[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 52 (Wednesday, May 1, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H1999-H2002]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page H1999]]
                         RETHINK WELFARE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, as we are moving rapidly towards 
reauthorization of TANF and as we continue to talk about welfare 
reform, and we continue to try and figure out what that really means, 
what is it that we are talking about? What is it that we are attempting 
to accomplish?
  Well, it seems to me that one of the pieces that is often left out of 
the puzzle is there is conversation about movement but not necessarily 
conversation about movement away from what. It seems to me that any 
time we talk about that issue, that we really ought to be talking about 
the reduction and ultimate elimination of poverty. And so we talk about 
these as social issues, but in reality, they are really economic 
issues. And often we do not talk about the economic implications. We 
point out all of the difficulties of disadvantagement. We point out the 
numbers of people, two million of them in our criminal justice system, 
who are locked up in the Nation's prisons and jails, or we will talk 
about the 40 million-plus people who do not have health insurance, or 
we will talk about those folk who lack decent housing, or people who 
live in disadvantaged areas.
  And when we get right down to the bottom of it, it all revolves 
around the issue of poverty. Who are those who have and who are those 
who have not. Who are those who have more than they need and others who 
have not enough.
  And so the question becomes, how do we balance the equation? How do 
we mix up the goods, services and resources of our Nation so that all 
of our citizens can try and live out the American dream of a decent 
house, a place to live, the ability to send their children to a good 
school, to send their children to college, for children to grow up, 
have their own families, and continue to progress?
  When I think about it, it is almost incongruous that the America of 
the 21st century is home to millions of family who have left welfare 
but are worse off economically, because many of the State governments 
are not spending the Federal funds that were intended to help these 
individuals transition into work or to take care of their children. To 
my mind, it is an America where child poverty that remains at a 
historic high, with nearly one out of every five children in the United 
States of America living today in poverty after a decade of boom in the 
national economy, where the average person living in poverty is poorer 
today than they were at the beginning of the decade. And that is a real 
contradiction that it is difficult to morally justify; and I must 
confess that I have some difficulty understanding it.
  In my mind, a society which celebrates the reduction in welfare roles 
but ignores the realities that half of those who have left welfare jobs 
have been unable to pay the rent, buy food, afford medical care, or 
keep their telephone or electric service from being disconnected. That 
seems to me to be a serious contradiction.
  It is amazing that here we are, a Nation where at most, 15 percent of 
eligible children have ever been enrolled in Head Start. That is an 
indication that we talk about Head Start, but oftentimes do not provide 
it. But that is a national figure. At most, 15 percent of eligible 
children are served by Head Start. Even worse than that, most Head 
Start programs do not meet the needs of working moms because of 
insufficient hours. Child care for low income families often exceed 35 
percent of the family income. Yet, child care workers are among the 
lowest paid and most poorly trained workers in the Nation. And yet we 
talk consistently about leaving no child behind. We talk about the 
great education system. We talk about all of the resources that are 
being provided. But what we have here is a kind of triple whammy. The 
needs of working families are not met, young minds are left 
unchallenged, and the families of child care workers themselves are 
locked in poverty.

