medicaid's role in
removing the incentives to families to stay in poverty.
More than 3 years ago, President Clinton told the Nation's Governors
that, ``* * * many people stay on welfare not because of the checks * *
* they do it solely because they do not want to put their children at
risk of losing health care or because they do not have the money to pay
for child care * * *. This is precisely the purpose of the legislation
we introduced in May, S. 1795. That is why we have worked for months
with the Nation's Governors to keep welfare and Medicaid reform
together. Let me spell out some of the reasons why they belong
together.
It is important for the American people to understand that the
difference between our proposal and the President's plan for Medicaid
is not about spending money.
There is now little difference between this plan and the President's
own plan in terms of Federal spending levels on Medicaid.
Secretary Shalala appeared before the Finance Committee last month
and knowledged the President proposed to cut Medicaid by $59 billion.
Under our plan, the Federal commitment to Medicaid remains intact.
Even while slowing the rate of growth Medicaid spending would still
rise faster than Social Security under our plan.
The Federal Government will spend an estimated $827.1 billion between
1996 and 2002 on Medicaid, an average annual increase of approximately
6 percent.
We have met the President half-way in terms of Medicaid savings.
The difference between us is less than 2 percent of the total Federal
cost of Medicaid.
That is difference of about two dimes a day per beneficiary.
The American people should fully understand that the critical
difference between President Clinton and this legislation is not about
the level of spending. The difference between us is who controls the
spending. The fundamental issue is whether or not the Governors and
State legislators and judges can do a better job in running the $2.4
trillion welfare system than the bureaucracy in Washington.
The essence of the administration's opposition to Medicaid reform is
that the States cannot be trusted. The Clinton plan is built on the
premise that Washington must control the decisionmaking.
It is unfortunate that the potential achievements which would have
been brought from including Medicaid in welfare reform are not better
known. Too many people listened to unfounded accusations that the
Governors and State legislatures cannot wait to abandon the children in
their State. That is pure nonsense. If a family stays on welfare, that
family will get both a welfare check and Medicaid. Under this reform
proposal, the States have greater incentives to expand Medicaid
coverage and help prevent families from being forced onto the welfare
rolls in the first place. Reform is a critical component of getting
those now on welfare off of cash assistance.
The Governors also understand that under current law, Medicaid is an
all or nothing proposition. The current system contains built-in
incentives for families to impoverish themselves in order to qualify
for Medicaid.
The Governors also understand that under today's all or nothing
scheme, a lot of low-income working families get nothing. As if to add
insult to injury, many low-income families are paying for the benefits
a welfare family is getting while their own children go without
coverage.

[[Page S8083]]

Medicaid is an important program for our elderly citizens in terms of
long-term care coverage. But the current system is far from perfect in
serving our senior citizens.
The current system forces elderly citizens into poverty even before
any benefits can be provided.
Our senior citizens often do not receive the most appropriate
services because the current system, run under rules dictated by the
Federal Government, is not flexible enough. What is good for the
bureaucracy is not necessarily good for the individual. Our legislation
would have given the States greater flexibility to redesign benefits so
that our senior citizens could be better saved.
But instead of reform, the Clinton administration chose to scare the
elderly and hide behind children. The very idea that the current system
must remain in place in order to protect our vulnerable citizens from
their Governors and State legislators is not only insulting. It is
wrong.
More than half of the money being spent on Medicaid is there solely
because the States have chosen to provide optional benefits and extend
optional coverage to a greater number of people.
The administration scared people with a convoluted argument that our
legislation ``lacks a Federal guarantee'' as if only the Federal
Government is entirely responsible for anything good in the Medicaid
program. This argument is completely hollow. As Secretary Shalala
acknowledged to the Finance Committee earlier this month, the States
could take nearly $70 billion today, more than half the spending in the
program, out of the current Medicaid system without needing her
approval.
We did not create the linkage between welfare and Medicaid.
That was done more than 30 years ago when Medicaid was created.
Our legislation guarantees coverage and benefits for poor children,
children in foster care, pregnant women, senior citizens, persons with
disabilities, and families on welfare.
If anything, our legislation goes beyond the Governors' resolution in
terms of setting guarantees. In committee, we extended those Medicaid
guarantees even further to phase in coverage of children ages 13 to 18.
We also extended coverage to families leaving welfare. The
modification also requires States to provide health coverage under the
Medicaid Program for 1 year to families leaving welfare to go into the
work force.
This goal of Medicaid reform also goes directly to issue of a
balanced budget, another major issue of concern to the American people.
Simply put, the Federal budget cannot be balanced without Medicaid
reform. It is the third largest domestic program in the Federal budget.
It costs more than AFDC, food stamps, and SSI combined.
Medicaid reform is also critical to balancing State budgets and
priorities. One out of every $5 spent by the States goes to Medicaid.
The National Association of State Budget Officers reports that Medicaid
surpassed higher education as the second largest program in 1990.
If nothing changes, Medicaid spending may soon overtake elementary
and secondary education spending as well.
To those taxpayers who are wondering why there is not more money for
schools, to repair roads, and build bridges, a large part of the answer
is the uncontrolled spending of Medicaid.
Our Medicaid legislation would have returned power and flexibility to
the States, while retaining guarantee of a safety net for the most
vulnerable populations. It would have helped replace a failed welfare
system in which dependence is measured in generations and illegitimacy
is the norm, with a system that encourages work and helps keep families
together.
But in the past few weeks, it has become clear that the President
cannot stand the heat of a compromise on Medicaid.
For the record, let me point out that President Clinton vetoed a
welfare reform last January, H.R. 4, which did not include Medicaid.
In doing so, he also vetoed a bill which provided more support,
including child care, for welfare families than his own legislation
does.
H.R. 4 did not include Medicaid. But it did include the sweeping
child support enforcement reform for which millions of American
families are waiting. This legislation, again included in S. 1795, goes
light years beyond anything the President could ever accomplish solely
through administrative actions.
In the meantime, thousands of children have remained in poverty or
under the threat of poverty for at least another 6 months because they
have not received the cash assistance and medical insurance of their
absent parent as a result of President Clinton's vetoes.
My Democratic colleagues on the Finance Committee vowed that unless
we agreed to drop Medicaid, welfare reform would be lost. To his great
credit, the Republican nominee for President, our former colleague and
majority leader, Bob Dole, also encouraged us to not allow this dissent
to keep us from achieving welfare reform.
Senator Dole understands that the children and families in poverty
should not be forced to wait any longer for welfare reform.
In that spirit, we have again agreed to compromise. I support the
leader's motion to strike Medicaid.
Having now removed this stumbling block, it is my hope that the
administration will not erect new barriers to welfare reform at the
11th hour. The children and families who need this legislation should
not have to wait any longer.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Campbell). The Senator from New York [Mr.
Moynihan].
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, there will be no objection on this side
of the aisle to the proposal to strike that will now be made. But may I
point out that after a not inconsiderable debate, the Committee on
Finance, following the lead of its distinguished chairman, voted 17 to
3 not to strike this measure. But other considerations have appeared.
Mr. ROTH. If the distinguished Senator will yield, I would just point
out that that vote reflects the ideal.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. The ideal--we are doing nothing but realities today. I
thank the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico [Mr. Domenici].
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I understand we could adopt this right
now.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Yes.
Mr. DOMENICI. I think we have to do a couple of things in order to do
that. I understand there is no objection to adopting this by voice
vote?
Mr. MOYNIHAN. None.
Mr. DOMENICI. Is that correct?
Mr. MOYNIHAN. If people want to speak, they better show up. There is
no Senator on this floor wishing to speak on this matter. I have not
been informed of any. I have been told that there might be, but there
comes a time when that will no longer do.
Mr. DOMENICI. I think we can accommodate them in case they drop along
and want to talk. If you will give me just 1 minute --I understand we
would have to yield back time--let me make this unanimous consent
request first.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Certainly.

Unanimous Consent Agreement

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the pending Lott
amendment be deemed agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon
the table, the time between now and 2 p.m. be equally divided, and that
at 2 p.m. the Democratic leader be recognized to offer an amendment.
Mr. MOYNIHAN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, we have no objection, at least to this
amendment. But does the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee
not want to proceed to the matter of striking the Medicaid provision?
Mr. DOMENICI. That is what this does: ``The pending Lott amendment be
deemed agreed to.''
Mr. MOYNIHAN. The Lott amendment was not to the Byrd but to the
strike?
Mr. DOMENICI. The Lott amendment is to strike Medicaid.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I think, lest I reveal further ignorance
in regard to this measure, I had best be silent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further debate?
Mr. DOMENICI. Have you ruled?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? The Senator from Delaware.
Mr. ROTH. I have no objection.

[[Page S8084]]

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The
amendment is agreed to.
The amendment (No. 4894) was agreed to.
Several Senators addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time? The time is under control of
the Senator from Delaware or the Senator from New York.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, we have approximately 45 minutes. I
would like to divide that to 27\1/2\ minutes to the Senator from
Louisiana, or anyone he should recognize.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana [Mr. Breaux] is
recognized.
Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I yield myself 10 minutes.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I wonder if I might at this point--how
much time would Senator Grassley like?
Mr. GRASSLEY. I would like to have 10 minutes.
Mr. DOMENICI. I yield 10 minutes to Senator Grassley on our side. I
assume we should return to your side since we had just spoken. He will
be recognized after you have completed yours.
I ask unanimous consent that 10 minutes of our time be reserved for
Senator Grassley and he follow the first Democratic speaker.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Louisiana [Mr. Breaux] is recognized.
Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, let me start off by saying I support the
effort of the Senator from New Mexico and chairman of the Finance
Committee to separate this welfare reform legislation from the Medicaid
reform effort that has been worked on by the Members of this body. I
say that for just very pragmatic reasons. We need to reform Medicaid.
We need to reform welfare. But if we have an agreement on one, do not
mess it up with another item we do not have an agreement on.
This body is not in agreement on what to do with regard to Medicaid.
I think we are close to reaching an agreement on how to reform the
welfare programs in this country, so let us proceed together,
hopefully, to try to come up with a welfare reform bill that makes
sense, that both sides of the aisle can support, and, hopefully, one
that the President will be able to sign.
So, I support the effort to separate the two, and, of course, now
that is exactly what has occurred. We are now going to be dealing with
welfare reform this afternoon and hopefully finish it up in a timely
fashion.
I think the people of this country--I know the people of Louisiana--
certainly know welfare in this country today does not serve well the
people who are on it, nor does it serve very well the people who are
paying for it. It is clear the American people, particularly those
outside of Washington, are saying to the Congress that we want
realistic welfare. We want a welfare reform bill that emphasizes work,
a real welfare reform bill that is more about getting a job and less
about just getting a check. They want a welfare reform bill that is
fair, that emphasizes work, that has time limits, but a welfare reform
bill that is also good for children.
As President Clinton has always said, he wants to reform welfare as
we know it. He wants to be tough on work but good for kids. I have said
you can say the same thing and come to the same conclusion saying that
welfare reform is really about putting work first, but it is also about
making sure we do not put children last. I think, in a bipartisan
fashion, we should be able to come together and reach those separate
but, I think, mutually agreeable goals.

While Congress has not been able for over a year now to come to an
agreement on welfare reform, the administration has really not waited
for us. If you look at what the administration has done, working with
the States, you will see they have really left the Congress behind,
because we have not been able to agree. President Clinton and his
administration team has really been working with the States. They have
now approved 67 welfare reform plans in 40 different States. Welfare
reform is occurring, and it is occurring without Congress.
It is time that Congress get on the wagon, get on the ball and write
a national program so we do not have to have 67 separate welfare reform
programs in 40 different States, many with different types of standards
and different emphases on what should be done. We should come together
and write a national welfare reform bill.
It is important the Federal Government be involved. In my own State
of Louisiana, the State puts up 28 percent of the money, approximately.
The Federal Government puts up 78 percent. Should not the Federal
Government be involved in welfare reform? If we are raising 78 percent
of the money that is going to the people of my State, of course, we
should be. It is not a question of who does it, it is a question of
making sure everybody does it. It is not a question of whether it is
run in Washington or whether it is run by the States, it should be run
in partnership between the States and the Federal Government, giving
the States the maximum amount of flexibility, but also having some
national standards because national funds are being contributed to the
welfare reform program in all of the various States.
So, Mr. President, I think we ought to all agree reform is needed. We
ought to agree we can come up with something the President can sign.
We, on this side, will be offering what we now call a ``Work First''
welfare reform bill. It meets the principles of what people in this
country want.
No. 1, they want it to have time limits. Welfare should not be
forever. It should be about getting a job. It should have time limits
that are real and realistic. The amendment that we will be offering
says that at most, people will be able to be on welfare for a total of
5 years in their lifetime. Then we give the States authority to make it
less if they think it is right for their State. We give the State the
flexibility to do that.
Our bill requires work. It is an absolute unconditional requirement
that people on welfare move into the work force. There is no more
unconditional assistance. The goal of welfare reform, under our
proposal, would be to get people into the private sector and get them a
real job. Instead of just getting a check for not working, get them a
job and then the check will be for working.
Our bill says the States should have the maximum amount of
flexibility. What is good in my State of Louisiana may not work in New
York or in any other State in the country, and vice versa. So our
legislation gives the States maximum amount of flexibility. What does
that mean? It means the States set the benefit level for the people in
that State. They will decide how to get people off welfare into a job.
It is a State decision. The State will set the sanctions, or the
penalties, if you will, for those who refuse to go to work. We give the
States the flexibility that they need.
I think that, however, in many instances, our bills are very similar.
The Senate Finance Committee, under the leadership of Senator Roth, has
moved in a major way toward a middle ground, a middle proposal. He is
to be congratulated for that. It is an indication of good faith on his
part in working with some of us on our side of the aisle to produce a
better bill.
What we have to do is to make sure that our goal is to put work first
but without putting children last. That is a very important standard
for us to meet. We should be as tough as we possibly can be on parents,
because they have a responsibility and are old enough to understand
what that responsibility should be. But there are a lot of innocent
children involved who did not ask to be born and are here because of
perhaps, in some cases, the fault of their parents, but they are here
not because they want to be here necessarily. They are innocent victims
of welfare problems in this country. Therefore, it is very important
that we make sure that we protect children while we are as tough as we
possibly can be and should be with regard to parents.

I also point out that our legislation is going to make sure parents
who are on welfare or AFDC assistance are eligible for health care in
this country. I cannot imagine anybody standing up and saying, ``I'm
tough on families, but I want to knock them off health care.'' The bill
this Congress passed before, by an 87 to 12 margin, guaranteed AFDC
recipients would continue to receive Medicaid. This bill does not do
that. It is a major change. It says if you knock

[[Page S8085]]

them off AFDC assistance there is no guarantee they will get health
care. I think that is wrong. We are going to have a bipartisan
amendment to correct that. This body should adopt that.
I also want to point out that in trying to make sure we protect
children, we ought to take into consideration what happens if we are
being tough on parents and we say that you are off after 2 years, no
more assistance, you should be working, what are we going to tell a 2-
year-old child of that parent? Are we going to tell them they are not
going to have any more help? Are we going to tell the 2-year-old they
should go out and find a job?
These are the innocent victims who I think we should work together to
try and help. Be as tough as we can on parents, but let's make sure
that the innocent child, in many cases almost a baby, is protected.
I have an amendment that I will be offering to the bill that says we
should have vouchers for children. After the family has been take off
of AFDC assistance, do not just throw the child out into the street.
Our amendment is going to provide for noncash vouchers for innocent
children of families who have had welfare terminated.
I heard the distinguished Senator from New York talking about
providing diapers for children. If anybody ever had small children,
diapers for children happen to be a pretty important thing in raising a
child in a healthy environment. Yes, they could use the noncash
assistance for diapers, but they could also use it for clothes, they
could use it for school supplies, they could use it for medicine, they
could use it for food so that a 2-year-old baby does not go hungry
because they have a parent who is not responsible.
Again, the emphasis should be as being as tough as we possibly can be
on the parent, but let's not in this body in this prosperous country
say we are not going to take care of the innocent child. So our
vouchers for children will say just that.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. BREAUX. How much time remains?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired. There remains
17 minutes 23 seconds.
Mr. BREAUX. I yield myself an additional 5 minutes.
Mr. President, the point of the vouchers for children is to say to
States, ``Look, if you want to have a 5-year cutoff of an AFDC
recipient, you can do that now and you ought to have authority to
provide vouchers for kids after that 5-year period, if you cut off a
family or a recipient sooner than 5 years, say maybe 2 years.''
In my State, we will do exactly that, which has been approved, a 2-
year time limit. But when a State does that, we have a responsibility
to say that you should be required to provide at least noncash vouchers
out of the money you are getting for the innocent children.

