[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 116 (Thursday, August 1, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9322-S9334]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY AND WORK OPPORTUNITY RECONCILIATION ACT OF 
                        1996--CONFERENCE REPORT

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will now 
proceed to the consideration of the conference report to accompanying 
H.R. 3734, which the clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The committee of conference on the disagreeing votes of the 
     two Houses on the amendment of the Senate to the bill (H.R. 
     3734) to provide for reconciliation pursuant to section 
     201(a)(1) of the current resolution on the budget for fiscal 
     year 1997 having met, after full and free conference, have 
     agreed to recommend and do recommend to their respective 
     Houses this report, signed by a majority of the conferees.

  (The conference report is printed in the House proceedings of the 
Record of July 30, 1996.)
  Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, as I understand it, there are 10 hours 
equally divided. I hope we do not use 10 hours, and I will not take 
very long. I will yield rather quickly to the chairman of the Finance 
Committee. If he would permit me to give just a quick oversight, I will 
yield on our side. But I do wish to announce there are a number of 
Senators who want to speak. I hope we do not have any lag time between 
speakers. The Senators who have asked to speak are Hatch, Gramm, 
Specter, Hutchison, Simpson, Coats, and Gorton. Some have indicated 
they want to speak as much as 10 to 20 minutes. I am clearly going to 
have plenty of time to accommodate them. I hope they will be watching 
here so that we do not have big periods of time when we are in a quorum 
call.
  Mr. President, we come to the end of a long journey today to reform 
our Federal-State welfare programs. We take this final step today to 
send to the President of the United States for his announced signature 
the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 
1996.
  As vice chairman of the welfare reconciliation conference, I wish to 
first thank the people who did the bulk of the work to bring this 
conference to a quick conclusion. On our side, I thank in particular 
Senator Roth, the chairman of the Finance Committee, who sits here. 
Without his diligent work and that of his excellent staff, we would not 
be here. I also thank, Senator Lugar, who chairs the Agriculture 
Committee. For some it is not quite understood why a welfare bill can 
include agriculture issues. Of all of the nutrition programs that are a 
part of this package, most of them come within the jurisdiction of the 
Agriculture Committee, from food stamps on down. Obviously Senator 
Lugar and his very dedicated staff must be given very high praise on 
our side of the aisle for their work.
  These two distinguished chairmen and their staffs, from what I 
understood, worked tirelessly this last week. I was with them some of 
the time. I know of no other budget reconciliation conference in our 
history that was completed as quickly as this--less than 1 week.
  Now, obviously, the House and Senate have passed bills that were 
somewhat similar--we have been at this a number of times. In fact, we 
have heretofore sent to the President two bills that passed both the 
House and Senate and he vetoed them. So, completing the conference 
report in 1 week seemed to us to be an achievable goal. And, indeed, 
they have exceeded our expectation and finished in slightly less than a 
week.

  I believe part of the reason why this conference was completed so 
quickly is because the work on this issue has been in progress since 
the beginning of the 104th Congress, which began almost a year and a 
half ago. Welfare reform was one of the top legislative agenda items of 
this Congress. The former Republican leader, Senator Bob Dole, our 
candidate for President, made welfare reform a centerpiece of our 
broader effort to reform the Federal Government and return power back 
to the States and communities. For that, I want to indicate my great 
praise for our candidate for President, and our former leader. He had a 
lot to do with us being here today.
  In addition, the national Governors, both Republicans and Democrats, 
have worked over the last year, both with the Congress and the 
administration, to help us make as informed judgments as we can.
  This legislation truly represents and reflects the beginning of an 
open partnership with the States. This openness will be critical to its 
long-term success. We finally have decided what we should have decided 
a long time ago, that the States should not be our junior partners: who 
we tell how to do everything, do not listen to, and do not let make any 
innovative changes or do anything different from State to State. For 
too long we have assumed that one shoe fits all and that the States 
better do as we say because we are paying some or most of the bill.
  We have decided that the States and Governors and legislatures out 
there in America are as concerned about the poor as we are. They are 
concerned about their well-being and as concerned, if not more so, 
about the status of welfare in their States--a program that was built 
upon and built upon over the past 60 years, but never contained any 
elements which were truly an incentive to go to work, or to improve 
your own personal responsibility and take better care of yourselves, 
and thus of your children. It had become as if people were locked in 
poverty, kind of waiting around for the next minimal cash benefit check 
and whatever else went with it. The rewards were not great. The money 
was not very much. But of those who got on it, many of them stayed on 
it forever because there were no tools to help them get their 
educations and look for jobs. There were not job placement approaches.
  All of that will change when this bill becomes law. The essence of 
the new welfare will be more like workfare. Welfare offices will turn 
into work placement offices, into job training offices, into places 
where people can go to find out how to improve their skills and what 
help they can have while they are doing that, such as enhanced child 
care. We put a great deal of resources in here, because we want many of 
the people who are single heads of households, who have a couple of 
children, to be able to become trained and educated. So we have 
provided about $14 billion over the next 6 years in this bill, in order 
to help parents who want to go find jobs with those things that they 
need to take care of their children in the interim.
  The spirit of bipartisanship is here today also. The President's 
statement yesterday indicates he would sign this legislation, after 
having vetoed two previous attempts at welfare reform.
  Our Senators may describe what we have done differently, but from my 
standpoint I describe it in five simple ways:
  First, we want to encourage and make people work. We believe work is 
the best thing to make people feel more self-esteem. It builds personal 
responsibility--which is precisely the opposite of the ethic we have 
built into the welfare program heretofore. Able-bodied persons who seek 
assistance should seek work and employment, and only after failing to 
find employment should they turn to the taxpayer for assistance.
  Second, simple as it sounds, we ask parents to take care of their 
children. We stress personal responsibility and create incentives for 
families to stay together. We reestablish one simple rule, parents 
should take care of their children first. Accordingly, we track down 
and punish deadbeat fathers and mothers. Third, we change the culture 
of welfare. This is a culture that has

[[Page S9323]]

dominated and poisoned our good intentions for the last 61 years. We do 
away with the concept of an entitlement to a cash benefit. Welfare will 
have a 5-year time limit for any recipients. No longer will welfare be 
a way of life. It will be a helping hand--and not a handout.

  Fourth, we cut endless, unnecessary Federal regulations and 
bureaucracies and bureaucrats by turning power and flexibility over to 
the States and communities. That is where help for those in need can 
best be determined and best be delivered, and where innovation will 
flourish. Better ways to do things will be found.
  Fifth, and finally, this is a budget reconciliation bill, and these 
reforms will slow the growth of Federal and State spending for these 
programs. Spending on the programs in this bill: the new temporary 
assistance for needy families block grant--temporary assistance for 
needy families block grant, I repeat that--this is a new program, and a 
new child care block grant program, and the reformed food stamp, SSI, 
child nutrition, foster care--all of these, along with the earned-
income tax credit and other programs will increase from $100 billion 
this year to nearly $130 billion per year 6 years from now. Total 
spending over the next 6 years for these programs will exceed $700 
billion.
  For those who say we are not going to provide for those in need that 
were heretofore on welfare, let me repeat: The combined programs will 
increase from nearly $100 billion this year to $130 billion per year in 
6 years, hardly a reduction in expenditures. Let me repeat, the total 
programs that I have just described, food stamps, SSI, child nutrition, 
foster care, the block grant program for child care, the new block 
grant to take the place of AFDC, which we will call temporary 
assistance for needy families--all of those programs will seek, from 
the taxpayers of America, $700 billion over the next 6 years.
  Nevertheless, our taxpayers should know that we will save, we will 
save them, about $55 billion. This program in its reformed and more 
efficient mode will cost $55 billion less than it was assumed to cost 
if we had left everything alone and kept the entitlements wherever they 
were.
  I believe much of these savings are going to be achieved because we 
are making the programs work better. We are going to be pushing people 
to do what they should have been doing all along--get off the rolls 
into work, off dependence into independence, off looking to somebody 
else for responsibility and looking to themselves. And everywhere we 
turn, in this bill, there are provisions for those who just cannot do 
it. There are emergency set-asides, emergency allowances, there are 
provisions, where it just cannot be done, to provide some of what must 
be provided in addition to the basic program.
  I would like to quote one of our very distinguished Senators, Senator 
Rick Santorum--for whom I also extend my great appreciation for his 
help on the floor on many occasions during the debate on welfare. He 
stood here in my stead and he did a remarkable job. He came to the 
Senate well informed on this subject. He, at one point, said: ``Welfare 
reform has been and will continue to be a contentious issue. This 
legislation is tough love.''
  I concur. And I do not believe there is anything wrong with that 
either. I have some concerns about provisions in this legislation. 
Other Members will have their particular concerns, and the President 
has expressed his. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your 
philosophy of governance, it is possible and probable that even with 
the President's signature we will not have seen the last of welfare 
reform. When he has signed it, we will probably see a completed law and 
we will carry it out. In due course, we will see there are some areas 
that need some repair, some fixing. But I believe, under any 
circumstance, with a bill that is as much on the right track as this--
although perhaps imperfect in certain areas--we should proceed. We 
should let the reform move along.
  For today, I believe, that the best hope we have to fulfill the 
promise we all made to the American public to change these programs as 
we have known them--is to pass this bill overwhelmingly.
  Making such fundamental changes to programs, some of which are 60 
years old, will surely require adjustments and additional tuning as we 
begin to see how this legislation unfolds. But for those who seem 
frightened of this change, and for those who want to find the areas 
where they have concern and that might need some repair in the future, 
I merely ask, is it possible that this welfare reform program can be 
worse than what we have?
  I cannot believe that it is; because in a land of opportunity with 
untold chances for people to succeed on their own and move ahead with 
personal achievement and responsibility, in a land with plenty of that, 
one thing that stands out as a testimonial to failure on the part of 
our legislative bodies and the executive branch is the welfare program 
of this country. This program, for the most part, moves people in the 
opposite direction of mainstream opportunity in America, and for many 
it locks them there. We must unlock their opportunity potential.
  For today, I believe this is our best opportunity to change the 
culture of welfare and, once again, I repeat, to provide in every way 
possible a hand up, an opportunity up, not a handout. I believe these 
Americans who are locked in welfare as we know it today are anxiously 
waiting in their minds and in their hearts for a better way of life. 
What we are saying, is we hope we are providing that for you. We hope 
we are giving many of you an opportunity to get out of welfare and get 
into something that is more like what most Americans have the 
opportunity to be a part of.
  In short, I believe this legislation is the best hope we have today 
to provide some real hope for a future for those families and children 
in our society who, in many, many instances, are totally without hope. 
But we need to be honest and sober. I believe proponents and opponents 
may be overstating the results, but I believe the overwhelming 
consequences of this bill will be positive. The legislation represents 
a fundamental change in social policy. We elected officials should not 
assume that this legislation is perfect. The one thing the last 61 
years should have taught us is that no one can be all-knowing.
  So let us be proud of this significant accomplishment today. I 
believe it is the right legislation for the future. But let us also 
remain vigilant and sober. Many people's lives will be affected by this 
critical legislation, and we hope for most of the overwhelming 
percentage it is for the better.
  Again, I congratulate the Members of the House and Senate who have 
worked to help bring this legislation before us today. I am hopeful 
that we will put an end shortly to welfare as it is.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Faircloth). Who yields time?
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. I thank the manager.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, let me start off by saying that I 
greatly respect my colleague on the other side of the aisle, the 
manager and the chairman of the Budget Committee. I listened to him 
carefully, and I know that he is a man of compassion and concern. I 
have seen it manifested in many ways: his interest in the mentally ill, 
his interest in the disabled. This is someone who cares about people. 
So when I talk about my difference in view, this is my personal 
perspective and, by no means do I intend to criticize the distinguished 
Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. President, I take this opportunity, acting as the minority 
manager on this conference report, to make my remarks, and they reflect 
my opinion. This is not a consensus view that I have mustered; this is 
the opinion of the Senator from New Jersey, who has been on the Budget 
Committee for some time and draws on some experience from my corporate 
world, as I discuss my perspective.
  This is a historic and peculiar time for the U.S. Senate. The body is 
on the verge of ending a 60-year guarantee that poor children in this 
country might not go hungry. I salute the attempts to solve the 
problem. I am right with all the others, including the President of the 
United States, in wanting to solve the problem.

