[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 49 (Tuesday, April 28, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3715-S3720]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. SANTORUM (for himself, Mr. Abraham, Mr. Brownback, Mr. 
        Coats, Mr. Coverdell, and Mr. Hutchinson):
  S. 1996. A bill to provide flexibility to certain local educational 
agencies that develop voluntary public and private parental choice 
programs under title VI of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act 
of 1965; to the Committee on Labor and Human Resources.


                      renewal alliance legislation

  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I am here today to announce, along with 
several Members--in fact, a coalition of 30 Republican Members from 
both the House and the Senate called the Renewal Alliance, which has 
been in business now for a considerable amount of time--more than a 
year--will be jointly introducing new initiatives to help restore hard-
pressed urban neighborhoods of our country to reach out to families and 
communities and neighbors that are dealing with some of the most 
difficult and intractable social problems that affect our society.
  This package, called REAL Life--renewal, empowerment, achievement, 
and learning for life--contains what we believe are essential elements 
to help bring improvements and restore hope to impoverished communities 
and to bring self-sufficiency to low-income individuals and families. 
REAL Life seeks to address the critical deficits facing neighborhoods 
and communities, families, those communities and neighborhoods who lie 
behind the gleaming skyscrapers, the neighborhoods where some of the 
most difficult problems in our society--homelessness, drug abuse, teen 
pregnancy, poverty, and violence--are found in some of the most complex 
and intractable forms in the neighborhoods, however, where groups of 
individuals and private community organizations and leaders are already 
at work defeating the poverty and dysfunction that have defied our 
well-intentioned and lavishly funded Federal efforts.
  Before I begin to make specific comments about the legislation that 
we will be introducing, let me take a moment to read from a letter 
given to me by Light of Life Ministries, a rescue mission operating in 
Pittsburgh, PA. I think this letter communicates in a very compelling 
and clear way both the problems that we face today in our low-income 
areas and particularly in our cities--although these are no respecters 
of income or persons, but it seems that the problems are particularly 
acute in some of our urban areas--but also addresses some of the 
solutions that even today are within our grasp.
  This letter is from a fellow named Benjamin Primis, a young man who, 
after a promising start in life, fell on hard times. He was a graphic 
artist working in the television industry, and he began using drugs and 
became addicted to crack cocaine. Soon he was homeless and desperate.
  Benjamin writes:

       I found myself homeless in Pittsburgh. It seemed as though 
     the world had turned its back on me. . . . When there was 
     nowhere else to run, the Light of Life Ministry in Pittsburgh 
     opened their doors of unconditional love. . . . Instantly I 
     was comforted with three hot meals a day, clean linens, drug 
     and alcohol therapy. . . . They fed me when I was hungry. 
     They clothed me when I had nothing else to wear. [Most 
     importantly,] they cared for me when I didn't care for 
     myself.

  Benjamin Primis's story is one of thousands, maybe tens of thousands, 
of stories of hope and restoration and healing that bring us together 
here on this floor, the Senate floor, this morning. Ben Primis was 
failed by both the dogmas and initiatives of Republicans and Democrats, 
conservatives and liberals. A booming economy did not prevent his fall 
into poverty. And the Government safety net proved to be an illusion. 
Instead, Ben was rescued by one of the thousands of neighborhood-based, 
privately run, often faith-based religious charities that operate in 
poor neighborhoods across our country.
  Let me give another example, Mr. President. For years, officials in 
the District of Columbia and Members of Congress have wrestled with the 
problem of violence in this city that has plagued this city. A lot of 
programs have been tried, and the police department has been 
strengthened and reorganized and redeployed on several occasions to 
almost no effect. It seemed that none of the often very expensive 
initiatives had any fruition.
  Last year, a group of African American men called the Alliance of 
Concerned Men began brokering peace treaties among the gangs that 
inhabit, and frequently dominate, some of the city's public housing 
complexes. Benning Terrace in southeast Washington, known to the D.C. 
police department as perhaps the most dangerous area of the city, has 
not had a single murder since the Alliance's peace treaty went into 
effect early last year. This movement is now spreading across the city.
  These are community healers who are saving lives where all other 
Government efforts have failed. I have met with these individuals. I 
have listened to their stories and some of the most remarkable stories 
of transformation of individual lives and reconciliation that anyone 
could ever encounter.