We are giving the State the absolute maximum amount of flexibility on
designing that program. The States will be able to decide just about
everything with regard to how that voucher is going to be handled and
how it is going to be awarded.
My own State has the highest percentage of children in poverty in the
Nation. Mr. President, 34.5 percent of all the children in my State are
in poverty. I think we on the Federal level have an obligation to say
that they should be taken care of after the parent is told that there
will no longer be any cash assistance to that parent.
We are not talking about any additional spending by the State or any
additional money by the State, we are talking about the money the State
is going to get under this new block grant. The Federal money and State
money can be combined to provide these vouchers for children, which I
think are very, very important. We are talking about giving the State
the absolute maximum degree of flexibility on designing how this
program would work. The State would assess the needs of the child. They
would set how much that child will be able to get and in what form it
would be able to be given. They would set the amount. They would set
the type of assistance, but I just do not think that we, as a Nation,
can walk away from children who are innocent victims of circumstances
that they have absolutely no control over.
The Food Stamp Program is going to be addressed. We need to make
sure, from a Federal level, that it is a responsibility, as it always
has been, to design a Food Stamp Program that provides certain
guarantees in terms of economic downturns by the various States.
I think it is incredibly important that the Chafee-Breaux amendment,
dealing with the Medicaid guarantee, will be addressed in a positive
fashion. If we can do something positively on the vouchers for
children, I think we can come together on a true, real welfare reform
bill that this President will be happy to sign.
We have to decide whether we want a political issue or whether we
want a real bill. There are some Democrats in Congress who say, ``We do
not want any bill; we'll do anything we can to stop it, because it is
not to our liking 100 percent.''
I think there are some on the Republican side who also want to send
the bill to the President as bad as they can make it to make sure he
vetoes it and then blame him for vetoing it. There is a growing number
in the Senate that wants to work together and come up with something
that is doable.
So I summarize my points as let us be as tough as we can on the
parents, let us have time limits, and let us have work requirements,
and let us give a maximum degree of flexibility to the States to do
what they want, but at the same time let us make sure we protect the
children who are the innocent victims in this entire exercise.

Privilege Of The Floor

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Kristen Testa
on my staff, a fellow in my office, be granted floor privileges for the
duration of the debate on this bill.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BREAUX. I reserve the balance of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous agreement, the Senator from
Iowa has 10 minutes.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, as a member of the Senate Finance
Committee that has worked so hard to put these bills on the floor of
the Senate, I am very proud, for a third time, to be part of an effort,
another effort, I might say, to pass comprehensive welfare reform.
We have passed welfare reform on two separate occasions. The
President has vetoed the bill on both of those occasions. So we
obviously wonder whether or not he wants an issue or whether he wants
welfare reform. Does he want a bill or an issue? He said in the
election of 1992 that he wanted to end welfare as we know it.
For sure, the bills that we passed previously ended welfare as we
know it. One bill, part of the 1995 Balanced Budget Act, the first
Balanced Budget Act Congress would pass in a generation, did welfare
reform, saving $58 billion, compared to the $53 billion that this bill
saves.
So maybe the President vetoed that because there was something else
in that very big Balanced Budget Act that he did not like. Then we took
the welfare reform language out of that, and on December 18 passed
that, and in early January he vetoed it. So we wonder just exactly what
kind of welfare reform the President wants that would satisfy his and
our desire to end welfare as we know it.
Until just last weekend, it looked like he would veto the bill that
we are talking about today. In his Saturday radio address, however, he
said that the Republican Congress was finally--remember that--finally
sending him a welfare bill he could sign. That sounds pretty certain,
right? But it is not so certain, because he has said similar things in
the past concerning the Senate-passed bill and the Governors'
proposals. We do not get a definitive answer--even on this bill--do not
get a definitive answer of whether he would sign it even after he
talked so positively on the radio Saturday. So only time will tell if
he will actually sign this bill.
The President seems to be able to have it two ways. Through the TV
media and the radio media, he sends a very clear message to the public
that he is promoting welfare reform and he is ready to sign something.
But then, when you actually try to pin his people down, whether he will
sign a certain bill, we do not get the answer. So, to the mass of the
public, they hear that we have a President leading on welfare

[[Page S8086]]

reform. But the truth is that in the Halls of Congress, there is a
dragging of feet of whether or not his people will say, yes, he will
sign it.
We passed a previous welfare reform bill by a high bipartisan margin
of 87 to 12. Like that, this bill that we have before us now creates a
block grant to the States to draft their own welfare reform proposals.
This eliminates the need to come, hat in hand, on bended knee to the
Federal Government under current waiver provisions.
The President has been touted as signing 67--I do not dispute that--
for 40 different States. But still you find an environment today where
States have to come on hands and knees to beg for permission to make
some change in their welfare system so they can put people to work and
save the taxpayers money.
So what is different about this approach is that it is
finally welfare reform and not just waiver reform. People that do not
want to give up the power of Washington to determine everything, their
proposals tend to be more waiver reform, not welfare reform. Welfare
reform, in the strictest sense of the word, trusts States.

Wisconsin is an example. The President, wanting to beat Senator Dole
to the punch when he knew Senator Dole was going to espouse Wisconsin-
type welfare reform, the President said that what Wisconsin is doing is
what we should be doing. And under existing law, Wisconsin comes, hat
in hand, to the Federal Government begging for a waiver. Now, 60 days
later they still do not have their waiver. Yet, the President said,
flatly, that we ought to be doing what Wisconsin is doing. Within a few
minutes after that comment that day he was asked, would he sign it, if
Congress passed what Wisconsin did, and he would not say that he would.
We still do not know. For sure, if he likes the Wisconsin approach, why
has he not granted Wisconsin's waiver?
The importance of this change from waivers to welfare reform or mere
waiver reform, which would be nothing compared to welfare reform, is we
give power to the States for a very good reason. We passed so-called
welfare reform in 1988. It passed this body 96 to 1. It was supposed to
save the taxpayers money. It was supposed to move people from welfare
to work. What do we see 8 years later? Three million-plus more people
on welfare, we have not saved the taxpayers money, and we are not
moving people from welfare to work.
In the meantime, we have seen States, like Wisconsin, that even the
President said is doing something right--Michigan, Iowa, and a lot of
other States, we have actually seen them, regardless of the fact that
they have had to come to Washington to get permission to do what they
wanted to do--we are seeing States succeeding where Washington has
failed. That is why we have great confidence in what we do, of
suggesting welfare reform, welfare to be turned over to the States to
administer.
My own State of Iowa overwhelmingly passed legislation in April 1993
to change welfare in our State. In order to implement that plan, the
State had to seek 18 initial Federal waivers, and more since. Although
the State wanted to implement a statewide plan, they were required to
have a control group of between 5 and 10 percent who would remain under
the old AFDC policies in order to obtain even this initial waiver.
In October 1993, the policies that affected work incentives and
family stability were implemented. At that time, there were over 36,000
families receiving assistance in my State with an average monthly
benefit of over $373. I just received the latest figures from my State.
That caseload of 36,000 is down 12.6 percent to just under 32,000. The
average monthly benefit is down 11.7 percent to $330.
In January 1994, the State implemented its personal responsibility
contracts, in which each family on welfare commits to pursue
independence, and the State commits to provide certain supports to move
that family from welfare to work. Before the State implemented welfare
reform, only 18 percent of the welfare families in my State on cash
assistance had some earned income.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I have permission from Senator Domenici,
the floor manager of the bill, to yield myself more time. I yield
myself 10 more minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Now, under this new plan people are working. The most
recent numbers show that the 18-percent figure has gone to over 33
percent of all cash-assisted families in Iowa now having earned income,
the highest percentage of any State in the Nation. Now, some have
attributed this dramatic increase to a strong economy and low
unemployment rate in my State. However, in this control group that we
had to have to satisfy the Washington bureaucrats at HHS, only 19
percent of the people in the old program have earned income. That is
only 1 percentage point above what it was for a long period of time
before reform in Iowa. So it shows that it takes policies and it takes
reform, not just a strong economy, to bring about changes of behavior.
My State's success demonstrates that giving States freedom and
discretion to create their own programs will be best for the
constituents we serve. This bill does that. I firmly believe that State
leaders are as compassionate and as concerned for those in need as we
are here at the Federal level.
By passing welfare reform that gives more authority to the States, we
are putting the best interests of our constituents first. Not only
that, but by enacting good welfare policy we are also saving the
taxpayers some of their hard-earned money. In this package, we save $53
billion over the next 6 years. Much of this savings comes from making
noncitizens ineligible for most Federal assistance programs. Even with
these savings, spending on major means-tested programs will actually
grow 4.3 percent from $99.3 billion in fiscal year 1996 to $127 billion
in the year 2002. This is a measured approach to reforming our welfare
system. I am pleased to support it.
There is a concern that a reduction in funds will hurt low--income
families. Once again, Iowa serves as an example of what can happen when
States are given more freedom to create their own programs. When my
State implemented welfare reform in October 1993, the monthly payout
for the State was $13.6 million. In June of this year, the monthly
payout was down to $10.5 million, a reduction of almost 23 percent.
Because of these savings, the State has been able to put more money
into job training and into child care for both those on public
assistance and those who are low-income working Iowans. This is as it
should be.
My State and other States are demonstrating their commitment to serve
the needs of their respective constituents. Producing savings to better
serve Iowans is simply a benefit of good policy changes.
It is incumbent upon this Congress to try again, then, as we are, to
pass welfare reform that fulfills our promise. In this act we are
fulfilling our commitment to change welfare as we know it. We are
fulfilling our commitment to require work for welfare. We are
fulfilling our commitment to have time-limited assistance.
We do not know what the President will do. But just because the
President has trouble keeping his promise does not mean we should have
trouble keeping our promise, as Members of the U.S. Senate, to deliver
on our promise of ending welfare as we know it. We are fulfilling our
commitments. He will have to reconsider his commitment.
I am also supportive, as we have just done, of the striking of the
Medicaid provisions. I do not like to do that. Striking Medicaid from
this bill, no doubt, means any Medicaid reform is dead for this
Congress. That is too bad because Medicaid definitely needs reform.
Medicaid is spending too much money. The rate of increase it is
spending under current law is too rapid to sustain. It is also too
encumbered with Federal rules and requirements.
I remind my colleagues that just 12 months ago Senator Packwood, as
then chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, was on the floor. He
held up a stack of documents just from the State of Oregon--new
regulations that had been issued just within the previous 6 months, new
regulations for the State Medicaid Program. That is how complicated and
irresponsibly administered this program is. Too much control in
Washington, not enough faith.
Mr. DOMENICI. Will the Senator yield?

[[Page S8087]]

Mr. GRASSLEY. I yield.
Mr. DOMENICI. Senator, I want to yield to Senator Gregg when you are
finished. Can I do that now?
Mr. GRASSLEY. Yes.
Mr. DOMENICI. I ask the remainder of time on our side, once Senator
Grassley is finished, be yielded to Senator Gregg. Then we will have
completed time on this side.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Iowa is recognized.
Mr. GRASSLEY. So this Medicaid proposal we had before the Senate
would have ended some of that complicated bureaucratic overregulation
that has come from the last 30 years under the existing program.
There is nothing new with this proposal. We have been back and forth
over this ground. This bill would have changed a lot of that. What
disappoint me most, in the Senate Finance Committee's deliberation on
Medicaid, we tried in every way possible to satisfy the Democratic
members of our committee. Senator Roth accepted over 50 amendments,
many of them retaining Federal protections that the other side wanted,
even some Republicans wanted. It seems to me Senator Roth went a long
way toward addressing the major concerns that the minority had and
maybe even the President had on the Medicaid portions of the bill.
Despite this, not a single Finance Committee Democrat voted for the
bill.
I understand that some of the Republican Governors are not happy with
the changes the Finance Committee made to the bill. When we started
down this road of Medicaid reform, the idea was that the States would
be able to live with less Federal assistance if they had sufficient
discretion to organize their programs as they see fit. The bill filed
by the Finance Committee does not provide the discretion which most of
the Governors were saying earlier this year that they wanted.
Perhaps, for that reason, some of the Governors are willing to see
Medicaid and welfare separated. I don't know.
In any case, even with the Democratic amendments accepted by the
Finance Committee, the Governors would have had substantially greater
discretion than they have now over important aspects of their savings
if this legislation were enacted. And we would have moved a step closer
to a balanced budget by getting greater control over the Medicaid
spending which has been growing in recent years at an unsustainable
rate.
But the minority in the Finance Committee voted against the bill. And
the President has said again that he would veto it.
So, our leadership has yielded to the inevitable. If there is a
silver lining here, it is that we will have a chance to get real
welfare reform, assuming that the President is at last willing to sign
a welfare reform bill.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Senator Gregg has 4 minutes and 32 seconds,
the remaining time.
Mr. GREGG. I thank the Senator from New Mexico for his courtesy in
yielding me this time. I wish to rise to echo much of what has been
said here but also hopefully to expand upon it in an effective way. The
issue which is being brought forth here is the fundamental issue that
we have to address as a Governor. It is the issue of how to control our
entitlement accounts.
I serve on the Appropriations Committee. I have the pleasure to chair
the Commerce, State, and Justice Subcommittee. I am constantly
petitioned by individuals coming to me who represent very legitimate
organizations, asking that they receive funding at last year's level of
expenditure, or maybe even a slight increase, maybe an inflationary
increase in their accounts. I have to say to them, ``I am sorry, we are
going to have to reduce this account,'' or in some cases we have to
eliminate spending in that account because we do not have the money
available.
Why do we not have the money available? Primarily because of the fact
we have not been able to control entitlement spending here in our body.
Therefore, all the effort to control spending in this body falls on the
discretionary side. Entitlement spending, as my colleagues know, is
made up of five major items: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, AFDC,
and earned-income tax credit. There are also the farm programs and a
variety of other mandatory programs. In fact, I think there are 400 of
them.
This Congress, in the balanced budget bill which we sent to the
President, addressed the primary drivers of our spending problem on the
entitlement side. We addressed Medicaid, we addressed Medicare, we
addressed welfare, we addressed AFDC, we addressed the farm program. We
did not take up the Social Security issue because that had been moved
off the table. Regrettably, the balanced budget proposal which was
passed by this Congress was vetoed by the President.
So we have now proceeded to take up these items one at a time. There
was a legitimate effort and a very good effort made in the farm area.
It did not go as far as I would like on issues like sugar and peanuts,
but it did make significant strides.
However, there remains the core issues of the health care accounts,
Social Security, and welfare. So today we take up one more leg of the
school of entitlement spending which must be addressed and shored up,
if it is to be stable, and that is the welfare issue.
I regret, however--and I want to talk about this--that we have not
addressed, also, the Medicaid accounts. It is very hard, logically, to
separate these two because Medicaid is the health care benefit for
people who are essentially on welfare. To separate them is to do
something which, from a matter of substantive policy, makes little
sense. It may make sense politically, because the administration and
the other side of the aisle refuse to address Medicaid. More important,
it makes no sense from a standpoint of how it affects our day-to-day
life in this Congress in the area of controlling the Federal budget,
because Medicaid is a much more significant problem than welfare in the
area of spending. In fact, Medicaid spending, over the last 5 years,
was $464 billion. But if we do nothing about it over the next 5 years,
it will be projected to be $802 billion. That is a 73--percent increase
in spending on those accounts.
Now, at that rate of increase, we would soon see--it is projected--
that by the year 2010, all the revenues of the Federal Government would
be absorbed in order to pay for the costs of the entitlement programs:
Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, welfare benefits, and interest on
the Federal debt. We would have no money available to do discretionary
activities, such as defense spending, roads, environment, or education.
So this Congress needs to address all those different entitlement
accounts. Yet, it has decided not to address the Medicaid accounts--not
because this side is not willing; this side is willing to do that. We
proposed a bill which addressed it that was vetoed by the President. We
reported out of the committee another bill which would have addressed
it. The other side of the aisle is not amenable to this.
Therefore, our failure to address the Medicaid account is, in my
opinion, a fundamental failure to do the job that is required of us as
Members of this Congress, because it is a failure to address what is
one of the core issues that is driving the deficit of this country and
driving the fact that this Nation is headed toward fiscal bankruptcy in
the next century, unless we take control back of these entitlement
accounts.
I, therefore, am one who feels that we should have joined the
efforts. We should have brought welfare and Medicaid to the floor
together, and we should pass them together. But the decision has been
made to pursue this welfare reform package.
I simply want to say that, even though it does not include Medicaid
as a package, it is a step in the right direction. Although it still
has more strings attached than there need to be, it is a package which
returns to the States pretty much authority over the management of the
welfare accounts in this country. That is the essence of our effort, to
take a program that has been an entitlement, directed at the Federal
level, and turn it back to the States as a discretionary program, and
basically allow the States to manage it in a way that is much more
efficient and effective.
In New Hampshire, the dollars that come back to the States without
strings will be spent much more effectively than those that come back
with strings. It will be able to take care of more people for fewer
dollars than is

[[Page S8088]]

presently occurring under the system as it functions today.