[[Page S9324]]

  The question is not whether one wants to solve the problem; the 
question is, how do you solve it? This is going to be a test not only 
of our pocketbooks and our resources, but of our hearts as well. Though 
I have heard it described as bleeding hearts, I am willing to accept 
the nomenclature that has applied, because having had my life 
experience when in the Depression years my family was, to use the 
expression, dirt poor, and my father had to go to work on a WPA 
program, it was a humiliating experience for him to have to go to work 
on a Government program. But he buried his pride for a moment, and he 
did what he could to support his family.
  I don't know many people who want to humiliate themselves standing in 
a line waiting for their welfare check. Yes, there are some cheats out 
there and there are druggies and there are drunks. They are out there, 
there is no question about it, but a lot of those people are simply 
people who have not yet discovered a way out of their misery and their 
poverty.
  Women with children, many of them unwed--I do not approve of that 
condition, but that is life. The punishment should never exceed the 
deed, and that is what I fear, Mr. President, we are about to do in 
this body of ours, in our beloved country. For 60 years, we could rest 
easier at night and be sure American children had a minimum safety net. 
The bill before us takes away this peace of mind and throws up to 
1,100,000 children into poverty, according to a study by the Urban 
Institute.
  I agree, the welfare system is in need of repair, and I believe that 
it needs to promote work and self-sufficiency, pride and dignity. That 
is going to make the difference.
  I think it should also, however, protect children and, unfortunately, 
I am not certain at all that this so-called welfare reform does it.
  First, the Republican bill does not promote work. It asks for work. 
It demands work. I heard the distinguished chairman of the Budget 
Committee say we can make people work. That is a requirement for 
welfare recipients. But it does not require the resources to put people 
to work.
  In fact, CBO said that most States would be unlikely to satisfy this 
work requirement for several reasons. One major reason is that this 
bill cuts funding for work programs by combining all welfare programs 
into a capped block grant.
  Second, the Republican bill hurts children. It would make deep cuts 
in the Food Stamp Program, which millions of children rely on for their 
nutritional needs. It would also end the guarantee that children will 
always have the safety net. Under this bill, a State could adopt a 60-
day time limit, and after that the children would be cut off from the 
safety net entirely.
  The State would not even be required to provide a child with a 
voucher for food, clothing, or medical care. When you take all of these 
policies together, this bill will put an estimated approximately 1.1 
million children into poverty. And this is a conservative estimate. It 
could be higher.
  Mr. President, my conscience does not permit me to vote for a bill 
that will likely plunge children into poverty.
  I had an experience some years ago when I was at the Earth summit in 
Brazil with the now Vice President of the United States and other 
Senators, Republican and Democrat. We were dining at a restaurant, 
facing a beautiful harbor in Rio. The restaurants were separated by 
rows of shrubs--beautiful places, a marvelous atmosphere. I saw a light 
brown hand reach through the bush and take food off the table. Children 
starving, thousands of them, sometimes chased by the police, sometimes 
shot at because they crowded the doors.
  Mr. President, a child who is hungry will go to any means, as will an 
adult, to satisfy their hunger. I am worried about that. I cannot vote 
to leave our children unprotected. I was one of only 11 Democrats to 
vote against the original Senate welfare bill that would have put 1.2 
million children into poverty. I voted against the conference report on 
this bill that would have doomed 1.5 million children to the same fate. 
I will vote against this bill for the same reason. We dare not abandon 
our children.
  Mr. President, I hold a different vision of what the safety net in 
this country should be. I am concerned, frightened, that this bill will 
leave children hungry and homeless. I am afraid the streets of our 
Nation's cities might someday look like the streets of the cities of 
Brazil. Walk around there and you see children begging for money, 
begging for food, and even at 8 and 9 years old engaging in 
prostitution.
  Tragically, that is what happens to societies that abandon their 
children. When we don't protect our kids, they resort to their own 
means to survive. I do not want to see that happen in this country. I 
want to see this country invest in children.
  I think we should invest more in child care and health and nutrition 
so that our kids can become independent, productive citizens. I want to 
give them the opportunity to live the American dream like I and so many 
in this room had the good fortune to do. If we do not, we will create a 
permanent underclass in this country. We will have millions of children 
with no protection, and we are going to doom them to failure.
  Mr. President, as a member of the Budget Committee, I also want to 
comment on the priorities that are reflected in this reconciliation 
bill. Despite the fact that this bill is only limited to safety net 
programs, it is still considered a reconciliation bill. The bill 
receives the same protections as a budget-balancing bill, but there is 
no balanced budget in it. This reconciliation bill seeks to cut the 
deficit only by attacking safety net programs for poor children, for 
legal immigrants.

  There are no cuts in corporate loopholes or tax breaks, despite the 
fact that the tax expenditures cost the Federal Treasury over $400 
billion a year. There are no such savings in this bill. There are no 
grazing fee increases, no mining royalties, no savings in the military 
budget or NASA's budget.
  The only cuts in this bill come from women and children. This 
reconciliation bill gives new meaning to putting women and children 
first.
  Mr. President, I realize that this bill is going to pass. I 
understand the President clearly has indicated that he is going to sign 
it. However, as the distinguished Senator from New Mexico mentioned, 
the President and many of us are determined to examine a package of 
changes next year to soften the blow of the harsh provisions in this 
bill.
  Mr. President, we have seen the reaction of people regarding this 
bill. When you hear from the mayor of one of the world's most 
distinguished cities, New York City Mayor Giuliani, he is worried about 
where they get the money in the block grants to supply the job 
training, the child care support. He is concerned, as are many mayors 
across the country we have heard from.
  Mr. President, I will, for a moment, just relate an experience that I 
had when I ran a corporation, a big corporation. When I left to come to 
the U.S. Senate, we had over 16,000 employees, a very successful 
company. We were a company, founded in New Jersey, that tried to work 
within our community. The company still has its headquarters in New 
Jersey and employs almost 30,000 people today.
  I always tried, since I came from a poor background of hard-working, 
honest people who always wanted to keep their heads high and always 
wanted to do the right thing and not ask anybody for anything--but 
there were times when we needed help. If I did not have the GI bill, 
Mr. President, I doubt that I would be standing in front of the U.S. 
Senate and the American people today. So, we were very conscientious, 
my partners and I, about trying to understand what was happening around 
us. We began to hire people, or we attempted to hire people, who were 
literally unemployable with job after job, short-term employment, and 
then back on the streets.
  We brought people into the computer room, not into the factory. We 
did not have a factory. I was in the computer business. We brought them 
into the computer room, and we had one startling success among several 
people that we worked with. The reason for that success was very 
interesting. The reasons for failure were obvious, because though we 
would give these people a job, and they would be enthusiastic about it 
for a couple days, as soon as they got back into their environment and 
as soon as they were faced with

[[Page S9325]]

poverty and despair and drugs and crime, they fell right back in the 
trap. They were useless as employees in very short order.
  But the one person who succeeded so well, we got an apartment for 
her, and we moved her, helped her move from her ghetto area to a more 
middle-class area. The success was astounding. This woman, when we 
hired her, she was 25 years old. She had very limited education. She 
became a computer room supervisor--a good job--and went on to become a 
part of management in the company. It was a startling success, because 
it was not that we said, you have to go to work and have to show up on 
time. We said that to everybody. You say that to all of your employees. 
All of them do not do it. It needs training. It needs commitment.

  Mr. President, I hope that this bill that is being considered today, 
this reconciliation bill, will not be the first step toward larger 
problems than we can understand today, toward the kind of situation 
where America turns its heart into stone and says, OK, we are here as 
accountants, we are here to cut the budget.
  I want to cut the budget. I have programs to cut the budget to arrive 
at a balanced budget. I know what happens in the corporate world when 
your expenses get too high and your revenues too low. You make changes, 
make them selectively. We did not just cut every department if we had 
to reduce expenses. Maybe it was time to cut the marketing department 
or the production department or the products design department. But I 
always thought about the long term. We are abandoning the long term. 
What we are doing is giving a lot of people political satisfaction, 
those who work here and those who are outside who hear us on TV and the 
radio.
  Mr. President, I make my remarks in the full context of the 
realization of where we are. This bill has lots of support. I am not, I 
promise you--not--attempting or trying to influence people to vote 
against it. I am stating the case as I see it. I hope it will in some 
way encourage others to think very deeply about their decision to vote. 
I thank you and yield the floor.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, how much time does the distinguished 
Senator from Delaware desire?
  Mr. ROTH. Ten minutes.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I yield up to 15 minutes to the Senator from Delaware, 
Senator Roth.
  Mr. ROTH. First of all, let me thank the distinguished Senator from 
New Mexico for his gracious remarks about me and my staff. I just point 
out that we would not have been able to complete the reconciliation 
within a week if it had not been for his leadership, for the assistance 
and help that he provided at any time when it became necessary in the 
difficult negotiations that had to take place. I want to publicly thank 
the Senator for his contribution.
  Mr. President, this day is a remarkable turning point in the lives of 
millions of American families and generations to come. This is the day 
we will reorder our confused and confounding system of welfare. A world 
spinning out of control will be brought back into proper course. It 
will return to order not through the power of Washington but through 
personal responsibility and work opportunity, the very title of this 
important legislation.
  I say to my distinguished friend from New Jersey that what we seek to 
do here is to provide the same kind of opportunity that was given to 
him, through help to go to college, but particularly as he tried to 
help that lady into the mainstream of life by giving her meaningful 
work. I think that is what we are all seeking to do together.
  Mr. President, this is the third time welfare reform will have passed 
in the 104th Congress. The issue of welfare reform has been frequently 
and passionately debated over these past months, and rightly so. The 
effects and consequences of the welfare system in some way touches us 
all.
  During this time, the Finance Committee has held 19 hearings and 
taken testimony from 90 witnesses. We have found that the current AFDC 
program, as it was designed in the 1930's, abandoned many families long 
ago as a statistic of long-term dependency in contemporary society. The 
current welfare system has failed the very families it was intended to 
serve.
  If the present welfare system was working so well we would not be 
here today. I think that is a point well worth underscoring because the 
fact is, as the record shows, that this current system has not been 
good for children. For anyone who believes that it has, I recommend you 
read the findings section of this legislation. I have yet to hear 
anyone defend the present system as good for children.
  I point out that in 1965 there were 3.3 million children on AFDC; by 
1992, that had risen to over 9 million children. In 1992, 9 million 
children were on welfare, AFDC, despite the fact that the total number 
of children in this country has declined. Last year, the Department of 
Health and Human Services estimated if we do nothing, 12 million will 
be on AFDC in 10 years.
  I reemphasize once again that the present system is not good for 
children. But the record clearly demonstrates the contrary--that 
instead of being good, we find more and more children being trapped in 
a system and into dependency on welfare.
  As I said, to do nothing is absolutely unacceptable. Mr. President, 
90 percent of the children on AFDC live without one of their parents. 
Only a fraction of welfare families are engaged in work. The current 
welfare system has cheated the children of what they need most--among 
these is hope, the necessary condition of liberation from dependency. 
The key to their success will not be found in Washington but in the 
timeless values of family and work.

