[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 59 (Thursday, May 8, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H2430]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    WELFARE REFORM BILL NEEDS REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from the District of Columbia [Ms. Norton] is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from 
California [Ms. Woolsey] for the way in which she has worked to put 
welfare reform back on the 105th Congress' map and to leave no stone 
unturned and to put on notice this Congress that reform of the welfare 
system has yet to come.
  ``If at first you do not succeed,'' the cliche goes. Well, we have 
not succeeded and what we are going to do is try harder. The welfare 
reform bill needs reform. The only question is when are we going to do 
it. The flaws that are revealing themselves are already legion.
  Congress has taken a wait for the crisis attitude. That is of course 
the way we do business in a number of areas. When it comes to children, 
particularly given all the pro-family rhetoric that adorns this hall 
every day, one would think that we must move before the crisis.
  The gentlewoman from California, who is cochairing with me a task 
force to introduce an omnibus bill of reforms, has given an indication 
of the kinds of bills the omnibus bill will contain. Rather than repeat 
more about those bills, let me give other examples as well.
  Let us do first things first. The President has offered forth 10,000 
jobs he controls in his executive agencies for welfare recipients. It 
is Congress' move now. What will we do?
  I have a bill that I have introduced on March 12 that would encourage 
every Member to offer a full-time job in her office to a welfare 
recipient. In order to accommodate this, the House would increase staff 
allotments by one, but not our budget. Many Members could then hire a 
welfare recipient. They might not otherwise be able to do so, 
especially Members who come from districts that are broadly spaced 
through rural areas or large States.
  But if we said to the Member, or if the Member knows that she has the 
money but needs the staff member, at no cost to the government, we 
could do our part. I do not see how in the world we can continue to 
monitor welfare reform if we do not step up the way the President has. 
We must lead by example. If we mean it, we have to do it first.
  I expect that the omnibus bill will contain a number of correctives. 
Let me give examples.

  I will be introducing an anti-displacement bill. There is a perverse 
effect here, Mr. Speaker. What we are finding is that people who have 
gone out and gotten their own low-paying jobs are being displaced by 
welfare recipients. If that is not a perverse effect, I do not know 
what is.
  Two similarly situated youngsters in the District of Columbia gets 
pregnant at 16. One goes and finds her own job in the hotel industry 
and the other sits at home. Maybe she sits at home because she does not 
have a babysitter, maybe she does it for other reasons. But the fact is 
there is an incentive for employers to hire the young woman who went 
out and got her own job, so the employer displaces the woman who went 
out and got it herself. We cannot have that. It is not what anybody 
intended.
  I will be introducing an anti-displacement bill so that similarly 
situated people will not feel that I have to go get on welfare in order 
to get a job; that is the way to do it. The message is go out and get 
your own job, and only if you cannot get one should you be on welfare 
at all.
  Mr. Speaker, I have a bill that pertains to the District of Columbia, 
which does not have a State but has a State quota which it cannot 
possibly meet. By 2002 every State has to have 50 percent of all its 
families in work or work activities. The State of New York or the State 
of California or the State of Wyoming, for that matter, will gather 
them from all over the State. No other State has to gather that whole 
50 percent from a central city. It cannot be done.
  My bill would give the District no preference. It would simply say 
that using a formula, which we extract from what other inner cities 
have done, we say that the District has to fill that number and not a 
number that is given to an entire State.
  I will be introducing a bill to exempt relative caretakers from the 
20 percent rule. Twenty percent of cost can be exempted from work 
activity. Surely we do not mean to say that a grandmother has to go out 
and find a job. These are effects that are beginning to come through. 
These are reforms that need to be done. I expect to do so.

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