[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 89 (Wednesday, June 29, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H5372-H5376]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TANF EXTENSION ACT OF 2005
Mr. HERGER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the
bill (H.R. 3021) to reauthorize the Temporary Assistance for Needy
Families block grant program through September 30, 2005, and for other
purposes, as amended.
The Clerk read as follows:
H.R. 3021
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``TANF Extension Act of
2005''.
SEC. 2. EXTENSION OF THE TEMPORARY ASSISTANCE FOR NEEDY
FAMILIES BLOCK GRANT PROGRAM THROUGH SEPTEMBER
30, 2005.
(a) In General.--Activities authorized by part A of title
IV of the Social Security Act, and by sections 510, 1108(b),
and 1925 of such Act, shall continue through September 30,
2005, in the manner authorized for fiscal year 2004,
notwithstanding section 1902(e)(1)(A) of such Act, and out of
any money in the Treasury of the United States not otherwise
appropriated, there are hereby appropriated such sums as may
be necessary for such purpose. Grants and payments may be
made pursuant to this authority through the fourth quarter of
fiscal year 2005 at the level provided for such activities
through the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2004.
(b) Conforming Amendment.--Section 403(a)(3)(H)(ii) of the
Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 603(a)(3)(H)(ii)) is amended
by striking ``June 30'' and inserting ``September 30''.
SEC. 3. EXTENSION OF THE NATIONAL RANDOM SAMPLE STUDY OF
CHILD WELFARE AND CHILD WELFARE WAIVER
AUTHORITY THROUGH SEPTEMBER 30, 2005.
Activities authorized by sections 429A and 1130(a) of the
Social Security Act shall continue through September 30,
2005, in the manner authorized for fiscal year 2004, and out
of any money in the Treasury of the United States not
otherwise appropriated, there are hereby appropriated such
sums as may be necessary for such purpose. Grants and
payments may be made pursuant to this authority through the
fourth quarter of fiscal year 2005 at the level provided for
such activities through the fourth quarter of fiscal year
2004.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
California (Mr. Herger) and the gentleman from Washington (Mr.
McDermott) each will control 20 minutes.
[[Page H5373]]
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California (Mr. Herger).
Mr. HERGER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 3021, the TANF Extension
Act of 2005, as amended. This legislation will extend for 3 additional
months certain welfare programs, including the Temporary Assistance For
Needy Families and child care programs within the Committee on Ways and
Mean's jurisdiction, so those programs would continue to operate at
their current funding levels through September 30, 2005.
Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman
from Iowa (Mr. Nussle), the distinguished chairman of the Committee on
the Budget and a member of the Committee on Ways and Means.
Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to enter into a colloquy with
the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), the distinguished chairman
of the Committee on Ways and Means, and the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Barton), the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Energy and
Commerce.
Under the fiscal year 2006 budget resolution, it is necessary to
offset the cost of the Transitional Medical Assistance extension, TMA.
It is my understanding that the gentleman from California has agreed to
extend TMA for an additional 3 months as part of this welfare extension
bill. It is my further understanding that the gentleman has agreed to
include this provision, with the understanding that the Committee on
Energy and Commerce, which has jurisdiction over the TMA program, will
bear the cost of this and any subsequent extensions.
I yield to the gentleman from California to determine whether or not
that is his understanding.
Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is correct in his
understanding. The Transitional Medical Assistance is an important work
support for low-income families making the transition from welfare to
work. Therefore, it is important that we are here today to continue
this program.
Let me remind the House that the House has extended TMA nine times
since the welfare reform law expired in 2002. In the course of these
extensions, the Committee on Ways and Means has been charged with more
than $500 million in costs associated with extending the TMA program,
which is, as the chairman correctly noted, under the jurisdiction of
the Committee on Energy and Commerce.
Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I appreciate the
gentleman's willingness to continue this important program as he has in
the past.
I would like to ask the distinguished chairman of the Committee on
Energy and Commerce to further clarify how this TMA extension and
future TMA extensions will be handled by the House.
Is it the gentleman's understanding that the TMA extension and future
TMA extensions will be paid for with offsets under the jurisdiction of
the Committee on Energy and Commerce that are in excess of the savings
required under the budget resolution?
I yield to the distinguished chairman to find out if that is his
understanding.
Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman's understanding is
correct. This TMA extension and any further extensions will be offset
with savings in addition to those required by reconciliation.
