[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 62 (Wednesday, May 15, 2002)]
[House]
[Page H2501]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page H2501]]
                      CHILDREN ARE BEING NEGLECTED

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Brown) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. BROWN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Owens) to speak about the provision of the welfare bill which 
takes away the rights for education and training so people can move up 
and out of the welfare rolls. Other than that, it sounds like some form 
of regressive slavery.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. That is 
very much a part of the pattern of contempt I have observed in this 
bill. We say we want to put Americans to work and off welfare, meaning 
the mothers of the children. Yet there is a prohibition against higher 
education in the present law. You cannot go into a junior college or 
community college to get an associate degree. That is where the jobs 
are, the technician jobs that pay a decent salary, offer steady and 
continuous work with fringe benefits, and a health care plan. But no, 
we will not allow a welfare mother to use, to go into a higher 
education program.
  Ms. BROWN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I have been elected for 20 years, 
10 years in this House, and in that time period I have seen all kinds 
of welfare. The bill we passed last year, $94 billion to the farmers, 
the percentage of the farmers is 2 percent of the population. I have 
got to ask the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton) because I 
do not know exactly what percentage will the wealthiest farmers get out 
the farmers' welfare bill.
  Mr. OWENS. If the gentlewoman would continue to yield, it is a safety 
net program. It was started the same time that Franklin Roosevelt 
started the Aid to Families with Dependent Children. They were poor 
farmers at that time, but now a farmer may get as much as $390,000 per 
year, and you may participate in the program even if your income is 
$2.5 million.
  Mrs. CLAYTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding, and 
I think the gentlewoman is right, the farm bill was far too generous to 
too few wealthy big farmers. Actually 2 percent of the people farm, 
that is correct. And of those who get resources, 20 percent of the 
farmers get 80 percent of the resources, so the vast majority of the 
farmers do not get what my colleague thinks.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, if the gentlewoman would yield, that means 
that the poor farmers are not getting this safety net benefit for the 
poor. I think this is relevant because now that we are on Temporary 
Assistance to Needy Families Act, suddenly our colleagues have become 
frugal. Suddenly they want to become responsible and prove to the 
public that they are here to protect the treasury. We have already 
given it away to people who need it the least, and now we are 
neglecting needy children in our society.
  Ms. BROWN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I held up this picture earlier, 
and this is Rile-ya Wilson has been missing in the State of Florida for 
15 months. Now we are talking about super block granting the money to 
the State where we have no accountability. In Florida, we have close to 
800,000 children living below the poverty line. That is 22 percent of 
all of the children in Florida. The kids in Florida have double 
jeopardy.
  First of all, we have a President that has given away $500 billion 
and wants to make it permanent as tax breaks to the richest people in 
this country, and then we have a governor in the State of Florida that 
gives the rest of the money away to the businesses. And yet the State 
of Florida, the average worker that takes care of these kids does not 
make $20,000 a year, and they have a roll of between 40 and 100 kids 
that they have to look after.
  The Republicans are very, very good with gimmicks. They have Leave No 
Child Behind, a slogan they stole from the Children's Defense Fund. 
What does that mean? This is the time we need to look at leaving no 
child behind; but are we doing that? No, no. We are talking about we 
cannot afford to take care of our children, but we can afford to take 
care of everybody else but the children. They talk a great talk, but 
they do not walk the walk.
  Mr. Speaker, there are two words to describe what's wrong with this 
welfare bill--Rile-ya Wilson. Right now, there is a 5-year-old child 
from my State missing somewhere in this country because Congress wants 
to give full responsibility to underfunded State agencies without any 
Federal oversight. These super blocks grants allow the States to 
neglect our children.
  Let's look at my State of Florida for an example of what happens when 
States don't take care of our children. There are over 775,000 children 
living below the poverty line in Florida--a staggering 22 percent of 
all children in the State. The welfare rolls have gone down, but, not 
surprisingly, this number has not improved; 77 percent of our fourth 
graders' reading skills are not up to speed. And although almost 20 
percent of our children do not have any health insurance, Florida had 
to return over $30 million in Federal funds for the Children's Health 
Insurance Program in 1998 because the State did not want to match the 
money.
  It is truly an outrage that we today have to debate how much money to 
dedicate to helping our weakest and most vulnerable as the President 
and the Republican leadership wants to permanently extend tax cuts to 
the richest in our country to the tune of $500 billion just in this 
decade and $4 trillion in the next!
  And worse, the children in Florida are doubly penalized because our 
Governor decided to spend the State's money on wealthy businesses 
instead of making sure the state can account for all of its children.
  Our priorities are all wrong when the average worker at the 
Department of Children and Families in my State makes less than $20,000 
a year and handles over 70 cases at a time.

  It is time that we start to think of the children first. What 
happened to ``Leave no Child Behind''? The Republicans can come up with 
lots of catchy slogans, but I've got one for you: Where's the beef? The 
Republican bill does nothing to improve the state of children in this 
country. The Republicans want welfare recipients to work 40 hours a 
week, but where is the money for childcare? This bill does not allow 
parents to receive education in order to end the cycle of poverty that 
they find themselves in. They need an education to get a good job to 
stay off the welfare rolls.
  The proof is in the pudding. Don't just talk the talk--walk the walk! 
Instead of trying to make people all around the country go running to 
the altar to get married, we need to be making sure that the States are 
equipped to take care of our children. We cannot have any more tragic 
cases occur like the one of Rile-ya Wilson.

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