  The Light of Life Mission in Pittsburgh, the Alliance of Concerned 
Men in Washington, DC, Gospel Rescue Mission of Washington, these are 
the kinds of organizations that the Renewal Alliance REAL Life 
initiative wants to place at the center of our Nation's welfare and 
social policies.
  REAL Life is not a handout, it is an opportunity agenda for America's 
poor,

[[Page S3716]]

and it is concentrated on those who live on America's meanest streets. 
It does acknowledge a role for Government programs, but it makes that 
role one of a junior partner--not a CEO, not a director, but a junior 
partner, a junior partner with those organizations that, without 
Government help, without Government rules and regulations, are reaching 
out and actually bringing hope and bringing restoration to some of the 
most desperate situations that our country encounters. This whole array 
of community-based organizations, faith-based organizations, social 
institutions, help restore individual lives and rebuilds neighborhoods.
  Finally, REAL Life is a vision that starts with a belief that real 
and lasting social reform begins among the families, the churches, the 
schools, the businesses, that are the heart and the soul of local 
communities.
  We have three central components in REAL Life. We have a community 
renewal component, which I will talk a little bit more in a moment, 
which incorporates a State-based voluntary charity tax credit, charity 
donations protection, liability reform. We have an economic empowerment 
component, which incorporates a number of empowerment initiatives that 
have been discussed and talked about over the years. These will be 
discussed by other members of the Renewal Alliance. We have educational 
opportunity for low-income families. This real-life initiative by the 
Renewal Alliance has narrowed its scope to three essential components 
as a means of demonstrating the effectiveness of these initiatives.
  Before I yield to other members of the Renewal Alliance--and I note 
that Senator Abraham, a key member of our Alliance, is here and ready 
to speak--let me briefly discuss the community renewal portion of the 
package we are introducing today.
  The REAL Life Community Renewal Act begins with the belief that 
social capital, the invisible elements of trust, cooperation, and 
mutual support that undergird communities life, have been severely 
damaged by 30 years of misguided Government programs. The traditional 
networks of community action and caring anchored in churches, schools, 
and volunteer programs have been displaced by Government programs. Too 
much money and too little wisdom have combined to wreak havoc in urban 
neighborhoods. We seek to repair that damage done by the Great Society 
by shifting authority and resources out of Government and into the 
private, religious, and voluntary groups that know the deepest needs of 
local neighborhoods. We achieve this through State-based charity tax 
credit.
  We tap a wide range of existing Federal welfare block grants as a 
funding source for these charity tax credits. The credit is entirely 
voluntary. It builds up on efforts in the States to find innovative 
approaches for the delivery of welfare services. Already, Arizona and 
Pennsylvania and Indiana have either incorporated or are in the process 
of incorporating charity tax credits as a way to provide incentives for 
contributions to these organizations.
  As I said, we also contain provisions which will strengthen charities 
through enhanced liability protections and also to prevent IRS actions 
against these organizations to allow them to better do their mission. 
Others here this morning will speak in greater detail about the 
economic empowerment and educational opportunities sessions of our 
