[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 108 (Monday, July 22, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8451-S8454]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




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

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues, our managers, for 
indicating when might be an appropriate time to speak on an issue, the 
underlying issue, which is welfare reform in a way not to interfere 
with debate on the agricultural appropriations bill. I will take that 
opportunity now, to speak on this underlying measure, which the Senate 
will address tomorrow.
  There will be a series of amendments. I offered amendments dealing 
with the children of legal immigrants and also to provide, if we are 
going to go into these rather draconian measures in cutting off help 
and assistance to these children, to another amendment, which has been 
described in the Record earlier today, to help and assist the local 
counties and communities where they are going to have a particular 
burden, trying to implement the provisions to terminate help, 
assistance to poor children.
  I have a fuller explanation on that. I will not take the time of the 
Senate on those measures, which are more fully explained in the Record 
earlier today. I will address the overall issue which is before us, and 
that is the proposal placed on the Senate agenda, which we will vote on 
tomorrow, under the title of the welfare reform.
  Mr. President, in putting forward this legislation, I believe the 
Republican majority is asking us to codify extremism and call it 
virtue. Their plan will condemn millions of American children to 
poverty as the price for the misguided Republican revolution. If 
children could vote, this Republican plan to slash welfare would be as 
dead as the Republican plan to slash Medicare. In fact, the driving 
force behind this attack on children is not welfare reform at all. It 
is the desperate Republican need to find some way, any way, to pay for 
their tax breaks for wealthy.
  Honest welfare reform is long overdue. The current system is broken. 
Major change is needed. I support honest reforms that end welfare as a 
way

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of life and make it a waystation to work. But honest reform does not 
produce anywhere near the massive savings needed to pay for the 
Republican tax breaks. Child care costs money. Job training and 
education cost money. And our Republican friends have absolutely no 
interest in real reform if it costs money.
  The proposal before us is not welfare reform. It is nothing more than 
legislative snake oil, and it is the wrong medicine for what ails us as 
a Nation. Real welfare reform is about protecting children and putting 
people to work, not putting on a show. But that is what this is--
theater, pure and simple; a glaring and callous example of just how low 
the Republican majority will go, even if it comes at the expense of 
millions of American children.
  For the Republican majority, this bill may be child's play, but they 
are playing with real children's lives and real children's futures. 
This bad bill is Robin Hood in reverse, robbing poor children to pay 
for tax breaks for rich Republicans.
  Since the Republican takeover of Congress, our colleagues have 
brought us many poison pills wrapped in the rhetoric of reform. But 
this may well be the most cruel and extreme measure of the entire 
Republican revolution--because it inflicts so much harm on so many 
children. In fact, it pushes back 60 years of social progress.
  In 1935, Congress made a bold pledge to the elderly and the children 
of our communities that this rich Nation would not let them sink into 
poverty. It was a sign of what we stood for as a nation. Republicans 
may consider destroying this covenant as a virtue--but Bishop Weakland 
of Milwaukee has called it ``a moral blemish on the Earth's most 
affluent society.'' I could not agree more.
  I ask unanimous consent to have the Bishop's full statement printed 
in the Record.
  There being no objection, the statement was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the Washington Post, July 4, 1996]

                  Wisconsin Works: Breaking a Covenant

                     (By Rembert G. Weakland, OSB)