I, therefore, strongly support the welfare part of this
reconciliation bill. I regret that we are not taking up what I consider
to be one of the other core elements that is driving our fiscal
problems in this country--the Medicaid issue. I hope that as we move
into this election cycle, however, we will not ignore those issues that
are critical in getting this fiscal house in order, such as Medicaid,
Medicare, and the Social Security issue, as we move forward.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired. The minority
leader or his designee has 7 minutes, 30 seconds.
Mr. HARKIN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. HARKIN. I yield myself the remainder of the time.
Mr. President, I support the motion to strike the Medicaid provisions
of the pending bill, thereby providing for a realistic change of
historic welfare reform becoming law this year.
This is something I have supported for some time. I joined with
Senator Bond in 1994 to introduce the first bipartisan welfare reform
plan that required responsibility from day one. Last year, I worked
with Republican and Democratic colleagues to craft a bipartisan
compromise that passed the Senate by a vote of 87-12. This year, I have
been pushing to free welfare reform from controversial proposals to cut
nursing home and other health care in Medicaid.
In May, I offered an amendment to the budget resolution calling for
the separation of welfare from Medicaid. Although my effort at that
time was defeated, I am pleased that it looks like that change is
agreed to here today, and we do have them separately.
Mr. President, there is no doubt that the current welfare system is
broken and in desperate need of reform. It is failing the people on it
and the taxpayers who provide the money to finance it. We need to
change it, and we should do it, as we did last year, with bipartisan
cooperation.
No one has a corner on good ideas, and by putting partisan politics
aside and working together, we can forge a bill that makes common
sense. For the past few years, I have talked, from time to time, about
the need to enact bipartisan welfare reform, which demands
responsibility from day one, requires work, and releases welfare
families from the cycle of dependency.
The Iowa Family Investment Program, I believe, provides us with an
effective model for achieving these goals. Since Iowa began
implementing welfare reforms in October 1993, the number of people
working has almost doubled, the welfare caseload has declined, and
welfare costs are down. I call that a triple play. In fact, I am proud
of the fact that our State of Iowa, right now, has a higher percentage
of people on welfare who work than any State in the Nation. I believe
that is because of the historic welfare reform that we passed in 1993.
Mr. President, there are other good reasons to look at the Iowa
experience as we craft legislation. I commend the Iowa experience to my
colleagues. In 1993, Iowa enacted sweeping changes to the welfare
system, and did so with very strong bipartisan support. In fact, the
Iowa plan received only one dissenting vote from the 150-member
Democratically controlled general assembly, and it was signed into law
by our Republican Governor. So it shows that it is possible to work
together on welfare reform, and the State of Iowa is better because of
it.
In 1994, I sought to take a page from the Iowa playbook and went to
work with my Republican colleague from Missouri, Senator Bond, to
develop bipartisan welfare reform legislation modeled on innovations
occurring in our respective States. The result was the first bipartisan
welfare reform legislation in that session of Congress. The bill was
reintroduced last year.
The centerpiece of the Iowa program is the family investment
agreement.
In order to receive aid, all welfare recipients are required to sign
a binding contract which outlines the steps that each individual family
will take to move off of welfare and a date when welfare benefits will
end.
Last September, I offered, and the Senate adopted, an amendment to
include such a requirement in our bipartisan bill that passed by a vote
of 87 to 12. Unfortunately this provision was dropped in the conference
with the House.
Later today, I will again, hopefully with bipartisan support, once
again try to include a provision which requires individuals to sign a
personal responsibility contract as a condition of receiving benefit. I
can tell you these contracts are working in Iowa. In fact, I frequently
visit with welfare recipients and caseworkers to ask about the
contracts. An overwhelming majority say it is positive and very helpful
in charting the course for a family to move off of welfare and to keep
on track.
While there are many positive features in this bill that we have
before us, from requiring work to increased child care funding to child
support enforcement improvements, I have concerns about some
provisions, and I hope we can work together to improve them. I will not
go into all of them. But I want to say that some of the cuts in
nutrition really do not have anything to do with welfare reform, and I
think are more designed to reach arbitrary budget savings. We cannot
back off of our commitment to child nutrition. It will cost us more
money in the long run.
I also have concerns about assuring that we maintain basic health and
safety standards for child care. I think the work first substitute is
far superior to the committee reported bill. It addresses my concerns,
and it also includes a strong contract requirement as well as making
our Iowa program a model that other States might adopt. It also
maintains our commitment to child nutrition and preserving important
protections for children.
Senator Daschle will be offering this substitute shortly. As one of
his cosponsors, I believe it deserves the support of all Senators. It
is tough on work while protecting kids. And that is common sense.
Mr. President, if there is one lesson to be learned from the past
year and a half it is this: Confrontation and partisanship is a
prescription for failure. The only way we can truly accomplish welfare
reform this year is to stop the political games and join forces across
the aisle to craft a bipartisan welfare reform which accomplishes the
goals that the American people support--a welfare system that puts
people to work, and gets them off public assistance quickly, fairly,
and permanently.
The adoption of this amendment to take up stand-alone welfare reform
moves in that direction of bipartisanship, and I hope that as we
proceed on this bill we will continue to work in this spirit--a spirit
of bipartisanship--to craft and pass a bill so we can finally achieve
needed reform in the area of welfare.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. DASCHLE addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Snowe). The minority leader, Senator
Daschle, is recognized.
Mr. DASCHLE. Madam President, thank you.

Amendment No. 4897

Mr. DASCHLE. Madam President, I have an amendment at the desk. I ask
for its immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Daschle), for himself,
Mr. Breaux, Ms. Mikulski, Mr. Ford, Mr. Rockefeller, Mr.
Reid, and Mr. Kerrey, proposes an amendment numbered 4897.

Mr. DASCHLE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of
the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The text of the amendment is printed in today's Record under
``Amendments Submitted.'')
Mr. DASCHLE. Madam President, let me begin by commending the
distinguished Senator from Iowa for his excellent statement just now.
He has indicated, in much the same way that I intend to give, the
reasons for supporting the work first bill, and his concerns about the
pending bill as it has been reported out of the Senate Finance
Committee.
There are many Members in our caucus that I would like to single out
publicly, and applaud for their remarkable effort and the tremendous
work that they have dedicated to this whole issue

[[Page S8089]]

and to the determination they have shown to pass a meaningful welfare
reform bill this year.
Let me begin with the distinguished Senator from Maryland, Barbara
Mikulski, and the distinguished Senator as well from Louisiana, John
Breaux, who were extraordinarily helpful to the leadership all the way
through our deliberations and have provided remarkable leadership in
their own right. I thank them for that. I appreciate very much their
assistance in so many ways. The Senator from Connecticut, Chris Dodd,
and the Senator from North Dakota, Byron Dorgan, and so many of our
colleagues who are listed today as cosponsors have also been extremely
helpful.
While we have all put an effort into the issue of welfare reform, I
should say that no one in our caucus, I daresay in the Senate, has been
more vocal and more of a student of this issue than the senior Senator
from New York, Senator Moynihan. He is not on the floor at this moment.
But I also want to commend him for the real leadership and the
willingness that he has demonstrated throughout to hold this body to a
set of principles, and in a sense to be the conscience of the Senate
when it comes to welfare. He is indeed the conscience of the Senate
when it comes to this issue, and no one has dedicated more years--in
fact, I would say more decades--to the issue of welfare and the ways in
which to address many of the social ills of our country in an effective
way as he has.
Madam President, I have two charts here that I just want to address
very briefly. I have listened with some interest to the comments made
by colleagues on both sides of the aisle. While, obviously, there are
issues that divide us, there are many things that unite us. One of the
things that unites us I think is an awareness of the degree to which
current welfare recipients face barriers of all kinds as they attempt
to confront the real changes that they face in their own lives.
The effort to understand those barriers at the beginning through a
better realization of how we address those barriers in an effective way
through public policy are all listed on this chart. This chart outlines
the barriers identified in a study released last year by the Child Care
Trends organization. I think it is very constructive to note that of
all the barriers that exist today, the biggest barrier of all is child
care. The realization that people are not willing to leave their child
home alone, that young children demand and, indeed, deserve to be cared
for and protected, and that there has to be some confidence that
children will find a way with which to be fed and cared for in a
meaningful way. But child care without exception is by far the largest
barrier that we face in encouraging and finding ways in which to bring
about more work for welfare recipients today.
The second is personal--personal problems; struggle, most likely
related to job skills; problems that they have had going all the way
back to perhaps even their failures in education. But the realization
that unless they develop better job skills and better personal skills
in order to be more competitive is something that over one-fourth of
all recipients say is the problem that leads them to welfare
dependency.
Obviously, there are other issues. I will not go into all of them.
Some people simply cannot find work. I know of a lot of South Dakotans
who live on Indian reservations where unemployment is 80 percent, and
there, frankly, is no job on a reservation in large measure that will
bring people to a better opportunity for work than the one they have.
Pregnancy is a problem; inability to work because of disabilities;
and, obviously, there is a motivation question in some cases.
So, if we are going to devise a bill that will deal with the
barriers, we have to devise a bill that deals with all of the different
circumstances that welfare recipients find themselves in. We have to
ensure that there is motivation to give them some sense that they do
not have the luxury of being unmotivated; that we have to deal with
child care; we have to deal with job skills; we have to find ways with
which to ensure that, if work is not there, we will find work for them.
So we want to do as many things as possible to ensure that welfare
recipients no longer face the barriers that they are facing. That
really is what unites Republicans and Democrats, and brings us to the
effort that is underway in both the House and the Senate this
afternoon.
Madam President, there are a number of areas--and a number of our
colleagues have already addressed them--that have been improved in the
pending legislation. There are significant improvements, and we have
counted perhaps as many as two dozen improvements in the current bill
over what was originally proposed last year. There certainly has been
significant progress.
I heard the distinguished chairman of the Finance Committee address
many of the improvements that are made in this legislation. We still
believe, however, with all of the improvements, there are some very
serious deficiencies we have to address. And in an effort to lay down
the marker, to find a way with which to make a comparison between the
pending legislation and what ideally Democrats would like to see as a
meaningful comprehensive welfare reform approach, we are now offering
what we call the work first II plan. We have also made improvements. We
have also addressed deficiencies that have been raised over the last 12
months. We have also tried to find ways with which to come to the
middle, and, even though we thought we were in the middle from the very
beginning, maybe a better phrase would be to compromise with our
Republican colleagues in a way that addresses their concerns and brings
to a higher level of priority some of the concerns that have been
raised by critics of welfare reform in the past.
So we today propose the work first plan which provides for
conditional assistance of limited duration, which provides work first
for all able-bodied recipients, which turns welfare offices into
employment offices, and which guarantees child care assistance.
If I could say what our goal ought to be, regardless of what approach
we might take, I hope we would all agree on three important goals:
first and foremost, providing the assurance that people will have the
ability to get a good job, first by the acquisition of skills, and,
second, by the acquisition of whatever necessary means it may require
to ensure that they have access to good jobs. Turning welfare offices
into employment offices ought to be what welfare is all about.
Secondly, we want to ensure that we are protecting children, that we
are not going to punish them, that we will not hold vulnerable
individuals in a way that would jeopardize their future, that would
condemn them to the same cycle of dependency that their parents and
grandparents and great grandparents have experienced.
So protecting children ought to be our second goal--fortifying them,
strengthening them, empowering them to do things that they may not
otherwise be able to do on their own.
Third, we believe there are ways in which to save Federal tax
dollars. We believe we can provide a welfare system that is more
efficient, that saves resources in ways that can be better spent,
first, in welfare but also in the vast array of other responsibilities
we have at the Federal level.
So in a sense, Madam President, that is exactly what the work first
bill does. It provides work; it provides job skills to get work; it
protects children; and it saves money. In fact, it saves about $51
billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO scores
our plan as real reform. The CBO says that we have sufficient resources
to put welfare recipients to work, one of the goals.
In addition, we provide sufficient resources to pay for child care to
assist states in meeting the work rates, to pay for the other major
responsibilities that we see shared at both the State and the Federal
level.
Unlike our plan, the CBO does not say the same about the Republican
plan. CBO says that States will just take the penalties that are
incorporated in the Republican plan; that they will not put people to
work; that they will not meet the work rates; that they will not
fundamentally change the current system. The Congressional Budget
Office says that about the Republican plan, about the Finance Committee
passed plan, not about our plan.
Under our plan, the work first plan of 1996, we do some of the same
things that the Republican plan does. We provide conditional assistance
of limited

[[Page S8090]]

duration. We require that there be work for all able-bodied welfare
recipients. We turn welfare offices, in other words, into employment
offices. And we guarantee child care assistance.

Those are the fundamental principles of the work first plan. Our plan
answers three key questions: Does it require welfare recipients to look
for a job? The answer is yes, unequivocally. Second, does it require
welfare recipients to work? The answer is yes, unequivocally. Finally,
does it help welfare recipients retain a job? Again, the answer is yes,
unequivocally.
Under our plan, there is no more unconditional assistance. From the
very first day parents are going to be required to sign a contract. It
is a blueprint for employment. They must sign it to receive any
assistance whatsoever. Under the Republican plan, there is no contract
at all.
For the first 2 months, our plan calls for extensive job search. We
get the most job-ready into the work force that we can, that is, the
more people that come into the welfare offices looking for help, the
whole design is to find them help not with a welfare check but with a
job, with assistance to get that job. If within 3 months a parent is
not working or is not in job training or education, that parent must
perform community service. They do not have the option. They are
required to perform community service within a 3-month period of time.
Within 3 months, our plan, in other words, has a work requirement. It
may surprise some that there is no work requirement of that kind in the
Republican plan. There is no similar provision. We see a lot of tough
talk but no actual work requirement for 2 years under the Republican
plan.
So there you have one of the very significant differences between the
work first plan, which is work in 3 months, and the Republican plan
which is only work after 24 months or 2 years. That is 2 years of
unconditional assistance under the Republican plan as it is currently
written.
Our plan is tough on parents, Madam President, but not on children.
And that in our view is the second big difference between ours and
theirs. Our plan protects children. Child care for parents who are
required to work and parents transitioning from welfare to work is
something we want to do in every possible instance. We want to provide
vouchers for children whose families have reached the time limit.
We recognize that in some cases you are going to bump up to the time
limit and then it begs the question, what happens to the kids? Are the
kids also going to be penalized through no fault of their own? And if
they are penalized, are they then relegated once more to this
neverending cycle of dependency and poverty with no hope of bringing
themselves out?
Health care coverage for children whose families have reached the
time limit is something that we think is vital if we are going to
provide meaningful, comprehensive assistance that deals with the
challenges we talked about earlier.
It seems to us that Republicans may not want to do this. They end up
aiming at the mother but in some cases hitting the child. They do not
allow their block grant funds to be used to help children whose
families have reached the 5-year time limit. They do not guarantee
child care. They do not guarantee health care. Their idea of a safety
net is a sieve. There are so many holes in that safety net there is no
possibility that people who are trying to work their way through the
system can protect their kids and ensure that they have the competence
to go out and get a good job.
The work first plan targets the specific barriers, in other words,
Madam President, that we feel must be addressed if we are going to be
successful in passing a meaningful comprehensive, successful welfare
reform plan this year. In child care, we provide $8 billion in new
resources. That is $16 billion total because that is what we are told
will be required if, indeed, we want to provide the services to those
directly affected. Unlike the Republican plan, the Congressional Budget
Office says we sufficiently fund child care to make the work rates and
assist those transitioning from welfare to work. The Republican plan
cannot make that claim. They recognize, if CBO is to be the guide, that
they fall short in providing the necessary resources to ensure that the
child care services are going to be provided.
Our plan also targets aid to the working poor so they will not have
to turn to welfare or return to welfare at some later date.
The second barrier that I addressed just a moment ago is personal
reasons. Many welfare recipients cite personal reasons for not working,
like the lack of transportation or no job skills. The money to tear
down these barriers is something that has to be provided in a welfare
reform plan--money for transportation, resources for job training,
resources it takes to create their own plans to put people to work. In
other words, to be honest and to recognize that unless we have the
ability to deal directly with those reasons that welfare recipients
give for their inability to get a job--their inability to get to a job,
their inability to qualify for a job, their inability to demonstrate
that they have the personal skills to hold a job--we are not going to
change this welfare dependency regardless of all of our good
intentions.
So, we address those. We address those personal reasons that welfare
recipients have given time and time again. For those who are
unmotivated, our answer is very simple. We say the time limit is going
to be there and you are going to have to accept it. You have a
timeframe within which you must get a job. You have a timeframe within
which you must realize the benefits are going to stop.
Unless you are unwilling to work with us, you can expect we will work
with you to address your motivation and problems of the past. We can
help you get job skills. We can help you get child care. But you have
to reciprocate. You have to find ways in which you can prove to us you
are motivated and you want to get that job as badly as we want to get
you one. So dealing with the unmotivated is something we feel has to be
addressed.
We also address the barriers the Republican plan does not. The
Congressional Budget Office says the Republican plan will not meet the
work rates that we all are stipulating or stating as our objective in
dealing with welfare reform. The Congressional Budget Office says the
Republican plan falls far short on child care.
Clearly the Republican plan needs to be improved in a number of
areas, and that is our whole purpose: To lay down in a comprehensive
way, in one bill, all of the areas that we believe would allow us, as
Democrats and Republicans, adequately to address the deficiencies and
work together to solve them.
There is a lot of common ground, as I said just a moment ago, on
welfare reform. We all want to reform welfare. We all want to end
welfare the way we knew it. We all want able-bodied welfare recipients
to work. There ought to be no unconditional assistance. We largely
agree with that. But not welfare reform on the backs of children. That
may be an area where there is some disagreement. There are over 8
million children today who receive welfare. It is the children that we
feel the need to protect, infants and toddlers who do not know what
welfare is ought not to be penalized. They ought to be held harmless in
this effort to try to help their families and their parents.
So, Madam President, this is an opportunity. It is an opportunity to
come to the middle. It is an opportunity to address what we consider to
be a bill that yet, in spite of its improvements, still has some
serious deficiencies that need to be addressed if, indeed, we are going
to pass this legislation and have it signed into law.
The President has made it very clear he will not be hesitant to veto
a bad bill. On the other hand, he has also made it clear that he would
like very much to work with Republicans and Democrats to sign a good
bill. We have an opportunity this afternoon, tonight, and tomorrow, to
make this bill a good one. Passage of this amendment would do just
that.
So we hope Republicans will join Democrats in supporting the work
first amendment: To save the $51 billion we know we can save if we do
it right and still protect the children, to fundamentally change the
welfare system as we know it and to recognize we simply cannot do it on
the backs of children.
A tremendous amount of effort has gone into this whole project. I am,
indeed, very grateful to my colleagues