  Opponents of welfare believe that the States lack either the 
compassion or the capacity, or both, to serve needy families. They are 
wrong. We promised welfare reform and we have kept our promise. Our 
legislation is built upon the original principles from which we have 
never waivered. This is a bipartisan bill. Half of the Senate 
Democratic Members who served on the conference voted for the bill when 
it passed the Senate by an overwhelming margin. Yesterday, this 
conference report passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 328 
to 101. Half of the Democrats in the House of Representatives voted for 
this bill. I believe that demonstrates the bipartisan spirit upon which 
we have approached welfare reform.
  A number of people deserve our thanks and credit for giving us this 
opportunity today. First, let me give credit and thanks to Senator Bob 
Dole, our former majority leader. Even after welfare reform had been 
vetoed twice, Bob Dole insisted that we could and should remain 
steadfast in our fundamental principles and achieve welfare reform. Bob 
Dole introduced a welfare bill before he left the Senate which was, 
frankly, the benchmark of our conference report before us. His last 
advice to me was to make sure this job gets done this year. I have to 
say, Mr. President, today's action reflects his work, reflects his 
vision, reflects his leadership.
  Our Nation's Governors, most especially the lead Governors on welfare 
and Medicaid reform, people like John Engler, Tommy Thompson, Mike 
Leavitt, Tom Carper, Bob Miller, Lawton Chiles, and Roy Romer deserve 
our thanks and credit for their work to make welfare reform a reality. 
I look forward to working with them again to face the challenge of 
Medicaid reform.
  Even though Senator Moynihan does not support our legislation, I want 
to thank him for his work and insights into this extremely complex 
world of welfare. Perhaps no one has done more over the past three 
decades than Senator Moynihan to bring the alarming growth in welfare 
to the Nation's attention.
  President Clinton has announced his support for this hard-won 
conference report and he is to be congratulated for that decision. It 
is the right thing to do.
  Mr. President, while the present welfare system is full of excuses, 
the welfare reform legislation being presented to the American people 
today is indeed a bold challenge. And while the present system quietly 
accepts the dependency of more than 9 million children, our proposal 
speaks loudly to them and insists that they, too, must be among the 
heirs to the blessings of this great Nation.
  Welfare reform is about helping families find the freedom and 
independence we take so much for granted.
  Mr. President, this legislation clearly points the way to that 
independence.

[[Page S9326]]

 But the road to independence does not begin or end in Washington. 
Independence begins with living up to one's responsibilities. This is 
echoed through the legislation with the provisions on work, time-
limited benefits, limits on benefits for noncitizens, and strong child 
support enforcement reforms.
  Mr. President, I urge adoption of the conference report.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. WYDEN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I yield myself 15 minutes. Mr. President, 
there is a concrete reason for voting for this less-than-perfect bill. 
For millions of Americans, this legislation can be a tool for turning 
the welfare check into a trampoline for opportunity and independence. I 
know this because my home State of Oregon has achieved it.
  Once more, the State of Oregon has marked a path for the Nation. By 
putting in place our welfare reform program, known as Jobs Plus, we 
have shown the Nation that it is possible to be both tough and 
compassionate. With our Jobs Plus Program, we have been able to have 
strong work requirements and critically needed child care and medical 
care for folks coming off of welfare. The plan is working for both 
taxpayers and those coming off of welfare. And as the President said 
yesterday, today's legislation can spark more States into going with 
the kind of approach we have at home.
  Mr. President, a few years ago, an Oregonian approached me on the 
street and said, ``You know, for me, welfare is kind of like `economic 
methadone.' You guys send me a check. The checks always come, but you 
people never let me do anything to break out, to get off welfare.''
  This legislation provides the way to break out--a real key for 
unlocking the riddle of welfare dependency. I think it is an 
opportunity to remake this system that doesn't work for those who are 
in it and doesn't work for the taxpayers who pay for it.
  Take child care, for example. Child care is an absolute prerequisite 
to changing welfare. I chaired hearings looking at the child care 
issue, and we heard heartbreaking accounts of how, again and again, 
women would get off of welfare, they would be doing well in the private 
sector, but their child care would fall apart just as they were getting 
back on their feet.
  This bill provides $3.5 billion more than current law for that 
critically needed child care. That increase of $3.5 billion in child 
care is going to be absolutely critical to helping folks get off 
welfare.
  In addition, as several of my colleagues have noted, child support is 
strengthened. I am also pleased that Medicaid is protected as a 
guarantee for all of our Nation's children.
  Now, at the beginning of this Congress, there was a lot of talk about 
orphanages. A lot of us did not particularly think that all of these 
orphanages were exactly Boys Town, and nobody seemed to zero in on the 
question that if an orphanage was Boys Town, it would come with a big 
price tag for taxpayers. So a lot of us thought that we ought to do 
something better. I worked very hard to develop a new approach known as 
``Kinship Care.'' What the Kinship Care amendment says is that the 
Nation's grandparents--the millions of loving grandparents--would get 
first preference when a youngster from a broken home needs help. 
Instead of sending the children away, the grandparents, if they met the 
child custody standards, would get first preference. Along with 
Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, Congressman Clay Shaw, and Senator 
Dan Coats, on a bipartisan basis, we all worked together on this 
kinship care amendment.

  Now, as we look to the 21st century when, as a result of the 
population trends and demographics, there are going to be many more 
grandparents, we have an opportunity to keep families together, to use 
a new model known as kinship care to provide loving care for youngsters 
in a cost-effective way.
  Mr. President, this legislation doesn't meet my definition of 
perfection. I will say that I, frankly, detest a couple of these 
provisions--particularly, what was done with the food stamp shelter 
deduction and the legal immigrant provisions. So this legislation 
doesn't meet my textbook standard of what would constitute perfection. 
I, like a number of our other Senators, am going to fight very hard to 
make changes in this area. As I think it is critical to do, we ought to 
be constructive and we ought to look at useful ways that Senators can 
work on a bipartisan basis for changes.
  For example, there has been a lot of talk in this Congress about the 
idea of a lock box, the idea of special accounts so that when the 
spending is reduced, those funds are protected for deficit reduction. I 
have supported that concept. I think the lock box makes sense. Frankly, 
I think we ought to look at a new idea, and we can call it the lunch 
box. We could make sure that when you eliminate some of those tax 
loopholes, when you go after wasteful spending, some of those funds 
could be put in what I call the lunch box, and we could use these 
savings to try fresh approaches to ensure that all Americans have 
access to good nutrition. I think there are a number of new, innovative 
approaches that we ought to try and that are going to be needed, even 
after this bill is enacted and signed into law.
  At the end of the day, Mr. President, the question, to me, is 
straightforward: Is this legislation better than the status quo? Is it 
better than the system that an Oregonian told me was like economic 
methadone? I think that when you look at the child care provisions, at 
the Medicaid guarantee, when you look at the opportunity for States to 
follow the path that Oregon has followed with our Jobs Plus Program, I 
believe you see the case for supporting this legislation. I intend to 
vote for it.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, as manager of the time on this side, I 
want to indicate that Senator Gorton will be recognized to take my 
place, and he will have up to 15 minutes, and then he will indicate 
thereafter the sequence until I arrive back on the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from 
Washington State.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I greatly admire those who, during the 
course of this debate over the last year and a half, expressed great 
confidence in the consequences of the passage of this bill or of its 
predecessors. I expressed that admiration both for those who are as 
confident that the bill will end a culture of dependency as for those 
who view with alarm what they believe will vastly increase poverty 
among the people of the United States. While I admire their certainty, 
I cannot join in it.

  I must say, Mr. President, that I am not at all certain of what the 
consequences of the passage of this bill will be. I hope and I am 
inclined to believe that they will primarily be positive, but I cannot 
be certain. In that regard, Mr. President, I agree fully with the views 
expressed yesterday in the Washington Post by Robert Samuelson, and I 
will quote three sentences of his review:

       The exercise aims to promote self-reliance by making it 
     harder for people to rely on government. Without the threat 
     of extra suffering, people would have no reason to change. 
     What can't be predicted is how the good and bad will balance.

  Mr. President, I find that entire column to be so persuasive--and not 
at all, incidentally, to be so similar to my own views--that I ask 
unanimous consent that the entire column be printed in full at the end 
of my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, on the other hand, what I do know and what 
I feel confident in stating is that our present welfare system is a 
tragic and destructive failure. At the very least, the present system 
has been accompanied by a massive increase in the very conditions that 
it was designed to alleviate: illegitimacy, family breakup, a negative 
attitude toward work, a culture of dependency. At most, our present 
system has been a contributing cause to those conditions.
  I should also like to observe, Mr. President, that those who oppose 
this bill, by and large, are those who individually--or whose 
philosophy--have guided and managed the system that this bill in large 
part dismantles. These people, these ideas clearly represent the 
conventional wisdom, a conventional wisdom that has guided and produced 
every change in welfare policy in

[[Page S9327]]

this country, or almost every such change, for at least the past 30 
years. Their present advice is to view with alarm these changes, to 
attempt to preserve the status quo, except to ask that we do a little 
bit more of what we have been doing with these last several decades.
  Mr. President, that conventional wisdom is bankrupt and ought to be 
abandoned, not only for the sake of our society as a whole but for the 
sake of the supposed beneficiaries of these welfare policies.
  Those of us who support this legislation, these changes, hope with 
some reason that this bill will increase incentives to work, some of 
those incentives being positive and some negative. We hope, with some 
reason, that it will result in strong disincentives for teenage 
pregnancy and illegitimacy. We are convinced that it will require 
greater male parental support for their children.
  But the heart of this bill--not with total consistency, after all, 
with the compromises that have entered into it--but the heart of this 
proposal is consistent with my own uncertainties about specific 
consequences resulting from specific policies. That central feature is 
to end the absolute entitlement to welfare, to end the detailed Federal 
regulation of the way in which welfare policies are administered by 
the State, to end the massive bureaucratic interference with every 
detail of welfare policy, and to encourage--for that matter, to 
require--a wide range of experimentation in welfare policies among our 
50 States.

  I suppose that States which really want to pay for even more generous 
welfare systems than they have at the present time will be able to find 
a way to do so, and that there may be a handful of such States. Perhaps 
more significantly, those States that want to adopt tough work 
requirements will be able to do so. Those States that want to provide 
for greater training and child care will be able to do so. Those States 
that want to impose strong disincentives against dependency will be 
able to do so.
  In fact, in a relatively short period of time after the passage of 
this bill, we will have 50 distinct and different systems of welfare in 
the United States. We will learn just how much private sector charities 
can and will do in the welfare field. We know that in certain areas 
they have been magnificently successful at much lower cost than any 
government-run program. How much that private sector effort can be 
increased we simply do not know at the present time, but we will learn 
as a result of this bill.
  As a consequence, 5 years from now or 10 years from now, I believe 
that we will know far more about which welfare policies work and which 
do not. Perhaps we will even know enough to lead us wisely to a more 
centralized system of adopting those policies which seem to have worked 
well. I suspect, I hope, and I think this 50-State experimentation will 
probably be successful enough so that our successors will wish it to 
continue.
  Mr. President, I am gratified but not at all surprised that a poll-
driven President of the United States has agreed to sign this bill. 
That agreement means that we are talking here, debating here, something 
real--real changes in policy with a real impact on our society and on 
our citizens.
  It would be very difficult to do worse than we have been doing over 
the course of the last several decades. We have a marvelous opportunity 
to do far better. The time has come to act. The day is at hand on which 
we will act.
  I commend this magnificent new experiment to my colleagues.