                              {time}  1515

  It is amazing that you will expect a person to devote their lives to 
working with children, providing child care at a day care center or a 
Head Start program and yet they themselves remain poverty stricken for 
so long as they continue to do that work.
  My mind cannot rest when more than 20 percent of adolescents suffer 
from mental disorders, including anxiety, mood disruption, and 
substance abuse. Without new public resource, the problem of mental 
illness among children and youth will not be addressed. So we have all 
of these young children and adolescents growing up with mental and 
emotional problems that never get dealt with, who themselves are headed 
towards a welfare system, and so they will live their entire lives 
never experiencing the fulfillness of the American dream, what America 
is designed to be or yet to become.
  The uninsured rate for children increased from 14.5 percent in 1994 
to 15.6 percent in 1998. For families with incomes of less than 200 
percent of poverty, the uninsured rate increased from 23.4 percent to 
26.5 percent.
  My mind recoils at our growing prison population, which has spawned a 
generation of parentless families and a new source of mass trauma. Our 
prison population is now in excess of 2 million people. More than any 
other developed nation on the face of the earth. More than any percent 
of prison inmates are parents, and so one would have to ask what 
happens to, with, and for these children?
  The result is that 1.5 million children have a parent in prison. Yet 
we have few programs to support these families while the parents are 
incarcerated or in the transition of trying to come back into the 
normalcy of a society.
  Mr. Speaker, as the old saying goes, ``You can run but you can't 
hide.'' No part of our society can escape the consequences of the great 
inequalities which plague us as a Nation. We talk about disparities, 
the difference between this group and another group.
  A report was just released about a month ago talking about the 
tremendous disparities in health status of African Americans, of 
Latinos and other minorities in our country. It is in the national 
interest, in the best self-interest of every sector of our society to 
address these great inequalities and inequities and to address the 
consequences and inequities in a constructive, humane and just manner.
  It follows logically that the problems facing urban America require 
that every sector of our society become a part of the solution, public 
and private, secular and faith-based. When I think about problem-
solving, I often think of what used to be the slogan of the Black 
Panther Party, and I used to think of what they would say. They would 
say, ``You're either part of the solution or part of the problem,'' and 
it really means that every sector of American society must indeed be a 
part of the solution because injustice anywhere diminishes justice 
everywhere.
  So I welcome all of those who rallied to the cause of the most 
vulnerable. My understanding of history suggests that the great 
movements in American history, our struggle for independence, our 
struggle to end the curse of slavery, our struggle for civil and human 
voting rights, our struggle for the equality of minors and women, our 
struggle for dignity in the workplace, have only succeeded when we 
called into action every resource, every heart and every hand of 
goodwill.
  Mr. Speaker, welfare reform in the 1990s proved in a perverse kind of 
way that government does work and it works well. We just had the wrong 
public policy goals. We set a goal of reducing the number of persons on 
welfare and we succeeded. We succeeded spectacularly well. However, our 
failure was in setting the wrong goal.
  We did not set the goal of reducing poverty. We did not set the goal 
of increasing the quality of life or improving health or education 
outcomes. I agree with those who hold that the record of welfare in 
America is a cycle of reducing benefits to force people to work, then 
increasing benefits when the activism of the poor begin to disrupt 
society. Then we cut benefits again to replenish the lower wage pool.
  Let me just tell my colleagues that I am one who believes seriously 
in the concept of work. I believe very strongly in the work ethic, and 
I believe that we work not just to earn a living or to be able to live. 
I believe that we work because through work we demonstrate that we are 
a contributing member of

[[Page H2000]]

the society. We help to perpetuate that of which we are a part of. So 
we work not just to get paid, but we work as a kind of pay for the 
privilege of living in this society.
  I maintain that not only is work a virtue, but it is difficult to be 
fulfilled if one does not feel that they are contributing to experience 
the wholeness of one's being, and so I maintain that it is time to 
break the cycle that we have become accustomed to by 
fundamentally changing the paradigm of our attack on the problem.