[[Page S8091]]

for their help and all the leadership they have demonstrated in
bringing us to this point. I urge its adoption. I urge bipartisan
support.
I will be delighted to yield to one of the coauthors of the
legislation, the Senator from Maryland.
Mr. DOMENICI. Will the Senator yield for a question? Will the Senator
yield for a question? Just a brief one?
Ms. MIKULSKI. Of course.
Mr. DOMENICI. We do not have the amendment. We understand it is 800
pages long and we have not seen it. Does anybody know where we could
get a copy of it?
Mr. DASCHLE. We will get you a copy.
Mr. DOMENICI. You will get us a copy? Thank you very much. Thank you,
Senator.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland is recognized.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I am proud to join the Democratic
leader and Senator Breaux in offering this substitute amendment, the
Work First Act of 1996. As one of the coauthors of this amendment,
working with Senator Daschle and Senator Breaux, I want to say it does
reform welfare. It embodies the principles of turning the welfare
system into an employment system, of being firm on work, and of
providing a safety net for children. It recognizes that child care is
the linchpin between welfare and work. And it puts men back into the
picture.
We do it very straightforwardly. We do it by replacing AFDC with
temporary employment assistance, which is time-limited and conditional.
We require all parents on welfare to sign a parent empowerment
contract, which is their plan for moving from welfare to work, and
which also emphasizes their role and responsibility in child rearing.
We advocate not only moving people to work, but we do it by providing
the tools to move people to work, through child care assistance,
transitional Medicaid coverage, and other work-related services. We
also require a safety net for children with child care funding, a
guarantee of health care, and noncash aid where it is needed to meet
the specific needs of each child. In the event the parents do not meet
their responsibilities, we are not going to punish the child for the
failings of the mother. We also eliminate the cruel and punitive rule
called the ``man in the house'' rule and allow States to offer job
placement services to fathers. The Work First Act is a plan that is
tough on work but not tough on kids.
It is important to note the bill before us today is much improved
over the Republican plan which the Senate considered last year. Many of
the provisions included in the Democratic work first bill from last
year have been incorporated into this version.
I am particularly pleased that earlier Republican efforts to block
grant child protection programs--to take the child protection programs
and turn them into a block grant--have been abandoned. This is an issue
of special importance to me. I worked as a child abuse and child
neglect worker, and I know how crucial those programs are. It was
absolutely crucial this bill maintain those protections. I thank
Senator Chafee and all those on the other side of the aisle who worked
on that. I want to acknowledge the Senator from Maine for her
particular role in that advocacy.
I believe the changes that have been made to last year's Republican
bill has brought us a long way. The pending bill is no longer the
punitive one that was brought to the floor last year.
But I do believe improvement needs to be made. That is why we are
offering the work first amendment. This amendment is the result of
ongoing efforts to find the sensible center. We listened to the
concerns raised about the work first bill in last year's debate. So we
tightened up our plan, and we save more money. We save some $51
billion. We also heard the voices of the Governors, and in response
made sure our plan provided greater flexibility for the States to
design their own programs. I believe our plan is a stronger plan as a
result.
In drafting our amendment, we emphasize two clear priorities. First,
we wanted to emphasize work as the goal of any welfare program. Second,
we wanted to protect children and provide a safety net for them.
First and foremost, our plan is about the empowerment of people, not
the enlargement of bureaucracy. Empowering people has become almost a
cliche. What does empowerment mean? Empower means that you give people
tools to get ready for a job, to obtain a job, and to keep a job. We
think you have to be in job training and we emphasize the job training
must immediately lead to work.
I do believe the best social program is a job; one that moves a
person from welfare to work, and to a better life for themselves and
their families. That is what we hope to do.
Work is the cornerstone of our plan. The first step for any welfare
recipient will be to sign an empowerment contract, which is a contract
outlining a plan to get into the work force. Our plan ensures that
people live up to their contract by requiring recipients to engage in
an intensive job search, ending assistance to those who refuse to
accept a legitimate job offer, and providing a 5-year time limit for
benefits.
We give the States the resources and the flexibility to help people
meet the terms of their empowerment contract, whether it is job search
assistance, on the job training, placement vouchers or even wage
subsidies.
This emphasis on work changes the whole culture of welfare by saying
welfare should not be a way of life but a way to a better life. We want
to turn welfare offices into employment offices, by changing the focus
to looking for work rather than looking for benefits.
But while we are making work the top priority, we also look out for
the children with a safety net that provides child care, health care
and protections from child abuse. We recognize that lack of child care
is the biggest obstacle to work; to both getting a job and keeping one.
So our bill provides $16 billion in child care funds for those required
to work, for those transitioning to work, and for the working poor so
they don't slide into welfare.
We also make sure that every child has access to health care; that
they get their immunizations; that they get their early detection and
screening so that their parents are not only work-force ready, but the
children are learning ready when they go to school and stay in school.
We maintain that Federal commitment to fight child abuse by requiring
States to meet Federal standards in child welfare and foster care
programs. We also reauthorize the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment
Act.
Child abuse and neglect is growing like an epidemic. Just like we
need to end welfare abuse, we need to end the abuse of children. With
child protection systems overwhelmed, and half the States under court
order because of the way they handle child protection, we must do all
we can to make sure no one gets away with abusing or neglecting a
child.
Madam President, we also provide a safety net for children. I believe
that most welfare recipients will move to work and take advantage of
the opportunities in this bill. But if they do not, we are not going to
punish the child. We are not going to aim at a parent and hit the
child. So we require the States to assess the needs of children in
families who have reached the time limit, and to provide noncash aid,
for example, vouchers to a third party, to meet the basic subsistence
needs of children. States will have the flexibility to design this
program, but we believe the Federal requirement is needed to make sure
that children do not pay the price when parents are unable to move from
welfare to work.
Because we value family, marriage, and work, we know the strongest
family is one with two parents, with the father in the home. So the
work first amendment brings men back into the family by ending rules
which create a marriage penalty if poor people get married and stay
married.
Our bill is also tough on child support. It requires Federal and
State governments to work together to enforce child support orders,
streamlines the process to collect child support checks, and calls on
States to implement tough procedures to make sure that parents do live
up to their responsibilities. We, the Democrats, believe that if you
are a deadbeat parent, you should not have a driver's license or a
professional license, and so we call on States to implement procedures
on that.

[[Page S8092]]

Madam President, I hope we adopt this work first amendment. It is an
amendment which pulls together the best ideas of both parties. It ends
the cycle of poverty and the culture of poverty.
It is a plan that saves lives, saves taxpayers dollars, creates
opportunities for work and protects the children.
I urge the adoption of the amendment, and I yield the floor.
Mr. D'AMATO addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
Mr. DOMENICI. How much time does the Senator need?
Mr. D'AMATO. Fifteen minutes.
Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, I yield 15 minutes of our hour to the
Senator from New York.
Mr. D'AMATO. Madam President, I rise in strong support of the welfare
bill that is before us. Let's put it simply: Our current welfare system
is broken. It is broken. We have recognized that. This Chamber passed a
welfare reform bill 87 to 12. I want to raise the question, did my
colleagues who overwhelmingly support this bill vote for that because
it was a bill that was going to punish people or did they recognize
that the system is broken and is in need of repair--87 to 12?
Let me say something. The welfare system was never intended to become
a way of life. It was meant as a temporary haven for rough times to
assist people, and after 30 years, it has expended $5 trillion, and the
welfare system still does not work. It entraps people, and the results
have been a horror.
The fact of the matter is that we have to do better than
sloganeering. We have to do better than saying ``ending welfare as we
know it'' is a priority. The President has said that. But we need
action, we need real action, and the one thing we do not need to do is
to empower the bureaucracy here in Washington, because some of my
colleagues are advocating that we give and make the czarina of HHS, the
czarina who will have absolute authority as it relates to the
administration of welfare programs in our States.
All of a sudden, we have adopted an attitude that somehow the
Governors of our States, Democrats and Republicans, and the
legislatures of our States are inhuman, that they do not have the
capacity to do what is right, that they would threaten our children,
threaten our seniors, threaten the elderly.
Madam President, that is not correct; that is not true. But I will
tell you what I do believe. I believe that most of the Governors and
most of the State legislatures are saying, ``Set us free. Let us help
our people help themselves. Help us help encourage a work ethic.''
The fact of the matter is, this bill is very similar to last year's
bill which passed overwhelmingly. There are some myths that say we will
hurt children. That happens not to be the case. I am going to touch on
some of these things, but let me say something. No less than a great
President known for his compassion for immigrants, for poor people, for
working people, for the downtrodden than Franklin Delano Roosevelt said
it best when he talked about welfare. He said:

If people stay on welfare for prolonged periods of time, it
administers a narcotic to their spirit, and this dependence
on welfare undermines their humanity, makes them wards of the
state and takes away their chance at America.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I do not believe any of us can say it
better. I am not going to attempt to say it better. I refer to a great
American, a great President, the man who had every bit as much
compassion for those in need as anybody who warned us and gave us the
admonition of watching about entrapping people and killing their
spirit, the American spirit.

Madam President, the current system has created a culture of
dependence that has doomed an entire generation of children, and it has
consigned them to poverty. Some people do not like to lose control.
They are more worried about their power and their control in terms of
what has taken place. They seem to be blind to that. Somehow we are
going to make it worse. How can we make it worse?
Look at the statistics. Look at the out-of-wedlock births that
continue to rise. Look at the cycle of dependency. The current system
provides a basis for, if not encouragement of, irresponsible behavior,
particularly in the area of out-of-wedlock births.
This is a strong bill. Is it a perfect bill? Of course not, but it is
an attempt to strike a balance between giving power to the States and
to local communities to set expectations for work and responsibility,
limiting benefits as it relates to time and maintaining a safety net
for children and hardship cases. This bill maintains that safety net.
Let's take a look at the record. A great Governor in our State, Al
Smith, said that sometimes people do not like to look at the record
because it can prove to be embarrassing. There are facts in these
records. If we look over the last 15 years, we will see an increase in
welfare spending that is absolutely startling.
Our expenditures have risen from $27 billion in 1980--$27 billion
when I came here to the Senate--to $128 billion. Have we improved the
lot of those on welfare? I do not think so.
While the bill converts the AFDC Program, the Aid to Families with
Dependent Children Program, to a block grant that we have heard so much
about--``No, don't give a block grant, you're going to be giving it to
the Governors.'' We are not giving it to the Governors. What we are
doing is turning over responsibility to those closest to the people who
have seen how badly the system has been administered, how flawed it is,
how it does not give flexibility to deal with the human needs of our
citizens.
While it makes a block grant, it provides $4 billion in extra money,
not less. Four billion dollars in extra funds will be available to help
welfare clients hold a job, and it provides up to 20 percent of the
caseload will be exempt from time limits, so that if there are those
people with special needs who cannot hold a job, who cannot work, who
are going to have to stay on welfare beyond 2 years or beyond 5 years,
it does exactly that, it gives to the States flexibility.
The bill addresses a small but very growing problem of immigrants'
use of welfare. I, being the grandson of immigrants, understand the
great culture that we have in this country due to our immigration and
to our diversity of cultures, and it has contributed to the strength of
America. I do not want to stop immigration to this country, but I have
to tell you, we have seen lately a situation that has developed where
we have 3 percent of the population, and that is what the foreign-born
population is; the immigrant population over the age of 65 now
constitutes over 30 percent--30 percent--of the elderly receiving SSI
benefits. Something is terribly wrong, and we have found, through
hearings, what is taking place.
There are those people who are gaming the system. They sign up to
bring elderly people in and say they are going to be responsible for
them, and they put them right on welfare. That is not right. That is
not what this system is about. We did not design the system to say,
``Come here and get welfare benefits, and John Q. Public, hard-working
middle-class families, are going to pay for it.''

There is a question of, are we going to hurt the children? Let me
tell you something. We guarantee that school lunch programs will be
continued for the children of those who are born here and for immigrant
children as well. We understand our responsibility. I thank the
Agriculture Committee for continuing this important program.
Let me touch on one other area. For years we have had a gaming of the
system. We have had what you call welfare shopping where people from
one jurisdiction will move in to an adjoining State so that they can
get higher benefits. We have seen the statistics. I saw one county,
when I offered this provision 4-years ago to stop welfare shopping, to
eliminate it, to cut down on it, they had this relatively small county,
and more than 600 families moved in, people moved in to Niagara County
to get benefits. They were receiving welfare benefits in other States,
adjoining States. Since the benefit level in New York was much higher,
they found the system, and the word spread. People moved in simply to
get on welfare.
That is not what this is about. What does this bill do? It stops
welfare shopping. It says, if you move into a jurisdiction and you were
previously on welfare, you come into a system and go right to the
welfare commissioner to

[[Page S8093]]

get your increased maintenance, you will receive payments at the same
level for a year that you were receiving from the adjoining State. So
that is going to stop that practice.
Again, President Roosevelt talked about the narcotic. It seems to me
that this is what has taken place. We have really been saying over
generations and generations, it is OK, it is OK; you can game the
system.
This bill includes $4 billion in additional child care funding that
is not available now. It is not available now. That is a good bill. It
makes sense. In fact, this bill has more money for child care, a larger
contingency fund, greater financial incentives for States to meet the
work requirements, a higher hardship exemption from the 5-year limit,
and a better maintenance of effort than the bill that we passed 87-12.
It is a superior bill. It has more safety for children. It provides
more revenue, more flexibility for States. To what? To hurt people? No.
To move them off the cycle of dependency, to move them into real work.
The bill has a 5-year limit on benefits. It is necessary. It is an
adequate length of time for recipients to raise their infants,
straighten out their lives, and get a job and make a better life for
themselves and their children.
Madam President, we have to be honest with ourselves. May there be
some imperfections? Of course. Are we going to say, though, if there is
an imperfection that a State will duck out on their legitimate
responsibility to feed the poor, to take care of the children, to take
care of those who are truly in need? Are we really saying that somehow
those of us here in the Senate and in the House of Representatives have
a higher standard of helping those who are most in need than our local
representatives, than our Democratic legislatures, than our Republican
legislatures and our Democratic Governors and our Republican Governors?
Is that what we are really saying?
The system has been gamed. The system has grown from $27 billion to
over $128 billion in the past 15 years--billions and billions more--no
additional freedom, no additional opportunity for those it has
entrapped. If one were to look at the statistics, it is staggering.
Only 1 out of 20 who have dependent children--only 1 out of 20--go to
work. Is that the legacy we are sowing? Is that what Franklin Delano
Roosevelt meant when he said, again: If people stay on welfare for
prolonged periods of time, it administers a narcotic to their spirit.
This dependency on welfare undermines their humanity.