                               Exhibit 1

               [From the Washington Post, July 31, 1996]

                          For Better or Worse?

                        (By Robert J. Samuelson)

       We are now hearing a lot about the promise and peril of 
     ``welfare reform.'' To its champions, the legislation nearing 
     congressional approval would destroy the ``culture of 
     dependency.'' Critics see it as further impoverishing many 
     poor families. Both are correct. The exercise aims to promote 
     self-reliance by making it harder for people to rely on 
     government. Without the threat of extra suffering, people 
     would have no reason to change. What can't be predicted is 
     how the good and bad will balance.
       I have put ``welfare reform'' in quotes, precisely because 
     ``reform'' is a term of art. It is automatically attached to 
     any scheme for social change, from ``campaign finance 
     reform'' to ``school reform.'' In debates about these 
     proposals, the protagonists act as if they can easily 
     foretell the effects, for good or ill. As often as not, this 
     convenient fiction spawns ``reforms'' with many unintended 
     consequences. The process is now in full swing with ``welfare 
     reform.''
       The combatants regularly issue confident predictions and 
     shrill denunciations that depict a fixed future. Last week, 
     for example, the Urban Institute, a research group, released 
     a study estimating that the House-passed welfare bill would 
     increase the number of people in poverty by 2.6 million 
     people, including 1.1 million children. Naturally, opponents 
     of the legislation seized upon this to emphasize how bad it 
     is. But a close look at the study shows that its conclusions 
     ought to be highly qualified.
       The House and Senate bills would give states great 
     flexibility to run their welfare programs within broad 
     federal guidelines. Total lifetime federal benefits would be 
     limited to five years, though states could exempt 20 percent 
     of their caseloads. States would be pressured through complex 
     regulations to move most mothers into some type of ``work'' 
     within two years. After making some assumptions about state 
     programs, the Urban Institute study estimates that the loss 
     of benefits would outweigh the increase in earnings from 
     jobs.
       This could happen. The study's assumptions aren't 
     implausible. But uncertainties abound. First, the full rise 
     of people in poverty would occur only in 2002 after all the 
     bill's provisions took effect. Between now and then, Congress 
     (or the states) could make changes if things went badly. This 
     is especially true of one of the bill's worst provisions: the 
     denial of many benefits, including food stamps, to legal 
     immigrants. That alone accounts for about two-fifths of the 
     bills' benefit cuts.
       Second, the increase in the poor would be much less--only 
     800,000 and not 2.6 million--if the Urban Institute had used 
     the government's official definition of poverty. I cite this 
     difference not because I think the Urban Institute 
     deliberately inflated the impact of ``welfare reform'' but 
     because it shows how perceptions can be shaped by somewhat 
     arbitrary statistics.
       (For numbers freaks, the difference arises because the 
     government definition counts only cash income to determine 
     who falls below the poverty line: $15,141 for a family of 
     four in 1994. Excluded are benefits such as food stamps that 
     substitute for cash. The Urban Institute counts many of these 
     benefits. As a result, the Urban Institute finds many fewer 
     poor people; but if welfare reform cuts non-cash benefits, 
     the impact on recorded poverty is greater. Still, the number 
     of poor by the Urban Institute's count--even after adding 2.6 
     million--would be almost 25 percent lower than under the 
     government count).
       Statistics aside, what matters are people. Would more be 
     made better or worse off by ``welfare reform''? 
     Unfortunately, we can't answer that, because we can't predict 
     all of ``reform's'' effects. The Urban Institute examines one 
     aspect of change: the shift from welfare to work. The study 
     assumes that two-thirds of mothers who lost welfare would get 
     jobs--many part-time--paying about $6 an hour. That wouldn't 
     offset all the lost benefits. But this may miss some other 
     favorable effects. Stingy welfare would discourage some out-
     of-wedlock births and prompt some parents to marry. ``The 
     main route off welfare for good is marriage,'' says Douglas 
     Besharov of the American Enterprise Institute.
       How large might these changes be? Neither Besharov nor 
     anyone else knows. But the social climate is shifting, and 
     ``welfare reform'' is simply a part of the change. Harsher 
     welfare may reinforce the message that many teens are hearing 
     elsewhere; and the impact may be amplified by tougher 
     enforcement of child support payments and more prosecution 
     for statutory rape of older men who prey on young girls. 
     Teens account for 29 percent of out-of-wedlock births; the 
     worst aspects of the ``welfare problem'' would diminish if, 
     somehow, these pregnancies would drop.
       The case for the present ``welfare reform'' is that, 
     despite many flaws, it would disrupt the existing system. As 
     Mickey Kaus argues in Newsweek, we may discover what works 
     and what doesn't. Some states would emphasize job training 
     and child care for welfare mothers; others would impose harsh 
     time limits. All could be forced to examine how charities, 
     churches and self-help groups can best aid vulnerable 
     families. This process is already occurring through 
     ``waivers'' granted to states to modify existing federal 
     rules; the legislation would give change further impetus.
       We ought to be sober about the possibilities. We are 
     dealing with the most stubborn problems of poverty--family 
     breakdown, low skills and human relationships. Changing how 
     people behave isn't easy. Indeed, new government figures show 
     that out-of-wedlock births continue to rise, as Charles 
     Murray notes in the Weekly Standard. In 1994, they were 32.6 
     percent of all births, up from 23 percent in 1990. These 
     numbers are an argument for assaulting the status quo and a 
     reminder of how hard it will be to change.
       The remaining drama over the welfare bill is mostly 
     political: Will President Clinton sign it? And who then--a 
     Republican Congress or a Democratic president--will get the 
     credit or blame for enacting or killing ``reform''? However 
     the drama ends, the welfare dilemma will endure. It is this: 
     How can a

[[Page S9328]]

     decent society protect those who can't protect themselves 
     without being so generous that it subverts personal 
     responsibility? No one on either side of this bitter debate 
     has an obvious answer.

  Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from 
Minnesota.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I am here to speak, but out of deference to Senator 
Moynihan, who is ranking member of the Finance Committee and, more 
importantly, who has shown an intellectual and personal public policy 
commitment, probably unlike anyone in the Senate, I will suggest the 
absence of a quorum so we can see whether or not Senator Moynihan wants 
to speak now. If not, I will speak.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, while we are waiting, I wish to insert 
into the Record an op-ed piece today by Frances Fox Piven in the New 
York Times called ``From Workhouse to Workfare.''
  This is a very powerful piece. It concludes with the statement that 
the ``facts don't seem to matter'' in the debate over this welfare 
bill. ``We may have to relive the misery and moral disintegration of 
England in the 19th century to learn what happens when society deserts 
its most vulnerable members.''
  That is the conclusion of this article.
  I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Congressional 
Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                       [From the New York Times]

                       From Workhouse to Workfare

                         (By Frances Fox Piven)

       If Bill Clinton, as an Oxford student, had studied the 
     history of the poor in early 19th century England, he might 
     not have decided to sign the welfare reform bill.
       Eminent English social thinkers developed a justification 
     for an 1834 law that eliminated relief for the poor. Learned 
     arguments showed that giving them even meager quantities of 
     bread and coal harmed both the larger society and the poor 
     themselves.
       Never mind the rapid enclosure by the rich of commonly used 
     agricultural land; never mind the displacement of hand-loom 
     weavers by mechanized factories; never mind the decline in 
     the earnings of rural workers. The real causes of poverty and 
     demoralization were not to be found in these large economic 
     changes, the thinkers said, but rather in the too-generous 
     relief for the poor. The solution was to stop giving relief 
     to people in their own homes; instead, survival for the 
     family meant entering prison-like workhouses.
       The misery and reduced life spans that ensued were well-
     documented not only by historians but ultimately by 
     Parliament, which investigated the workhouses and the riots 
     against them. England came to learn that the theory that 
     relief itself caused poverty was wrong, and replaced the Poor 
     Law with a modern system of social assistance.
       No matter what England learned, the United States 
     Government is eagerly following the 1834 script by ending 
     Federal responsibility for welfare and turning it over to the 
     states. The arguments are the same: welfare encourages young 
     women to quit school or work and have out-of-wedlock babies. 
     Once on the doll these women become trapped in dependency, 
     unable to summon the initiative to get a job or to raise 
     their children property. Welfare, in short is responsible for 
     the spread of moral rot in society.
       Never mind low wages and irregular work; never mind the 
     spreading social disorganization to which they lead; never 
     mind changes in family and sexual norms occurring among all 
     classes and in all Western countries. The solution is to 
     slash welfare. ``Tough love,'' it is said, will deter young 
     women from having babies and force those already raising 
     children to go to work.
       But slashing welfare does not create stable jobs or raise 
     wages. It will have the opposite effect. By crowding the low-
     wage labor market with hundreds of thousands of desperate 
     mothers, it will drive wages down.
       The basic economic realities of high unemployment levels 
     and falling wages for less-educated workers; guarantee a 
     clamaity in the making--and not only for welfare mothers
       It is true that the United States has a higher proportion 
     of single-parent families than other Western countries. But 
     since other rich countries provide far more generous 
     assistance to single mothers, this very fact suggests that 
     welfare has little to do with it.
       Other facts also argue against the welfare-causes-
     illegitimacy argument. Most obvious, welfare benefits set by 
     the states have declined sharply since 1975, while the out-
     of-wedlock birth rate has risen nationwide. In addition, 
     there is no discernible relationship between the widely 
     varying levels of benefits provided by the states and the 
     out-of-wedlock birth rates in the states.
       But fact don't seem to matter. We may have to relive the 
     misery and moral distintegration of England in the 19th 
     century to learn with happens when a society deserts its most 
     vulnerable members.

  Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, yesterday, after the President announced 
he would sign this legislation, I said: ``The President has made his 
decision. Let us hope that it is for the best.''
  Today, I continue to hope for the best, even if I fear the worst.
  As I have stated on this floor many times, this legislation does not 
reform aid to families with dependent children; it simply abolishes it. 
It terminates the basic Federal commitment of support for dependent 
children in hopes of altering the behavior of their mothers. We are 
putting those children at risk with absolutely no evidence that this 
radical idea has even the slightest chance of success.
  In our haste to enact this bill--any bill--before the November 
elections, we have chosen to ignore what little we do know about the 
subject of poverty. Just 2 days ago, on July 30, 11 of the Nation's 
leading researchers in this field issued a statement urging us not to 
do this. Among them were seven current and former directors of the 
Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin 
established in the aftermath of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. 
Scholars of the stature of Sheldon Danziger of the University of 
Michigan; Irwin Garfinkel of Columbia University; Eugene Smolensky of 
the University of California at Berkeley; and Edward Gramlich of the 
University of Michigan. They write:

       As researchers who have dedicated years to the study of 
     poverty, the labor market, and public assistance, we oppose 
     the welfare reform legislation under consideration by 
     Congress. The best available evidence is that this 
     legislation would substantially increase poverty and 
     destitution while doing too little to change the welfare 
     system to one that provides greater opportunity for families 
     in return for demanding greater responsibility.
       Real welfare reform would not impose deep food stamp cuts 
     on poor families with children, the working poor, the 
     elderly, the disabled, and the unemployed. It would not 
     eliminate the safety net for most poor legal immigrants, 
     including the very old and the infirm. It would not place at 
     risk poor children whose parents are willing to work but are 
     unable to find unsubsidized employment. It would not back up 
     work requirements with the resources needed to make them 
     effective.
       We strongly support an overhaul of the nation's welfare 
     system. But the pending legislation will make a troubled 
     welfare system worse. It is not meaningful welfare reform. It 
     should not become law.