  If we look at a problem one way, then we attack it one way. If we 
look at it another way, then perhaps we attack it differently. Let me 
walk through a few of the parameters which define for me where our 
children are today and what reform of our welfare system ought to 
really mean.
  In 1994, 14 percent of all children were receiving welfare benefits. 
By 1999, only 7 percent of children received these benefits. The share 
of poor single mothers in the labor market grew from 39 percent to 57 
percent, while the share of poor married mothers in the labor market 
remained constant at 39 percent.
  There are those who would want to debate the merits and demerits of 
marriages and who want to spend a great deal of time talking about 
welfare reform couched in whether or not people should get married and 
whether or not they should not get married, whether there is coercion 
to get married, whether there are incentives for marriage, and I tell 
my colleagues, I do not believe that people ought to be coerced or 
skyjacked in any direction.
  I also can tell my colleagues that I have no difficulty with the 
concept of marriage. As a matter of fact, marriage is a form of social 
organization, and I believe that where there is more organization, 
there is less chaos. So the first form of organization perhaps starts 
when two people form a union, and then of course the union might get 
larger, there might be other joiners, there might be other members of 
it, and then people expand it and we get something called a family.
  Could my colleagues just imagine what our society would be like if 
there were no families, if everybody just kind of individually went 
their own way, without any of this social organization that comes as a 
result of the union and unification of people, oftentimes beginning 
with two?
  Since the current recession began, and we are still arguing whether 
or not it is over, more than 2 million Americans have lost their jobs, 
and the old rule of last hired, first fired proved itself to be true 
once again, but, of course, that was not anything to not be expected or 
anything out of the ordinary.
  For many form of welfare recipients, there is little or no security 
in the job market. Less than 60 percent of welfare leavers are 
currently working, though as many as 70 percent have had employment at 
some time or another, but only 40 percent have worked consistently. 
Those who do work are likely to earn wages which fail to bring the 
family above the poverty line.
  One group of studies determined that the median earnings in the first 
quarter after leaving TANF for people was $2,526 and in the fourth 
quarter $2,821. About 40 percent of the leavers are not working at all. 
This group is more likely to have less education, less prior work 
history, and greater health problems. They are more likely to face 
problems of domestic violence, which is not necessarily in many 
instances an issue by itself. It is oftentimes an issue that is 
intertwined with other factors that cause people to exhibit this kind 
of behavior.
  They are more likely to be dealing with mental illnesses. Families 
which have been sanctioned have a very high poverty rate, 89 percent, 
according to one study, and after leaving assistance, many families 
lose their food stamps and Medicaid, even though they are still poor, 
and fewer than one-third receive child care subsidies.
  In other words, the support system for low income families is riddled 
with holes. Thirty-three percent of leavers report not enough food, 39 
percent report inability to pay the rent, and 7 percent report having 
to move in with others because of inability to afford housing.
  We know that today 82 percent of new mothers return to the workforce 
in less than 1 year, but only 42 percent are able to work full time. 
Most Head Start programs do not meet the needs of working mothers 
because of insufficient hours. Child care for low income families often 
exceeds 35 percent of their total income.
  So when we talk about our ability to move, the fact of the matter is 
that many of the individuals are in a Catch 22 position, and that 
remains the case.

                              {time}  1530

  In a majority of the States, and in my State, the great State of 
Illinois, the land of Lincoln, the recession has decimated the State 
budget. Illinois now has unpaid bills totaling over $1.2 billion and is 
facing a $1 billion deficit over the coming year. Every program in the 
State budget is vulnerable, including education.
  In the area of education, we have faced for a long time tremendous 
disparities. While average spending nationally is about $6,000, in 
Illinois, and in some other States, spending ranges from less than 
$4,000 to more than $15,000. That is to say, in some school districts 
they are spending $4,000 per pupil; in other school districts they are 
spending as much as $15,000 per pupil. Now, I am not a mathematician, 
and I am not sure I always know exactly what equality means, but I 
guess any way that you cut it, there is something uneven and unequal 
about that equation.
  Since most school funding comes from property taxes, rich communities 
have well-financed schools and poor communities, those most in need of 
supportive programs, have less-than-well-financed schools. Instead of 
focusing on the needs of students with smaller class sizes and 
repairing substandard buildings and providing remedial and before- and 
after-school programs, we are being swept away by the rhetoric of 
testing.
  I spent a little bit of time teaching and serving as a counselor, and 
I can attest to the fact that testing can help teachers, students, and 
parents to understand what materials remain to be mastered, or it can 
be used as an arbitrary and irrelevant standard, in which case the 
curriculum is narrowed to whatever the test is on, and instructional 
time is allocated to whatever is on the test. The result is higher test 
scores but less real learning and a failure to develop the real 
potential of our children.
  As you know, after the great debate, we passed a major reform of 
Federal assistance to education with bipartisan support. What many 
Americans do not know is the refusal of this House, and if we are very 
honest, a very partisan refusal, to pass a budget which provides 
funding for many of the new programs and initiatives. So we have 
programs and initiatives on the books, but it is like saying there is 
still no water in the well; or, in many instances, it would be the same 
as having a brand-new shiny automobile but no gasoline.
  The surgeon general's recent report, ``Mental Health,'' has 
highlighted the critical need for expansion of mental health services 
for children and youth. Many of these children are the very same 
children who need assistance from TANF. They are the children of needy 
families. More than 20 percent of adolescents suffer from mental 
disorders. The report details some of the inherent limits of the for-
profit health system in addressing our mental health needs. Without new 
public resources, the problem of mental illness among children and 
youth cannot and will not be seriously addressed.
  The share of children without health insurance increased from 14.5 
percent in 1994 to 15.6 percent in 1998. For families with incomes of 
less than 200 percent of poverty, the uninsured rate increased from 
23.4 percent to 26.5 percent.
  The CHIP program, Children's Health Insurance Program, is struggling 
because it is not an entitlement program, like Medicaid or Medicare. 
States can cut back on CHIP when budgets face crisis, as we are 
experiencing in my State of Illinois. Medicare and Medicaid have been 
enormously successful in providing health care to their target 
populations; 98.7 percent of seniors have health insurance. We need a 
similar entitlement for children.
  I believe that when it comes to health care, we have to set our 
sights on universal health care and coverage for everybody without 
regard to their ability to pay. There is a new movement afoot to 
develop a consensus