Think about that. How prophetic. I think it has undermined their
spirit, their humanity. It makes them wards of the state. Who wants to
be a ward of the state? Who wants to feel like a second- or third-class
citizen? Who wants to feel like they are not carrying their weight?
Give our people an opportunity. Free them. Let us create the incentive
to move them into work. Do not hold them in bondage. Let us not get
involved in the ridiculous politics of one-upmanship.
Let us give to our States and local administrators the ability to
help bring about this kind of change. It is going to be tough. It is
not going to be easy. It is going to be very tough. Some people may not
make it. We may not be totally successful. I daresay, we will not be.
But for every individual, for every citizen that we help, who gains
that spirit of independence and freedom, freedom to do for themselves,
economic freedom, freedom to stand up and say, ``I participate to the
best of my ability,'' that is what we have to be seeking.
I think it is about time that all of us, Democrats, Republicans--this
bill passed overwhelmingly, 87 to 12. My colleagues on the other side
supported it. Was it perfect then? No. Is it perfect now? No. But it is
better than doing business as usual. The time for sloganeering has
passed, Madam President. Future generations need our help. Some parents
may not be happy about what we are going to be doing, but to those who
are born and those who are yet to be born, we have an obligation to do
what is right and to provide a way and to provide an opportunity for
economic freedom.
I urge that we come together and pass this bill. It is a good bill.
It is not perfect. It certainly will be helping people--people--in this
country and its spirit.
Mr. DOMENICI. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. D'AMATO. Certainly.
Mr. DOMENICI. First, before I ask the question, I see my friend,
Senator Exon is here, the ranking minority member. A little while ago,
I mentioned I have not seen the Senator's Democrat amendment yet and
that it was 800 pages, I understood. I ask the Senator, did he have
some suggestion with reference to that amendment?
Mr. EXON. Yes, I did. I am not sure how serious it was, but I heard
the strenuous objection to the 800 pages in the amendment that is now
before us. I suggested maybe if the Republicans would accept it, we
would cut it down to 700 pages. The Senator did not immediately agree
to that. Will the Senator take it under consideration?
Mr. DOMENICI. I think the Senator has to get down to maybe 300, 400
pages. Then we might be interested.
Mr. EXON. That shows bipartisanship and cooperation is working.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I wanted to ask Senator D'Amato awhile
ago--he was talking about noncitizens who are receiving welfare
benefits. I want to ask, because I think the American people somehow
have missed over the last 15, 20 years, because most of us missed it,
we were totally unaware, as I understand it, that many Americans were
sending off to foreign countries for their elders under an American
policy that is so generous it just makes you understand what a
wonderful country we are. Under a policy of family unification, we let
a 45-year-old, 48-year-old American send off to a foreign country and
bring their 65-year-old mother or father to America.
Mr. D'AMATO. That is correct.
Mr. DOMENICI. Right. That 45, 48-year-old American signs an agreement
that that relative will not become a ward of the people of America,
because we have had a policy since our Revolutionary days that
noncitizens, aliens, illegal aliens and aliens, would not become wards
of the state; thus, moving aliens to become citizens and to become
productive. That was the reasoning.
Here is what has happened. That 45, 46, 47-year-old American, in good
faith, brought that elderly parent over here. But what happened, I say
to the Senator, is that in very short order they found that the U.S.
Government would do nothing about it if they did not support them. So
guess what happened? They did not support them. So guess what happens?
Hundreds of thousands are on SSI.
In fact, I want to show the Senator this chart because it is so
incredible. It makes our point in the most descriptive way you could.
Of the general population, 2.9 percent of that general population are
noncitizens over 65.
Mr. DODD. Will my colleague yield on that point?
Mr. DOMENICI. In just a moment. Look at this. And 29 percent of all
of those on SSI are noncitizens over 65, 10 times the proportion of the
population that they represent--10 times.
Mr. DODD. Will my colleague yield?
Mr. DOMENICI. I was borrowing his time.
Mr. DODD. If the Senator will yield, my colleague from New Mexico
raised a good point.
As I understand it, the underlying bill that came out of committee
bans this. The substitute that is being offered by the Democratic
leader bans this. Our colleague from New Mexico has raised a good point
here. As I understand it, both bills plug up this loophole that the
chairman of the Budget Committee has so accurately and properly pointed
out.
Am I wrong on that?
Mr. D'AMATO. I do not know about the----
Mr. DOMENICI. I have a lot of difficulty finding out what is in your
bill. As soon as we get the 800-page bill.
Mr. DODD. I am here to say it is in the bill. We ban it. I presume it
is banned in the underlying bill, as well.
Mr. D'AMATO. It is banned in the underlying bill.
Mr. DOMENICI. We agree it is there, and we compliment you for, at
least, that page.
Mr. DODD. I just wanted to be clear on that.
Mr. DOMENICI. Just to understand, that is 1 million aliens who are on
SSI.
Mr. D'AMATO. Improperly.
Mr. DOMENICI. Frankly, all we are saying is that is not the way we
intended it, so fix it, and make sure it does not happen.

[[Page S8094]]

Now, we actually know, and I share this with my friend from New York,
we actually know that there are games taking place where people are
educated about how they can come here under the circumstances I
described and how soon they can get on SSI. Now, if you would like for
this little dialog to show how many are advantaged now by Medicaid,
since Americans wonder about Medicaid, let me give you the number. I do
not think you would have known it. Madam President, 2.7 million aliens
are on Medicaid.
Mr. D'AMATO. Would my colleague know how many billions of dollars a
year that is costing the taxpayers?
Mr. DOMENICI. I cannot remember.
Mr. D'AMATO. If we multiplied 2.7 million times $3,000 per
recipient--and that is a modest figure, because as they are more
elderly the cost even goes up higher--we would find that is a shocking
figure. It seems to me that approaches over $6 billion a year--$6
billion a year. That is a round number.
Mr. DOMENICI. We figured it out. It is $8.1 billion.
Mr. D'AMATO. So I gave you a low figure of $6 billion.
I am happy to yield to my colleague and friend but, again, let me
simply say what is taking place is that the noblest of purposes--as a
result of the culture that has developed in terms of our present
welfare system, it is doing exactly what our great President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt said. He said it would act as a narcotic to the spirit
of those who received these benefits for a prolonged period of time,
undermine their humanity.
There is nothing more noble than taking care of the elderly, taking
care of one's parents and grandparents and sending for them. That was
why we have this legislation. I think we demonstrate how quickly that
becomes undermined when we now have a system that encourages the abuse.
I commend my colleagues on the Democratic side for saying, and
recognizing, that this is something that has to be dealt with.
Madam President, I strongly urge we get done with the business of
rhetoric as it relates to talking about the need for welfare reform and
enact this legislation substantially in the form that it is, do the
business of the people, and particularly the business of future
generations, of giving them an opportunity to really live the American
dream, to feel free, to feel that spirit of independence that is a
right of every one of our citizens.
I yield the floor.
Mr. EXON. Madam President, may we have the chart back up for a
minute. I yield myself such time as I may need. I will be brief and
then I will yield to the next speaker on this side.
It is an interesting chart that my friend and colleague brought up.
We have been debating this. I simply point out that I think we are
debating a smelly dead polecat or a straw man. Both of the bills, the
Republican bill and the amendment that we have offered, both address
what has been pointed out here as something wrong. Another way of
saying that is that there are general agreements on both sides of the
aisle that these kind of things must be corrected.

I simply want to point out that we agree with the points made by the
chairman, my friend and colleague from New Mexico, and the junior
Senator from New York. I simply say of the 800-page bill that we have
agreed to cut down, one or two of the pages in that bill that address
the very same thing that is adequately addressed in your bill, are two
of the pages that we will not drop. I simply say, I think we have
enough to debate about. I want to make the point there are lots of
similarities between the two bills, and it may take 800 pages to define
some of the objections that we have which we will continue to debate
and point out.
I come back to the basic point I made in the opening remarks on this
side. We are most concerned about children, and while we recognize and
agree and salute the opposition for some of the changes they have made,
we still think more has to be done with regard to children.
How much time remains on the Daschle amendment?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The proponents have 31 minutes and 10 seconds.
Mr. EXON. How much time does the Senator from North Dakota need?
Mr. DORGAN. Twelve minutes.
Mr. EXON. I yield 12 minutes to the Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I appreciate the cooperation of the
Senator from Nebraska.
I rise to support the work first amendment offered by Senator
Daschle. This issue is not, as is often portrayed, a caricature about
Cadillac welfare queens whom we have heard about over a couple of
decades of debate about the welfare system. The stereotype we hear
about is this clipping of a Cadillac welfare queen, living in some big
city, collecting a multitude of checks with which to buy a Cadillac and
color television, and living the life of leisure.
That is not what this debate is about. It is about a welfare system,
and this is a serious subject, that affects the lives of many, many
people. This is the right subject. The welfare system does not work
very well in this country. It does not work very well for the
taxpayers, because there are able-bodied people who make welfare a way
of life and should go to work. It does not work very well for those on
welfare because it encourages them to stay there rather than go to
work. It does not work well for kids, who are the most important
element in this issue.
I have told my colleagues about the young boy I have never forgotten,
a young boy named David who came to testify at a committee hearing. He
lived in a homeless shelter with his mother in New York, moving back
and forth between shelters. He testified before a committee on hunger
and said, ``No 10-year-old boy like me should have to put his head down
on his desk at school in the afternoon because it hurts to be hungry.''
I have never forgotten this young fellow and what he said.
The debate about this bill is increasingly about children, about
those who live in circumstances that are troubled, about those who are
born in circumstances of poverty, about those who have suffered
setbacks in their lives. Two-thirds of the welfare expenditures in
America are for the benefit of kids under 16 years of age. If you
listen to some of the debate, you would believe that welfare is
essentially, if not entirely, about giving a check to an able-bodied
person so she can find a LA-Z-BOY couch or chair and lean back, and
watch television, while drinking a quart of beer. That is the
caricature drawn of welfare recipients, but that is wrong.
Two-thirds of the welfare dollars are spent for children under 16
years of age. No one here would sensibly say it is time to kick 10-
year-olds out and have them go to work, get a good job, and take care
of themselves. Children in this country, born in circumstances of
poverty, did not ask for that, and we owe it to them to care about
their lives.
I mentioned that welfare is the right subject, because the current
welfare system does not work very well. The fact is, there are many
similarities between what the Republicans and Democrats in the Congress
believe on welfare reform. We tend to emphasize the differences, but we
have much in common.
There is an avalanche of teen pregnancies in this country, and too
many of them end up on welfare and are unprepared to take care of
children. We need a national crusade to try to reduce the number of
teenage pregnancies in this country. That is one way to address the
welfare issue. We do that in the amendment that is before the body now.
There is an army of deadbeat dads in America, men who have babies and
leave, saying, ``Yes, it is my baby, but not my responsibility, and I
do not intend to pay a cent for that child.'' Guess who pays for that
child? The American taxpayer. This bill says: Deadbeat dads, avoiding
your responsibility is over. If you have children, you have a
responsibility to help pay for the care of those children. And you have
a responsibility to the American taxpayer.
Tens of billions of dollars in child support payments that are owed
by deadbeat dads who have left and said, ``The kids I fathered are none
of my business.'' This bill says: I am sorry, but you are wrong, and we
are going to make sure that in the future you take responsibility for
those children.
Yes, there are able-bodied people in this country who believe that
welfare

[[Page S8095]]

can be a way of life. This bill says, you are wrong. This bill says
that we intend to turn welfare offices into employment offices. We
intend to say to welfare people--those who are able-bodied--If you are
able-bodied and need a helping hand, if you are down and out, down on
your luck, if you have just had a fire and lost everything in your
trailer home, lost your job, suffered health consequences, or you have
suffered a multitude of problems, we want to reach out and give you a
helping hand. We want to help you back up, to help you get back on your
feet, and to give you a chance.
That is what our welfare system ought to be. But it ought to also say
that you have a responsibility as well. Yes, we will help you get back
on your feet, but you have to be involved in helping yourself, and you
have certain responsibilities. If all of the American taxpayers are
going to help you, you have a responsibility to help yourself. That is
also what this legislation does.
Work is the focus of this bill for those who are able-bodied. This is
a tough bill, but a fair bill. It reforms the welfare system in the
right way. It says that if you take responsibility for yourself, the
Government will provide you with a temporary helping hand. It says we
will provide you with the tools to get back into the work force and
when you get there, we expect you to stay there. This amendment
requires the able-bodied to sign a contract agreeing to go to work. It
also says that if you fail to live up to the terms of that contract,
your benefits will be terminated immediately.
The plan is flexible. It gives State and local governments the
ability to be creative in developing their plans. But this plan
especially recognizes that child care and job training are the
linchpins to solving the welfare problem for those who are able-bodied.
I have told my colleagues of getting up in 6 in the morning and going
to a homeless shelter in this town, Washington, DC, and talking to a
young woman who had several children, and then driving back to the
Capitol Building about 8 in the morning and thinking to myself, if I
had been that young woman, what would I have done? Would I be able to
climb out of the circumstances she found herself in, with a husband who
left her, a need to care for several children, no job, no skills, but
certainly not a desire to remain in that circumstance? This is not
someone who said to me over pancakes at the shelter, ``I really want to
stay on welfare.'' With tears in her eyes, she said, ``I want to go to
work. I want to get a place to live. I want to provide for my kids. I
want to get skills so I can get a good job.'' I was trying to think on
the way back to the Capitol, I wonder how I could deal with that if I
were her. Well, if you save for the first and last month's rent to get
an apartment, they will cut you back on the AFDC payments. So you
cannot save in order to get into an apartment. So no housing, no home.
You will remain homeless. If you go get a minimum wage job frying
hamburgers, as she did, what happens? You lose your children's Medicaid
benefits. No health care for your children. If you try to go find some
job training, where do you put your kids? Is anybody going to pay child
care? No. So they are trapped. This young lady was trapped and she did
not want more help. She did not want more welfare. She wanted to find a
way out of that trap--to find a job, help provide for her kids, to give
her hope and an opportunity for the future. That is what this debate is
about.

This debate says it is unfair to the American taxpayers to pay for
those who are able-bodied and stay at home. But it also recognizes that
most people finding themselves on welfare want a way out, a way up, a
way to improve their lives. This legislation offers that helping hand
by saying that you have a responsibility, even as we help you. If you
fail to meet that responsibility, we will not help. The amendment says,
with respect to the issue of teen pregnancies, there will be no more
independent households for teen mothers on welfare. None. Stay at home
and stay in school. You must live with an adult family member or in a
supervised setting where you can learn the skills to become a
responsible parent. If you do not, there will be no benefits.
Some will say that is tough, and it is tough. But it is what we must
do to reform this welfare plan. I have talked about the many challenges
we face in Congress today. I summarized it by talking about kids, jobs,
and values. That summarizes most of the challenges we face in
Congress--dealing with kids, jobs, and values. The welfare debate
touches all of those areas. It is, most importantly, an issue of what
do we do about kids born in circumstances of poverty, born into a life
that they did not choose. They did not ask to be born in poverty. What
do we say to them? Do we say, ``You have value, merit, and we intend to
help you, and we care about your lives''?
Welfare reform is about jobs, moving people from circumstances of
welfare to employment, and to the ability to take care of themselves.
Values? Yes, it is also about values. Do we value work over welfare? If
so, let us apply those judgments in welfare reform, on the minimum wage
and in other areas. Let us say to the folks at the bottom of the
economic ladder in America that we are going to help you climb up the
ladder and help you reach your full potential.
In my final remaining moments, let me tell my colleagues, I think for
the second time, about Caroline, because she is an object lesson, it
seems to me, of what we are discussing today.
Caroline was a wonderful Norwegian woman, who married a man named
Otto in Oslo, Norway, came to this country and settled in St. Paul, MN.
Otto tragically died. When Otto died, Caroline had six children. She
took the six children and moved to the prairies of North Dakota and
settled in a tent in Indian Creek Township, I believe, in Hettinger
County, ND. They lived in a tent. Then this strong Norwegian woman
built a home, raised a family, started a homestead and became a North
Dakota farmer.
I can only guess what kind of strength and courage it took for this
Norwegian woman, losing her husband, to move to the prairies of North
Dakota and pitch a tent and raise her family and start her farm. But
she did it. And she had a son, and her son had a daughter, and her
daughter had me. That is how I came to live in Hettinger County, ND.
I told that story one day on a radio show when I was asked about my
heritage. And somebody called in and said, ``Isn't it lucky that we did
not have a welfare program at the turn of the century, because Caroline
never would have left St. Paul; she would have stayed there and stayed
on welfare.'' I said, ``Well, who do you think gave Caroline the land
when she homesteaded 160 acres in Hettinger County, ND? The Federal
Government.''
The Homestead Act said what we are trying to say in this welfare
bill. We want to help those who are willing to help themselves. It was
good policy then. It is good policy now.
I hope that in the name of Caroline--and in the name of children
across this country--and in the name of common sense we will pass a
welfare reform bill that is a bipartisan effort to understand that this
Senate needs to do what is right to address one of the vexing problems
of the day.
Mr. President, thank you for your indulgence.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
The Senator from Nebraska.
Mr. EXON. Mr. President, the Senator from Connecticut is patiently
waiting. About how much time does the Senator need?
Mr. DODD. I do not know. I see my colleagues from Pennsylvania and
New Mexico. I can wait.
Mr. DOMENICI. How much time would the Senator like?
Mr. SANTORUM. Five minutes.
Mr. DOMENICI. I yield 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized for up to 10
minutes.
Mr. SANTORUM. I thank the Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. President, I want to respond to the speeches about the Work First
Act.
This is, from what I can tell, an 800-page amendment that has been
submitted without giving anyone on the other side a preview of that
amendment, or any kind of opportunity to review an 800-page document.
We were handed a background brief which is on one side of the paper. I
think it is five or six pages of one-sided paper with fairly big type.
It is not much information. There are, in fact, a lot of questions
about the exemptions that are provided for to

[[Page S8096]]

the rules that sound very good but like previous bills that I have seen
come from the Democratic leader, while the appearance, the facade,
looks nice, there are a lot of holes in the floor for the people to
drop through and stay in the current system, and, in fact, in the end
the current system is alive and well after we have gone through great
effort to pass something.

