[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 114 (Tuesday, July 30, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1409]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     CHILDREN ARE THE ONES WHO PAY

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                        HON. ANDREW JACOBS, JR.

                               of indiana

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 30, 1996

  Mr. JACOBS. Mr. Speaker, the following is the David Mannweiler column 
from the Indianapolis News edition of July 23, 1996.
  The column is, of course, disturbing to any citizen of conscience. It 
is also somewhat ironic with regard to my experience with Congress.
  In 1962 when I first ran for the Congress, Mr. Mannweiler's 
predecessor, Bill Wildhack suggested a pledge that I should make in my 
campaign, to wit:
  I'll never vote to send a child to bed hungry.
  I hope that an analysis of the votes I have cast on behalf of 
Indianapolis in the Congress over this third of a century will show 
that I have kept that pledge.

              [From the Indianapolis News, July 23, 1996]

                       Children the Ones Who Pay

                         (By David Mannweiler)

       On my plane trip home Saturday, I read the New York Times.
       Maybe it was that thin air they pump inside planes these 
     days, but I found myself wondering if there could be a link 
     someday between two stories I read.
       One story was about the Senate's vote Friday to give states 
     a lump sum to run their own welfare and work programs. That 
     idea was approved.
       What wasn't approved was a proposal requiring the secretary 
     of Health and Human Services to study whether the 
     legislation, if passed, causes an increase in poverty among 
     children in the next two years.
       Also rejected was a proposal requiring states to provide 
     vouchers to meet ``the basic subsistence needs'' of children 
     in families that would be removed from the dole if mom or dad 
     didn't have a job after two years on welfare.
       Republicans said vouchers would undermine the five-year 
     limit by allowing children to receive aid for much longer.
       Hey, no undermining. Clearly, children should be punished 
     for their parents' shortcomings. And no whining about the 
     world's richest country no longer guaranteeing poor kids will 
     eat. A line must be drawn somewhere.


                      it'd be a grate-full nation

       Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., whined, of course. He 
     said if the six-decade-old federal guarantee to feed poor 
     children is ended, ``we will be making cruelty to children an 
     instrument of social policy. We will have children sleeping 
     on grates.''
       He said a million additional children would be thrown into 
     poverty--we have 9 million already--and ``there will be an 
     urban crisis unlike anything we have known since the 1960s.''
       The second story I found interesting concerned Mexican 
     peasants reacting to the wide disparity between the rich and 
     the poor in their country.
       The Mexican government says 22 million Mexicans are living 
     in ``extreme poverty,'' an increase of 5 million in the last 
     15 months. United Nations figures show the army of children 
     living and working on the streets of Mexico City has doubled 
     in three years.


                        when it trains, it pours

       Recently, the story said, residents of a shanty town on the 
     outskirts of the wealthy city of Monterrey stopped a freight 
     train at night and removed--OK, stole--grain to make tamales 
     and tortillas.
       A former mayor of Mexico City said a recent poll showed 22 
     percent of the capital's residents believe violence is 
     justified to correct social imbalances. That's the highest 
     figure in a decade.
       In the name of saving money and ending welfare as we know 
     it, children may go hungry in this country. In an effort to 
     feed their children, most parents would break the law, I 
     believe.
       It might come to that here, too.

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