proposal.
  The bottom line is this: After 30 years of experiments with top-down 
Federal poverty strategies and an enormous expenditure of money, the 
returns are in. The Great Society approach, the Government-knows-all 
approach, the Government-can solve-all-your-problems approach, has 
failed. It has been a failure that has been widespread across this 
country. Many of the initiatives were well motivated, but the results 
are in. It is time now for us to look at a new approach, a new approach 
that makes local leadership, community-based institutions, and 
neighborhood center reform efforts the heart of our welfare strategy.
  I trust that my colleagues will join us in this effort to bring real 
life to those in greatest need in our society. I could spend the day 
discussing and talking about initiatives that have taken place in 
communities across this country where individuals, inspired by nothing 
more than a dream or a vision, often severely and desperately 
underfunded, have opened their arms and opened their hearts and opened 
their doors to provide real support and real help for real people in 
need. They have done so in a remarkable way.
  The Center for the Homeless in South Bend, IN, has combined the 
efforts of 300 churches spanning the spectrum of denominations and 
religions. They have utilized the services of the University of Notre 
Dame, the hospital community of St. Joseph County, and help from 
volunteers from all walks of life, and put together a model homeless 
shelter which has a six-part, 2-year strategy of taking homeless 
individuals and turning them into homeowners, restoring their lives, 
and, in the process, restoring neighborhoods and restoring communities. 
It is one of the most remarkably efficient and effective efforts that I 
have witnessed.
  But the story is repeated all across the State of Indiana in 
initiative after initiative. The Matthew 25 clinic in Fort Wayne, IN, a 
combination of doctors, dentists, and nurses, on a volunteer basis, is 
reaching out and established a clinic, providing medical care and help 
to low-income individuals who are not insured and don't have 
opportunities for medical treatment in the normal course of things. 
They have made a remarkable difference in our community. It is not a 
Federal program; it has nothing to do with a Federal program; there are 
no Federal funds. It is voluntary efforts by the community of medical 
personnel in our city. Whether it is a maternity home, a home for 
girls, a spouse abuse shelter, any of a number of programs, they are 
duplicated and replicated in virtually every city in America. Yet, they 
are struggling, struggling because, as I said, after 30 years of 
Federal initiatives, their efforts have been almost overwhelmed by the 
well-intended, well-meaning, extraordinarily expensive, and incredibly 
low-result efforts of the Federal Government. It is this problem that 
we are trying to address.
  This doesn't have to be a partisan issue. This is something 
Republicans and Democrats can come together on. I believe liberals, who 
have been well-motivated and well-intended, have seen the dismal 
results of their efforts and are looking for an alternative. And those 
conservatives who say, ``Let this sort itself out; after all, it is an 
issue of personal responsibility and there is nothing Government should 
be involved in,'' I think are ignoring the fact that some of these 
institutions that are so essential to helping in this process need 
support and need to be rebuilt.
  This is not a new, massive Federal program, this is simply some 
startup initiatives to point the way and, hopefully, to encourage the 
support and development of these non-Government institutions.