This bill does, from what I have seen--at least what they admit to in
this background brief; I think ``brief'' is probably the applicable
word here--there are essentially no time limits left. Under the
Republican bill, under the bill that passed the U.S. Senate last year
87 to 12, there is a time limit on welfare. After 5 years, you are off
AFDC; you had your time to, in a sense, get an education, get training,
do job search, work, get that experience, and after 5 years the social
contract was, in a sense, at an end.
That is important for the reason that we have to--just like all
programs where you are dealing with people who are troubled and need to
turn their lives around, it is important to set a time limit, some sort
of goal, and some sort of time where people have to hit the wall. We
provide in this bill, and we provide in the bill that we passed last
year, a hardship exemption for those who were having a tough time still
and realize, ``Hey, look, you are trying. You are still working.'' We
allow a percentage of up to 20 percent of the people in the system to
continue to receive benefits. Will they do that in this bill, in the
Democratic substitute? In addition, people who hit the 5-year limit--
everybody continues to receive vouchers which is, in a sense, a cash
payment. They say, ``Well, it is vouchers for the children.''
Mr. BREAUX. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. SANTORUM. I can tell you while there are vouchers for the
children, the parents get the vouchers. The parents spend the money for
the children.
I am happy to yield.
Mr. BREAUX. I thank the Senator for yielding because the Senator is
making an incorrect statement. Under the amendment that I am going to
offer, which I happen to have written, it is very clear that the
vouchers do not go to the parent or to the children. They go to a third
party. They go to the people who provide the services. They cannot be
given to the parent by law. They do not go to the parent. They do not
go to the child. They go to the person who provides the benefit, the
clothing, or the food, or perhaps a 2-year-old child whose parent has
been cut off of welfare.
I ask the question of the Senator. What would he say to a small child
whose parent has been cut off of any assistance and that kid could not
have the food? What does he say to that kid?
Mr. SANTORUM. I would say one thing. No. 1, under the Republican bill
that family still is eligible for food stamps. That family is still
eligible for food stamps; still eligible for other medical benefits and
other kinds of welfare services. What they are not eligible for--and
what your vouchers are replacing--is cash.
So what you are doing is taking a cash program and turning it into a
services program that does not have to be used for food, and can be
used--again, I have to apologize. There is not much detail in this
thing. So I am groping a little bit for my own information. I
appreciate the Senator's responding and filling it in. But what you are
filling in for--you already have people qualifying for food stamps, you
already have people who are continuing to qualify for Medicaid, you
already have people who continue, if they are eligible today, to
qualify for housing. None of that changes. What we eliminate is cash,
and what you replace it with is pseudocash, which is in a sense the
same thing.

Mr. BREAUX. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. SANTORUM. Yes.
Mr. BREAUX. The Senator talks about food stamps. For the first time,
you are taking the Food Stamp Program and, through block grants, States
do not have to use their money for food stamps if they do not want to.
Mr. SANTORUM. We did in the bill, as we did in the bill that passed
87 to 12 on this floor, allow States the option to take a block grant
for food stamps, the option which was again approved by 87 votes on
this floor.
Mr. BREAUX. The question is: Is it not possible that the States do
not have to provide food stamps for the child you are talking about if
they do not want to?
Mr. SANTORUM. If they take the option for the block grant, they can
design this program, which has to be approved by the Secretary, of
course. I am sure there are going to be some limitations on that.
Mr. BREAUX. You are mandating.
Mr. SANTORUM. No. There is mandate. But I would suspect, knowing the
Governors I have talked to on this issue, if they are going to come to
the point where they are going to end cash assistance, they are not
going to take food stamp benefits away. In fact, the Congressional
Budget Office, when they scored our bill, in fact, provided for an
increase in food stamp expenditures because of the reduction in the
AFDC payment. Therefore, you have less income in the family and,
therefore, they are eligible for more food stamps. So food stamps have
actually a counterbalancing influence on the reduction of cash. That is
provided for in our bill.
But I think the point is here what you are doing is continuing the
entitlement which is continued in this bill, No. 1.
No. 2, what you are doing is allowing families to legitimately make
an economic decision which they make today, which is not to work, to
stay on welfare, and to be able to survive doing so.
What we want to do, except for those cases that are hardship, except
for those cases where people are really trying in high-unemployment
areas, have problems one way or another with their family and holding
down a job--we are not talking about people who are disabled. People
who are disabled are not even in the program. We are taking about able-
bodied people who are capable of working. We are saying to 20 percent
of those people, we are going to allow you to stay after 5 years
because we know there might be situations where it is tough. But the
rest of you, yes, we will have an expectation that after 5 years you
can get a job. You should be able to hold that job.
Mr. BREAUX. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. SANTORUM. Yes.
Mr. BREAUX. Is that the Senator's premise of what he is trying to
accomplish? Let me read a very short description of what a voucher
program does, and tell me why he disagrees with it. It says a voucher
provided to a family under this law shall be based on the State's
assessment of the need of the child of the family. That shall be
determined from the day of the subsistence need of the child; that it
is effectively designed to appropriately pay third parties for shelter,
goods, and services received by the child; and, third, finally, it is
payable directly to such third parties.

If a State decides to have a 24-month termination of a parent because
they do not follow the rules, what is wrong with this provision taking
care of the needs of the child designed by the State to take care of
the needs determined by the State to be payable to a third party on the
subsistence needs of the child? If they talk about food stamps, it
would not qualify under this.
We are talking about assistance needs of the child. Food stamps would
include food.
Mr. SANTORUM. Sure. I can respond. Again, it is very hard to respond
because you may be looking at the bill. I just got it.
Mr. BREAUX. We got it this morning.
Mr. SANTORUM. That bill came through the Finance Committee. You are
on that committee. You saw it when it came through that committee. You
had the markup when this came through the committee. You have the
markup document before you, No. 1. No. 2, let me just say that what you
say here again in your description is to provide non cash aid; maintain
a minimal safety net for the children.
Who determines that in your bill?
Mr. BREAUX. The State.
Mr. SANTORUM. The State determines the minimal safety and the Federal
Government has no oversight?
Mr. BREAUX. Let me read it again. A voucher provided to a family
under this law shall be made on the State's assessment of the need of
the child--not the Federal Government, not Washington, but the States.
Mr. SANTORUM. This is an optional voucher program.

[[Page S8097]]

Mr. BREAUX. It is a voucher of 5 years, optional on behalf of the
State. The cutoff in less than 5 years is mandatory on the part of the
child.
Mr. SANTORUM. If it is less than 5 years, and the people are not
working, this is a difficult----
Mr. BREAUX. Not the parent. The parent gets zero under my amendment.
We are talking about a child maybe 2 years old that cannot work.
Mr. SANTORUM. Or a child 16 years hold who can work.
Mr. BREAUX. Or a child 3 years old who cannot work.
Mr. SANTORUM. Or a child 17 years old who can. We can go back and
forth. But the fact is we are talking about all children; that is,
under 18. The point I am trying to make is, the question I am trying to
have answered here is, if it is under five years, you mandate that the
State provide a voucher to someone who is unwilling to work.
Mr. BREAUX. If it is less than 5 years and the parent is cut off, the
child, as determined by the State, has to receive a voucher to provide
the subsistence needs of that particular child.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kempthorne). The Senator's time has
expired.
Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. In part of this dialog some 4 minutes ago, the question
came up on block grants for food stamps. I might say the Republican
bill before us here says the State has the option, but I would suggest
that you read further, because it says that 85 percent of that money,
if they choose to block it, must be used for nutrition. I believe that
is correct in terms of the underlying bill.
I am going to yield now. We should be moving to the other side. Might
I ask Senator Exon, does the Senator know how many more speakers there
are on the Democratic substitute?
Mr. EXON. There is the Senator from Connecticut and there is myself
and the Senator from Louisiana, so that is three.
Mr. DOMENICI. And how much time is remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska controls 17 minutes,
21 seconds; the Senator from New Mexico controls 27 minutes.
Mr. DOMENICI. I yield the floor.
Mr. EXON. Mr. President, the Senator from Connecticut would be next.
How much time does the Senator from Connecticut need?
Mr. DODD. I see one of the authors, my colleague from Louisiana, so I
will try about 7 minutes or so.
Mr. EXON. I have some time that I can yield off the bill.
Mr. DODD. I thank my colleague. Ten minutes, if I can.
Mr. EXON. Ten minutes. I yield 10 minutes off the bill to the Senator
from Connecticut.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut is recognized for
up to 10 minutes.
Mr. DODD. I thank the Chair. I thank my colleague from Nebraska.
Let me begin by thanking the Democratic leader, Senator Daschle,
along with our colleague, Senator Breaux, of Louisiana, and Senator
Mikulski, of Maryland, who are the principal authors of this
alternative. I commend them for it.
I draw my colleagues' attention to the exchange between our
colleagues from Pennsylvania and Louisiana that comes to one of the
critical elements as far as I am concerned. It is the critical
distinction between what is being offered by the majority and what we
are offering in the alternative. That is, Mr. President, the children.
I do not think there is any debate among us here about trying to get
the adults from welfare to work. There are 2 million people out of
roughly 275 million that we are going to put to work.
Let me begin by framing this in mathematical terms so people can get
a conception in their minds of what we are talking about. We are a
nation of some 270 million people, thereabouts. What we are talking
about is Federal welfare, aid to families with dependent children.
There are 13 million people in the United States on AFDC, aid to
families with dependent children, out of a nation of 270 million. Of
that 13 million, Mr. President, 4.1 million are adults and 8.8 million
of that 13 million are children under the age of 18. And 78 percent,
almost 80 percent of that 8.8 million are under the age of 12; roughly
50 percent of that 8.8 million are under the age of 6.
I do not think the debate here is about whether or not we can take 2
million of the 4 million adults out of a nation of 270 million and put
them to work. That we all agree on. What this side of the aisle has so
much trouble with and why there is such a fundamental disagreement here
relates to the 8.8 million children--80 percent of whom are under the
age of 12. People who are 16 or 17, I presume they are almost adults;
they can work. But I do not know of anyone, Mr. President, regardless
of ideology or political persuasion, who is going to look into the eyes
of a child and say, ``I am sorry. Because your parent did not get a
job, because the recession happened, because there were not enough
jobs, you are out of it. We cannot help you any longer.''

I do not understand that sort of approach. It would break a tradition
in this country, regardless of party and political persuasion, that has
existed for more than a half a century. We have said, when it comes to
America's kids, the circumstance they are born into is none of their
doing. It is none of their doing. And yet if a 6-year-old child is
starving, is hungry, we ought to find subsistence help. That is what my
colleague from Louisiana was just talking about, some form of
subsistence assistance for them.
Mr. President, I am going to focus these brief remarks on the
children. I do not make any argument about whether we want to make it 2
years or 5 years to get people off of welfare to work. I'm talking
about roughly 2 million or 4 million of 270 million. I figure we ought
to be able to figure out how to do that.
I am really concerned about these infants and children. We see under
the proposal offered by the majority that we do not have health and
safety standards for child care if the parents go to work. These
children under the age of 12 who are going to need a child care
setting. Yet the bill eliminates today's health and safety standards
for child care settings.
We have standards for automobiles that must be met, emission controls
that must be met. We have standards for pets in this country that must
be met. For the life of me, I do not understand why we will not have
health and safety standards for America's children in a child care
setting. What is so radical or outrageous about saying that on basic
health and safety, children who are put into a child care setting ought
to have that minimum guarantee.
I will offer an amendment, assuming--I hope it is not the case--that
the Democratic alternative is rejected, to try to correct that
situation on health and safety standards. I am hopeful my colleagues
will support it.
Senator Hatch and I, 6 years ago, wrote the child care legislation
and included health and safety standards, and we have worked with it
pretty well over the last 6 years. It is not in this bill. I would urge
that we put it back in. The Democratic alternative does that. We have
in our bill a minimum requirement that would require quality of child
care.
If we are saying to these parents, which we should, we want you to
get to work, and we want you to be self-sufficient. Then we have to say
that when these children are being cared for, there is going--Mr.
President, I am having a hard time even hearing my own self speaking.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator will suspend.
The Senate will come to order.
The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. DODD. I thank the Chair.
So, Mr. President, the health and safety standards, the quality of
our child care settings, again, this ought not be a question of
partisan disagreement here. As I said, if we are going to have quality
controls on automobiles and pets, then we ought to do it for child care
settings. If you try to place your pet in some place over the weekend
when you go on your vacation, there are standards for where your pet is
kept. And yet this bill says that the standards where you place your
child 8 hours a day as you go to work are not required.
I do not know why this ought to be the subject of partisan
disagreement, and yet it is. And so when you talk about welfare reform,
it is critically important that health and safety standards and quality
be included. We will offer alternatives in that regard.

[[Page S8098]]

I also want to emphasize the point that the Senator from Louisiana
just made to our colleague from Pennsylvania about a voucher system at
the end of 5 years or 2 years. In my view, you can put any level you
want on it. My concern is, what happens to the kids at that point? What
happens to those children at the end of 2 years? For some of the
adults, let us assume they will be going off to work. But let us assume
for a second they cannot. What happens to those kids? You cut off the
parents. OK, I do not like that, and I think you have a problem with
that. But for the life of me, why would you say to the child, you lose.
The voucher system here provides the safety net. And, of course,
under the bill offered by the majority, in fact, it is mandatory--
mandatory--there be no voucher system. It specifically prohibits it. It
does not even give the State the option. It mandates that no voucher
exist at all.
I do not understand that. I do not understand that at all.
Mr. SANTORUM addressed the Chair.
Mr. DODD. Let me, if I can, finish my remarks, because time is brief
here, and then I will be glad at the end, if I do have an extra minute,
to yield to my colleague.
The proposal offered by the distinguished Senator from South Dakota
and the Senator from Louisiana offers a safety net for children that I
urge my colleagues to look at. The voucher system that allows for that
safety net for children.
The same on the food stamp issue that has been raised earlier. Again,
by block granting it, you run the risk in certain States, because the
political will is not there--and my colleagues know as well as I do
that can happen--then the food stamp issue is also lost.
I hope that is not the case. I heard my colleague from Pennsylvania
earlier say he did not think that would happen. I hope he is right. But
I do not know why we cannot require some safety net so all of us on a
national level know these children are not going to be adversely
affected.
One of the other provisions that has not been the subject of much
debate is the penalties imposed by the majority's proposal. We are told
by the Congressional Budget Office that many States will not be able to
meet the criteria laid out in the legislation, the standards here, and
that in fact they will be imposing penalties of 5 percent of the
assistance they will be receiving under this bill in the first year.
Then it is cumulative. Whatever that number is, the penalty the first
year, if there is a penalty the second it is 5 percent on that number.
The point is, as has been pointed out by some of our Governors, this is
an unfunded mandate, because that falls on the States, on local
taxpayers. One estimate from one Governor is it may be as much as $12
billion in an unfunded mandate on the States as a result of the
penalties being imposed if States do not get the numbers of people to
work in the timeframe they are required to under our legislation.
Again, I assume most of the States will try to get it done, but I
think all of us know what happens when a recession or other economic
difficulties hit. For one reason or another, the States would not meet
those standards and the penalty is imposed. Then it gets cumulative
thereafter. We collect that back. So that is, in effect, a tax, an
unfunded mandate on the States. And I am looking specifically at our
colleague in the chair because he authored very effectively, at the
very outset of this Congress, a very successful piece of legislation on
unfunded mandates. I urge him to look at this, because Governor Carper
of Delaware and others at the Governors Conference raised this issue
included in the majority bill, and I do not think any of us would like
to see an unfunded mandate imposed as a result of this legislation
despite our activities earlier in this Congress.
I end where I began here. My concern is about these children, these
kids.
I ask unanimous consent I be able to proceed for 1 additional minute.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DODD. My concern is children. Again, on the health and safety
standards, on the quality, on the vouchers and food, it seems to me we
ought to try to correct these mistakes. Again, remember, we are talking
about putting 2 million adults out of 4 million adults on welfare to
work over the next 5 years, out of a Nation of 270 million people. Of
the 8.8 million children on welfare, 80 percent are under the age of
12, 50 percent under the age of 6--of the 8.8 million. We ought to be
able to say to those infants and those children that there is a safety
net here. We are going to try to see to it that your parents go to
work, but for whatever reason if they are unable to do it, no matter
what we do to them, you are not going to be adversely affected by this.
That ought not to be that hard to do. I do not understand why we cannot
find common ground on that issue as we try to achieve the goal of
putting people, adults on welfare, to work without jeopardizing the
children. That is the simple question.
Can we not write a bill, can we not come together and write a bill
that puts people from welfare to work and does not adversely affect
infants, infants in this country who I think will be hurt as a result
of the legislation, if adopted unamended, as the majority has presented
it?

