[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 159 (Tuesday, December 13, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S13491-S13494]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             RECONCILIATION

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I know that a motion to appoint conferees 
has not happened yet on the reconciliation bill, but I understand that 
the majority leader will sometime today be making that motion. It is a 
debatable motion, and obviously an amendable motion. I think there are 
maybe four or five different motions to instruct our conferees 
regarding the reconciliation bill.
  I want to take the time now to talk about it, even though I have an 
amendment, but it is not timely to send the amendment to the desk. But 
I do want to talk about what that amendment will do and why I am going 
to be offering it.
  Basically, it has to do with funding cuts for food assistance 
programs.
  It has been a challenging year for all of us, especially here in the 
Senate. There have been many things upon which this Chamber disagreed. 
We have had some spirited debates and disagreements. The budget debate 
and ensuing reconciliation bill has been one of the most challenging of 
these debates.
  But there are also times when agreement rather than discord 
characterize our proceedings.
  While I disagreed with the underlying reconciliation bill passed by 
the Senate, I was pleased and proud of one of the sources of bipartisan 
agreement that we had both in committee and on the floor. It was the 
decision by the Senate not to cut food assistance programs for working 
Americans, for low-income working Americans.
  The Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry considered such 
cuts. In fact, the President's budget included a proposal to cut the 
Food Stamp Program by nearly $600 million. But after careful 
examination of the Food Stamp Program, after deliberation in the 
committee, both Republicans and Democrats decided against any cuts to 
the Food Stamp Program.
  I commend today, as I did at that time, our chairman, Senator 
Chambliss, for listening carefully to committee members' concerns by 
looking at this and for his conscientious decision not to include any 
such cuts in the committee-passed measure.

  I commend as well many members of both parties who have objected to 
cutting food assistance programs through the reconciliation process.
  There are many reasons food stamp cuts should not be enacted.
  First, the Food Stamp Program is the first line of defense in the 
United States against hunger and food insecurity, providing food 
assistance to nearly 25 million Americans. It is also one of our 
largest child nutrition programs. Eighty percent of food stamp 
benefits--over $23 billion in 2005--go to families with children.
  Another reason cutting food assistance is not appropriate is because 
the need is growing and not diminishing.
  Just recently, a U.S. Agriculture Department study found that 38.2 
million people lived in households that were food insecure in 2004, and 
that the number increased by nearly 2 million between 2003 and 2004.
  Since 1999, the number of individuals classified by USDA as food 
insecure rose by 7 million people. These are significant numbers.
  That any American should live in the shadow of hunger at the dawn of 
the 21st century is shocking and embarrassing. That the number has 
increased dramatically in the past 5 years is unacceptable.
  We have also been reminded of another reason we shouldn't have food 
stamp cuts. We have been reminded by the numerous hurricanes and 
disasters this fall of the tremendous role that the Food Stamp Program 
plays in times of emergency. The Food Stamp Program rapidly provided 
emergency food assistance to approximately 2.2 million individuals 
affected by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma, allowing victims to 
obtain food assistance within days.
  Finally, the Senate Agriculture Committee chose not to cut the Food

[[Page S13492]]