I would note that the proper place to address a TMA extension beyond
the next 3 months would be in the context of Medicaid reform as part of
reconciliation. However, the committee that I chair reserves the right
to include these offsets in other legislative vehicles, as necessary.
Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I would like to thank
both of these distinguished chairmen for their cooperation. I would
commit, on behalf of the House Committee on the Budget, that when this
bill and subsequent extensions of TMA are offset as part of the
reconciliation or other legislation, the Committee on Ways and Means
will be held harmless for the cost of this and any future extensions of
TMA.
Mr. HERGER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, this will be the 10th extension of these programs since
the original authorization of the 1996 welfare reform law expired in
2002. That law produced remarkable results. Work among welfare
recipients doubled. The poorest single-mother families reported a 67
percent increase in their real earnings between 1995 and 2002. Single
mothers' real wages continued to increase during the 2000-2004 period,
despite the 2001 recession and terrorist attacks.
Despite predictions of welfare reform opponents that the 1996 welfare
bill would increase poverty, the number of children in poverty fell by
more than 1 million. The black and Hispanic child-poverty rates hit
record lows. Welfare caseloads fell 60 percent to their lowest levels
since 1965. Welfare funds stayed constant, and child care funds grew,
even as caseloads plummeted. Taxpayer resources per family on welfare
more than doubled from $7,000 per year to $16,000 per year today.
In 2002 and 2003, the House passed comprehensive welfare reform
legislation that would have extended these programs for a full 5 years.
That legislation also included modest adjustments designed to encourage
and support more work, higher incomes, stronger families, and less
poverty. These House-passed bills offered up to $4 billion over 5 years
and added child care funding to support more work.
Unfortunately, our friends in the Senate did not follow suit, and so
we have been forced to come to the floor with repeated short-term
extensions.
Mr. Speaker, it is important that we continue these programs, and I
urge all Members to support this legislation. But while we mark time,
we are missing out on many ways to help even more low-income parents
and families leave welfare for work. We must do more to encourage
States and local communities to support strong, healthy families.
The subcommittee I chair has, once again, approved legislation that
tracks the comprehensive welfare reform bill of the House that the
House passed before. I expect in the coming months the full committee
on Ways and Means and this House will once again act on comprehensive
welfare reform legislation as part of the budget reconciliation
process. Regardless of the process, our goals remain the same: to
encourage and support more work, less poverty, and stronger families.
Mr. Speaker, I believe this process of continued extensions of
welfare programs is finally nearing an end. I look forward to working
with our Members to get this done so more families can know the dignity
of collecting paychecks instead of welfare checks.
{time} 1100
In the meantime, I urge support of the legislation before us that
continues these welfare programs in their current form.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, these are going to be the two classic glass-half-empty/
glass-half-full speeches because the chairman has told you the good
things that have happened, and there are some. But, today, we have two
bad choices in front of us. The first is to support this BandAid
approach that has temporarily continued the funding for TANF and the
child care development block grants for yet another 3 months. The other
alternative is to abandon our most vulnerable citizens until the
Republican majority accepts its responsibility to chart a new course
that provides a helping hand, not a slap on the wrist.
Now, I deplore these kind of crossroads at which we stand. Ten times
in the last 3 years we have stood right here, as we do today, the lives
and welfare of the disadvantaged hanging in the balance. At a time like
this, America should shine. Instead, the Republican majority strains
the needs of our most vulnerable citizens to the breaking point.
Ten temporary extensions over 3 years should send the House a clear
and unmistakable message. We need to treat America's disadvantaged as
first class citizens by charting a new course for the long-term
reauthorization of the TANF program.
On this Republican watch, the House has taken up hopelessly divisive
bills that have drawn the condemnation of mayors, governors, welfare
directors, religious leaders and poverty experts.
[[Page H5374]]
Time and again, the Republicans have tried to terminate Federal
responsibility by replacing State flexibility with unfunded mandates
and changing the focus of welfare reform from real jobs to make-work.
Nothing good comes from this approach.
Instead, this wrong path has led to legislative gridlock. Those who
suffer most are those who most need our help. The disadvantaged need
our compassionate ideas and commitment to promote reforms that will
help them leave welfare and actually escape poverty. This goal is
particularly important when you consider that an additional 4.3 million
Americans have fallen into poverty over the last 3 years for which we
have data. In 2003 alone, almost another 800,000 children fell into
poverty. Now, that should be a rallying cry, driving us to act.