       Catholics in Wisconsin have been in the trenches serving 
     the needy since the Daughters of Charity began their work 
     with the poor of Milwaukee in 1843. I and my family relied on 
     welfare to survive in the 1930s. So it comes naturally for me 
     to consider the implications of Wisconsin's proposal for 
     welfare reform, known as Wisconsin Works or ``W-2.''
       Certainly the Catholic bishops and others in the church who 
     grapple with the needs of the poor agree that the current 
     welfare system is in need of major reform. Both the U.S. 
     Catholic Conference and the Wisconsin Catholic Conference 
     have said so. Both have challenged the status quo. Both have 
     offered constructive proposals for helping the poor more 
     effectively.
       Yet as I reflect on the W-2 proposal in light of my 
     experience and the tenets of Catholic social teaching, I 
     remain convinced of the need for the community to guarantee a 
     ``safety net'' for the poor, especially children. 
     Accordingly, though the W-2 proposal has merit in important 
     respects, it would be a mistake for the president and 
     Congress to embrace comprehensive legislation or requests 
     from individual states, even my own, that withdraw this 
     guarantee.
       Catholic social teaching holds that the poor, especially 
     children, have a moral claim on the resources of the 
     community to secure the necessities of life. For more than 60 
     years, our society has recognized this claim with a covenant 
     that ensures a minimal level of assistance for food, clothing 
     and shelter to poor children and their families. Millions of 
     children have relied on that covenant since the 1930s. In 
     Wisconsin, more than 120,000 children rely on Aid to Families 
     With Dependent Children (AFDC) today.
       People of goodwill can argue over the need to modify AFDC 
     so it better serves that purpose. But it is patently unjust 
     for a society as affluent as ours to nullify that covenant.
       Unfortunately, as enacted, the Wisconsin Works program does 
     just that. The enabling statute for the W-2 proposal 
     specifically states no one is entitled to W-2 services, even 
     who are eligible to receive them.
       It is one thing to change the rules of the welfare system. 
     It is quite another thing to say, ``Even if you play by the 
     new rules, society will not help you.'' This is not welfare 
     reform but welfare repeal. Such a message may be politically 
     attractive in this election year; it is not morally 
     justifiable.
       Even if one accepts the premise that the W-2 program offers 
     poor families help in return for work, this premise collapses 
     if the help is not provided. The president and Congress must 
     insist that W-2, indeed any welfare reform proposal, serve 
     all who are eligible.
       Critics of the welfare system allege that public assistance 
     undermines personal responsibility. This generalizes about 
     poor families when we should strive to take a more personal 
     view.
       In the first place, the children of the poor did not choose 
     their families. We should not afflict these children with 
     hunger in order to infuse their parents with virtue.
       Additionally, we cannot judge a person's failure to work in 
     isolation from larger forces. My experience from our work 
     with the U.S. bishops' pastoral letter on economic justice 
     impressed on me the truth that poor families are especially 
     vulnerable to economic downturns triggered by national or 
     international events.
       Nor can prosperous states ensure full employment. Even in 
     states, like Wisconsin, that enjoy healthy economies and 
     relatively low employment, not all who want to work can earn 
     a family wage. So long as this is the case, it is unwise and 
     unjust for the federal government to abandon its commitment 
     to the poor. Our covenant with needy children must remain the 
     responsibility of the entire American family.
       Moreover, this critique of welfare ignores the fact that 
     rights and responsibilities are not mutually exclusive but 
     complementary. In the context of welfare policy, a right to 
     work is grounded in a responsibility to support a family. 
     This is relevant when assessing another aspect of W-2.
       According to our state's own projections, 75 percent of the 
     families now on AFDC will be assigned to W-2 work slots that 
     provide less than a full-time worker earns at the minimum 
     wage. Accordingly, the responsibility of these parents to 
     care for their children must be supported when necessary by a 
     safety net adequate to meet the family's basic needs.
       Finally, the president and Congress must recognize that 
     they cannot repeal the assurance of public assistance in 
     Wisconsin without making it a national policy. Once such a 
     repeal is granted to a single state, others will seek similar 
     license. The poor will lose their safety net by degrees as 
     surely as if Congress and the president repealed it all at 
     once. Such an outcome would be a tragedy for the poor and a 
     moral blemish on the earth's most affluent society.
       One can appreciate the burden of difficult choices in an 
     election year.
       Nonetheless, the short-term political outlook of the 
     candidate must not cloud the moral vision of the leader. 
     America's 60-year covenant with its poor children and those 
     who nurture them must remain unbroken.

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, let me just mention a few points:
  For more than 60 years, our society has recognized this claim with a 
covenant that ensures a minimal level of assistance for food, clothing, 
and shelter for poor children and their families. Millions of children 
have relied on that covenant since the 1930's. In Wisconsin, more than 
120,000 children rely on aid to families with dependent children today.

       People of good will can argue over the need to modify AFDC 
     so it better serves that purpose. But it is patently unjust 
     for a society as affluent as ours to nullify that covenant.

  And that is what this measure does.