  My colleague from Michigan is on the floor, Senator Abraham, who has 
been instrumental in helping to develop the REAL Life initiative. I am 
pleased to yield time to him to explain another component of this 
particular package.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished Senator from Michigan is 
recognized.
  Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I would like to begin by thanking Senator 
Coats for the leadership he has provided. Even before there was such a 
thing as the Renewal Alliance, Senator Coats was, in a variety of 
contexts, bringing forth the arguments in the case that he has begun to 
present here today. I think the existence of his efforts and the 
various projects he has worked on was really the basis upon which a lot 
of us thought it made sense to begin working on a joint venture, the 
Renewal Alliance agenda that we are presenting today.
  I would like to discuss a piece of legislation that has to do with an 
important part of the Renewal Alliance agenda. This is a bill which 
provides economic empowerment in economically distressed areas. It is 
part of an effort by a number of us who wish to bring about the 
revitalization of economically and socially distressed areas in our 
country, especially in our cities.
  Traditional responses to persistent poverty have not been 
particularly effective. Frankly, even in the best of economic times, we 
find that certain parts of our communities still don't see significant 
change and feel that they are left behind--and indeed they are,

[[Page S3717]]

economically. On the other hand, at the other end of the spectrum there 
has been the Government solution approach that we have seen over the 
last several decades, more than $5 trillion in Government programs. 
Yet, we have seen very little change in the level of poverty in the 
country. The fact is that the debate that has occurred over the past 30 
years between, on the one hand, the argument that all we need is a 
strong economy and, on the other hand, all we need are more Government 
programs, leaves us still short of the mark.
  So what the Renewal Alliance has attempted to do is look beyond those 
traditional responses, believing that across America people have an 
abundance of desire to help the less fortunate to rebuild our cities 
and stop moral decay; also believing that too often the Federal 
Government impedes or fails to promote the community renewal that we 
need.
  We must encourage families, churches, small businesses, and community 
organizations to take on the hard work of social renewal. How? By 
reducing Government barriers that are making it difficult for 
economically distressed areas to improve the quality and conditions of 
life there and, at the same time, providing incentives so that the 
culture and the private sector can assist the Government in achieving 
this objective. Yes, we do need a social safety net for the truly 
deserving, but that will never give people the opportunity to get out 
the economically distressed conditions they find themselves in. We must 
go further.
  So what I would like to talk about specifically now is the economic 
empowerment component of the Renewal Alliance agenda. What we need are 
new approaches to our urban problems and problems of any community in 
the country that suffers from economic disadvantage because, as I say, 
despite the War on Poverty, our cities still face an array of problems.
  Illegitimacy in our inner cities is at a record high level, in some 
areas exceeding 80 percent.
  Harvard's Lee Rainwater estimates that by 2000, 40 percent of all 
American births will occur out of wedlock. And our cities are losing 
population, as well.
  Since the mid-1960s, our largest 25 cities have lost approximately 4 
million residents. Too often, the people left behind are the poor.
  Half the people in our distressed inner cities lived below the 
poverty line in 1993.
  To address this tragic situation, we propose the ``REAL Life Economic 
Empowerment Act.'' This legislation would target America's 100 poorest 
communities and offer pro-growth incentives to create jobs and spur 
entrepreneurship where it is needed most.
  In order to become a renewal community, a community must meet several 
criteria. First, it must need the assistance. That means people in the 
area must be experiencing abnormally high rates of poverty and 
unemployment.
  Second, State and local governments must enter into a written 
contract with neighborhood organizations to reduce taxes and fees, 
increase the efficiency of local services, formulate and implement 
crime reduction strategies, and make it easier for charities to 
operate.
  Third, the community must agree not to enforce a number of 
restrictions on entry into business or occupations, including 
unnecessary licensing and zoning requirements.
  In exchange, the community would receive a number of benefits from 
the Federal level. Our legislation would zero out capital gains taxes 
within these empowerment areas, it would increase business expensing, 
it would give a 20 percent wage credit to businesses hiring qualified 
workers who were still employed after 6 months, and it would provide 
tax incentives for entrepreneurs who clean up environmentally 
contaminated ``brownfield'' sites.

