[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 116 (Thursday, August 1, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9344-S9347]
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 Senate continued with the consideration of the conference report.
  Mr. EXON. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 3 minutes 44 seconds.
  Mr. EXON. Mr. President, the Senator from Nebraska will save his 
remarks that have to be said to the U.S. Senate for a later time.
  I ask unanimous consent that the remainder of my time of 3\1/2\ 
minutes be yielded to the Senator from Massachusetts and that, at the 
time of the 1 o'clock time period, an additional 15 minutes off the 
bill to discuss the conference report before us be yielded to the 
Senator from Massachusetts.

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  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. GRAMM. Reserving the right to object, could I hear it again?
  Mr. EXON. I am simply saying that the Senator has 3\1/2\ minutes 
remaining. I want to yield that time to the Senator from Massachusetts. 
Following that, the Senator from Massachusetts would be recognized for 
an additional 15 minutes off the bill for the remarks that he has to 
make.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I was scheduled by our prior agreement to 
begin speaking at 1, and the time was to revert over to our side. I am 
here, having rearranged my schedule on the basis of this.
  So, while I always like to accommodate the Senator, we had an 
agreement. Our colleagues have had an opportunity now for an extended 
period of time to present their views to the world, which were very 
interesting and very enlightening. But our turn comes at 1 o'clock.
  So I feel constrained to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. EXON. I have only asked that he be recognized at 1 o'clock. We 
did not know of the agreement.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair will clarify. The time for the 
Democratic side is between 12 and 1. At 1 o'clock there is to be 15 
minutes of time available for either side, presumably to be shared.
  Mr. GRAMM. To come back to our side.
  Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I yield the time remaining between now and 1 
o'clock plus 15 minutes off the bill to the Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it is my understanding, I say to the 
Senator from Texas, that we had the time going up to 1:15. That is what 
I was notified. That is why I am over here, and I arranged my schedule 
accordingly.
  The honorable and widely shared goal of welfare reform is to end 
welfare as a way of life and make it a way station to work.
  If we accept that indisputable proposition, then the two most 
important principles of welfare reform should be to move able-bodied 
adults on welfare into the work force, while protecting their children 
from hunger and want.
  This legislation tragically fails on both counts. It fails to provide 
what is necessary to move people from welfare to work. But it will push 
over 1 million more children into poverty. People on welfare will get a 
lecture, but they won't get a job, and their children will suffer.
  To call this bill welfare reform is nonsense. It's welfare retreat. 
Reform means improvement--solving the problem. This bill will bring 
damage to countless families across America. To label this legislation 
reform is no more accurate than to call the demolition of a house 
remodeling.
  It is also wrong to describe this bill as affecting only families on 
welfare. Its provisions will harm working families as well. More than a 
fifth of all American families with children--8.2 million households--
will see a substantial decline in their family income if this bill 
becomes law; 1.1 million children will be pushed below the poverty line 
by this bill. The majority of these children live in families headed by 
a working parent.
  What's in a label? For families, this is an abandon-hope-bill, a 
back-to-poverty-bill, a you-don't-count-bill, a deny-the-American-
dream-bill.
  The average annual income loss will be significant--$1,300 per 
family. This bill is supposed to encourage work. It makes no sense to 
reduce support for low-income working families. Cruelly, and 
intentionally, the authors of this legislation have chosen to do just 
that. Their real goal is not welfare reform. They are Robin Hoods in 
reverse--robbing the poor to pay for undeserved tax breaks for the 
rich.
  If this legislation honestly intended to move people from welfare to 
work, we would focus on steps to make them employable. Of the parents 
whose families will be denied assistance after the time limits, only a 
third have a high school degree. Yet three-quarters of the available 
jobs in today's economy require a high school diploma. Sixty percent of 
those jobs require at least some job experience. Yet this legislation 
does little about helping recipients obtain the education and job 
training they need in order to get real jobs in the real world. In this 
Republican Congress, even the existing meager level of Federal support 
for such programs is in jeopardy.
  According to the Congressional Budget Office, Federal funding in the 
coming years is approximately $10 billion less than the amount needed 
to meet the work requirements in the bill. Without adequate job 
training, a congressional command that people on welfare go to work is 
no more enforceable than the mythical king's command to the tide not to 
roll in to the shore.
  Proponents of this bill cannot credibly claim that it is about fiscal 
responsibility. It is about misguided priorities, for which America 
will pay an enormous cost in years to come.
  Some $28 billion of the savings from this legislation will come from 
reductions in food stamps. Approximately 70 percent of the food stamps 
being eliminated go to families with children. As a result, 14 million 
children will have their food stamp benefits reduced or cut off. 
Whether Republicans admit it or not, passage of this legislation 
clearly demonstrates that this Senate does not consider nutrition and 
health a priority for children. The Republican majority obviously 
considers billion dollar tax breaks for the wealthy to be a much higher 
priority.
  All we have to do is look at the most recent Carnegie Commission 
study on children and nutrition. Children that do not receive adequate 
nutrition from 18 months to 3 years fail to develop the kind of brain 
development that is essential and necessary for academic achievement 
and for social adjustment. Numerous studies have shown that children 
who do not receive balanced meals in the early stages of their lives 
are much less likely to succeed in high school, much more likely to 
drop out, much more likely to be involved in crime, and much more 
likely to be on welfare in future years. Yet, this bill includes harsh 
cuts in nutrition programs.
  Almost half of the $60 billion in cuts are in nutrition programs. Who 
are the beneficiaries of those nutrition programs? By and large they 
are children. The children are the ones who are paying the price of 
this so-called welfare reform bill so that there can be tax benefits 
and tax breaks for the wealthiest individuals in this country.
  In all, Republicans are proposing to take the $60 billion over the 
next 6 years from programs supporting poor children and families. Their 
votes betray their true priorities. As President Kennedy warned in his 
Inaugural Address, ``If a free society cannot help the many who are 
poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.''
  Our Republican friends claim that they are not abandoning poor 
families. They say they are giving States more flexibility to provide 
for their needs. But that flexibility is a mirage. Substantial 
restrictions are being placed on State discretion. This bill will 
actually prevent States from using Federal funds to assist large 
numbers of children who now have support.
  No funds contained in the welfare block grant can be used to assist 
children whose families reached the 5-year time limit. This harsh bill 
even prohibits Federal welfare funds from being used to provide 
vouchers for the most basic needs of these children. This will be no 
small problem for the States. Close to 4 million children will be in 
this category when the bill is fully implemented.
  In addition, in another shockingly cruel breach of trust, Federal 
funds can no longer be used to provide for children who are legal 
immigrants, who lawfully reside within our communities. Their need for 
food, clothing, shelter and medical care is being dumped entirely on 
the States.
  All the studies that have been done with regard to legal immigrant 
children show that they use the AFDC program less than Native Americans 
and they pay their fair share of Federal, State, and local taxes.
  We are not talking about illegal immigrants. For the first time in 
history, Congress will ban legal immigrants from most assistance 
programs.
  This Republican bill permanently bans legal immigrants from SSI and 
food stamps. It bans them for 5 years from Medicaid, AFDC, and other 
programs. It gives States the option of