  I repeat what these social scientists have concluded: ``The best 
available evidence is that this legislation would substantially 
increase poverty and destitution.''
  What is the evidence? Dr. Paul Offner, the distinguished Commissioner 
of Health Care Finance for the District of Columbia, summarized it 
nicely last week. Respected research organizations such as the Urban 
Institute here in Washington, and the Manpower Demonstration Research 
Corporation in New York have, over the years, undertaken careful 
evaluations of various welfare reform demonstration projects. As Offner 
recounts, they found that welfare caseloads were reduced in only 4 of 
the 23 welfare demonstrations they studied.
  Dr. Offner points out that even the program in Riverside, CA, which 
is regarded by many experts as the most successful ever, has achieved 
caseload reductions of less than 10 percent.
  This should not surprise us; it is not easy to change human behavior. 
Notwithstanding this fact, the premise of this legislation is that the 
behavior of certain adults can be changed by making the lives of their 
children as

[[Page S9329]]

wretched as possible. This is a fearsome assumption. In my view. It is 
certainly not a conservative one.
  If we acknowledge the difficulty in bringing about the transition 
from welfare to work, we must recognize that putting people to work on 
a large scale would require a large-scale public jobs program, and that 
would require a great deal of money.
  Let me say that Democrats were the first to fail in this regard. In 
the company of Sargent Shriver and Adam Yarmolinsky, I attended the 
Cabinet meeting in the spring of 1964 where we presented the plans for 
a war on poverty. Our principal proposal, backed by Secretary of Labor 
Willard Wirtz, was a massive jobs program, along Works Progress 
Administration lines, to be financed by a cigarette tax. President 
Johnson listened for a moment or two; announced that in that election 
year we were cutting taxes, not raising them. He thereupon picked up 
the telephone attached to the Cabinet table, called someone, somewhere, 
about something else, and the war on poverty was lost before it began.
  This legislation is even worse.
  In fact, this legislation provides some $55 billion less over the 
next 6 years. There are work requirements in the bill, but we seem 
tacitly willing to admit they will never be met. Dr. June O'Neill, 
Director of the Congressional Budget Office, has been most forthcoming 
on this subject. The CBO report on this bill bluntly states that

       Given the costs and administrative complexities involved, 
     CBO assumes that most states would simply accept penalties 
     rather than implement the [work] requirements.

  What else does the evidence show? It shows quite clearly that the 
central feature of this legislation, the time limit, will affect 
millions of children. CBO estimates that ``under current demographic 
assumptions, this provision could reduce cash assistance rolls by 30 to 
40 percent'' within the decade. I should say that again: 30 to 40 
percent of the caseload will be cut off in less than 10 years' time.
  Let me put that in terms of how many children will be cut off. 
According to the Urban Institute, 3,500,000 children will be dropped 
from the rolls in 2001. By 2005, 4,896,000 children will be cut off.

  The Urban Institute has also estimated, in a report released just 
last Friday, July 26, that this bill will cause 2.6 million persons to 
fall below the poverty line; 1.1 million of those impoverished will be 
children. To say nothing of those persons already living in poverty. 
They will be pushed even further below the poverty line; The average 
loss in income for families already below the poverty line will be 
$1,040 per year. I note that the Urban Institute's estimates are based 
on quite conservative assumptions, so the actual impact could well be 
even worse than predicted.
  I cite this evidence because it is important that we cast our votes 
with full knowledge of the consequences. This information has been 
widely available, and I have made these arguments on the floor 
previously, so I believe we are all on notice of the implications for 
children.
  The implications of this legislation for our State and local 
governments are another matter. These are not widely known, but they 
will be very real indeed. On Thursday of last week, 2 days after the 
Senate passed its version of this legislation, I received in the mail a 
four-page letter from the Honorable Rudolph W. Giuliani, mayor of the 
city of New York. He wrote of his concern that the major provisions of 
the bill would impose huge new costs on New York City totaling some 
$900 million per year. The mayor listed the added costs to New York 
City as follows: $380 million for child care for welfare recipients; 
$290 million for aid to legal immigrants; $100 million to support 
persons dropped from Federal rolls due to time limits; $100 million for 
work programs.
  Mayor Giuliani wrote that the bill's ban on Federal assistance for 
legal immigrants was of particular concern to New York City, where 30 
percent of the population is foreign-born.
  The sum of $900 million a year is a lot of money. New York City's 
total annual budget is $33 billion. And other, smaller local 
governments will also be hit hard.
  The total additional cost to New York State will be in the 
neighborhood of $1.3 billion per year. We estimate the loss of Federal 
funds to some of our larger counties as follows: Albany County $15 
million; Erie County $75 million; Monroe County $60 million; Onondaga 
County $30 million; Westchester County $45 million.
  These are sums that New York State and New York City simply cannot 
afford. It will be ruinous for us. In March of this year, the New York 
State Financial Control Board reported that ``the city's finances 
continue to deteriorate.'' The board said that over the next 4 years, 
the growth in New York City's spending will be more than double the 
growth in its income. Spending will grow by approximately 2 percent per 
year, while revenues will grow by less than 1 percent. In the absence 
of this welfare legislation, the gap between the city's outlays and 
revenues will increase by $400 million annually. With the new 
additional costs imposed by this bill, the annual increase in the 
shortfall will more than triple.
  New York will not be alone in this, of course. Senator Feinstein said 
on the floor last week that the bill will cost California $17 billion 
over 6 years, or about $3 billion annually. Other States--Illinois, 
Texas, Florida--will also bear immense new burdens. I wonder if they 
are ready for what is coming.
  More importantly, I wonder if the Nation is ready for the social 
change this legislation will set in motion. There are great issues of 
principle at stake here, as leaders of the religious community have 
said with such clarity and force. Bishop Anthony M. Pilla, president of 
the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, wrote to the President on 
Friday to urge that this bill be vetoed. Quoting St. Matthew's Gospel, 
Bishop Pilla wrote that ``the moral measure of our society is how we 
treat `the least among us.' ''

  I know what the outcome will be today, but before we cast our votes, 
I hope Senators will ask themselves how this legislation will treat the 
least among us.
  I began these remarks with a comment on language. The conference 
report before us is not welfare reform, it is welfare repeal. It is the 
first step in dismantling the social contract that has been in place in 
the United States since at least the 1930's. Do not doubt that Social 
Security itself, which is to say insured retirement benefits, will be 
next. The bill will be called the Individual Retirement Account 
Insurance Act. Something such. John Westergaard points out that this 
legislation breaks the social contract of the 1930's. We would care for 
the elderly, the unemployed, the dependent children. Drop the latter; 
watch the others fall.
  Fred C. Ikle has coined the fine term ``semantic infiltration'' to 
describe the technique in international relations whereby one party 
persuades another to use its terms to discuss the issues being 
negotiated. We now have its domestic counterpart in egregious display. 
Recalling George Orwell's essay, ``Politics and the English Language,'' 
we would do well to be wary. Henry Friedlander has reminded us recently 
of the stages by which genocide evolved from the soothing and 
supportive notion of euthanasia.
  And so to one other matter of language. We are told that this 
legislation is a defeat for liberals. We are assured in private, and it 
is hinted at in print, that many of the President's most liberal 
advisers opposed this legislation. Liberals are said to have lost.
  This is nonsense. It is conservatives who have lost.
  For the best part of 2 years now, I have pointed out that the 
principal--and most principled--opponents of this legislation were 
conservative social scientists who for years have argued against 
liberal nostrums for changing society with the argument that no one 
knows enough to mechanistically change society. Typically liberals 
think otherwise; to the extent that liberals can be said to think at 
all. The current batch in the White House, now busily assuring us they 
were against this all along, are simply lying, albeit they probably 
don't know when they are lying. They have only the flimsiest grasp of 
social reality; thinking all things doable and equally undoable. As, 
for example, the horror of this legislation. By contrast, the 
conservative social scientists--James Q. Wilson, Lawrence Mead, John 
DeIulio, William

[[Page S9330]]

Bennett--have warned over and over that this is radical legislation, 
with altogether unforeseeable consequences, many of which will surely 
be loathsome.

