[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 91 (Wednesday, June 25, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6299-S6301]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             WELFARE REFORM

  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, after listening to some of the debate on 
amendments that are being offered and having the opportunity to come to 
the floor and defend what we did last year on the welfare reform bill, 
you would think by all of the amendments that are being discussed and 
by all of the gnashing of teeth that is going on here in the U.S. 
Senate today, that we have a welfare reform bill--the bill that passed 
this Congress last session and implemented by the States' 50 
Governors--that we are having an abject failure; that horrible things 
are happening out there in the area of welfare

[[Page S6300]]

that we have to now come back and save all of these people. I hate to 
disappoint anybody's party here. But the fact of the matter is that 
things are not all that bad. In fact, things are doing very, very well 
in the area of welfare. I will point to a couple of things as 
illustrations.
  First, I have not seen one major newspaper write one bad article or 
editorial on the devastating effects of welfare reform passed by the 
last Congress. I assure you that if there were any devastating stories 
to be told, they would be telling them because of all these papers that 
were against the welfare reform bill that went through. The fact that 
we have not heard of horror stories and that we have not heard any 
gnashing of teeth from the media about what is going on is certainly a 
positive sign that things are actually going well.
  I might also add that none of the press has come and said, ``Gee, we 
were wrong.'' Welfare in Wisconsin--50 percent of the people have been 
dropped off the rolls, and are working. Across the country the average 
is 20 percent of welfare rolls have been reduced, and people are 
working--in case after case after case.
  I spend at least one visit a week when I am back in the State of 
Pennsylvania going in and talking to people in education and training 
programs, homeless shelters--you name it--talking to the people who are 
intersecting with the welfare programs. And almost unanimously what I 
have gotten as feedback is, ``This program is a program I wish you had 
passed earlier. I wouldn't be here today working. I wouldn't be here 
today getting the education and training I need, succeeding, and 
feeling better about myself had this bill not passed.''
  We have an unmitigated success in welfare. We threw the ball up in 
the air. The Governors of the 50 States jumped. They caught it, and 
they are running with the ball. They are doing positive things for the 
poor and for the disadvantaged all across America. I just think that we 
need to take some time here today in the midst of all of these 
amendments that says all of these people are being hurt. The fact of 
the matter is a vast majority are being helped tremendously by what 
went on in welfare reform.

  I hope Members--frankly, those who supported welfare reform and those 
who did not--I hope that they will come to the floor and say, ``Look, 
this program is working.'' From any objective criteria, people are 
working; people are going in and getting education and training that 
they never would have had before because, frankly, they needed that 
little shove. We are giving it to them. We are supplying them, and the 
Governors, with the child care that they need.
  We have a lot of work to continue to do on that front and on some 
other fronts in the area of Medicare and other kinds of health 
coverage. But the Governors are working on that. They are taking this 
responsibility that we have given them--this flexibility that we have 
given them--very seriously and are doing a terrific job.
  So I just want to set the record straight here on a day that might 
otherwise be seen as a day where welfare reform came under attack here 
in the U.S. Senate. What we are seeing in reality outside of Washington 
DC, outside of the Senate Chamber, where we continue to think of the 
welfare of the past and look to the future--go out there in those 
communities and find out the success stories, the wonderful, heartfelt 
stories of people who needed this piece of legislation and who needed 
this change in the welfare culture.
  I think probably the most dramatic thing that I heard from someone 
who is not on welfare but someone who worked in the system is from two 
people who had been in the welfare casework role for 25 years in New 
Castle, PA. They came to me and said, ``I can't thank you enough for 
changing the law to let me do what I wanted to do 25 years ago but 
never had the chance''--that is, help people get off welfare, help 
people actually use their ability and get the respect for themselves 
instead of just passing out checks and creating dependency. The person 
was actually thanking me, almost in tears, thanking us for giving him 
the opportunity to do what 30 years of welfare policy wouldn't let him 
do--that is, get people off of welfare, give them the incentive and the 
tools to make it off the dependency of the Government instead of 
ensuring that they would never leave by creating a meal ticket forever 
on welfare.
  So I just want to reiterate one last time that anyone in this Chamber 
who believes that welfare reform is in bad shape and we need to go and 
rewrite the welfare bill because of all the terrible things that are 
going on out there, I suggest you go out there and you talk to the 
Nation's Governors, you talk to the people who are working in the 
system, you talk to the people who are going through the system, and 
you will hear a very different story than what you are hearing here 
today in the Senate.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DURBIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks time?
  The Senator from Illinois is recognized.
  Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Chair. I would like to respond to my 
colleague from Pennsylvania.
  I voted for the welfare reform bill, and I thought it was long 
overdue. The welfare system in America definitely needs to be changed, 
reformed, and in many areas just plain abandoned. It was a system which 
had sustained many families, but it also captured many families and 
ensnared them in welfare dependency, and we knew it. And that is why on 
a bipartisan basis we voted for welfare reform. But I do not believe 
that it is accurate to assess the success of welfare reform strictly on 
the wisdom of that legislation.
  Fortunately, we live in a time of an expanding economy that is 
creating jobs, creating opportunities for small businesses, for new 
housing starts. We are seeing the lowest controlled inflation in a 
long, long period of time. We are seeing the deficit come into control. 
And I have to say to my friend, the Republican from Pennsylvania, I 
don't think you can take any credit for that because, unfortunately, 
not a single Republican Member of this Senate at the time supported the 
President's plan for deficit reduction. It passed with all Democratic 
votes and the vote of the Vice President and passed by a scant margin 
in the House of Representatives with no Republican support. And because 
of the President's plan, we have had 5 straight years of deficit 
reduction and economic expansion, something the other party speaks of a 
lot but something the Democrats delivered.
  And so when we talk about opportunities to come off welfare, what 
opportunity would there be if we were in a recession with fewer jobs 
for people who are searching for that first-time job opportunity. I am 
afraid very, very few. And I also have to take exception to the idea 
that this welfare reform was somewhere hammered into marble, Holy Writ, 
that should not be changed or addressed. The success of a man like 
Franklin Roosevelt as President of the United States was his 
recognition that he was not perfect. He would come up with good ideas 
and he would try to implement them. Some turned out to be wildly 
successful, like Social Security, others fell on their face. He had at 
least the good sense to come forward and say there are times when you 
should abandon a program or change it. The same is true when it comes 
to welfare reform.
  I might remind my colleague from Pennsylvania that even this year the 
Republican leadership in the House and Senate acknowledged the 
shortcomings of our welfare reform bill, particularly when it came to 
those who are legal immigrants to the United States. That was a very 
unfair provision, to force people off of disability income because they 
were here strictly on the basis of being legal immigrants. These are 
not illegals but legally here in the United States. I offered an 
amendment today. I tried to correct another failing, as I see it, in 
the welfare reform bill and it relates to food for children, food 
stamps for children. These are children of legal immigrants living in 
the United States who were cut off their food stamps in April of this 
year. I will tell the Senator from Pennsylvania the decision of this 
Chamber today I think was the wrong one, to deny food stamps to these 
children. It is one that we will pay for over and over and over again. 
A hungry child in this country without appropriate nutrition is a child 
who is likely to have more medical problems,