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going even further and permanently banning them from Medicaid, AFDC, 
and the social service block grants.
  While we are debating this bill, the Olympics are going on in 
Atlanta. Forty-seven members of the American Olympic team are 
immigrants--47 of them are representing and competing for the United 
States of America. But under this legislation, these 47 Americans would 
have been denied nutrition programs, help, and assistance if they had 
needed them as children.
  Hundreds of thousands of legal immigrant children will be robbed of a 
safety net by this bill. Hopefully, they have sponsors who can care for 
them when they need help because otherwise this bill leaves them out in 
the cold. But half of all legal immigrants do not have sponsors. What 
happens to those children when their families fall on hard times?
  In our recent immigration bill, we permit 140,000 individuals to come 
into the United States on special skills programs. They are not 
sponsored. They do not have someone to deem to.
  Now, what happens to them? What happens to them if they fall on hard 
times? They do not have a sponsor. They and their children are 
effectively cut off from any kind of help and assistance--even in an 
emergency.
  These are individuals and families who come here legally. By and 
large, they are family members--sons, daughters, and parents--of 
American citizens. These are people who play our the rules, pay their 
taxes, and serve in the Armed Forces. They can be drafted. They can 
volunteer. We have hundreds of them in Bosnia today. But they would 
not, as children, have been eligible for nutrition programs or even 
temporary benefits if their parents fell on hard times.
  They are future citizens trying to make it in this country. When they 
grow up, they become American citizens. Yet this bill repays them by 
banning them from assistance if they need any help.
  Perhaps the cruelest provision in this bill is the ban on assistance 
under Medicaid for legal immigrants giving birth. Their children being 
born are American citizens. This outrageous provision means that these 
American citizen babies will not get the care, attention, and healthy 
start in life that other American children receive. These babies are 
doomed to unsupervised home deliveries, substandard care, and a 
lifetime of potential handicaps if they fail to get adequate medical 
care during birth. If Congress will not strike that shameful provision 
down, perhaps the Supreme Court will.