  All honor to them. They have kept to their principles. Honor on high 
as well to the Catholic bishops, who admittedly have an easier task 
with matters of this sort. When principles are at issue, they simply 
look them up. Too many liberals, alas, simply make them up.
  Mr. President, I thank the Senate for its courteous attention. I 
thank my friend from Minnesota for reserving this time for me, seeing 
to it I was able to speak, and I yield the floor.
  Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Inhofe). The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, under the assumed rotation, I now yield 
10 minutes to Senator Ashcroft of Missouri, and then I assume we will 
go back to the other side.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I am not sure that I am managing the 
time. I am ranking member of finance here. I yield, in sequence, the 
Senator from Minnesota as much time as he requires.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, before the Senator proceeds, might I 
just say to Republican Senators, we have a very long list of those who 
would like to speak. It seems now that you can kind of judge that in 25 
minutes or so we will need another Senator. I hope you can contact us 
and see if we can arrange it so there are no big lulls on the floor and 
we can get our work done as soon as possible.
  Mr. ASHCROFT addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. Thank you, Mr. President. I thank the Senator from New 
Mexico for yielding me the time.
  Our responsibility in acting on a failed welfare system is as 
profound a responsibility in responding to the people of this country 
as we have ever had. The fundamental role and responsibility of 
Government is to call people to their highest and best, not trap them 
at their lowest and least.
  In spite of the good intentions of the welfare program, which we have 
poured billions of dollars into, hundreds of billions of dollars, we 
have ended up trapping people at their lowest and least rather than 
calling people or prompting people to their highest and best.
  The real objective of our legislation here ought to be to change the 
character of welfare. We need to change it from a system which has 
provided careers and conditions that lasted a lifetime to a system that 
instead of providing a condition provides a transition, that moves 
people from poverty into opportunity, that moves people from indolence 
into industry, that moves people from welfare into work. No longer can 
we afford a system that not only provides people a condition or a 
career, but goes beyond trapping individuals and goes to trapping 
generations.
  One of the real problems of our welfare system is that we have 
children who are trapped in welfare and they become welfare careerists 
themselves, and their children are then trapped in welfare. The truth 
of the matter is that the prisoners of war in the war on poverty have 
been the children of America. There are more children in poverty today 
than there were when we started the war on poverty, and it is a clear 
indication that the system is a tragic failure as it relates to human 
beings--children who have lost their lives, children who have lost 
their opportunity, children who have lost their spirit, children who 
fall into a net which was designed to save them, but instead becomes a 
net to ensnare them.
  A good industrialist friend of mine says that your system is 
perfectly designed to give you what you are getting. I do not know 
anyone in America who believes that what we are getting is the right 
thing. We are getting higher rates of illegitimacy. We are getting 
higher rates of dependency. We are finding ourselves with individuals 
staying on welfare longer and longer periods of time. Is that what we 
want? Is what we are getting what we need? Absolutely not.
  The system may not have been intended to give us what we are getting, 
but the design of the system is what causes us to get what we are 
getting, and it is our responsibility, it is a sacred charge of ours 
given to us by the American people, and they have made it fundamentally 
and unmistakably clear that they want different outcomes, they want 
different results. They do not want more dependency, they do not want 
more illegitimacy, they do not want more careers and generations on 
welfare.
  They want less, because they want people to be free. They want 
children to have an opportunity to look toward the U.S. Senate or 
toward the Presidency or toward being a captain of industry or 
developing their own business. They do not want people trapped in an 
intergenerational net of ensnarement, rather than a net of safety.
  So it is incumbent upon us to make fundamental changes, fundamental 
changes in the way this system treats people.
  We can no longer allow Government to be the instrument of 
ensnarement, of entrapment. We must make Government an instrument of 
liberation, of opportunity, of industry and development. That is why it 
is so important that we end this one-size-fits-all Washington approach 
which says that everybody will respond the same and all the systems are 
to be uniform, and move welfare programs back to the States and allow 
them to experiment and do what works.
  I often laugh when I think of the one-size-fits-all term. We have 
almost come to believe it. Can you imagine if we were to send off for a 
catalog and get a catalog that said, ``One size of pajamas fits all for 
your family''? I know what would happen in my family. We would get five 
pairs of pajamas. They would be one size but they would fit none 
because we are pretty different.
  The great family of America is different. States and communities have 
different characteristics and attributes, and they need to be able to 
shape, to tailor, to fashion what they do from a block grant that gives 
them broad discretion and authority. Yes, they need for the block grant 
to be limited. They need to have the energy of limited resources to 
drive the creativity of solving the problem.
  No one ever solved a problem when the supply was infinite. No one 
ever works to conserve energy as long as it is free. You start to pay 
the heating bill and you learn to close the door, you learn to shut the 
windows, you learn to caulk the cracks. And when we put limits on the 
amount of money we are going to spend on welfare, we will start 
caulking the cracks and start stopping up the places where we have 
leakage. And it is not a leakage financially. We are talking about 
leakage of the great human resource of America.
  We are looking at the Olympics. Boy, they are inspiring. But how much 
chance would we have in basketball or volleyball or baseball if we did 
not send our full team onto the field, if we told some of them, 
``You're to sit over there on the side and not to be productive. We'll 
call you the welfare reserves''? We would not win. And we will not win 
as a Nation if we do not get all of our players into the operation of 
being what this Nation is all about. That is being capable of helping 
yourselves and helping others and being so good at what you are doing 
that the world beats a path to your door.
  That is why we need these block grants where States will tailor their 
programs to meet the needs in their own States and do what is necessary 
to move people out of conditions, lifelong conditions of welfare, to 
signal that this is a transition, not a condition. You are to be moving 
out of here. And fundamental, one of the acts of genius in this bill, 
in addition to the block grant, is the fact that there is a 5-year 
limit.
  We say to people, it is an insurance policy, so that when you have 
trouble you can fall into the welfare net but you cannot live there, 
you cannot stay there. It is not a place for you to be forever because, 
once 5 years is used up, that is a lifetime limit. We really should be 
saying to people, do not ever be on there for more than 2 consecutive 
years, ever. Frankly, our welfare system should never be a place where 
you are not preparing for the next stage of your life. Welfare becomes 
a transition instead of a condition, a fundamental characteristic. The 
block grant is important about that.
  The senior Senator from Missouri, Kit Bond, is a personal friend of 
mine.

[[Page S9331]]

 He has a phrase, ``experience is what you get when you expected 
something else.'' Over the last 30 years, I think we expected something 
else from this so-called War on Poverty and Great Society program, but 
we got something different from what we expected. We got children 
without fathers and we got homes without discipline and we got streets 
without safety and we got generations locked--locked--out of 
opportunity, without education.
  We expected something different. But our experience is what we got. 
And our experience has not been very positive. But I want you to know 
that there have been a few bright lights over the last 30 years that 
signal to us how we could make changes, how we could actually change 
the behavior of people, how we could help them move from being 
dependent to being independent, the glorious state of liberty and 
freedom, what America is all about.

  Those bright lights have been in the nongovernmental sector 
primarily. They have been the Salvation Army, the Boys and Girls Clubs, 
the missions, and homeless shelters that have been run by the 
nongovernmental entities who are energized by a calling which is beyond 
the calling of duty that comes from government. It is a calling of 
humanity that God stirs in our hearts.
  One of the primary features of this bill is that States will be 
allowed to contract with organizations like the Boys and Girls Clubs 
and the Salvation Army and charitable organizations that specialize in 
hope and opportunity and who care, who care for the people trapped on 
welfare, not just as welfare statistics, but care for them after they 
leave the condition of welfare. These groups have a lifelong interest 
in helping people make it all the way to the top, not just over the 
threshold.
  I have to say that our experience tells us that not everyone in the 
welfare system has wanted to see everyone leave the system. Sometimes 
we have had too much interest in how many people we could have on 
welfare instead of how many people we could move off welfare. 
Significantly, the provisions of this bill would allow charitable and 
even faith-based operations to compete for contracts or to participate 
in voucher programs to help people. It does it with safeguards, so that 
if a person is offended by virtue of being involved with a faith-based 
organization, they would be free to get their assistance from some 
other provider.
  These faith-based organizations have in the past--many times the 
smaller ones who did not have large legal departments--have been afraid 
of accepting governmental funds in order to help the poor. They have 
been afraid of being sued. I know the Salvation Army, in one setting, 
was sued and had to settle for a quarter of a million dollars, a matter 
which absolutely undermined and eroded the capacity of the Salvation 
Army to help the poor. We know they do as good a job as any.
  I just want to say that this bill is the kind of change that America 
has been asking for. Is it perfect? No. At least the way I was raised, 
in order to get perfection you had to die and go to Heaven. I want to 
go to Heaven. But I had not planned on going today. And since we ought 
to do what we can while we are here, let us take as good as we can get 
and shape it and fashion it, but not assume we have all the answers in 
Washington. Send it back to the States, give States the opportunity to 
tailor it in ways that will help people simply move from dependence to 
independence, from careers of welfare and the condition of welfare, the 
intergenerational things of welfare, to a transition of welfare that 
moves from welfare to work.
  I believe that it is fundamentally important that we carry through 
and pass this measure. And I thank the President of the United States 
for his willingness to sign this measure. I believe this measure will 
help save the lives of children and it will help save the lives of 
individuals for generations to come.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. ASHCROFT. I thank the Chair. I observe the absence of a quorum.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, may I ask of my colleague if he would 
consent that after he finishes I be recognized?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, that would be fine.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair advises the Senator from Missouri 
that arrangement has been made, and the Senator from Minnesota is 
recognized.
  Mr. BOND. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, first of all, I ask unanimous consent 
that a representative sample of editorials on this subject be printed 
in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                 [From the Star Tribune, July 31, 1996]

              Welfare Bill--It Deserves a Forthright Veto

       For most of his presidency, Bill Clinton has tried to have 
     it both ways on welfare. He's curried favor with both 
     welfare's tough-talking reformers and its defenders. He's 
     argued both for changes, such as work requirements and time 
     limits, and for preservation of welfare's protections for 
     poor children.
       It's understandable that congressional Republicans would 
     want their final-offer, election-year welfare bill to force 
     the president to show his true stripes. They've crafted a 
     bill that ought to do just that.
       The bill that's moving toward the House and Senate floors 
     is one Clinton might be tempted to sign for political 
     reasons. But he should veto it, for moral reasons. If he 
     doesn't, he will have put the lie to all his claims of 
     concern for the well-being of the nation's most vulnerable 
     children.
       For all its reformist window-dressing, the bill that 
     emerged from conference committee Monday is too hard on 
     America's poor. It doesn't spend enough money to hold the 
     line against hunger, or to make workable the requirement that 
     a job take the place of welfare within two years after 
     benefits start.
       The bill's goal of quickly replacing welfare checks with 
     paychecks is something most Americans support. But making 
     that happen in a way that gives poor families lasting self-
     sufficiency takes more than the hammer of a time limit. It 
     takes job training, counseling, public-works jobs where 
     private employment is unavailable, child care and 
     transportation. Those tools cost money. This bill doesn't 
     provide it.
       As a result, in the name of overcoming poverty, this bill 
     would likely push some of America's least employable adults 
     and their children into more desperate circumstances.
       And, because of the bill's big cuts in food-stamp spending, 
     that desperation could well include hunger. Admittedly, the 
     food-stamp provisions in the final bill aren't as extreme as 
     earlier versions. A guarantee of food-stamp eligibility--
     though not of food-stamp amounts--was preserved for families 
     with children. No so for unemployed adults without 
     dependents. They'd be cut off from the government's food 
     lifeline after six months.
       The welfare bill is especially punitive toward legal 
     immigrants. Under this legislation, the nation's official 
     message to its legitimate newcomers would be, ``You are 
     welcome only as long as you remain gainfully employed.'' A 
     down-on-his-luck immigrant could get no cash assistance 
     whatsoever from his new country.
       Had Clinton more boldly taken sides in the nation's welfare 
     debate earlier in his presidency, a bill this harsh might not 
     be heading toward his desk a few months before an election. 
     He should have been calling all along for more realistic and 
     compassionate reform, the kind that spends more in the short 
     term in order to redeem lives in the long term.
       Here's hoping Clinton has learned that presidential 
     equivocation carries a high price--and that his equivocation 
     on welfare ends with a forthright veto of the bill Congress 
     is about to send him.
                                                                    ____


            [From the Philadelphia Inquirer, July 22, 1996]

                          Reform on the Cheap

Who'll blink on this latest shot at changing welfare? And, in the long 
                   run, who'll wind up paying for it?

       Voters liked Bill Clinton's promise to ``end welfare as we 
     know it.'' So Republicans are aching to show he didn't mean 
     it. The result is a game of political chicken that's far more 
     likely to hurt poor Americans than to uplift them.
       The Republican Congress is about to dare the President to 
     veto a wrong-headed bill that would cut welfare spending, 
     toughen the rules, and shift a lot of decision-making to the 
     states. Since this would be his third straight veto of a so-
     called welfare reform bill, Mr. Clinton may blink. It's 
     possible he'll sign a bill that pretends the feds can turn 
     welfare into a helpful, job-oriented network even as they 
     squeeze about $10 billion a year in savings from the system. 
     That's a pipe dream.
       Unfortunately, if he does veto it and a better, bipartisan 
     plan doesn't emerge, Mr. Clinton will have to follow through 
     on a promise that he made last week to give himself political 
     cover on this emotional issue. Absent a bill, he vowed to 
     issue an executive order letting states cut off benefits 
     after two years.
       The terms of this order are still in the works. But it 
     could let penny-pinching states give welfare recipients far 
     too little help toward employment and self-sufficiency.

