[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 47 (Tuesday, April 3, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3351-S3353]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. BAYH (for himself, Ms. Snowe, Mr. Graham, Mr. Lieberman, 
        Mrs. Lincoln, Ms. Landrieu, Mr. Kohl, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Breaux, 
        Mr. Rockefeller, Mrs. Clinton, and Mr. Carper):
  S. 685. A bill to amend title IV of the Social Security Act to 
strengthen working families, and for other purposes; to the Committee 
on Finance.
  Mr. BAYH. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation that 
will increase a working family's chances to remain self-sufficient and 
off of Welfare. Given the dramatic decline in the welfare caseload 
since 1996, the question remains whether individuals leaving welfare 
will remain off welfare. In order to fortify the successful welfare 
reform efforts of the last five years, I along with a bipartisan group 
of Senators have brought together a legislative package designed to 
honor work, personal responsibility and strengthen a family's chance to 
stay self-sufficient.
  The Strengthening Working Families Act includes six initiatives 
designed to support the efforts of families who have made it off 
welfare, but are at risk of falling backward--especially in a weak 
economy. The provisions of the package include: (1) Promotion of 
Responsible Fatherhood; (2) Distribution of Child Support Directly to 
Families;

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(3) Expansion of the EITC for Larger Families; (4) Restoration of the 
Social Services Block Grant; (5) Encouragement of Employer-sponsored 
Child Care; and (6) Reauthorization of The Safe and Stable Families 
Act.
  The Strengthening Working Families Act provides those who are trying 
to be responsible with a hand-up, not a hand-out. It honors our values, 
in this case the values of work and self-sufficiency, and strengthens 
families who take responsibility for their children emotionally and 
financially.
  This proposal to support continued personal responsibility comes as 
the first stage of welfare reform ends and Congress prepares to tackle 
welfare's hardest cases in the 2002 reauthorization of Temporary Aid to 
Needy Families, TANF. Since the welfare system was reformed to require 
that individuals take responsibility for themselves and their families, 
caseloads have declined. After peaking at 5.1 million families in March 
of 1994, the number of families on welfare has declined by more than 
half, to 2.2 million families in June of 2000. The employment rate for 
single mothers has increased from 57 percent in 1992 to almost 73 
percent in 2000. Even among those remaining on the welfare rolls, work 
has increased sharply, from about 8 percent of adults in 1994 to 28 
percent in 1999.
  This is a fiscally responsible approach that will be good for 
families and good for American taxpayers. As Governor, I reformed 
welfare in Indiana. In 1994, we spent $247.8 million in Indiana on 
direct welfare payments to families. By the year 2000, we reduced that 
number by sixty-six percent, to $83.8 million. If you help people find 
work and dignity, they become self-sufficient.
  A number of recent studies show that between 18 percent and 35 
percent of those who leave welfare return to the rolls, however. While 
these rates are reflective of a good economy with ample employment 
opportunities, the next few months will indicate what will happen to 
the welfare rolls during a slowing economy. Many of those who left the 
rolls are in jobs sensitive to economic downturns: 46 percent are in 
the service industry and 24 percent work in retail.
  The total cost of the package is estimated at $11.5 billion; 80 
percent or $8.5 billion of which is directed in tax cuts for working 
families and small businesses. The administration's budget blueprint 
includes funding for two titles of this bill: Title I, the fatherhood 
programs, were included at $64 million a year, $315 million over five 
years; as well as Title VI, the child welfare program, in its entirety.
  In particular, Title I of the bill which promotes responsible 
fatherhood mirrors S. 653, The Responsible Fatherhood Act of 2001, a 
bill I introduced earlier this Congress with Senator Domenici. Many of 
America's mothers, including single moms, are heroic in their efforts 
to make ends meet while raising good, responsible children. Many dads 
are too. But an increasing number of men are not doing their part, or 
are absent entirely. The decline in the involvement of fathers in the 
lives of their children over the last forty years is a troubling trend 
that affects us all. Fathers can help teach their children about 
respect, honor, duty and so many of the values that make our 
communities strong.