  Unlike the administration's current ``empowerment zones,'' our 
incentives recognize that it is the private sector, not the Federal 
Government, that must be part of any effort to revitalize our 
communities.
  Mr. President, there will be no boards established to dole out 
Government patronage, and our legislation will not include the onerous 
conditions and bureaucratic requirements of current programs. What is 
more, States and localities will be joining the Federal Government in 
reducing the burden of Government so that local small businesses can 
start and grow in distressed areas.
  We know that it is these small businesses, from barber shops to local 
grocery stores, that often serve as the glue holding communities 
together. Not only do these small businesses provide jobs, they also 
provide places where people can meet one another to exchange news and 
keep in touch with local events and other job opportunities. It is 
crucial that we seed our distressed areas with businesses like these so 
that residents can pull their communities together and work toward a 
better life.
  Mr. President, in short, what we hope to do with our legislation is 
to provide the incentives so that small entrepreneurial enterprises can 
develop in areas where there is currently significant economic 
distress. Therefore, the jobs being created will be created where the 
people are who don't have jobs. Right now, the biggest impediment to 
creating jobs is to create conditions in which entrepreneurship can 
exist. That means cleaning up contaminated brownfield sites, it means 
providing access to capital so small businesses can begin and flourish, 
it means making sure that Government regulations and rules aren't so 
burdensome and onerous that even the best-intentioned small business 
person can't even open their enterprise. The only way that is going to 
happen is if we have State, local, and Federal teams working together 
in the fashion that our legislation suggests.
  The suggestion that this can work is, I think, abundantly clear if 
one looks to just existing examples of this going on in the country 
today. In our State of Michigan, under Governor John Engler, we have 
launched several extraordinarily interesting initiatives along these 
lines--one called the Renaissance Zone Concept, which essentially does 
the same thing we are proposing in this legislation; it just doesn't 
have the Federal component. Obviously, the State could not include us 
in the mix. But what the State has done is to say that, within a 
certain number of zones in the State, in economically distressed 
areas--and they range from inner-cities to rural areas, Mr. President--
we will dramatically reduce the burdens of taxes and regulations in 
order to try to stimulate economic development. And we are doing that 
with tremendous results.
  Another approach that is somewhat similar is being done in an effort 
to get people off of the welfare rolls and onto the job rolls. In fact, 
we have a country in Michigan which, because of this kind of State and 
local cooperative effort, the county of over 200,000 people has 
virtually nobody left on the welfare rolls because of the innovative 
approach that is being taken.
  It is time to learn from these ``laboratories,'' these experiences at 
the State level. We believe this legislation moves us in that 
direction. So as we proceed forward with this Renewal Alliance agenda, 
I intend to work very hard on that component of it to find us economic 
empowerment. We want to give the Members of the Senate a chance to 
decide whether or not the business-as-usual approach is the way we want 
to enter the 21st century, or whether we want to augment what we do in 
Federal programs, as well as private sector initiatives, by providing, 
through the legislation we will offer, an opportunity to reduce the 
impediments to starting new business opportunities in our economically 
distressed areas, as well as providing incentives to create more of 
those businesses that obviously provide more people with a chance to 
get on the first rung of the economic ladder.
  Mr. President, let me conclude, because other members of the Alliance 
are here. I thank Senator Coats for his leadership on this. I look 
forward to working with all of our colleagues as we try to move this 
agenda forward this year.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Michigan for his 
invaluable contributions to this effort. I now turn to another key 
member of our Renewal Alliance, someone who has offered additional 
invaluable contributions, for further explanation of the package we are 
introducing, Senator Santorum of Pennsylvania.