But, instead, the Republicans use the misfortune of some Americans to
suggest that poverty is rising because welfare recipients are not
working hard enough. That is just wrong. It is callous and cold-
hearted. The problem is not the unwillingness of people on welfare to
work. The problem is too many of those leaving welfare are not finding
work, or they are finding jobs that do not lift them out of poverty. We
could, of course, help by providing more child-care assistance, job
training and a higher minimum wage, but the Republican leadership and
the President have resisted such reforms. Instead, the Republicans try
to sell the same worn-out threadbare suit of clothes again.
It happened again in March when the majority unveiled their new 3-
year old idea from the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources.
Nothing has happened since. Nothing, leaving many to believe the
Republican leadership intends to include the welfare legislation as
part of the upcoming budget reconciliation bill rather than considering
it as a separate measure. Such a process will make it harder to provide
the necessary investments in child care because Republicans know the
budget reconciliation process is meant to cut programs, not improve
them. And that is just fine by the Republican leadership because they
do not believe working families deserve any more help for child care.
Like so much from their leadership, the rhetoric does not match the
reality.
According to data from their own HHS, Health and Human Services
Department, only about a quarter of the children who are eligible for
child-care subsidies under State eligibility criteria actually receive
assistance. This fraction drops to roughly one out of seven, if you use
the Federal eligibility standard for daycare assistance. The data does
not lie. We are falling short in helping low-income families meet the
challenges of raising a family and at the same time going to work.
President Bush's response to this problem is to make it even worse.
His proposed 2006 budget shows the number of people receiving child
assistance will decline, decline by 300,000 over the next 5 years. So
the administration is proposing even greater work requirements for
welfare recipients at the same time that the President proposes cutting
child care. So much for a helping hand.
My friends on the other side of the aisle suggest their bill is
modestly more generous on child care than the administration's budget.
However, that Republican package, in reality, underfunds child care
assistance by $10.6 billion over the next 5 years. That is their
calculation.
Republicans want to outsource Federal responsibility to the States
without a dime more to address a $10 billion deficit. That leads
nowhere except forcing States to face deep cuts in child-care
assistance for the working poor.
Mr. Speaker, there is a better way. We have proposed legislation that
gives the States the flexibility and the funding needed to move welfare
recipients into real jobs and out of poverty. It is the right thing to
do, and this is the right time to do it. And with that hope, I support
this temporary extension of the current law. I will not abandon
disadvantaged Americans at the very time they need us most.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. HERGER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I would like to remind the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott)
that, during the last several years, we have passed out of this House
two bills, both of which have offered as much as $4 billion more for
child care, both of which the gentleman from Washington opposed.
I might also mention that welfare case loads during this period of
time of this legislation has fallen by 9 million, from 14 million
recipients in 1994 to fewer than 5 million today. Again, the proof of
the pudding is in the eating.
I think it is very clear how incredibly successful this program has
been, and we need to move forward to make it even more successful.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Maryland (Mr. Cardin).
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. Speaker, let me thank the gentleman from Washington
(Mr. McDermott) for yielding me this time.
Mr. Speaker, I must tell you, I am extremely disappointed. In 2002,
the TANF law expired. This is the tenth temporary extension. These are
missed opportunities. The Democrats believe that we should extend the
TANF bill. But we should stop trying to micromanage from Washington,
one size fits all, and we should provide resources necessary for our
States to be able to lift American families out of poverty.
Our objective in TANF reauthorization should be to lift families out
of poverty, yet the bills that have passed this body that the chairman
of the committee has referred to fails to incorporate lifting families
out of poverty as a core requirement of TANF.
We should be providing education and training to the mothers leaving
welfare so that they can move up the economic ladder, yet the bills
that have passed this body have restricted our States in their ability
to provide education and training to the people on welfare.
We should be providing safe and affordable child care so that
families can, in fact, move up the economic ladder and accept
employment opportunities. Yet the bills that have passed this body have
provided inadequate funds for child care. We have provided more
mandates, $11 billion more needed in child care alone, yet the bill
that passed this body provides only $1 billion, an unfunded Federal
mandate. We can do better.
If we really want to lift families out of poverty, let us sit down
now. Stop stalling. Let us work together, Democrats and Republicans, so
that we can have a TANF reauthorization bill that will help American
families out of poverty rather than the bills that have passed this
body that will step backward.
Mr. HERGER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I would like to remind, again, those who speak detrimentally of this
legislation that, since their opposition to this, no additional $4
billion for child care over the next 5 years has been able to have been
offered. No assurance for full TANF funding through 2010 has been able
to be available, that would be available in this legislation. No
assurance of supplemental grants for low benefits in poor States. No
assurance. And it goes on and on.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McDERMOTT. I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr.