[[Page H2001]]

around a set of family support principles and to find ways to 
operationalize them with regard to public policy. So let me offer just 
as suggestions a few thoughts; and, hopefully, some of these will be 
found in the TANF reauthorization bill once we are finished with it.
  The goal of TANF should be to reduce poverty, to improve the quality 
of life and to enhance the independence of families. The health, 
education, and well-being of every child in America must be protected. 
People in need should receive assistance whenever and wherever they 
need it, and in many forms, not just in face-to-face visits.
  People in need of assistance need to have necessary information and 
the ability to exercise the degree of control they choose over 
decisions which affect them and their lives. Each member of the 
community needs to be unfettered and have access to personal 
information to the status of their community and to the latest advances 
in social and scientific practice.
  Individuals and families should be protected from injury caused by 
the system. The community needs to play a key role in anticipating the 
needs of the Nation and being involved in that. There has to be 
cooperation among programs and professionals. There should be no reason 
to have a maze of programs that people cannot find their way through 
when we have stated and indicated that all of these programs were in 
fact for the benefit of the people.

  So as we reauthorize TANF, we must be serious with ourselves and say 
to ourselves that we know that education is the key, and so there ought 
not to be these restrictions on training for people. Because we already 
know that unless they get serious education and training, there will be 
no jobs in the workplace for them. How do they move from welfare to 
work unless they have the ability to do what somebody else needs to 
have done?
  Lyndon Baines Johnson was supposed to have said one time that we have 
to speak truth to the American people. We have to let them know that 
there is no gain without some pain. So as a Nation we have to adopt 
that same principle, and we have to know that if we are going to 
successfully move people from welfare to work, they must be able to 
convey to others that they are in a position to do for them what they 
need to have done.
  Nobody gives a person a job just because they need to work. I mean, 
there is no such thing as a job in a capitalistic society just because 
somebody needs to work. People are able to acquire jobs because they 
can go into the marketplace with a demonstrable skill, and they can say 
to that marketplace that I can do for you whatever it is that you are 
willing to pay for, and I can do for you what you need to have done.
  A good example: lots of people go to the barber shop, and some of 
them will go there and just sit and engage in conversation and talk and 
have fun. Here the barber is wanting to cut hair because he wants to 
make money. But if people do not need a haircut, they do not just get 
in the chair and say cut my hair because you need to make money. No, 
they get in when they need a haircut or when they need a shave.
  So we have to give people the opportunity to develop the skills that 
they need to go to school, to get educated, to learn technology, 
develop computer skills, to be able to go in the marketplace.
  And then we have to be serious about this whole business of the 
minimum wage. I do not know how you get off welfare and out of poverty 
with a job that pays $6.25 an hour or $6.50 an hour. You certainly 
cannot do it in Chicago. I do not believe that you can do it in New 
York, I do not believe you can do it in Los Angeles, you cannot do it 
in St. Louis, you cannot do it in Philadelphia, and you cannot do it in 
Jackson, Mississippi. The real deal is you cannot do it anywhere in 
this country.
  So we need to seriously, seriously, seriously look at raising the 
minimum wage so that there can be a greater level of sharing of the 
great resources of this Nation.
  Yes, people go looking for something. But when they do, I am reminded 
of the song that Billie Holiday used to sing: ``Them that's got shall 
get and them that's not shall lose. So the Bible say, and that still is 
the rule. Mama may have, Papa may have, but God bless the child that's 
got his own.'' And what we have to provide for the individuals in need 
of assistance is their own computer skills, their own education, their 
own carpentry training, their own sheet metal training, their own 
mechanical training, their own ability to go into the workplace and 
provide for someone that which is needed.
  They ought to be able to get an associate in arts degree in college, 
at the very least. We all talk about how education has been the great 
equalizer, and yet we will restrict how much education and training 
that we are willing to provide for the individuals on TANF.
  We also need to understand where jobs are and what is going on. 
Seventy-five percent of all new jobs in this country are being created 
in what is called suburban America.