[[Page S3718]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania is 
recognized.
  Mr. SANTORUM. I thank the distinguished Presiding Officer for his 
recognition.
  Mr. President, let me thank Senator Coats for his tremendous 
leadership on what is, really, a new paradigm. Those listening to the 
debate on the Senate floor and the discussion of the Renewal Alliance 
agenda--renewal, empowerment, achievement learning for life--may be 
hearing some things for the first time, as to a different approach.
  One of the things that I know Senator Coats talked about and, in a 
sense, schooled many of us in here on this side of the aisle and on the 
other side of the aisle, I might add, is the importance of 
understanding the problems of this country, the real intractable 
problems, the ones that we sort of don't believe that there are any 
quick fixes to and are not going to be fixed in Washington. In fact, 
many of us would argue that many were exacerbated by attempts by 
Washington to fix those problems.
  As a result of Senator Coats' urgings, the more I have gotten out 
into the neighborhoods in the last few years--poor neighborhoods, in 
particular, in Pennsylvania--to see what works and what doesn't: What 
are people doing at the local level that is making a difference in 
people's lives, that is taking absolute hopelessness and despair and 
turning it into productivity and optimism?
  What I see is that, almost without exception, they are not Government 
programs and, almost without exception, they don't take Government 
dollars because, in so doing, it would corrupt what works for them 
because the Government would have some way of dictating to them how 
this program must work or what hoops they must jump through. And they 
have designed a program that meets the needs of the people in that 
community, designed by people in that community who have, in many, if 
not most, cases experienced the same kind of hopelessness and despair 
before they arrived where they are today--in a state of now helping 
those come out of the problems they have.
  So what I have learned from my discussions with those very people is 
that we need to look here in Washington as to how we can help them, 
help them do the mission--and it is a mission, it is not a job. I don't 
know of anybody I have met in these communities who is making any 
money, who is getting a good night's sleep at night, who is profiting 
in any real financial way from, or any tangible way from, their work, 
but profiting enormously in the intangibles that are, frankly, the most 
satisfying.
  It is a true labor of love for people in these communities, whether 
they are in the economic development area, or in the community 
development area, or in dealing with homelessness, or abused women, or 
doing a charter school, or running a small parochial school. Whatever 
the case may be, these are people who are convicted, who care deeply--
not about education, not about homelessness, not about drug abuse; they 
care about that person sitting across the table from them. It is not a 
macroissue. It is a one-to-one, person-to-person challenge to save 
someone's life. They do it because they care. They do it because they 
love that person. That is the magic that no Government program can 
provide.
  What Dan Coats, Spencer Abraham, and Sam Brownback--those of us who 
are members of the alliance having looked into the eyes of those who 
care, not those who appropriate money here in Washington who say we 
care, but those who are there across the table shedding the tears, 
holding the hands, embracing those in real pain, those people who 
care--how can we help them? How can we help the world ministries, the 
real healing agents of our society to solve those intractable problems 
that, believe it or not, they solve, and do so so well? How did we help 
them do it better? How can we help them turn more lives around and 
replicate the great accomplishments they have made to so many 
neighborhoods? There isn't a neighborhood in America where there is not 
at least one person or one organization--whether it is a school or 
whether it is a rehab center or whether it is a homeless shelter or a 
soup kitchen--that isn't touching and changing people.
  We have come forward with this agenda that is not, as the speaker 
said before, a Washington-based solution to the problem. But it is, in 
fact, a way that Washington can, one, get out of the way; two, maybe 
help with some of the things in a legal sense to get out of the way; 
three, give financial resources to those organizations that need those 
resources to either help the community or help the economy; and, next, 
give resources to the hands of parents and children so they can have 
the opportunity to hope through an education that gives them the tools 
to be able to be successful in our society.
  But I am going to focus my couple of minutes more to talk in the area 
of education. I cannot tell you the number of employers I talked to 
just within the southeastern Pennsylvania area the other day, 
Philadelphia. Employer after employer, factory or industry, they told 
me how they desperately need skilled people. They desperately need 
people who are even semiskilled who can be trained. There are such 
shortages in the workplace today. Then I asked--the unemployment rate 
in the city of Philadelphia, the center city, or in Chester, or in 
Levittown, or places like that is very high, and there is available 
work? They say, ``Yes, there is. We have job fares. We ask people to 
apply, and they don't.'' I said, ``Why don't they?'' They said, ``Well, 
by and large, they don't have the education. They can't, in many cases, 
fill out applications, or they just simply don't have the education 
necessary to even meet what is a minimal skilled job.''
  The jobs are there. But we just do not have people who are educated 
enough to take advantage of those opportunities. That is, in fact, a 
shame, and, as a result of a variety of factors, a breakdown in the 
family, the breakdown in the community, and, yes, the breakdown of the 
educational structure.
  There are lots of things we can do to solve the first two problems 
that have been talked about. I am going to talk about the third, which 
is the breakdown of the education structure. I am not going to profess 
to you I have the answer--the silver bullet to make public education 
work in America's poor neighborhoods. I do not have a silver bullet. I 
can sit up here and suggest a variety of things that may or may not 
work to solve that intractable problem in educating poor students in 
poor schools. I do not have that answer off the top of my head. What I 
do have is a solution that will give children and families the 
opportunity to send their child to school where they can get a good 
education tomorrow. We have to step back and say, ``Well, is that good 
enough?'' Some may say, ``Senator, you are not solving the big problem 
tomorrow in public education in the poor neighborhoods of our 
country.'' I will answer, You are right. I am not. I am not going to 
solve that problem tomorrow. But what I am going to start to do today 
is to give that young person who may have a dream, or that mother or 
father who sees the spark in that young child's eye and believes that 
spark can lead them to somewhere in life if given the educational 
tools. I am going to give them the chance to get that child a chance. 
That is all we can do right now--to give them a scholarship, to send 
them to a school where they will have the opportunity to see that spark 
catch fire, to feed them what they need to take on the world.