Stamp Program because there is not much to cut. It operates efficiently 
and effectively.
  For 5 years in a row, the error rate in the Food Stamp Program has 
declined to consecutive all-time lows.
  Frankly, if there were fraud, waste, and abuse to go after, I would 
be the first in line to do so.
  I say that because I have been on this Agriculture Committee in both 
the House and the Senate--this marks my 30th year. We have gone through 
a lot in the Food Stamp Program in that time. We have cut and trimmed. 
We have gone from food stamps to an electronic benefits card to cut 
down on fraud, waste, and abuse. It has worked well.
  We have a program that by any measurement operates efficiently.
  The farm bill we passed in 2002 included a major reform to the 
quality control system. Just last year, Congress made improvements to 
Federal child nutrition programs. Again, because of this bipartisan 
approach, which I believe kind of goes back to the Dole-McGovern years 
when they forged an alliance to ensure we had a bipartisan agreement on 
the Food Stamp Program, we have a sound, efficiently, effectively run 
program. There just is not any--I would not say there isn't any, but to 
go after what little abuse there may be would cost more than what is 
happening. We have tightened down on this program over the last 30 
years. There is not much fraud, waste, and abuse to go after, so if 
Congress wants to make any cuts in the Food Stamp Program, they have to 
go after benefits.
  I am pleased to say that was not an option either in the Senate 
Agriculture Committee or that the Senate wanted to consider.
  However, not so across the Capitol. The House of Representatives 
passed a reconciliation bill that makes significant cuts to the Food 
Stamp Program of approximately $700 million. According to CBO, the Food 
Stamp Program cuts contained in the House reconciliation bill would 
eliminate food stamp benefits for at least 250,000 individuals. These 
are mainly working families with children and legal immigrants.
  Right now in the Food Stamp Program, if you are a legal immigrant--
forget about illegal immigrants; illegal immigrants have no access to 
the Food Stamp Program. I hear that all the time, but they have no 
access to it and they cannot get an electronic benefit card. But a 
legal immigrant must be here 5 years before that person can qualify for 
food stamps. That is the law right now. Now, they still have to meet 
standards. In other words, they still have to meet the standards of 
anyone else to be eligible, such as income standards, asset standards, 
and work requirements. They still have to meet these standards. Even if 
they meet these standards, they still have to wait 5 years.
  The House extended it to 7 years. These are legal immigrants. These 
are people we want here. What does the sign on the Statue of Liberty 
say? Give me your tired, your poor. A lot of these people are tired, 
they are poor, but they are here to build a better life. They are 
working, they are legal, and their kids are in school here. Yet we want 
to make it even tougher.
  The second thing they did is they changed the system whereby States 
have said, Okay, if you qualify for Temporary Assistance for Needy 
Families, then you automatically qualify for food stamps. It makes 
sense. In the 1990s we made a change to allow the States to align their 
programs. If you qualified for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, 
then you used to have to go to another office to qualify for food 
stamps. It was twice the paperwork, twice the administrative burdens. 
We said, Why go through all of that? So we made a change that 
streamlined the program.
  The House takes that out. The House bill takes a step backward from 
welfare reform. We put this in there for welfare reform back in the 
1990s; they take a step backward. We tried to change it so we would 
move low-income families from welfare to work.
  One of the provisions was to provide allow TANF recipients to 
automatically qualify for food stamps. The House now takes that away. 
It makes no sense. In fact, it will increase the burden on States. They 
will have to spend more money, and we will probably have to take people 
that now qualify off the food stamp rolls. These are low-income people 
who work and make money who now qualify because they qualify for 
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Yet these are the very people 
for whom we want to build a bridge. We want to get them off welfare and 
get them to work. A lot of times, part of that bridge is food stamps 
and making sure families have enough food to eat.
  So all of the cuts the House made retreat from the bipartisan 
agreements Congress made in recent years to streamline and make the 
Food Stamp Program more effective and to make welfare reform work.
  When the majority leader makes his motion to instruct conferees, I 
will be back in the Senate to offer a motion to instruct conferees on 
the reconciliation conference committee to reject cuts to Federal food 
assistance programs. I might add that we should have a lot of 
bipartisan support. Senator Smith of Oregon and I are joining together 
to offer this amendment to instruct.
  There was also a letter written by a number of Republican Senators 
recently asking that we not make cuts in the Food Stamp Program. I hope 
we can have a strong vote on this. We should have a recorded vote. I 
will ask for a recorded vote to send a strong signal to the House of 
Representatives that the Senate will not accept their food stamp cuts. 
By voting for this motion to instruct, the Senate can show that it 
stands side by side with working families, that we do not want to 
retreat from welfare reform. We do not want to retreat from the changes 
we have made to make this program meaningful and effective.
  I will offer that motion at some point, I hope today--whenever the 
majority leader makes a motion to instruct the conferees.


                                 LIHEAP

  There are a couple of other items on which there will be motions 
made. There will be a motion offered by Senators Collins and Reed, 
again, to instruct conferees to add $2.92 billion in funding for the 
Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. That is the amount required 
to bring LIHEAP up to its authorized level.
  The House reconciliation bill provides an additional $1 billion for 
LIHEAP. Unfortunately, because of the way the program works, my home 
state of Iowa would not receive additional funding under the House 
bill. My State of Iowa gets pretty darn cold, I can tell you. Last 
weekend I was out there, and it was 6 above zero.
  In contrast, the level of funding provided in the Reed-Collins 
amendment provides an additional $24 million for LIHEAP in Iowa, money 
that I can say is desperately needed.
  Last weekend when I was out there, I met with some families who have 
applied and have been qualified for LIHEAP. There was one woman with 
two children who lives in a rented house. She gets no child support 
from her husband. She works full time every day. The kids go to school. 
She has a low-income job. She qualified for LIHEAP at $319.
  I mentioned that later on to someone, that I met this person who 
qualified for $319 LIHEAP. This individual said to me: Well, that is 
pretty good; that will take care of her heating bills for the month. 
But it is $319 for the year. A year. For Iowa, that means you have to 
buy heat in October, November, December, January, February, March, 
April--6, 7 months. That is $319 to help pay heating for 7 months. This 
individual thought that was for 1 month. I said: No, no, that is $319 
for the year. And the price of natural gas--we heat with natural gas in 
Iowa--has gone up 40 percent in the last year. This program is 
desperately needed.
  According to the Hawkeye Area Community Assistance Program in 
southeast Iowa, LIHEAP funds are likely to run out in mid-January, one 
of the coldest months of the year. Last week, I held a discussion in 
Spencer, IA, to hear firsthand from some citizens. Again, I want to 
tell you, these people are not just concerned about the high cost of 
home heating; they are in panic.
  Now, because of a State law, they are not going to have utilities cut 
off. But in order to qualify and pay their bills, they may have to cut 
other necessities, such as medical care, prescription drugs, clothes, 
other things.