  The number of children living in households without fathers has 
tripled over the last forty years, from just over 5 million in 1960 to 
more than 17 million today. Today, the United States leads the world in 
fatherless families, and too many children spend their lives without 
any contact with their fathers. The consequences are severe, a study by 
the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency found that the best 
predictor of violent crime and burglary in a community is not the rate 
of poverty, but the rate of fatherless homes.
  The Responsible Fatherhood Act of 2001, does three primary things to 
help combat fatherlessness in America. First, it creates a grant 
program for state media campaigns to encourage fathers to act 
responsibly. Second, it funds community efforts that provide fathers 
with the tools necessary to be responsible fathers. Finally, the bill 
creates a National Clearinghouse to assist states with their media 
campaigns and with the dissemination of materials to promote 
responsible fatherhood.
  I want to thank Senator Snowe for her leadership on this bill. With 
her support not only does each individual piece of this legislation 
enjoy bipartisan support, the entire package is bipartisan. In 
addition, I want to thank Senators Bob Graham, Joseph Lieberman, 
Blanche Lincoln, Mary Landrieu, Herb Kohl, Tim Johnson, John Breaux, 
Hillary Clinton, John Rockefeller and Thomas Carper for their support.
  This bipartisan package to promote personal responsibility will allow 
us to continue to discuss the successes of welfare reform. I urge my 
colleagues to support this important legislation.
  Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, I rise today as a proud cosponsor of the 
Strengthening Working Families Act of 2001. I would like to thank 
Senators Bayh and Snowe for working so diligently to put this package 
together. I am pleased that my Child Care Infrastructure Act is 
included, and I believe it will go a long way towards providing working 
families the tools they need to succeed.
  That's because this bill is based on a simple premise: that working 
couples who decide to have a family should not be penalized because 
they both must keep working.
  Unfortunately today, many working parents today do not have access to 
an essential tool for success at work: quality child care. According to 
the Children's Defense Fund, the average annual cost of child care can 
be more than the average annual cost of public college tuition. And 
nothing adds more to these high costs than the dramatic shortage of 
quality child care in this country.
  Increasing the supply of child care has clear benefits, for children, 
their parents and businesses. Research on the brain has proven the 
importance of early childhood programs to a child's chances of long-
term success in school and in adult life. I have visited many employer-
sponsored child care centers in Wisconsin, and they are so often state-
of-the-art facilities that significantly enhance early childhood 
education. And just as importantly, parents are more productive at work 
when they know that their children have safe, reliable child care.
  This bill is aimed at increasing the supply of child care for working 
families. We provide a 25 percent tax credit to businesses who are 
willing to take actions to increase the supply of quality child care, 
including the construction and operation of an on-site or near-site 
child care center, or providing child care subsidies for their 
employees.
  Increasing the supply of affordable child care is just one part of 
the fight to help working families succeed, and this bill makes 
businesses a true partner in that effort.
  I am also pleased that the Strengthening Working Families bill also 
includes ``The Child Support Distribution Act,'' which is similar to 
legislation I've been working on since 1998, the ``Children First Child 
Support Reform Act''.
  This bill takes significant steps toward ensuring that children 
receive the child support money they are owed and deserve. In Fiscal 
Year 1999, the public child support system collected child support 
payments for only 37 percent of its caseload, up from 23 percent in 
1998. Obviously, we still need to improve, but States are making real 
progress. It's time for Congress to take the next step and help States 
overcome a major obstacle to collecting child support for families.
  There are many reasons why non-custodial parents may not be paying 
support for their children. Some are not able to pay because they don't 
have jobs or have fallen on hard times. Others may not pay because they 
are unfairly prevented from spending time with their children.
  But other fathers don't pay because the public system actually 
discourages them from paying. Under current law, over $2 billion in 
child support is retained every year by the State and Federal 
governments as repayment for welfare benefits, rather than delivered to 
the children to whom it is owed. Since the money doesn't benefit their 
kids, fathers are discouraged from paying support. And mothers have no 
incentive to push for payment since the support doesn't go to them.