  Our program, called Educational Opportunities for Low-Income 
Families, is to provide scholarships through existing block grants that 
go to the States right now. We would allow that block grant to be used 
for scholarships to go to low-income children and 185 percent of 
poverty and below in the poorest neighborhoods in our country so that 
it will give low-income kids in poor neighborhoods the opportunity to 
have a scholarship that pays up to 60 percent of the cost of their 
tuition and would give them the opportunity to go to school and learn. 
I think it is a great opportunity for us to help one child at a time. I 
believe that in the long run helping one child at a time and giving 
that choice will, in fact, cause dramatic reforms in the whole 
educational system in those communities.
  I have been given the high sign here. I will follow my chairman's 
lead. Again, I thank Senator Coats for his tremendous leadership on 
this.

[[Page S3719]]

  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, it is very difficult to ask the Senator 
from Pennsylvania to wrap up his remarks because he, obviously, has 
such a deep-felt and heartfelt passion for these issues. I appreciate 
his work with us. We are under some time constraint.
  I now turn the floor over to the Senator from Kansas, Senator 
Brownback, who has also been a very key instrumental member of the 
development of this package.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished Senator from Kansas is 
recognized.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Thank you very much. Mr. President, I am delighted to 
be able to work with the distinguished Senator from Kansas, who is 
presiding today, and also the distinguished Senator from Indiana, who 
has put forth this new alliance. It is a cadre of members who are 
putting forth these points that we think have not been sufficiently 
debated nor brought forward in the overall debate in America about what 
we should do about the crying issues of poverty that has so hit and 
harmed our Nation in so many places, both urban and rural.
  More than 30 years after the United States first declared the War on 
Poverty, most signs point to failure. The United States has spent 
hundreds of billions of dollars--by some accounts we have spent nearly 
$4 trillion--to fight poverty only to find poverty in America has grown 
more widespread, more entrenched, and more pathological. The solution 
is not to expand more Government but rather to go a different way, and 
to say, ``Look, we have tried that route. We have spent nearly $4 
trillion trying that route. We have tried every program you possibly 
can with that route. Maybe there is another way that we should be 
going.''
  This is what the Renewal Alliance, this program, is about--about 
rewarding self-help and not Government help. It is about encouraging 
charity rather than encouraging Government. It is about encouraging 
volunteerism rather than putting more people on the taxpayer rolls to 
solve problems that we have failed to be able to solve. Family 
breakdown, crime, poor education performance, and a lack of opportunity 
in the inner cities, and many other areas, including many rural areas, 
are now national problems. But many of the solutions are to be found on 
a local level and not in Washington, through personal contacts that 
people can make between individuals and the dedicated involvement of 
families, churches, schools, and neighborhood associations. These small 
groups, not big Government, but rather small groups, often referred to 
as the ``little platoons'' in a civil society, can often accomplish 
what no Government program could dream of or ever been able to do. They 
have the soft hearts and the willing hands to be able to reach out and 
touch people directly in a community where they are in there with the 
families working with them.