       In the first place, the children of the poor did not choose 
     their families. We should not afflict these children with 
     hunger in order to infuse their parents with virtue.

  And then he continues:

       Even in States like Wisconsin which enjoy healthy economies 
     and relatively low unemployment, not all who want to work can 
     earn a family wage. So long as this is the case, it is unwise 
     and unjust for the Federal Government to abandon its 
     commitment to the poor. Our covenant with the needy children 
     must remain the responsibility of the entire American family.

  And the last full paragraph:

       One can appreciate the burden of difficult choices in an 
     election year. Nonetheless, the short-term political outlook 
     of the candidate must not cloud the moral vision of the 
     leader. America's 60-year-old covenant with its poor children 
     and those who nurture them must remain unbroken.

  Mr. President, I divert for a moment to two other articles that have 
been quoted to some extent during the course of the debate on this 
welfare reform: George Will's article about ``Women and Children 
First?'' I quote a paragraph:

       Furthermore, there is hardly an individual or industry in 
     America that is not in some sense ``in the wagon,'' receiving 
     some Federal subvention. If everyone gets out, the wagon may 
     rocket along. But no one is proposing that. Instead, welfare 
     reform may give a whole new meaning to the phrase ``women and 
     children first.''

  Effectively, what is included in this, women and children first, they 
are the ones whose interests end up on the chopping blocks. When most 
think of the women and children first, every young student who has read 
through history probably thinks of the Titanic, where women and 
children were first. Mr. Will's excellent article and commentary on 
this welfare debate suggests, I believe, that the women and children 
first will have an entirely new and different meaning.
  Then today there is in the New York Times an article by David 
Ellwood,

[[Page S8453]]

who has been a very thoughtful both commentator and policymaker on the 
issues of welfare reform and has written extensively about it. Those 
who have had the opportunity to hear him or listen to him testify can 
attest to his strong commitment to altering and changing the current 
system and trying to find ways to do it effectively, and also to 
protect the interests of the most vulnerable in our society.
  He points out in his excellent article in the Times today, Monday, 
July 22, ``Welfare Reform in Name Only'':

       States would get block grants to use for welfare and work 
     programs. But the grants for child care, job training, 
     workfare, cash assistance combined would amount to less than 
     $15 per poor child per week in poor Southern States, like 
     Mississippi and Arkansas. Moving people from welfare to work 
     is hard. On $15 a week--whom are we kidding?

  As the article points out, on $15 a week, you are talking about 
providing the basic elements of life: roof over the head of the child, 
clothes for the child, food for the child, as well as for the training 
of the child, child care for the child--for $15 a week. We see other 
examples.
  Instead of 88 cents per meal, it will be down to 66 cents per meal 
per child. Mr. President, $26 billion will be taken out of nutrition 
programs for children and put on to the other side of the ledger for 
tax benefits and breaks for wealthy individuals. It makes no sense.
  Mr. President, nearly 14 million poor children live in America. Each 
night, 100,000 of them sleep on the streets, scared and homeless. Their 
faces are pressed against the windows of our glitter and affluence, and 
Congress is about to pull down the shade.
  It may be fashionable in some quarters these days to demonize 
families on welfare, to pretend that poor people are lazy and don't 
care about their children.
  Listen to just one story I heard recently from a middle-class 
suburban woman. She tried hard to keep the family together, but she 
finally fled when her husband badly beat her and her son, and smashing 
a chair over her son's head, repeatedly kicking him in the ribs and in 
the face. She left everything behind.
  She and her son fled to her parents' home, but the husband found them 
there. She tried to work, but her husband always found her, threatening 
both her and her employers. She and her son finally took refuge in a 
shelter. With no other choice, she turned to AFDC. As she told me:

       The support I received from AFDC enabled me to get out, 
     move on to heal myself and my son, and create a new life. It 
     cost the Government a little over $400 a month for 6 months--
     less than the cost of a modest funeral. Investing in family 
     safety and support seems like the kind of investment this 
     country should protect. Cutting off this lifeline means that 
     the futures of our children are definitely at stake. Let me 
     tell you in all seriousness, these cuts are deadly.