[[Page S6301]]

likely to fall behind in school, more likely to become a future welfare 
or crime statistic.

  I cannot understand why this Congress, like so many businesses, and I 
guess so many people, cannot look ahead beyond the next budget. We live 
in a country where the biggest growth industry is the construction of 
prisons. There are 19 cities in my home State of Illinois competing 
right now not for a new business but for the latest prison to be built 
by our State. We have more people under lock and key in America than in 
any country other than Russia. Why?
  Is it because we are just more violent, more prone to criminal 
activity? I think it is a much deeper question. It goes to our 
children, whether or not some of these kids can be rescued, can be 
saved, can be put on the right path in their lives. It involves a 
commitment. Yes, I believe in three strikes you're out, but I also 
believe in taking the necessary action to avoid the first strike. Give 
a child a chance with prenatal nutrition, with appropriate infant 
nutrition, with Head Start, with education, with mentoring, the kind of 
community support that counts. And yet this body I am afraid considers 
that to be squandering of national assets. We have all the money in the 
world to build a prison. We do not have all the money in the world to 
improve our schools. When my colleague, Senator Carol Moseley-Braun, 
comes forward with the crumbling schools proposal that says let us make 
sure the schools our kids attend are safe, that they have appropriate 
care for the children there, we find out that there are many people 
particularly on the Republican side of the aisle who say that is 
something that our Government should not worry about. I disagree. The 
shiniest new building in many cities across America is a prison; the 
one that is crumbling down is a school. What message does that send to 
children, to families and to our Nation?
  When this Senate decided today to defeat my amendment not to send 
food stamps to these children, I am afraid it is a decision we will pay 
for for years to come. These kids are likely to become citizens of the 
United States. They are likely to be our neighbors, kids seeking jobs 
in the future. We are penny-wise and pound-foolish when we do not 
provide the basic necessities of life like food and health care and 
education for children.
  So, yes, I supported welfare reform. I think the economy has 
sustained the kind of growth which has given welfare reform an 
opportunity to flourish but, for goodness sakes, why aren't we 
investing in our children? Why has this become so partisan and so 
strident that when we stand up with the Levin amendment and talk about 
more time for vocational education so that kids can get off welfare and 
go to work, it becomes a partisan vote? The Republicans say no; the 
Democrats say yes. Nothing happens. For the kid, the young man, the 
young woman who needs a chance at education, that was an important 
vote. And this Senate said no. That does not make sense. End welfare 
but end it responsibly. Make an investment in America's kids, an 
investment that will pay off for many generations to come.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator from Illinois has 
expired. Who seeks time?
  Mr. BROWNBACK addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas is recognized.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. I would like to quickly respond, if I could, to just a 
couple of comments. I hope we will not stand here and say that the 
welfare program, the changes that we made in the last Congress have 
been a failure. They have been a great success. Look in my home State 
of Kansas where welfare rolls have gone down 30 percent. And, yes, we 
have had a strong economy, but in the past we have had a strong economy 
when the welfare rolls have gone up. You have to change the incentives 
in the program. That is what we did in the last Congress. It was a 
positive step to move forward. So I hope that we do not make something 
a failure when it has been a strong success and people are working now 
rather than receiving payments from the Government and they are having 
more self-confidence themselves.
  I think this is good for people, too, because with the past system 
the people on welfare, along with the people that paid for welfare, 
thought it was a horrible failure and a horrible system. We have 
changed the dynamics, and we have changed the incentives in this 
program to where the people are incentivized to work. And they feel 
good about it. They feel better about it. And this is a program that is 
going to work.
  I think there are a lot of things we could spend money on that might 
well be good, but we have tended to do a lot of that in the past, to 
the point we are over $5 trillion in the hole. So that we just cannot 
keep voting for everything to be able to do it or else we are not going 
to get in balance.

                          ____________________