  The prohibition on assistance to older children also makes no sense. 
Many children will be affected and harmed, but many others will not. It 
depends entirely on where they are born. Children born in the United 
States are U.S. citizens and will be eligible for assistance, even if 
their parents are legal immigrants. But children born overseas will be 
caught by the ban. This is a wonderful anomaly. So the children in the 
same family will be treated differently, depending on where they were 
born. The older brother will be able to get assistance and the younger 
sister will not. That is the wonderful logic of this so-called welfare 
reform. This result is fundamentally unfair.
  These children are future citizens. Like all other children in 
America, they need and deserve good health and nutrition. If the 
Federal Government abandons them, communities will suffer.
  When immigrant children get sick, they infect other children. I 
assume that our good friends on the Ways and Means and Finance 
Committees understand what happens in every schoolroom in America. When 
children get sick, they still communicate. Anybody who has children 
understands that when a bug gets into second, third, or fourth grade 
kids--most of his or her classmates will also get sick. By banning 
immigrant children from Medicaid we are also banning them from school-
based care, which is part of Medicaid in most States.
  These children will not be able to go down to the nurse's office, get 
some attention, and perhaps be sent home to avoid serious illness and 
to avoid infecting other children in the class. They will not even be 
able to get in the door. If they try to see the nurse, the nurse cannot 
treat them because they are immigrants. They have no private insurance, 
and they are banned from Medicaid. If the illness gets worse, their 
parents may take them to the local emergency room--a very expensive 
alternative and not likely to be pursued unless the illness seems 
severe--which will add to the costs of our health care system. This is 
welfare reform under this bill.
  The Republican bill also bans legal immigrant children from SSI, 
which provides assistance to the blind and disabled. Nine thousand 
legal immigrant children suffer from those conditions. They have some 
of the most complex and life-threatening needs of all. As a practical 
matter, such cases often involve tragic accidents, where expensive, 
long-term care is needed to deal with their debilitating conditions. If 
SSI is not available, children literally will die.
  Nutrition is vital to the development of a child. Immigrant children 
are no exception. Without access to food stamps, some immigrant 
children will suffer a lifetime of anemia, stunted growth, and even 
permanent brain damage. This bill is not welfare reform for legal 
immigrants. It is cruelty written large into law. It will push families 
deeper into poverty with no chance of escape, and the victims will be 
innocent children. Shame on the Republican majority in Congress for 
washing its hands of their plight.
  This legislation also contains financial penalties for States unable 
to move children on welfare into employment as quickly as the bill 
mandates. Yet the bill refuses to provide the necessary level of job 
training support and child care assistance. It is better in child care 
assistance than previous bills, but still short of what is necessary to 
meet those employment targets.
  In fact, many of the strongest advocates of this legislation want to 
reduce Federal funding for job training. The Congressional Budget 
Office estimates that only 10 to 15 of the 50 States will be able to 
meet the work requirements in the legislation. So, in reality, we are 
setting up the States to fail, rather than giving them the tools they 
need to succeed.
  Another aspect of this legislation which will seriously hurt the 
States. The funding which each State will receive is not adjusted for 
population growth or for the impact of recessions. If the number of 
families legitimately seeking assistance in a State expands, the State 
will receive no proportional increase in funds. The small contingency 
fund does not even begin to meet the potential need. The State alone 
will be responsible for meeting the need, often at a time when that 
State is least able to respond.
  The inevitable result of this legislation on the States will not be 
sensible new flexibility, but enormous new financial pressures. This 
bill can only encourage a race to the bottom, in which States compete 
to have the harshest climate for low income families. Inevitably, 
States bow to such pressures. They cannot control the national economy. 
Congress is supposed to represent the national interest. We should not 
be creating an irresponsible system that punishes States which try to 
meet the needs of their citizens while rewarding those which do not.
  Americans want genuine welfare reform. But that does not mean they 
will support this legislation once they look behind the Republican 
bumper sticker slogan. Genuine welfare reform means moving welfare 
recipients into jobs, while assuring that the basic needs of their 
children are met during the transition. This legislation will not 
achieve either of these goals. It will leave many welfare recipients 
unemployable in the real world. It will leave their children ill-fed, 
ill-clothed, and ill-housed. This Republican Congress has nothing to be 
proud of for forcing this bill into law.
  By the votes we cast today, we are not improving the quality of life 
in America. The gap between rich and poor will be wider, the bonds 
which tie families together will be weaker, and the dreams of millions 
of children will be farther from reach.
  The best that can be said about this bad bill is that the day it is 
signed into law must be the day we roll up our sleeves and start 
working together to clean up the mess it will bear. I intend to do all 
I can to persuade Congress to act this year to eliminate at least some

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of the most damaging and least responsible provisions in this bill.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DOMENICI. 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. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Under a previous order, the hour between 1:15 and 2:15 will be under 
the control of the majority. The Senator from New Mexico [Mr. Domenici] 
is recognized.

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