  It is true that some cuts never heal, and these cuts, I believe, in 
this measure are deadly: Close to $60 billion in harsh, extreme, and 
unjustifiable cuts over the next 6 years.
  The reality is that this Nation's safety net is fragile and fraying. 
The Republican response is to rip even more holes in the safety net and 
require millions more children to fend for themselves. No terrorist 
could possibly do so much harm to our country.
  Nearly half of the Republican savings are from the Food Stamp 
Program--$28 billion in cuts, affecting 14 million children. By the 
year 2002, the Republican proposal would provide poor children in 
America only 65 cents a meal, just about enough to buy a soft drink.
  We know that hungry children are more susceptible to sickness and 
early death. We know that malnutrition retards growth and delays brain 
development.
  We just had, a year ago, the publication of the Carnegie Commission 
talking about what happens to a child's brain during the early 
formative years unless there is sufficient nutrition benefits to that 
child. It slows their whole ability to achieve academically and 
emotionally, and it works to their long-term disadvantage.
  In short, hungry children can't learn. They are twice as likely to be 
absent from school and four times as likely to be unable to study.
  The Republican revolution says, ``Let them eat cake.'' I say it's the 
wrong priority for Congress and the wrong priority for America.
  Our colleagues attempt to justify this outrage by claiming food 
stamps are fraught with waste, fraud, and abuse, but the Republican 
plan has virtually nothing to do with ending the abuses. That is the 
interesting point. They make the case we ought to cut back this program 
because there is abuse and fraud in these programs. But 70 percent of 
the cuts come directly at programs aimed at families with children. 
Only 2 percent of the cuts are aimed at waste, fraud, and abuse.
  The real fraud, waste, and abuse is the scheme to take food from the 
mouths of children in the guise of welfare reform. The Republican plan 
also targets children's health care. To be sure, the Republican 
leadership bowed to the inevitable and dropped their draconian Medicaid 
provisions from this bill to avoid a certain Presidential veto. But 
this bill still jeopardizes health care for millions of mothers and 
children.
  We know under Medicaid, 18 million children receive Medicaid and 
about 75 percent of those children's parents are working--playing by 
the rules and working. Under the program that was proposed, you would 
have seen anywhere from 5 to 8 million of those children completely 
dropped from Medicaid if that had moved forward. What we are talking 
about now is the alleged welfare reform provisions.
  Women will not get the prenatal care they need under this particular 
program. The 4 million women included would have coverage under this 
program. They will not get the prenatal care they need. Adolescents 
will not get the help to avoid pregnancy and stay in school. Injuries 
and preventable illnesses will now become life-threatening, for 
example, when they could have been easily treated. Sick children can't 
learn, and sick parents can't work.
  Children with disabilities are also attacked under the proposal. Mr. 
President, 300,000 children with serious disabilities--mental 
retardation, tuberculosis, autism, head injuries, arthritis--would lose 
the direct guaranteed assistance that they have under the Supplemental 
Security Income Program.
  When Democratic Senators proposed that States be required, or at 
least given the option, of offering vouchers after the time limit to 
provide children with necessities, such as diapers, clothes, cribs, 
medicine and school supplies, the Republicans said a resounding no. 
Why? Because ``enough is enough,'' they say. ``It's time to go cold 
turkey,'' they say, even if this bill is the real turkey.
  Enough is enough. Enough of the back-room deals with high-paid 
corporate lobbyists. Enough of dismantling commitments to children and 
families who desperately need help. Enough of cruelty called charity.
  Even when Democrats asked for a look back provision--to provide help 
if the worst predictions materialize and this bill actually becomes the 
disaster we predict for children--the Republican majority said, ``stop 
overreacting''. To them I say, tell that to the countless families who 
are looking for a chance not a check--a chance for their children to 
reach for the American dream.
  Stripped down--this is the Republican plan they call welfare reform--
no resources, no guarantees, no vouchers, no look back, no regrets. It 
does not get much more extreme than that.
  As George Will said in his article,

       No child in America asked to be here. Each was summoned 
     into existence by the acts of adults. And no child is going 
     to be spiritually improved by being collateral damage in a 
     bombardment of severities targeted at adults who may or may 
     not deserve more severe treatment.