[[Page S9332]]

       That's the basic problem with what Congress is cooking up. 
     It pretends that helping poor people become self-sufficient 
     doesn't cost more money in the short term. But it does cost 
     more, for child care, for training, for government-created 
     jobs for those who can't find work in the private sector. 
     Committed reformers such as Gov. Tommy Thompson, the 
     Wisconsin Republican, are up-front about this.
       Chances are, the public will respond positively to major 
     parts of the GOP package, such as a two-year limit on 
     benefits before work is required, and a lifetime limit of 
     five years. But work requirements are meaningless if there 
     aren't enough low-skilled jobs available. If politicians are 
     serious about breaking the cycle of dependency, government 
     has to be an employer of last resort.
       By promising to act on his own, Mr. Clinton was trying to 
     show Republicans that--politically--they need a welfare bill 
     more than he does. He was trying to coax Republicans toward 
     compromise.
       The House did consider a bipartisan plan sponsored by Reps. 
     Mike Castle (R., Del.) and John Tanner (D., Tenn.)--a plan 
     whose spending cuts weren't so extreme. But it died when only 
     eight House Republicans were willing to buck their leaders 
     and line up with Mr. Castle.
       Since Republicans seem uninterested in a sensible, 
     bipartisan reform, Mr. Clinton should get his veto pen ready. 
     As for the executive order he promised--every bit the 
     political gimmick that Republicans charged--it should be 
     loaded with conditions to protect poor families from 
     politicians peddling welfare reform on a dime.
                                                                    ____


               [From the Washington Post, July 25, 1996]

                           A Children's Veto

       ``I just don't want to do anything that hurts kids,'' 
     President Clinton said as the Senate passed its supposed 
     reform of welfare the other day. Why did the sentence strike 
     us as yet another cynical manipulation of the welfare issue 
     for political purposes? Because if Mr. Clinton were 
     determined not to hurt children, he would have indicated days 
     ago that he intended to veto this legislation or any bill 
     remotely like it.
       Instead, he, the Senate's Democrats and moderate 
     Republicans continued to try to prettify the bill around the 
     edges. A couple of the amendments that they succeeded in 
     making were consequential, and they may yet make more in 
     conference. But mainly these are marginal and cosmetic 
     changes. They are sops to conscience meant to justify a 
     regressive vote that for political reasons these politicians 
     are afraid not to cast. They are determined to vote in this 
     selection year in favor of a bill that bears the label 
     ``welfare reform''; it doesn't matter that the label is not 
     deserved.
       The president and his followers are the prisoners of four 
     years of sloganeering on the subject that he himself set off. 
     It was he who, in an effort to preempt the welfare issue and 
     show himself to be a different kind of Democrat, famously 
     promised in the 1992 campaign to end the system as we know 
     it. He set off a process that he could not control, in part 
     because he has been unwilling to take the tough and unpopular 
     positions necessary to control it.
       No one--or very few, anyway--would argue that the current 
     welfare system is a good one. Mr. Clinton was and remains 
     right to try to change it. But his original position also was 
     right--that the change should involve equal amounts of added 
     pressure on welfare mothers to go to work and additional 
     resources to help them make the move successfully. The 
     current bills fail to provide the resources; they walk 
     away from the second half of the strategy. They would 
     dismantle the federal welfare program, limit future 
     federal aid and shift to the states a financial burden 
     that many states will find hard to meet. An eighth of the 
     children in the country now are on welfare. No one can 
     know for sure how many would be affected adversely by the 
     legislation, but the best guess seems to be that at least 
     a million more children would end up living below the 
     poverty line. A fifth of the children in the country 
     already are there.
       The bills would disestablish or greatly weaken the food 
     stamp program as well, while basically cutting off federal 
     benefits to legal immigrants--people who are legitimately 
     here and theoretically welcome but have not become U.S. 
     citizens. Technically, this is budget-balancing legislation, 
     a reconciliation bill. The noble-sounding legislation, a 
     reconciliation bill. The noble-sounding budget-balancing 
     process of a year ago has come down to a bill that would cut 
     only programs for the poor, and programs on which people who 
     are black and brown particularly depend.
       This legislation can't be fixed. Senate Minority Leader Tom 
     Daschle, who opposed it the other day, said that even though 
     there were only 25 votes against, he was sure that a veto, if 
     it were cast, would be sustained. We have no doubt that's so. 
     It is another way of saying that if only the president would 
     take the lead and provide the political cover, instead of 
     joining in stripping it away, he could--and should--defend to 
     the voters. If instead he signs the bill, he no doubt will 
     claim it as a triumph, but in moral and policy terms it will 
     be the low point of his presidency.
                                                                    ____


               [From the Buffalo, NY News, July 23, 1996]

  Don't Let Rush to Welfare `Reform' Leave Some of Needy Without Help

        What if time limit is reached and there's no job to get?

       In his eagerness to outflank Republicans on the welfare 
     issue and sign almost anything billed as ``reform,'' 
     President Clinton should resist the urge to abandon the long-
     established concept that there is a national interest in 
     helping the poor become self-sufficient.
       That is the chief danger now as Washington's warring 
     factions undertake a mad scramble to produce some sort of 
     welfare legislation before taking time off to go into full 
     campaign mode.
       The Republican-led Congress made sensible welfare 
     legislation a little more possible last week by dropping 
     plans to attach Medicaid reform to the welfare bill and to 
     turn Medicaid into a block-grant program controlled by the 
     states.
       Ending the guarantee of medical care for the poor never 
     made any sense because the impoverished deserve health care 
     as much as they deserve help with life's other basic 
     necessities.
       But it also doesn't make any sense to end the federal 
     guarantee of food and other aid for those who play by the 
     rules and whose only offense is that they're impoverished.
       Nor does imposing time limits on welfare recipients make 
     sense except in cases where they refuse to work even though a 
     job is available. The poor--and their children--should not be 
     blamed for economic cycles that may well make finding a job 
     impossible at any given time.
       Those are bedrock principles that the nation--and the 
     president--should not forsake amid an understandable distaste 
     for the small percentage of welfare recipients who are 
     slackers.
       Unfortunately, the House the other day cast aside those 
     principles by passing a reform plan that ends welfare as a 
     federal entitlement program that takes care of all who 
     deserve help. Instead, the House bill would slash funding and 
     turn the reduced money over to states in block grants.
       The states could then structure programs largely as they 
     please, ending the national safety net and competing with one 
     another in a ``race to the bottom'' as they cut benefits and 
     drive out the poor.
       That's no way for an enlightened nation to lift its most 
     vulnerable people. But the final bill that emerges from 
     House-Senate negotiations seems sure now to take that tack.
       The other failure of the GOP approach is its time limits 
     regardless of job availability. Clinton, too, recently 
     endorsed time limits, saying the White House will 
     administratively impose a two-year limit but that his action 
     would be unnecessary if Congress could produce an acceptable 
     reform plan.
       Details of the new White House initiative--such as how to 
     protect children whose parents get cut off--have yet to be 
     worked out. But in addition to safeguarding kids, the new 
     rule should safeguard those who simply can't find work 
     through no fault of their own.
       These basic safeguards should be part of whatever reform 
     bill ultimately reaches the president's desk. If they are 
     not, he should use the same veto pen he's waved at other 
     times--regardless of what the calender says about the 
     election season.
                                                                    ____


             [From the Atlanta Constitution, July 28, 1996]

                   Welfare Bills Suffer From Politics

       The welfare system must be reformed, and the goal of that 
     reform must be twofold:
       It must reinforce a work ethic that has faltered among some 
     welfare recipients;
       It must protect the children of poor Americans from hunger 
     and deprivation in an increasingly fickle economy.
       Unfortunately, the reform effort making its way through 
     Congress focuses too much on the first goal and too little on 
     the second.
       That's not surprising. From the life experience of 
     prosperous, middle-aged, college-educated white males--which 
     describes most of the members of Congress--the rewards of the 
     work ethic seem obvious. It gives you a six-figure salary, a 
     taxpayer-provided staff and free parking, among other things.
       But from the perspective of an unemployed mother trying to 
     raise two kids on welfare, the case can seem a little 
     cloudier.
       Usually, the family lives in an inner city or isolated 
     rural area, where jobs are scarce and transportation 
     difficult. If the mother overcomes those obstacles and gets a 
     job, and if she works 40 hours per week, every week of the 
     year at $5.10 an hour--which is 20 percent above the minimum 
     wage--she stands to make a grand total of $10,608 a year. In 
     the process, she may also lose health insurance for her 
     family, because most low-wage jobs do not include a benefits 
     package.
       Imagine trying to raise two children on $10,000 a year in 
     today's economy. Child care alone would take a huge chunk of 
     her pay. She has the option, of course, of choosing not to 
     pay for child care, to leave her children on their own while 
     she's working. Given our problems with juvenile crime, that's 
     not a choice to encourage.
       If welfare reform is to work, it has to make work a viable 
     option. It must subsidize child care for that working mother. 
     It must extend health insurance coverage for the working 
     poor. And it must offer training and education, so that 
     she has at least the hope of rising out of that $5.10-an-
     hour job into something better.
       Some of those steps cost money, at least in the short term. 
     In the long term, such reform will benefit the mother; 
     benefit her

[[Page S9333]]

     children, to whom she is a role model; and benefit society, 
     which is currently losing the value of her labor and 
     incurring the expense of supporting her and her children.
       The House and Senate have passed separate but similar 
     welfare bills, and are trying to resolve their differences 
     and send a measure to President Clinton for his signature. 
     Their effort is fatally flawed, however, because in addition 
     to the goals listed above, Congress is using the legislation 
     to pursue two less admirable goals.
       It is trying to balance the budget on the backs of the 
     poor. Even though true welfare reform will cost more money in 
     the short term, and even though entitlement programs for the 
     middle class are far more expensive than welfare programs, 
     deficit cutters have focused on the poor, cutting $60 billion 
     from food stamps and other programs over the next six years.
       The bill is calculated as an election-year dare to Clinton. 
     He has made clear his uneasiness with the bill's impact on 
     poor children, but has nonetheless indicated a willingness to 
     consider signing the Senate's more reasonable approach. But 
     Republicans seem intent on forcing him to veto the 
     legislation. As Bob Dole grumbled on the campaign trail, 
     ``He's not going to get that bill. He's going to get a 
     tougher bill.''
       And as House Speaker Newt Gingrich put it, ``I believe we 
     win from this point on no matter what happens.''
       Welfare reform is important, but apparently less important 
     than election-year politicking.
                                                                    ____


               [From the Chicago Tribune, July 21, 1996]

                  Playing `Gotcha!' on Welfare Reform

       The House passed a new welfare bill Thursday, and the talk 
     afterward was not of what the bill would mean for the 
     children and adults who depend on the kindness of the 
     taxpayers, but of a political calculus.
       ``In the end,'' said House Majority Leader Dick Armey, 
     ``the president is going to have to make a determination 
     whether or not he's going to sign this bill and satisfy the 
     American people while he alienates his left-wing political 
     base, or if he's going to veto the bill in order to satisfy 
     the left wing of the Democrat Party and thereby alienate the 
     American people.''
       In other words, ``Gotcha!''
       And that pretty much captures what's been wrong from the 
     beginning with the effort to legislate welfare reform. 
     Clinton has exploited the issue to establish his bona fides 
     as a ``new Democrat.'' The Republicans, suspecting 
     insincerity on Clinton's part, have used it to bash him and 
     back him into a corner.
       Suffusing the entire debate have been two notions, one 
     simply wrongheaded and the other both wrongheaded and 
     pernicious.
       The first is that reforming welfare is a way to save money. 
     It is not, at least initially. Done properly--that is, with 
     the purpose of getting welfare parents into the work force--
     reform will actually cost more money, for job training, child 
     care and so forth. (And whatever else the 9 million children 
     on welfare suffer from, it is not from having too much money 
     spent on them.)
       The second notion, which partisans on neither side have 
     done enough to counter, is that welfare reform is about 
     getting black layabouts off the public dole. In fact, most 
     welfare recipients are not black. But that continues to be 
     the accepted stereotype and, one suspects, a substantial 
     motivator of the welfare-reform push.
       In its broad outlines, the newly passed House bill differs 
     little from the measure that Clinton vetoed earlier this 
     year. It ends welfare as a federal entitlement and converts 
     it into a program of block grants to the states, which would 
     be free, within very broad limits, to devise their own 
     programs of poor support.
       This devolution is a good idea. Clinton has acknowledged 
     that implicitly by granting numerous waivers for state 
     welfare experiments over the last 3\1/2\ years. Perhaps the 
     most promising such experiment, Wisconsin's W-2 program, 
     which substitutes private and public jobs for cash assistance 
     and ought to be the paradigm for all welfare, is awaiting 
     waiver approval even now.
       But eliminating welfare's entitlement status is a grievous 
     error of historic proportions. Indeed, Sen. Carol Mosely-
     Braum (D-Ill.) did not exaggerate when she called it an 
     ``abomination.''
       That the world's richest nation would not guarantee help 
     for poor children--and Aid to Families With Dependent 
     Children is nothing except a vast childcare program--is 
     outrageous. It represents not progress but regression. And 
     while Dick Armey may be convinced that that's what the 
     American people want, we are not.