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  It's time for Congress to change this system and encourage States to 
distribute more child support to families. My home State of Wisconsin 
has already been doing this for several years and is seeing great 
results. In 1997, I worked with my State to institute an innovative 
program of passing through child support payments directly to families. 
Preliminary results show that when child support payments are delivered 
to families, non-custodial parents are more apt to pay, and to pay 
more. In addition, Wisconsin has found that, overall, this policy does 
not increase government costs. That makes sense because ``passing 
through'' support payments to families means they have more of their 
own resources, and are less apt to depend on public help to meet other 
needs such as food, transportation or child care.
  We now have a key opportunity to encourage all States to follow 
Wisconsin's example. Title II of the Strengthening Working Families 
bill gives States options and strong incentives to send more child 
support directly to families who are working their way off, or are 
already off, public assistance. Not only will this create the right 
incentives for non-custodial parents to pay, but it will also simplify 
the job for States, who currently face an administrative nightmare in 
following the complicated rules of the current system.
  We know that creating the right incentives for non-custodial parents 
to pay support and increasing collections has long-term benefits. 
People who can count on child support are more likely to stay in jobs 
and stay off public assistance.
  This legislation finally brings the Child Support Enforcement program 
into the post-welfare reform era, shifting its focus from recovering 
welfare costs to increasing child support to families so they can 
sustain work and maintain self-sufficiency. After all, it's only fair 
that if we are asking parents to move off welfare and take financial 
responsibility for their families, then we in Congress must make sure 
that child support payments actually go to the families to whom they 
are owed and who are working so hard to succeed.
  Last year, a House version of this bill passed by an overwhelming 
bipartisan vote for 405 to 18. We must keep the momentum going in this 
Congress, and finally make child support meaningful for families. 
Again, I want to thank Senators Snowe and Bayh for working with me on 
this issue and for including it in this package.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I am proud to join my colleagues in 
supporting the Working Families package to invest in a series of 
bipartisan initiatives to support and encourage families that are 
``playing by the rules,'' but struggling to make ends meet as they 
raise their children.
  This legislation combines key legislative proposals to help working 
families, including a targeted expansion of the Earned Income Tax 
Credit, EITC, for families with three or more children. It is simple 
common sense that parents with more children need more help in making 
ends meet. This bill would give the most needy families up to $496 more 
in the EITC to help working families live with dignity. Our legislation 
also includes key provisions to streamline and improve the EITC, which 
is one of our most effective programs to combat child poverty.
  Another key component of this package would reauthorize and expand 
the Safe and Stable Families Act with an additional $200 million a 
year, as proposed by President Bush. I helped to create this program in 
1993 with Senator Bond, and it was expanded and improved in 1997 as 
part of the Adoption and Safe Families Act. Since this act became law, 
we have dramatically increased the number of adoptions from foster 
care. Therefore, we need to increase funding for adoption services and 
to help the children and their new families overcome the years of abuse 
and neglect. Further, the bill would improve the Chafee Independent 
Living program by offering a $5000 scholarship to teens from foster 
care to encourage them to attend college or pursue vocational training. 
Abused and neglected children are among the most vulnerable in our 
society and they deserve our support and care.
  For many years, I have worked closely with Senator Graham and a 
bipartisan coalition to restore funding to the Social Service Block 
Grant, a flexible program to enable states to provide support for needy 
children, families, seniors and the disabled. During the welfare reform 
debates, we promised flexibility to the states and full funding of the 
Social Services Block Grant at $2.38 billion, and we should keep that 
promise and restore funding.
  Providing provisions to improve our child support system to get 
payments to the families first has been a longstanding priority for me. 
Fatherhood is a major issue for our families, and from my work on the 
National Commission on Children over a decade ago, I know that children 
do best in families with committed, caring parents. Investing in 
quality child care is an obvious concern as we continue our efforts on 
welfare reform and face the challenges of our new economy in which most 
mothers work.
  We should be working together to help our children and our families, 
so I hope that we will be able to promote this package of bipartisan 
initiatives that are targeted to some of our most vulnerable families, 
who are working hard but need help to raise their children with 
dignity.

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