Cardin).
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. Speaker, let me just point out to the gentleman from
California, we have worked together when he was chairman and I was
ranking member. I would just urge the gentleman to sit down and try to
work out a bill that represents the views of all people of this country
and all 435 Members of this distinguished body.
I would point out very clearly that, the last time I checked, the
Republicans controlled both the House and the Senate and the White
House since 2002, and yet we have been unable to pass a TANF
reauthorization bill.
Stop placing blame. Let us sit down and work together. Give us a
chance to sit at the table, and you are going to have a much better
bill that will help American families escape poverty and will give the
resources necessary to the States so that they can get the job done and
will provide safe and affordable daycare, child care for the families
that need it.
In my own State of Maryland, the only way you can get child care is
to go on welfare. That is the wrong message. Let us get it done right.
[[Page H5375]]
Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from
California (Ms. Woolsey).
(Ms. WOOLSEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her
remarks.)
Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, here we go again. Instead of making the
TANF law better, instead of giving welfare recipients the tools needed
to move from welfare to self-sufficiency, we are once again extending a
bill that has continuously moved people from welfare into permanent
poverty.
Why are we not making education or training count as a work activity
for welfare recipients so that individuals can receive the skills they
need for jobs that actually pay a livable wage, jobs that pay above the
poverty level?
Why are we not providing quality available child care that includes
care for infants and for weekend and evening workers to help welfare
parents keep their jobs and become self-sufficient, because if parents
do not have a safe convenient place to leave their children, they
cannot go to work? And if they do, they can really concentrate on their
job. Believe me, I know because, over 35 years ago, I was a single
mother with three small children. My children were 1, 3 and 5 years
old, and their father financially abandoned us. Even though I was
working full-time, I needed welfare to keep our lives together. But it
was not until my mother moved to our town and I could have her take
care of the children during the day that I could pay 100 percent
attention to the work that I was doing. As soon as she moved into town,
I was promoted to management in my company because I did not have one
ear and eye home and one at the job. And then when I got home, I was
100 percent there for my children. But when I was at work, I was 100
percent at work.
So I was promoted to management, and later, I worked my way off
welfare and off poverty. Eventually, I started my own business, and now
I am a seven-term Member of the House of Representatives. Let me tell
you, I am not sure any of that could have happened without the help and
the leg up that I received from the welfare system. And believe me, I
have paid back into the system many, many times over, and so have most
of the women who have been given a chance for a higher education, who
have been given the support of a good child care system to help them
stay in the work force so that they can achieve.
So why are we wasting our time extending something that has moved
welfare recipients, yes, out of welfare, but yes, into poverty with an
idea they may never be able to move out of poverty because they have
not gotten the assistance that they need? They will pay back to the
system many times over, I promise you.
Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from
Michigan (Mr. Levin).
(Mr. LEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
{time} 1115
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, as mentioned, this would be the 10th
extension. And everyone has the right to ask, why another extension,
instead of our buckling down and being able to pass a welfare reform
bill.
There is an effort, I think, to blame the Senate. I do not think we
forget who controls the Senate. But let us forget about that. Because I
think the main problem is the approach of the House majority, and when
it comes to this as has been true of so many other programs, it is
their way or no way. And so far when it comes to further work on
welfare reform, it has been no way.
Now, that may be better, and I think it is, than what they have
proposed here; but still we should be able to, as I said, buckle down
and tackle this issue. We have not done so.
There has been zero effort by the Republican majority in this House
to sit down with Democrats and see where we go from here. Zero.
There has been success under welfare reform as we passed some years
ago. There have been some successes. The rolls have been cut in half
and the majority of those who are leaving welfare have worked since
they left. And two-thirds now of the people receiving welfare or TANF
are engaged in work. But the problem is that so many of them are not
moving up the economic ladder.
These are the government figures: 60 to 70 percent of those who have
moved from welfare to work, 60 to 70 percent are essentially earning at
the poverty level or worse. In contrast, those who leave welfare and
move into higher starting wages were 40 percent more likely to be
working 2 years later, and those receiving child care assistance, the
same way.
So some years ago we worked, President Clinton proposed it, there was
passage by the House and Senate. He vetoed it twice because there was
inadequate child care, inadequate health care. The Congress, with a
number of us working on it, paid attention to those and it passed on a
bipartisan basis. But there is no effort to move to another stage of
welfare reform, and that is to make sure that it is structured so that
people can move off welfare into jobs that do not lead them into
poverty.