  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I do want to talk about this piece of 
legislation. I have heard some discussion about doing good. Let me 
start out with what is a very important framework to me as a Senator 
from Minnesota. It is a question. Will this legislation, if passed, 
signed into law by the President, create more poverty and more hunger 
among children in America? And if the answer to that question is yes, 
then my vote is no.
  Mr. President, we were discussing welfare reform several years ago, 
and we said that we should move from welfare to work, that that would 
include job training, education training, making sure the jobs were 
available that single parents--mostly mothers--could support their 
children on, and a commitment to child care.
  Just about every single scholar in the United States of America has 
said that this is what reform is all about. You have to invest some 
additional resources. Then, in the long run, not only are the mothers 
and children better off, but we are all better off. That is real 
welfare reform. Slashing close to $60 billion in low-income assistance 
is not reform, colleagues. It is punitive, it is harsh, and it is 
extreme.
  Mr. President, we have been focusing in this Congress on the budget 
deficit. I think, today, what we see in the U.S. Senate is a spiritual 
deficit because, Mr. President, I know some of my colleagues do not 
want to look at this. They push their gaze away from unpleasant facts 
and an unpleasant reality. Sometimes people do not want to know what 
they do not want to know.
  Mr. President, the evidence is irrefutable and irreducible: This 
legislation, once enacted into law, will create more poverty and hunger 
among children in America. That is not reform.
  Mr. President, we have here about $28 billion of cuts in nutrition 
assistance. I believe when the President spoke yesterday he was trying 
to say that does not have anything to do with reform, and he intends to 
fix that next Congress. But I worry about what will happen now. Mr. 
President, 70 percent of the citizens that will be affected by these 
cuts in food nutrition programs are children, 50 percent of the 
families have incomes of under $6,300 a year. Our incomes are $130,000 
a year.
  Mr. President, there will be a $3 billion cut over the next 6 years 
in food assistance, nutrition assistance, even for families who pay 
over 50 percent of their monthly income for housing costs. So now we 
put families in our country--poor families, poor children--in the 
situation of ``eat or heat,'' but they do not get both. At the same 
time, my colleagues keep wanting to cut low-income energy assistance 
programs. This is goodness? This is goodness?
  Mr. President, I was involved in the anti-hunger struggles in the 
South. I saw it in North Carolina, and I remind my colleagues, maybe 
they want to go back and look at the exposes, look at the Field 
Foundation report, look at the CBS report, ``Hunger USA.'' Where are 
the national media? Why are we not seeing documentaries right now about 
poverty in America?
  Mr. President, the Food Stamp Program, which we dramatically expanded 
in the late 1960's and early 1970's, with Richard Nixon, a Republican, 
leading the way, has been the most effective and important safety-net 
practice in this country. As a result of expanding that program, we 
dramatically reduce hunger and malnutrition among children in America.
  Now we are turning the clock back, and some of my colleagues are 
calling this reform. Mr. President, how did it get to be reform, to cut 
by 20 percent food nutrition assistance for a poor, 80-year-old woman? 
How dare you call it reform. That is not reform. How did it get to be 
reform to slash nutrition programs that are so important in making sure 
that children have an adequate diet? How dare you call it reform. That 
is not reform. How did it get to be reform to essentially eliminate all 
of the assistance for legal immigrants, people who pay taxes and work? 
How dare you call that reform. That has not a thing to do with reform.
  The Urban Institute came out with a report several weeks ago. Isabel 
Sawhill, one of the very best, said this legislation will impoverish an 
additional 1.1 million children. We have had these analyses before. The 
Office of Management and Budget had a similar analysis. So did the 
Department of Health and Human Services. How dare you call a piece of 
legislation that will lead to more poverty among children in America 
reform?
  Marian Wright Edelman of the Children's Defense Fund is right: To 
call this piece of legislation reform is like calling catsup a 
vegetable. Except this time it is more serious, because many 
more children, many more elderly, many more children with disabilities 
will be affected.

[[Page S9334]]

  Mr. President, the evidence is really irreducible and irrefutable. 
Bob Greenstein, who has won the MacArthur Genius Award for his work, 
crunched the numbers about what it means in personal terms, real terms 
for the most vulnerable citizens in America, but my colleagues are too 
worried about polls. They are too worried about the politics of it, and 
they turn their gaze away from all this.
  Mr. President, I do not particularly care about words like 
``entitlement.'' But I do think as a nation we are a community, and up 
until the passage of this legislation, if signed into law, we as a 
nation said, as a community we will make sure there is a floor beneath 
which no child can fall in America. Now we have eliminated that floor. 
We are now saying as a Senate that there will no longer be any floor 
beneath which no child can fall. And you call that reform?
  Mr. President, we had a proposal out here on the floor of the Senate 
that said, if you are going to cut people off from work, if you are 
going to cut people off from welfare, at least require the States to 
provide vouchers. The CBO tells us we do not have the money for the job 
training slots, and people will not necessarily find work, and then you 
will cut the adult off work. So we added an amendment that said, ``For 
God's sake, at least make sure there are vouchers for Pampers, for 
health care, for food for the children.'' That amendment was rejected.
  So we have no requirement that at the very minimum, even if you are 
going to cut a parent off of welfare, at least make sure the law of the 
land says that every State from Mississippi to Missouri to Minnesota to 
California to Georgia, that at least there will be vouchers for 
Pampers, for food, for medical assistance, and you vote ``no'' and you 
say there will be no vouchers. And you call that reform?
  Mr. President, in the Senate, I introduced an amendment, and it was 
accepted. It said in all too many cases, too many of these women have 
been victims of domestic violence, they have been battered, and welfare 
is the only alternative for too many women to a very abusive and 
dangerous situation at home. So every State will be required to have 
services for these women and not force people off the rolls if, in 
fact, there needs to be additional support.
  It took Monica Seles 2 years to play tennis again after she was 
attacked. Imagine what it would be like to be beaten up over and over 
again. That amendment was knocked out in the conference--no national 
requirement, no protection. Maybe it will be done in the States and 
maybe it won't.

  Mr. President, I had a safety valve amendment. It was defeated. 
Senator Kerry from Massachusetts had another one which was watered 
down, but important. It was knocked out in conference committee. It 
said, why don't we at least look at what we have done, and if in fact 
there is more poverty and hunger, then we will take corrective action 
in 2 years. That was knocked out in conference committee. You call that 
reform?
  Mr. President, let me be crystal clear. You focus on work, you focus 
on job training, you focus on education, you focus on making sure that 
families can make a transition from welfare to work, and that is great. 
Eliminating services for legal immigrants, draconian cuts in food 
nutrition programs for children and the elderly, deep cuts in 
assistance for children with disabilities--none of this has anything to 
do with reform. This is done in the name of deficit reduction.
  When I had an amendment on the floor that dealt with all of the 
breaks that go to some of the oil companies, or tobacco companies, or 
pharmaceutical companies, that was defeated. When we had a budget that 
called for $12 billion more than the Pentagon wanted and we tried to 
eliminate that, that was defeated. But now when it comes to poor 
children in America, who clearly are invisible here in Washington, DC--
at least in the Congress--faceless and voiceless, how generous we are 
with their suffering. And you dare to call that reform? You dare to say 
that, in the name of children, when you are passing a piece of 
legislation that every single study says will increase poverty and 
hunger among children. Vote for it for political reasons, but you can't 
get away with calling it reform. It is reverse reform. It is 
reformatory, it is punitive, it is harsh, it is extreme. It targets the 
most vulnerable citizens in America--poor children.
  Mr. President, in this insurance reform bill we are going to be 
dealing with, late last night someone inserted a 2-year monopoly patent 
extension for an anti-arthritis drug, a special interest gift to one 
drug company, because then you don't have the generic drugs. Late last 
night, someone put this into the insurance reform bill. There you go. 
There is some welfare for a pharmaceutical company. But they are the 
heavy hitters. They have the lobbyists. They are well-connected. We do 
just fine by them. But for these poor children, who very few Members of 
the Senate even know, we are all too generous with their suffering.
  Mr. President, I had an amendment that was passed by a 99-to-0 vote 
that said the Senate shall not take any action that shall create more 
hunger or homelessness among children. Now we are slashing $28 billion 
in food nutrition programs with the harshest effect being on children 
in America. Can my colleagues reconcile that for me? I would love to 
debate someone on this. I doubt whether there will be debate on it, 
because the evidence is clear.
  Mr. President, President Clinton said yesterday that he will sign the 
bill, and he said that he will work hard, I presume next Congress, to 
correct what he thinks is wrong. He pointed out that these draconian 
cuts in food nutrition programs and in assistance to legal immigrants 
are wrong, they have nothing to do with reform. He is absolutely right.
  Personally, it is difficult for me to say, well, with the exception 
of these draconian cuts in food assistance programs for children and 
the elderly, with the exception of these draconian cuts for children 
with disabilities, and draconian cuts for legal immigrants, this is a 
pretty good bill otherwise. I can't make that argument. But I will work 
with the President because, clearly, this is going to pass, and, quite 
clearly, corrective action is going to have to be taken next Congress.
  But, for myself, Mr. President, I am a Senator from the great State 
of Minnesota. As Senator Hubert Humphrey said, the test case for a 
society or government is how we treat people in the twilight of their 
lives--the elderly; how we treat people at the dawn of their lives--the 
children; and how we treat people in the shadow of their lives--the 
poor, and those that are struggling with disabilities. We have failed 
that test miserably with this piece of legislation.

  Mr. President, I come from a State that I think leads the Nation in 
its commitment to children and its commitment to fairness and its 
commitment to opportunity. As a Senator from Minnesota that is up for 
reelection this year, there can be one zillion attack ads--and there 
already have been many, and there will be many more--and I will not 
vote for legislation that impoverishes more children in America. That 
is not the right thing to do. That is not a Minnesota vote.
  Mr. President, in my next term as a U.S. Senator from Minnesota, I am 
going to embark on a poverty tour in our country. I am going to bring 
television with me, and I am going to bring media with me, and I am 
going to visit these children. I am going to visit some of these poor, 
elderly people. I am going to visit these families. I am going to visit 
these legal immigrants. I am going to have my Nation focus its 
attention, and I am going to have my colleagues, Republicans and 
Democrats alike, focus their attention on these vulnerable 
citizens. And, if in fact we see the harshness, the additional poverty, 
and the additional malnutrition, which is exactly what is going to 
happen, I am going to bring all those pictures and all of those voices 
and all of those faces and all of those children and all of those 
elderly people back to the floor of the U.S. Senate, and we will 
correct the terrible mistake we are making in this legislation.

  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

                          ____________________