  The comments I am making this evening, Mr. President, are from Mr. 
George Will, David Ellwood, and Biship Weakland, who has been one of 
the most thoughtful of the bishops in terms of children's interests and 
children's rights. They all have reached the same conclusion, Mr. 
President, about this measure in terms of its harshness and its retreat 
from a fundamental sense of decency and caring for the neediest in our 
society, and that is poor children in our society.
  But the Republican majority tells us not to worry. They say the 
welfare miracles of Wisconsin and Michigan demonstrate that block 
grants and deep cuts really work. But the facts show this is far from 
the truth.
  It takes money to reform welfare. In Wisconsin, after major changes 
in the

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State welfare program, administrative costs rose 72 percent. Wisconsin 
Governor Thompson himself said that for welfare reform to be 
successful, ``It will cost more up front to transfer the welfare system 
than many expect.''
  For welfare reform to succeed, it also takes jobs. Wisconsin and 
Michigan learned this lesson the hard way. In Wisconsin, a trucking 
company praised by Governor Thompson and Presidential candidate Bob 
Dole for hiring welfare recipients, laid off 45 employees this week, 
including the welfare workers. It was a business slowdown they said.
  In Michigan, only one-fifth of former general relief recipients have 
found jobs. The majority of beneficiaries have become even more 
destitute.
  So it goes when social experiments go wrong. The Republican majority 
is prepared to push welfare families off the cliff in the hope that 
they'll learn to fly. And what happens if they fall? Nearly 9 million 
children, who make up the majority of AFDC recipients, will pay the 
price. Nine million children, and the majority of AFDC recipients will 
pay the price. And as a society, so will we.
  This is not just theory--the Congressional Budget Office agrees. They 
recently issued a preliminary assessment of the Republican legislation. 
And like last year, they said it will not work. According to their 
study, most States will not even attempt to implement the legislation's 
work requirements, because putting people to work is too expensive. In 
fact, the report says States will fall $13 billion short of the mark, 
and simply throw up their hands.
  Nevertheless, the Republicans continue to defy the facts.
  We have had, as I mentioned, church leaders, conservative columnists, 
those who have spoken and written about the various welfare reform 
programs with extraordinary credibility--the Congressional Budget 
Office taking the particular relevant facts--all reaching the same 
conclusion, that this is going to be an extraordinary disaster in its 
impact on poor children. Like last year, they said it will not work. 
Nevertheless, the majority continues to defy the facts.
  They insist that this legislation is about putting people to work. 
Trust us, they say. That is not acceptable.
  As Catholic Charities USA said in a recent letter: ``The welfare 
proposal reflects ignorance and prejudice far more than the experience 
of this nation's poorest working and welfare families.''
  In the final analysis, that is what this legislation is about--
ignorance and prejudice. The American people know that pulling the rug 
out from under struggling families is wrong. Denying health care for 
sick or disabled children is wrong. Keeping families trapped in poverty 
and violence is wrong. Condemning homeless children to cold grates is 
wrong.
  Perhaps the greatest irony of all is now on display, as America hosts 
the Olympic Games. We justifiably take pride in being the best in a 
variety of different events. We may well win a fist full of golds in 
Atlanta, but America is not winning any medals when it comes to caring 
for our children.
  The United States has more children living in poverty and spends less 
of its wealth on children than 16 out of the 18 industrial countries in 
the world. The United States has a larger gap between rich and poor 
children than any other industrial nation in the world. Children in the 
United States are 1.6 times more likely to be poor than Canadian 
children, 2 times more likely to be poor than British children, and 3 
times more likely to be poor than French or German children.
  When it comes to our children, America should go for the gold.
  Mr. President, not that just assigning resources, money, on this is 
necessarily the answer to all the problems. But it is a pretty good 
reflection of where the Nation's priorities are. When the bell tolls 
tomorrow afternoon on that measure that is going to cut back $27 
billion out of children's feeding programs, to move that payment from 
88 cents to 65 cents, that is going to be a really clear indication 
about where the majority believes this Nation's priorities are--to use 
those savings for tax breaks for the wealthy individuals of this 
country. That is wrong. We should all take some time to think about 
what kind of country we want and about what we are doing to children, 
to ourselves and the Nation. Surely we can do better than this bad 
bill.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor. I see our two floor managers. I 
appreciate their courtesy.
  Mr. COCHRAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.

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