Mr. President, I see my colleague from Pennsylvania standing. I will
be glad to ask for an additional minute if he wanted to ask me a
question, or maybe my colleague from New Mexico would.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired. Who
yields time?
Mr. DOMENICI. How much time do we have?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico has 27 minutes,
the Senator from Nebraska, 17 minutes.
Mr. DOMENICI. I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I do have a question of the Senator. Let
me state something first. I stated before in my opening comments that
the Senator from Connecticut and the Senator from New York said and
repeated that what they care about is the children. I suggest the
current system reflects that all the care that has been expressed for
children, here, has not panned out into a reality that children are
cared for. That is the real issue.
We can all care about children. The question is, are children cared
for and by whom? What we are trying to do here, in this bill, is to
make sure, not that we feel good about caring for children--I am sure
the Senator from Connecticut knows that everybody in this Chamber cares
for children; that is not the issue, to measure our care--it is to
measure whether children are cared for and by whom.
What we do here in our bill is to try to rebuild a culture that has
been systematically destroyed by the welfare system to make sure that
there are families to care for children; that there are communities
where children are safe again. As long as you continue the welfare
entitlement, the dependency structure of unlimited welfare, you will
not get care for children. You will not get caring neighborhoods. You
will not get caring communities. You will not have stable families. It
is a reality. You are looking at it today. That is why we are here.
Mr. DODD. If my colleague will yield?
Mr. SANTORUM. I just ask this question of my friend from Connecticut.
Does your bill create a day care entitlement?
Mr. DODD. No.
Mr. SANTORUM. You say in your bill that ``all children will receive
day care.''
Mr. DODD. No, we block grant----
Mr. SANTORUM. You say all children will receive day care. I will read
from it. ``To help recipients get and keep a job, child care will be
made available to all those required to work.'' That sounds like a
quasi-entitlement.
Mr. DODD. If the parents go to work, we are trying to provide a
setting for those children in that situation. Rather than have them go
onto the streets, there is some child care setting for them.
Mr. SANTORUM. As the Senator from Connecticut knows, under the
Republican bill before you, we spent $4 billion--``b'' billion--$4
billion more on child care than under current law and almost $2 billion
more than what the President believes he needs for day care. So we
spend a lot more money. The question----
Mr. DODD. The Senator did not hear me suggest I was going to offer an

[[Page S8099]]

amendment to add additional funds for child care. I said health and
safety standards. And I appreciate the fact we are going to be able to
get more on child care. I say to my colleague, it will probably be
inadequate. If, in fact, we get everybody to work, the money there will
not provide for the child care needs for those families. I do not think
anybody will tell you that it would be adequate. But I appreciate the
fact there is more money and I appreciate the fact the Senator from
Delaware, who is the chairman, is responsible for that.
Mr. SANTORUM. I ask for 1 additional minute.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SANTORUM. The second question is on the vouchers issue, and the
Senator from Louisiana, while he responded to a question was not
responding to my question. He was responding to the provision in his
amendment, not the provision in the amendment before us.

You suggest the Republican bill forbids vouchers after 5 years.
Mr. DODD. Right.
Mr. SANTORUM. I am sure the Senator from Connecticut knows that what
it forbids is Federal dollars to be used for vouchers after 5 years.
States can give vouchers using their own dollars for an unlimited
period of time. Obviously, if they do not, if they use their money--
there is a discrete amount of money here. What we are saying is you
have to focus that money on the 5 years. If you want to extend beyond
the 5 years, then use your own dollars.
Conversely, what you would say is, look, you can use our dollars
after 5 years, which means you would necessarily have to take it out of
the first 5 years. We do not think that money should come out of the
first 5 years. We think there should be an intensive effort in 5 years,
committing every Federal resource possible to that 5-year transition
period, to get those people to work and not hold out money, Federal
dollars, for a continuation of welfare into the future. That is the
philosophical difference.
Mr. DODD. Let me respond, if I may, to my colleague. Two points. One,
on child care, there is a cap on entitlements on the child care issue.
I ask for 30 seconds.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DODD. It is a capped entitlement on child care, so it will not be
increased.
Mr. SANTORUM. It is a new entitlement?
Mr. DODD. Let me respond. You asked the question. Let me respond.
In regard to the issue of the vouchers, obviously the States and
localities can do what they want. But we are talking about our Federal
involvement here. We prohibit the use of the Federal funds, of our
money, Federal money, if you will, to go for the voucher system. I just
suggest that, if we are going to put people to work as we should, and
if for some reason States are unable to meet those standards, then
those children, whatever else you want to do with the adults, ought to
have a safety net. The voucher ought to be a system they can use to
provide for that safety net. We say that States ought to be able to
provide that. The bill by the majority prohibits it. Obviously, we
cannot stop a State from doing what it wants, but why would we prohibit
them from using these moneys?
Mr. SANTORUM. I ask for 1 additional minute to respond.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SANTORUM. I would respond by saying, as the Senator from
Connecticut knows, we are talking about originally 25 percent of the
AFDC population, able-bodied AFDC population----
Mr. DODD. Four million.
Mr. SANTORUM. Yes--going into this system, increasing up to 70
percent over the next 5 years. Within that category, 20 percent are
exempted for hardship. That means they can go beyond the 5 years and
still receive Federal dollars after 5 years. We are talking about a
limited number of people who are able-bodied, who have had 5 years, who
are not designated by the State as hardship. That is not a high hurdle
to get over.
Mr. DODD. I do not have any disagreement on that. On the adult side I
have no disagreement. My focus is on the 8.8 million kids, 80 percent
under the age of 12. That is the focus of my concern. My fear is the
children are not being adequately protected at all.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired. Who yields
time?
Mr. EXON addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
Mr. EXON. How much time does the Senator from Nebraska have left on
the amendment?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska has 16 minutes, 15
seconds.
Mr. EXON. On the Daschle amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
Mr. EXON. I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Louisiana.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana is recognized for
up to 10 minutes.
Mr. BREAUX. I thank the Chair.
Mr. President, I think a lot of this is getting far more complicated
than it deserves. It is a serious issue, but it is not that
complicated. I think the work first amendment that has been offered by
the distinguished Democratic leader, Senator Daschle, is a very good
compromise. It is fair, it emphasizes work, and it sets time limits for
people on welfare. It also, I think, however, is good for children. It
is tough on work, but it is good for kids.
Welfare reform must be about getting a check by working as opposed to
getting a check by not working. We all agree with that. Democrats have
said very strongly that we believe that there should be time limits;
that people should be required to work; that an unmarried mother should
be required to live with an adult, in an adult family, with her own
family, if that is possible, but with adult supervision; that we should
have a time limit on how long someone can be on welfare. It cannot be
forever.
Our amendment says there is a lifetime limit of 5 years, and a State
has the option under our bill to set shorter limits if they want. My
own State of Louisiana has been approved to set time limits for welfare
as low as 24 months, 2 years.
But what I am talking about when we are talking about these vouchers
for kids is that all of us believe that while we are being so tough on
a parent, that we should not be tough on an innocent child and an
innocent victim who did not ask to be brought into this world. What
good do we do by telling a 2-year-old that we are going to throw him or
her out without any help or assistance?
The voucher proposal which I have as an amendment to be offered later
on simply says that if a State determines to terminate a person on
welfare assistance in a period shorter than 5 years, that that State
must use the Federal and State money that they have to help pay for
essential needs of a child.
My amendment says that the State shall do an assessment of that
child. They still determine the need of that child. The child may need
diapers, the child may need medicine, the child may be older and need
book supplies, good gosh, to go to school, which we all should support,
or may need food because they are hungry and the Food Stamp Program is
not adequate.
The State makes the determination of the need of that child, and then
after they have made the determination, they determine vouchers for
that child's benefits. The parent does not get it. Everybody wants to
penalize the parent. The voucher does not go to the parent under my
amendment. The voucher would go to the third party who is going to
provide the essential needs for the child. Maybe it is a food supply
organization, maybe it is a school, maybe it is a drugstore for
medicine for the child. They would get the voucher under the State
program, and they would take care of the needs of that child as
determined by the State.

Is it too much for us in Congress to say to a State that we are
giving most of the money to that you have to use those moneys to take
care of children who are innocent victims while we are being so tough
on the parent?
I support time limits of parents. I support making them go to work. I
support making them be responsible and live with an adult if they are
going

[[Page S8100]]

to receive AFDC assistance. My gosh, can't we be, in this great country
of ours, with the economic benefits that we all participate in, strong
enough also to say we are going to somehow protect the needs of
innocent children?
We are close on this. It should not be a big disagreement. After 5
years, we say we allow the State to do it, but the Republican proposal
forbids it. Why, if the State wants to do it, can they not use the
block grant money they get to do this? If the State sees a child that
they think is in need, why should we not at least allow the State,
under this wonderful block grant concept, to provide vouchers for
children after 5 years if the State wants to do it with the block grant
money that they get? Yet, the Republican bill forbids it.
I think that is too extreme. Let the State make the decision. If the
State wants to forbid it, all right, let them do it. But if the State
wants to do it with the block grant money they are getting, allow them
to do it. Then, if it is less than 5 years, if they want to cut off the
assistance to a parent in 2 years or 3 years or 4 years, we think that
the moneys that Washington and the States are providing together should
at least be used to take care of the child while we are being tough on
the parent.
Mr. GREGG. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. BREAUX. All this should be about putting work first but not
children last.
Mr. GREGG. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. BREAUX. Yes, I yield.
Mr. GREGG. Is it my understanding that in your proposal, the States
are mandated to use the vouchers during the 5 years, permitted to use
vouchers after 5 years.
Mr. BREAUX. I will answer the Senator, who has a distinguished career
as Governor back in his State, it says that a State, based on their
determination of the need, if the child does not need it under the
State determination, the State does not have to do it, if it is a 2-
year time limit, 3 years or 4. But if the State, in their
determination, sees a child who has a need that is not being met, then
the State must have a voucher. If the State finds that child is being
taken care of with other programs or through a parent, aunt, uncle or
grandfather, there is no need there. The State makes the determination.
Mr. GREGG. If I may continue this question, basically what you are
saying, then, is the State is required to use the voucher for a child
up to the 5 years.
Mr. BREAUX. That is incorrect.
Mr. GREGG. The State identifies the need.
Mr. BREAUX. The question the Senator is posing is an incorrect
statement in the sense it does not require the State to give a voucher
to a child whose parent has been cut off from welfare for less than 5
years. It would only require it if the State first makes a
determination that the child has a need. The State makes that
determination.

Mr. GREGG. That differs from the pending legislation. The pending
legislation leaves it up to the State to make that decision during the
5-year period; is that correct?
Mr. BREAUX. I think the Senator is correct.
Mr. GREGG. And then you are saying that after the 5-year period, the
States would be given the flexibility to continue the voucher, but even
if there was a need at that time, it would be identified by the State,
it would not be required.
Mr. BREAUX. That is correct.
Mr. GREGG. So, essentially, you are putting the State in this
position--as the bill is presently structured, you are taking that
language and moving it into the post-5-year period, and then for the
pre-5-year period, you are requiring that the payments be made for
need--
Mr. BREAUX. As I understand the Senator's question--let me try and
restate it as simply as I possibly can.
Under the Breaux voucher amendment that will be offered, for a family
that is cut off from welfare after being there for 5 years, it would
allow the State to use their block grant funds to provide vouchers to a
child if the State determines that there is a need for assistance for
that child.
If the State has a shorter period than 5 years--2 years, 3 years, 4
years, what have you--based on the State's assessment of the need of
that child, the State decides there is a needy child here, then the
State is required to use block grant funds to help that child. They
determine how much; they determine where to spend it. It does not go to
the parent. It does not go to the child. It goes to a third-party
provider.
Mr. GREGG. Which I guess leads to the point I wanted to ask about,
which is that if you are essentially using the logic of this bill for
the post-5-year period, why not use it for the pre-5-year period also?
Or to state it another way, you said in your statement that it made
no sense to you that people wanted to give flexibility to the States;
they would not allow the States that flexibility after a 5-year period
to spend the voucher. Doesn't that same logic apply to the pre-5-year
period?
In other words, shouldn't the State flexibility remain for the pre-5-
year period as well as for the post-5-year period? Why should the
Federal Government come in and direct the States to do it?
Mr. BREAUX. I will respond to the Senator in this way.
I would like to, but politically I do not think it is possible to do
it, to say that when you have a block grant fund going to the State,
and the State has made a determination that there is a needy child out
there, the State be required to use those funds to take care of the
needs of the child at any point, 5 years, 2 years, or 3 years, either
one. I just do not think that is politically possible to do.
Mr. GREGG. Well, I appreciate the Senator's courtesy of yielding to
me for these questions. If the logic of the Senator's position is
correct--and I think there is a lot of attractiveness to the Senator's
logic in the post-5-year-period--if this bill, as it is presently
structured, basically takes that logic and applies it to the pre-5-year
period, would not the Senator's amendment be a lot stronger and
consistent, if the Senator would essentially use his language for the
post-5-year period, but not change the language for the pre-5-year
period to create a mandate on the States which is going to put the
States in a position of basically being instructed as to how to govern
the welfare system in that 5-year period?
Mr. BREAUX. I respond by saying I offered that in the Senate Finance
Committee. I think it may have lost on a tie vote. I tried it once. I
think I will try to get something that will pass the Senate and narrow
it down to one. The bottom line is very simple.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I ask for 2 additional minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BREAUX. I thank Senator Exon for yielding the time.
What I am trying to accomplish--and I do not think anybody on the
Senator's side is being cruel with children or anything. I think that
there is a great deal of sympathy on both sides. I say to the Senator,
what I am trying to do is say to the States that are getting Federal
money with their State money, if the State looks at their population
and the State sees children who are being put in need because we have
cut off their parent, that we should use funds to take care of the
needs of those children.
The State determines what the need is. The State determines how to
help that child. The State determines whether to help that child or
not. They can make a decision this child does not need help. But if the
State makes a decision that there is a child in need, and he has been
put in need because the parent has been cut off of welfare assistance,
that we should have a requirement that they use Federal and State funds
to take care of that need.
How much they do is left up to the State. How they do it is left up
to the State. But, by gosh, we have an obligation here to say that we
are not going to let children go hungry or uncared for. I think the
Senator's side should agree with that. I think that many do.
Mr. GREGG. If the Senator would yield for an additional comment.
Mr. BREAUX. Yes.
Mr. GREGG. I simply state that the question and the point I make is
that the Senator's amendment is, on its face, inconsistent because in
the first 5 years it puts mandates on the States, the second 5 years it
gives the States flexibility. I think the flexibility part is very
refreshing.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired. Who yields
time?

[[Page S8101]]

Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. How much time remains on the Democratic side and how
much on our side?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska controls 4 minutes
50 seconds. The Senator from New Mexico controls 20 minutes 14 seconds.
Mr. DOMENICI. I want to say to the Senators on our side, the chairman
of the Finance Committee, Senator Roth, wants to speak for a few
moments, and I want to speak for a couple. Then we want to yield back
our time and have a vote. Obviously, the Senator has a few minutes
left, Senator Exon.
Before I proceed to ask Senator Roth if he would like to speak, may I
clarify for those who are going to vote shortly.
I say to the Senator from Louisiana, his discussion was about an
amendment the Senator proposes to offer; is that correct?
Mr. BREAUX. I respond to the Senator by saying that we have been
talking about a little of everything here, but most of the comments
have been about the Breaux voucher amendment.
Mr. DOMENICI. The Breaux voucher amendment will not be before us when
we vote here in about 10 or 15 minutes. The Senator intends to offer it
later on, as I understand it.
Mr. BREAUX. I also answer to the Senator, for clarification, the work
first also has a voucher plan for children in it.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the Nation's current welfare system does
not serve the Nation well. It has failed the children it is intended to
protect and it has failed the American taxpayer. I am hopeful that the
debate in the Senate will ultimately result in a constructive
bipartisan effort which will finally end the current system and achieve
meaningful reform.
Meaningful reform will assure that children are protected, that able-
bodied people work and that child support enforcement laws are
effective in getting absent parents to support their children.
One challenge is to seek genuine reform of welfare without abandoning
the goal of helping children. The Daschle work-first bill fundamentally
changes the current welfare system by replacing unconditional,
unlimited aid with conditional benefits for a limited time.
Under the work-first bill, in order to receive assistance, all
recipients must sign a contract. This contract will contain an
individual plan designed to move the parent promptly into the work
force. Those who refuse to sign a contract won't get assistance and
tough sanctions apply to those not complying with the contract they
sign.
The underlying legislation requires people to work within no more
than 2 years. Why wait that long? Why wait 2 years? Unless someone is
in school or job training, why wait longer than 3 months to require
that a person who is able bodied either have a private job or be
performing community service.
I have long believed that work requirements should be applied
promptly. The Daschle amendment contains language which I will offer as
an amendment to the underlying bill, if the Daschle substitute fails
which requires that recipients be in training or in school or working
in a private sector job within 3 months, or if one cannot be found, in
community service employment. Within 3 months, not 2 years. The
requirement would be phased in to allow States the chance to adjust
administratively and would allow for a State to opt out.
Last year, the Senate-passed welfare reform bill contained this
provision, added as an amendment which I offered with Senator Dole.
Experience has shown we must be more aggressive in requiring
recipients to work. But, as we require recipients to work, we must
remember another important part of the challenge facing us: that fully
two-thirds of welfare recipients nationwide are children. Almost 10
million American children--nearly 400,000 in Michigan alone--receive
benefits. We must not punish the kids.
I am hopeful that the 104th Congress is on the road to finding a way
to get people off welfare and into jobs, in the private sector, if
possible, but in community service, if necessary; make sure that absent
parents take the responsibility for the support of their children; and
do these things without penalizing children--that way, I believe, is
the work first plan offered by Senator Daschle.
I congratulate Senator Daschle, Senator Mikulski, Senator Breaux, and
the many others of my colleagues who have worked on the Daschle work
first bill.
The work first bill is tough on getting people into jobs, but it
provides the necessary incentives and resources to the States not only
to require people to work, but to help people find jobs, and keep them.
Mr. President, I have focused on getting to people to work. However,
there are other elements of positive welfare reform that I support. The
number of children born to unwed teenage parents has continued to rise
at unacceptable rates. We all recognize the need to do something about
this and to remove any incentives created by the welfare system for
teenagers to have children. I support teen pregnancy prevention
programs with considerable flexibility for the States in
implementation.
We know, however, that the problem of teen pregnancy and unwed
teenage parents will not be completely or easily eliminated. I strongly
support provisions which require teen parents to continue their
education or job training and to live either at home, with an adult
family member, or in an adult-supervised group home in order to qualify
for benefits.
Another key element of any successful welfare reform plan will be
assuring that parents take responsibility for their children. We must
toughen and improve interstate enforcement of child support. I support
provisions to require cooperation in establishing the paternity of a
child as a condition of eligibility for benefits, and a range of
measures such as driver's license and passport restrictions, use of
Federal income tax refunds, and an enhanced data base capability for
locating parents who do not meet their child support obligations.
The Daschle amendment which is before us addresses these and other
problems. It ends the failed welfare system and replaces it with a
program to move people into jobs, to guarantee child care assistance,
to assure that parents take responsibility for the children they bring
into the world, and does so without penalizing the children.
Mr. President, the bill before us is an improvement over the bill
which the President vetoed last year, which was inadequate in many
ways, including its failure to protect children. However, the bill can
still be improved. In my judgement, the Daschle amendment does a better
job by putting people to work more quickly and by doing a better job of
protecting innocent children. I intend to vote for Senator Daschle's
work first welfare reform plan. I urge my colleagues on both sides of
the aisle to lay partisanship loyalties aside and to join in an effort
to finally end the current system and achieve meaningful reform.
Mr. DOMENICI. I yield 5 minutes to the chairman of the Finance
Committee.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware is recognized for up
to 5 minutes.
Mr. ROTH. Mr. President, the American people should heed the old
advertising slogan ``accept no imitations.'' The work first amendment
is a well-named imitation of welfare reform. But real reform must have
some very basic provisions. It must have real and workable time limits.
It must bring closure to entitlement programs. It must not engender
dependency and allow multigenerational abuse of the system. Real reform
must require able-bodied individuals to work. It must offer flexibility
and authority to State governments to be innovative and effective in
meeting the needs of their people.
While work first has the benefit of good advertising, it is an
imitation. Work first has no real time limits. Work first has no real
requirements for people to work. Work first lacks the specific,
concrete requirements needed for reform. Rather, work first appears to
be more of the same. It does not extend real authority to the States.
It offers waivers. It grandfathers existing waivers and intends to
expedite the process.
The Governors have had their fill of waivers. To them, work first is
business as usual with Washington bureaucrats dispensing authority one
drop, one waiver at a time. But waivers, Mr.