                              {time}  1545

  So many of the people who are unemployed live in inner city or rural 
or semi-rural communities. If there are no jobs in those locations for 
them, and we cannot create the jobs for them, then we have to make sure 
that they can get to where the jobs are, which means that we need 
strong transportation access. So in the TANF reauthorization, there has 
to be enough money to get people on welfare, to get the participants 
from where there are no jobs to where there are some jobs.
  I live in a community where we have lost more than 130,000 well-
paying, good manufacturing jobs over the last 30 years. I can go by 
places and point to them and say there used to be 10,000 people working 
here, there used to be 10,000 working here. There used to be 2,000 
people working here. All of those companies are gone. Many of them have 
moved not only out of the areas where they were, but they have actually 
moved out of the country. They have moved to Taiwan, to Mexico, to 
other places in South and Central America. They have gone where the 
labor costs are not the same. And yet the ability to explore it 
continues to exist.
  So when some of the Members of this body talk about trying to make 
sure that there are labor protections and standards so that people who 
work earn enough money to live and so that they have decent places in 
which to work, they are trying to maintain a quality of life to which 
we have become accustomed, and we are saying that other countries ought 
to be able to move in this direction as opposed to allowing businesses 
and corporations and companies to move out in other directions and not 
only diminish the quality of life for those in our own country, but 
also the quality of life for others in places where they would go.
  And so welfare reform is more than just a notion. Welfare reform has 
to provide the necessary support services so that as individuals are 
trying to make this transition, there are people available to help 
them.
  What does that really mean? It means every time we develop a self-
sufficient person, that person can take care of him or herself and 
their family and does not have to look to public resources, does not 
have to go to the public warehouse or public storehouse or do what some 
people call ``feed from the public trough.''
  I believe that America, my country 'tis of thee, that America is big 
enough, strong enough, understands enough, recognizes the need enough, 
that we can provide for all of our citizens, even those who have fallen 
behind, even those who have maybe gotten off track, even those who are 
maybe incarcerated and coming back home this year, like the 630,000 
people who are slated to be released from prisons and jails but do not 
necessarily have warm, inviting communities to come back to that will 
help them readjust, help them to have a solid place to live, the 
opportunity to get training, develop a skill, get a job, work their way 
back.
  That is why I introduced in February something called the Public 
Safety Ex-Offenders Self-Sufficiency Act of 2002, which is not a 
difficult program to understand. Build 100,000 units of SRO-type 
housing over a period of 5 years so that as ex-offenders come back 
home, they will have structured living environments in which to live 
and receive help. And the good thing about it, it does not ask for any 
Federal grants because we model the program after the

[[Page H2002]]

low income housing tax credits, but rather than using the population of 
a State, we use the ex-offender population of the State to determine 
the number of credits that a State would be allocated or would be 
eligible for.
  We think that there are innovative and creative ways of meeting the 
needs of those who are disadvantaged in our society, and we think that 
there are innovative and creative ways of helping structure reform of 
our public welfare system so that it does not recycle people on and 
off, but so that it develops people into solid, self-sustaining, self-
developing citizens who themselves can reach the point where they can 
take care of themselves.
  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to engage in this 
discussion, for the opportunity to express a position and a point of 
view that we have a great opportunity with TANF reauthorization. We 
have an opportunity to help demonstrate that America can become the 
America that it has never been, but yet the America that it can and 
must be, that we can lift even those boats at the bottom.
  I have been told that a rising tide would lift all boats. If we can 
lift people out of poverty, get them off welfare, we also reduce the 
number of individuals in prison. We reduce the number of children who 
are walking and wandering the streets, we reduce the number of those 
who have not been able to experience all of the greatness and the 
goodness of what this United States of America, my country 'tis of 
thee, has the potential for being, has the potential to become. I 
believe, Mr. Speaker, that we will do that. It may take a little longer 
than we hope, but I think we are moving in that direction.

                          ____________________