Instead, the Republican majority here has proposed not moving people
off welfare into work that takes them out of poverty, but emphasizing
or talking only really about those who are on welfare and moving into
work regardless of the consequences. And we in the minority here have
proposed bills that would continue State flexibility which would be
taken away by the majority here and would reward States if they moved
people off welfare into good-paying jobs. They would take care of the
technical problems with health care, transitional Medicaid and also
would restore full funding to the Social Services block grant.
So in a word, I say to the chairman of the subcommittee, instead of
simply extending this bill because you are unwilling to sit down on a
bipartisan basis and work on further important welfare reform, I urge
you to instead of just kind of stonewalling, sit down with us and see
if we cannot do still better.
Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, it really speaks volumes that there is no one who wants
to come out here and talk about what happens to ordinary people here in
this country.
The last election was one in which people said the issue was whether
people had values or not. The values that the Democrats have stood for
for 70 years, really since the Depression, were a minimum income for
everyone.
Now, let us start with the minimum wage. We have not raised the
minimum wage in this House since 1997. We raised our own salary
yesterday 2 percent or whatever it was. I do not know. But the people
at the bottom have not had an increase since 1997.
We take a young woman who has got a kid and got out of high school
and did not graduate, and we send her out and say, go get a job, go get
a job; and she gets a job at minimum wage which amounts to about 50
percent of the poverty level. That is not a value that I support.
Housing is another value that we should be talking about. These
people are struggling to find a place to live in the city close to
their job. In Seattle you cannot find very many places inside the city.
As we gentrify the centers of the city, the people have to move out
farther and farther and farther to the point where the bus lines
require a couple of hours to get into the city to work at a minimum-
wage job.
Health care, another value. There should not have to be a colloquy
over here about whether we are going to provide health care for these
people. We know that we need a workforce that is healthy. We need
people going to work who are healthy, and we need children who are
healthy who can go to school and learn and become part of an educated
workforce. To fail these children in their earliest years is to present
ourselves with a problem. Maybe not us, because we will not be here
when the kids who are on welfare today become a problem for the
Congress, but 20 years from now people are going to say, why did we not
have health care?
The reason we wound up with a school lunch program in this country
was because when they went to drafting people in the Second World War,
they had so many recruits that had nutrition-related diseases that they
had
[[Page H5376]]
to reject them. And so, Mr. Truman, it was not some big-hearted thing,
he started the school lunch program so that we would have healthy kids.
And yet we are still questioning whether these youngsters, we are
putting the pressure on the States to make cuts in welfare in every
single jurisdiction.
The chorus of hollering is going to start when these bills start
passing and State governments have to deal with what we have put out
there as an insurmountable problem for them, a mandate from us that
they have to find the money for.
Finally, education of kids. That is a value. You want kids to have an
education. You want parents to have an education. Kids follow the model
of their own parents. If we do not help these people on welfare get an
education, if we make it an insurmountable task, the kids do not see
their own mother or own father get an education.
My belief is we can do better than this, and I hope when we pass a
permanent bill we will.
Mr. HERGER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, in 2002 and 2003 this House passed long-term
reauthorization legislation to encourage more work among welfare
recipients and to provide more resources for States to assist low-
income families. And I have heard several on the other side, my good
friend from Washington, talk about values, talk about Democrat values,
Republican values. He spoke about the amount of funding.
Let me just mention that under the Democrat values of the programs
that we had twice as many who were on welfare than were on welfare
today because caseloads were cut in half during our current legislation
while Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, TANF, funds were fixed
and child care funds grew, Federal funds per TANF families more than
doubled. As a matter of fact, in 1996 the average family under the old
Democrat plan had $6,934 average approximate per family. In 2004 these
same families had $16,185 because the program was block granted, and it
was an equal amount of funding coming in and it was not reduced.
This, Mr. Speaker, would be the 10th extension of these programs
since 2002. However, I believe this process of continued extensions of
welfare programs is finally nearing an end. I expect that the House
will soon act on and pass comprehensive welfare reform legislation as
part of the budget reconciliation process. But until that happens, it
is important that we continue these programs and we do need to pass
this bill today. Therefore, I urge all of my colleagues to support this
legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Latham). The question is on the motion
offered by the gentleman from California (Mr. Herger) that the House
suspend the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 3021, as amended.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds having voted in favor
thereof) the rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________