[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 63 (Thursday, May 16, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H2600-H2601]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             WELFARE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, sometimes it is necessary to 
reflect on the day's legislative agenda to frame for yourself and your 
colleagues and the American people just what occurred. I am 
disappointed today to have to announce that what occurred today was 
both unnecessary and, as well, misguided. Today, the House debated 
welfare reform. It debated it in a rushed atmosphere that was 
completely unnecessary. First of all, the legislation, originally 
called H.R. 4700, now called today 4737, does not expire until 
September of 2002.
  There was much debate on what occurred in 1996, when the President of 
the United States was named William Jefferson Clinton and welfare 
reform came to light in a larger forum. All of the numbers suggest that 
it was a success and we should continue on, and there is no debate on 
that. Certainly there were a lot of strides that were made with 
transitioning individuals from welfare to work. They were proud of 
that. In my own district, I know that I attended a number of graduation 
classes of individuals who had the ability to be in training programs 
that allowed them to develop skills to move them from welfare to work.
  What one would think that we would do today, of course, would be to 
build on that success story, not tear it down. But I heard someone 
today on the floor say, you know, this is about tough love, get them 
out working 40 hours and that is what this is all about. But then I 
heard someone come back and say, this is about tough luck and tough 
loss. It is about condemning poor people, that they have no intent to 
improve themselves, that everybody on welfare is there purposefully and 
does

[[Page H2601]]

not want to work and creates a deficit on society. That is not true. 
Many people have fallen upon hard times. Many people have had hard 
times in their early lives and the cycle is not broken.
  I am so disappointed that we did not do something constructive today, 
that we did not increase the amount of dollars needed for child care. 
It is well known through a study that by the increased work that we are 
now requiring these young women to engage in, that there is a need for 
increasing child care dollars. In fact, in my own congressional 
district whenever I go home, young mothers will come to me and say that 
they are on the waiting list trying to get child care so that they can 
either go to school or go to work. We did not do that today.
  In fact, in my own State, out of the passage of this Republican get-
quick bill that did not need to be passed today, we are going to give 
the State of Texas, along with 50 other States, what we call unfunded 
mandates. In fact, the State of Texas will have $688 million over the 
next 5 years to fund this bill which is not funded. $344 million it is 
going to have to pay for child care, which it does not have, over the 
next 5 years, which is unfunded through this bill, and in the meantime 
in the State of Texas we are going to leave 37,000 women, parents, 
single parents, on the waiting list for child care. What a shame and 
what a sham.
  If we had only been given the opportunity for those of us who are 
concerned about these issues to reasonably debate what these issues are 
about. Let me share with my colleagues some amendments that were cast 
to the side. First of all, if anyone is awake and alert they will know 
that the unemployment rate is going up. In many of our jurisdictions 
people are unemployed. That means the jobs, the make-work jobs, the 
jobs that we used to have in 1996 really are being competed for by 
those that do not have any work. I should know because I am obviously a 
victim in our community, in Houston, from terrible tragedies that have 
occurred, Tropical Storm Allison and in fact, of course, the 
unfortunate circumstances with Enron where I have got 4,000 of my 
constituents still laid off. And around the country. So, therefore, 
this should have been a serious debate.
  Did anyone concern themselves about inflation and whether or not the 
welfare payments are for individuals taking care of children? Remember, 
this bill used to be Aid to Dependent Children. This is not the 
promotion to work bill, which none of us are afraid of. I have worked 
since I was 16 and many others have, but this is about protecting our 
children. The inflation factor, they did not want to add it. What about 
teenage parents? Of course we want parents who are mature. Of course we 
do not want teenage parents. But if you have them and they resort to 
welfare, would you not want them to have parenting skills and financial 
skills?
  How to manage money? Is that not a simple request to add to this 
bill? It was totally discarded by my Republican friends. Then of course 
I have already mentioned the concern for more child care. We had a bill 
on the floor today, an amendment that would have provided us $11 
billion more in child care so that the parents cannot only go to work 
and therefore get off of welfare completely or go to school and get the 
kinds of skills that would allow them to get off of welfare and not 
look back. I cannot imagine why these amendments were not accepted.
  Also we have never had a study, Mr. Speaker, as I close, to find out 
whether welfare parents and the support they get will diminish child 
abuse and whether or not it allows them to permanently stay off of the 
welfare system. We could have done a better job. We could have done a 
better job on behalf of the American people, Mr. Speaker. I am 
disappointed we have not. I hope that we will come back to this 
question again.

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