[[Page S8102]]

President, are not welfare reform. And for requiring individuals to
work, work first offers something called parent empowerment contracts.
These sound great. And I have much interest in that concept. But we do
not know much about them other than intensive job search is required.
This is all we know, and that they are designed to move the parent into
the work force as soon as possible.
For real reform, Mr. President, this rhetoric is simply too vague. I
might say, that the Governors have real concern about these contracts.
They are concerned that they will be provocative of much litigation for
those who would seek to impose obligations on the States because of
these contracts.
But in any event, real reform must be concrete. As I said, it must
have time limits and a bottom line. To create incentives in the hearts
and minds of people moving off welfare rolls, they must know that
Washington and their State governments are serious. Their behavior must
change.
Last year the General Accounting Office reported that between 1989
and 1994 the Federal and State governments have spent more than $8
billion through the job program. The GAO told Congress that we do not
know what progress has been made in helping poor families become
employed and avoid long-term dependence.
Real reform must change behavior and foster policies that encourage
men and women to make correct choices. Work first attempts to attract
support by offering false choices in regard to teen parents, child
care, and transitional Medicaid benefits. Make no mistake about it, the
Republican welfare bill includes all of these items.
Mr. President, I oppose the amendment. It is time for welfare reform.
It is time for the real thing. I yield back the balance of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. EXON addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
Mr. EXON. Mr. President, may I inquire as to whether or not the yeas
and nays have been requested on the Daschle work first amendment?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The yeas and nays have not been requested.
Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is a
sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I think we are trying to bring this debate
to a close. The Senator from Nebraska has been yielding time now for 2
or 3 hours. I wish to address this briefly myself, not hash over other
ground. I understand that the Senator from Connecticut may wish some
time. Is that correct?
Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Senator from Nebraska. If it is possible
to speak for up to 5 minutes, I would be grateful.
Mr. EXON. I will be glad to yield 5 minutes. Then I will take 3 or 4
minutes. I believe that will be the end of the debate on this side.
Then maybe we can get some agreement to proceed to a vote.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska controls 3 minutes
42 seconds.
Mr. EXON. As soon as the manager of the bill finishes his statement,
I will yield 5 minutes off of the bill to the Senator from Connecticut.
Then I will use the last 3\1/2\ minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. Let me just say, the 800-page amendment is subject to a
point of order, which I do not want to make. However, if we cannot vote
in about 15 minutes--I have a couple of Senators who will not be here
for a little while--I will need to make a point of order on this
matter.

Could we agree right now on how much time we will use, Senator, and
then vote?
Mr. EXON. I have agreed to give 5 minutes to the Senator from
Connecticut. I think I have 3\1/2\ minutes left on the bill, for a
total of 8\1/2\ minutes.
Mr. DOMENICI. I will wrap it up with 3 minutes. That makes 11
minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is 11\1/2\ minutes.
Mr. DOMENICI. I ask unanimous consent that in 11\1/2\ minutes there
be a vote, and the time be distributed as we have indicated.
Mr. CONRAD. Reserving the right to object, I would like 2\1/2\ or 3
minutes, if I might be part of the queue.
Mr. EXON. Mr. President, in order to accommodate everyone, the
manager of the bill will agree to put my statement in the Record. I
yield whatever time I had to the Senator from North Dakota.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota would have 3\1/
2\ minutes.
Is there an objection to the unanimous consent request?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Connecticut is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair. I thank my friend from Nebraska for
yielding.
I rise to support the work first amendment, which I think is balanced
and valuable in the sense of expressing the values of the American
people's statement on the problem of welfare. It is genuine reform. It
targets and puts the pressure on those who should feel the pressure.
That is the parents who are on welfare. It does what I think the
American people, in the best expression of our values, want us to do,
and that is to protect the children and not punish the children who are
the innocent victims of the current status quo.
As I look at the various proposals before the Senate, the underlying
bill, the amendment we have put together, it seems to me there is so
much in common that we ought to be able in the interest of those on
welfare and the interest to the Federal Treasury and the interest of
creating a welfare program in this country that truly expresses the
values of the American people, to get together and make this happen. I
still think there is time to send the President a good bill that he
will feel in the fullness of his conscience that he can sign.
Mr. President, if we talk about welfare reform, I think we have to
focus at its heart on the question of babies born out of wedlock.
Particularly, of teenage pregnancy. Because so many of those on
welfare--and the numbers are in the Record--are children and mothers of
children who were born when the mothers were teenagers and unwed--an
extraordinarily damaging epidemic that has swept this country, damaging
to the young women whose future is hobbled and severely limited by the
fact they have given birth to babies as teenagers, unmarried, and
bringing into the world these children who are subjected to some of the
worst imaginable conditions, with very little hope, born to a 12, 13,
14, 15, 16-year-old girl without a man in the house and living in
poverty--what chance does that child have, on the average to make
something of his or her life?
All the proposals here, including the work first proposal, contain a
basic principle, which is that unmarried, minor moms are required to
live at home or under adult supervision, and must stay in school or
training in order to continue to receive welfare benefits. A great idea
which I fully support.

Mr. President, I intend to offer two amendments which I think
strengthen this battle against teen pregnancy. I saw a study last week
that said that we spend $29 billion every year because of babies born
to unwed mothers, a startling number. Think what we could do if we
could prevent this from happening.
I have two amendments. The first one would require States to dedicate
3 percent of their share of title 20 social service block grants, which
is an amount equal to $71.4 million, to programs and services that
stress to minors the difficulties of becoming a teenage parent.
Hopefully, these programs will infuse our children with a clear
understanding of the consequences, let alone the immorality of bearing
a child as a teenager who is unmarried.
The second amendment gets at a problem we have recently uncovered in
our country, which is that a startling number of the babies born to
teenage mothers are fathered by older men. This used to be something
when I was growing up that we called statutory rape. It sort of went
out of fashion to think of that in the age of widespread consensual
sex, and none of the norms that used to exist. Very often in these
cases it is not consensual. It is an older man forcing himself on a
younger woman with drastic consequences for that woman and the baby.

[[Page S8103]]

My second amendment would appropriate $6 million, a small sum, to the
Attorney General to direct a national program of training State and
local prosecutors to revive and enforce statutory rape laws. It will
also--and I think this may be the most significant part, as part of the
certification procedure that is in the underlying bill, in which the
Governor of a State has to certify that programs in his or her State to
qualify for aid under the program--it requires the State to certify
that there is within the State a program to reduce the incidence of
statutory rape of minors by expanding criminal law enforcement, public
education, and counseling services, as well as restructuring teen
pregnancy prevention programs to include the education of men.
Mr. President, I hope one or both of these might be accepted as the
day goes on, by the majority, because they are not presented in a
spirit of partisanship. Obviously, this is a problem that is not
partisan and is very human.
I thank the Chair. I thank my friend from Nebraska. I yield the
floor.
Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I rise to support the Democratic work first
substitute amendment to the budget reconciliation bill. As I observed
in my opening statement, there is ample room for improvement in the
Republican welfare reform bill. But there is also a great deal of
common ground upon which we can build.
There is agreement that the current welfare system serves neither the
recipients, nor the taxpayers. The cycle of dependency deepens with
each new generation and is most discouraging. We agree that all able-
bodied recipients should earn their daily bread. And we concur that
assistance should be conditional.
I want to commend by colleagues on the other side for moving off of
some strongly held beliefs and seeking the center. I believe that this
new version of the Democratic work first welfare reform bill also
reflects this same spirit of compromise and bipartisanship.
I argue, however, that the amendment before us today is preferable to
the Republican plan. The sponsors of the amendment have spoken with
great clarity and vigor about the differences between the two plans.
Both give the States greater flexibility to administer welfare. But the
Democratic work first plan does not accomplish it at the expense of
innocent children who find themselves in the middle of this legislative
crossfire.
I would hope that Senators on both sides would hold the line on
protecting the safety net for children. The Democratic work first plan
does that in three critical areas.
First, it provides for vouchers or noncash aid to children whose
parents have exceeded a State's time limit on the welfare rolls.
Depriving a child of life's necessities not only saps their strength;
it weakens our spirit as a Nation as well.
Second, the Democratic plan provides for flexibility during times of
recession. Who is hurt most in these times? The poor. Let's not make a
bad situation worse.
And third, the Democratic plan does not provide for an optional block
grant of food stamps. We should not be encouraging the States to lower
aid even further.
There is great merit in both bills, but the necessary safeguards I
have just outlined make this amendment the superior piece of
legislation. I urge my colleagues to vote for it.
Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thompson). There is 3 minutes, 20 seconds.
Mr. EXON. I yield 3 minutes and 20 seconds to the Senator from North
Dakota.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I want to thank the able floor leader on
the Democratic side on this legislation, Senator Exon, for giving me
this time.
Mr. President, as a member of the Finance Committee I have been
deeply involved in the formulation of this legislation, including the
work first alternative that has been presented by Leader Daschle.
Mr. President, Senator Lieberman has made the point well with respect
to teen pregnancy. One of the epidemics we are facing in this country
is an epidemic of teen pregnancy, children having children. One has to
ask what chance does a child have who is born into a circumstance when
the mother is 14 years old or 15 years old? We know the chances are
limited. We know the results--dramatically increased chance of living
in poverty, dramatically increased chance of living a life that is
blighted by crime.
Mr. President, we also know what can help prevent that circumstance.
We know that requiring the child to live at home and to stay in school
is critically important. I remember very well the testimony before the
Finance Committee by Sister Mary Rose, who works with Catholic
Charities in Covenant House. She has dealt with literally thousands of
young women in this circumstance. How do you prevent that young woman
from having another child? She has found that if you can bring that
young woman into a circumstance where there is warmth, love,
discipline, and structure, almost without exception, those young women
do not have another child.

Now, this legislation, work first, has $150 million for second-chance
homes for those young women who cannot be at home, who face abusive
situations at home. Some people can go home and that is appropriate and
right, and that is what should happen. But in other circumstances,
these girls who have had children really have no place to go. They have
been in an abusive setting at home. The last thing to do is to send
them back there. Yet, if we can structure a circumstance or an
environment in which there is discipline, structure, and warmth, and
there is a vision of a better future, these young people can have a
chance. Sister Mary Rose told us very clearly that if we can structure
a circumstance in which those elements were present, we could avoid the
tragedy of increased teen pregnancy.
I hope my colleagues will support the bill before us.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I just want to make one observation. The
distinguished minority leader said, in explaining this bill, that with
reference to the work requirements, he thought it was the equivalent of
the Republican bill in that, in 2002, 50 percent of the participants
would have to be working. Actually, we have had that analyzed and
looked at, and because the bill uses different rules for establishing
this percentage, we believe that it is more like 60 percent of what the
Republican bill does. So it is in the neighborhood of 25 to 30 percent
instead of 50. I believe that is a truism. Just a reading of what goes
into the formula would indicate that it is clearly a different formula.
Much more is included in their starting point than in ours. So if for
no other reason, the amendment before us does not push the States to
the same degree in turning this program into a workfare instead of a
welfare program.
Whatever time I have remaining, I yield that back. I think we are
ready to vote.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment.
The yeas and nays have been ordered.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Bradley]
is necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 46, nays 53, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 201 Leg.]

YEAS--46

Akaka
Baucus
Biden
Bingaman
Boxer
Breaux
Bryan
Bumpers
Byrd
Conrad
Daschle
Dodd
Dorgan
Exon
Feingold
Feinstein
Ford
Glenn
Graham
Harkin
Heflin
Hollings
Inouye
Johnston
Kennedy
Kerrey
Kerry
Kohl
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Mikulski
Moseley-Braun
Moynihan
Murray
Nunn
Pell
Pryor
Reid
Robb
Rockefeller
Sarbanes
Simon
Wellstone
Wyden

NAYS--53

Abraham
Ashcroft
Bennett
Bond
Brown
Burns
Campbell
Chafee
Coats
Cochran
Cohen
Coverdell
Craig
D'Amato
DeWine
Domenici
Faircloth
Frahm
Frist
Gorton
Gramm
Grams
Grassley
Gregg
Hatch
Hatfield
Helms
Hutchison
Inhofe
Jeffords
Kassebaum
Kempthorne
Kyl

[[Page S8104]]

Lott
Lugar
Mack
McCain
McConnell
Murkowski
Nickles
Pressler
Roth
Santorum
Shelby
Simpson
Smith
Snowe
Specter
Stevens
Thomas
Thompson
Thurmond
Warner

NOT VOTING--1

Bradley

So the amendment (No. 4897) was rejected.
Mr. D'AMATO. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. DOMENICI. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I want to take this opportunity to speak
today on the important yet controversial topic of welfare reform. As
this Congress works through the rigors and challenges of welfare
reform, I am reminded of my upbringing in Idaho, where I learned that
charity begins in the home.
Having grown up in a rural western State, I can remember the days
when the county clerks were the ones who handed out public assistance.
Today that task has been assumed by the Federal Government and operated
thousands of miles away from the recipient. Obviously, the war on
poverty was launched with good intentions, but it has become a
miserable failure. Unfortunately, the plight of the poor today is worse
than it was before we began our massive assistance programs.
Since 1965, when our current welfare system was started, the American
taxpayers have spent trillions of dollars--yes, trillions. The current
budget is in the hundreds of billions and its growth continues to
spiral upward. Incredibly, with this extraordinary growth in spending,
the number of children living in poverty has also risen. We need real
reform in the welfare system. Throwing unlimited money at this problem
has proven not to be the answer.
Welfare spending was intended to provide a safety net for children,
likewise to provide a hand up and out of poverty for those in need.
What it has become is a way of life and not short term assistance.
With dramatic reforms and an emphasis on getting people into real
permanent work situations, we can provide these children and their
parents with a future. All one has to do is to look at the successes
States are achieving that are already out there operating under waivers
to the current policy. I would argue that these same States have done a
much better job at designing programs to meet the needs of their people
than has the Federal Government. It is just plain common sense that the
State can identify problems quicker and develop solutions faster, as
they can see the problems as they really are.
One of the ways these States are achieving successes is through block
grants. Governors have supported this. Our Governor in Idaho supports
this. We can provide block grants to the States and give them the
flexibility to use funds in a variety of ways, including to supplement
wages for those recipients who are working.
In closing, I support welfare reform. Everyone here supports welfare
reform. We must find ways to overcome bipartisan differences in our
efforts toward our single common goal--providing a helping hand up and
out of poverty while preserving the dignity of those in need.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I believe we are going to yield to
Senator Specter for a resolution.

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