  Last December, I had the chance to visit several of these small, 
private charities in my home State of Kansas. To me, they are living 
proof of the amazing effectiveness of small, local charities that lead 
with heart, that lead with love.
  Mr. President, in this very body, in this very room, as you enter 
into the main doorway coming in here, there is a sign above the door 
mantle which reads ``In God We Trust.'' As I visited these small 
charities in Kansas, I was reminded at that time and was thinking about 
how many people say that versus how many people do that. These are 
charities, which ``In God We Trust'' they live every day.
  I visited Good Samaritan Clinic in Wichita, which serves around 300 
patients a month from Wichita's poorest neighborhood. This tiny clinic 
operates on less than a shoestring budget. With the exception of a fax 
machine and one piece of furniture, everything in the clinic is 
donated. The clinic's staff, a dedicated and accomplished group of 
doctors, are mostly volunteers. They are reaching out and touching 
people, and helping and healing people with their skills and with their 
hearts.
  I visited the Topeka Rescue Mission and the Union Rescue Mission of 
Wichita, both of which serve thousands of people each year.
  These missions are not merely assigning people to bunks, but they 
challenge them personally and spiritually, and they are challenged to 
change their hearts and their souls along with helping them out in 
their lives.
  I visited the Crisis Pregnancy Outreach Program in Topeka and a 
maternity home in Wichita and saw firsthand the love and personal 
attention devoted to each woman who passes through those doors.
  Contrast that with the large Government solution that we have tried 
for the past 30 years that gets millions of people flowing through the 
door but constantly keeps them flowing back out the door and never 
really changes things in a person's life, continues to hand them 
something but doesn't put arms around them and hug them, doesn't put 
arms around them and give them heart and soul and say, ``Here is my 
phone number; call anytime.''
  It is not that we don't have a lot of good and dedicated servants; we 
do, but they are limited in what they can do. This is a mission for 
them. They must not see the number of people who are walking through; 
they must see a soul at a time. They must see another and another, to 
reach out and touch and help them. We need to encourage these groups 
and not discourage them.
  As the past 35 years of our history has shown, the Federal Government 
is limited in its capacity to solve the problems of poverty and 
pathology, But it can eliminate perverse incentives that reward 
irresponsibility and fuel the flight of capital from the inner cities, 
and it can encourage entrepreneurialism, charitable giving and 
investment in the inner cities and its inhabitants, investment in the 
inhabitants of those areas and rural areas as well. It can do these 
things and it should. And through the renewal alliance REAL Life 
legislation, it will.
  That is why I am delighted to be associated with the Senator from 
Indiana in this package that we have put forward. It is a different 
way. It is a way that people every day are proving can and is working, 
and we need to encourage it and lift it up and move it forward. I am 
delighted to be a part of this legislation.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Kansas for his 
invaluable support and effort in helping craft this legislation.
  Mr. President, I know the time allocated to us is just about up.
  I send to the desk three pieces of legislation, one that I am 
introducing, another that Senator Abraham is introducing, and a third 
that Senator Santorum is introducing, all of which encompass the three 
major components of the renewal alliance package. I would ask for its 
immediate referral.
  Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent if it is possible--a 
qualified unanimous consent request--to have these numbered 
sequentially since these three pieces of legislation are part of a 
package. If it is possible, we would like to have them numbered 
consecutively.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there an objection? The Chair hears none, 
and the bills will be so numbered. They will be received and 
appropriately referred.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I believe that wraps up our time. I think 
the Senator from Iowa is in the Chamber prepared to speak within a 
moment or two. Let me ask unanimous consent for 2 additional minutes to 
wrap up.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 2 additional remaining on his 
time.
  Mr. COATS. That is propitious then. The Senator will take all 2 of 
those minutes. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, in summary, let me state that what we are attempting 
to accomplish here is a third alternative. We believe that the well-
intentioned, well-motivated programs of the past, at great cost to the 
taxpayers, have failed to successfully address some of the most 
difficult social problems facing our Nation, and particularly problems 
facing low-income urban communities where in many situations nothing 
but crime and drugs are the prevalent activities of those 
organizations. By the same token, the argument that no Federal policy 
is the best policy to address these problems is something that we as a 
group cannot accept.
  We think this third alternative, providing REAL Life meaningful 
solutions to the areas of community renewal, economic empowerment and 
educational opportunities for low-income families offers real hope. It 
does so not through Government organizations,

[[Page S3720]]

Government structures or even significant Government funding. It does 
so by encouraging those community volunteer, nonprofit, often faith-
based organizations that already exist and should exist in greater 
numbers to take a much greater role in addressing these problems. We 
want to make the Federal Government not the dominant partner but a 
junior partner, an entity that can assist through the provision of Tax 
Code changes, primarily tax credits and other incentives, to encourage 
individuals and other organizations to contribute to these nonprofit 
groups to allow them to do a better job. They have demonstrated success 
at an efficiency rate and at a cost-effectiveness that far exceeds 
those current programs in place.
  Are we calling for a dismantling of the safety net? No, we are not. 
We are calling for a better use of dollars, a better commitment, 
stronger commitment to organizations which have demonstrated real 
success in providing hope to individuals, transformation and renewal of 
communities.
  Mr. President, I believe the time is probably expired, and with that 
I yield the floor and encourage my colleagues to take a look at the 
REAL Life Renewal Alliance initiative which we are happy to provide and 
discuss with our colleagues.
                                 ______