[[Page S13493]]

  One of the women I spoke with is on disability. She is on an ``even 
pay'' program. This is where you pay the same amount every month so you 
do not get hit with a big bill in the wintertime. Last year, with 
LIHEAP assistance, she paid 9 percent of her income on heat--9 percent 
for heat. This year she figures it will be about 13 percent. Her ``even 
pay'' monthly bill--get this--last year was $39 a month. This year it 
is $68 a month, a 75-percent increase. This is a person with a 
disability, living alone, trying to heat her house.
  For another woman, her even-pay bill was $72 a month last year. This 
year it is $84 a month. The testimony I listened to from these women is 
backed up by hard data. According to a statewide Iowa survey, more than 
20 percent of households receiving LIHEAP report going without needed 
medical care or prescription drugs--1 out of 5. More than 10 percent 
reported going without food in order to pay their heating bill. And I 
can tell you the numbers are going to skyrocket this winter.
  Last winter, about 86,000 Iowa households received an average of $317 
in LIHEAP assistance. Keep in mind that is for the year. Most years, 
everyone who applies gets some level of assistance. But this year we 
are not so certain of that.
  Community services agencies are being deluged with calls from 
panicked senior citizens and others who simply do not know how they are 
going to stay warm. Many have had their utilities cut off and they 
cannot make the past-due payments to get them turned back on. Others 
are being threatened with cutoffs just as we head into winter.
  Of course, the catch-22 situation most people do not understand is 
that you cannot qualify for LIHEAP if your gas or electricity has been 
cut off. Let's say you did not make your payments this summer, so they 
did not connect you back up. You cannot qualify for LIHEAP now.
  The other thing is a lot of low-income families who live in a small 
town or rural area, such as I do, heat their home using propane. I have 
a propane tank outside my house. That is how we heat our houses in 
small towns. Well, when they deliver propane, you pay for the whole 
thing at one time. That is unlike natural gas, for which once you have 
it coming in, they cannot cut you off. If you cannot pay your propane 
bill, you do not get it delivered. That hurts poor people in small 
towns such as mine. That is another thing we have to remember as to 
people who live in small towns and communities who heat their homes 
with propane.
  We can do better. We need to boost the LIHEAP funding. I hope the 
motion that will be offered by Senator Collins and Senator Reed to 
instruct the conferees to add $2.92 billion in funding for LIHEAP will 
again be supported by an overwhelming majority of the Senate.
  Mr. President, there is one last one. A motion will be offered by 
Senator Kohl to instruct conferees to reject cuts in the Child Support 
Enforcement Program. Again, in the Senate last month when we debated 
the reconciliation bill, I offered a sense-of-the-Senate amendment 
opposing the House's drastic plan to gut the successful child support 
program--a $4.9 billion cut. The Senate accepted it on a voice vote, 
which around here is tantamount to unanimously accepting something.
  It is not right, it is not ethical, it is not moral to cut a program 
that gave crucial funds to over 17 million children last year. But the 
bill approved by the House would slash funding for child support 
enforcement efforts by 40 percent over the next 10 years.
  Again, CBO estimates that as a result of these cuts, more than $24 
billion in delinquent payments will go uncollected in the next 10 
years. This is money that goes directly to feed and clothe children. 
The biggest negative impacts will be felt by children living in poverty 
and children in low-income households. In my home State of Iowa, it is 
estimated that collections will drop by more than a third in the first 
year.
  Now, keep in mind, this is not Government money going out for child 
support. This is the Government money we send out to States to help 
them collect child support from deadbeat dads. I think that is 
something we all support. Yet if you take away the funding that helps 
them go out and collect it, CBO estimates $24 billion will go 
uncollected in the next 10 years.
  For families in poverty who receive child support, those payments 
account for an average of 30 percent of their income.
  Why is the House doing this? Why would the House want to pull the rug 
out from underneath our efforts to collect child support payments--
child support payments that benefit the most vulnerable, disadvantaged, 
neglected children in our society? Well, they are doing it in order to 
make room for yet another $60 billion in tax cuts--tax cuts that 
overwhelmingly benefit our wealthiest citizens.
  Child support payments helped lift more than 1 million Americans out 
of poverty in 2002. As a result of what the House did, many of these 
people--and these are mostly children--will go back into poverty. This 
is cruel. It is counterproductive. Talk about penny wise and pound 
foolish. Because you take this away, these families will fall back into 
poverty. They then will end up on food stamps, Medicaid, TANF, 
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, other forms of public 
assistance--unless you cut those, too. And guess what. The House bill 
cuts food stamps, cuts Medicaid, disconnects the food stamps from the 
TANF program. Think about what the House is doing here.
  According to the Office of Management and Budget, for every $1 we 
spend on child support, $4.38 is recovered for families in child 
support payments. Not a bad deal. The President even praised this 
program.
  Reforms have made the program effective. Since 1996, there has been 
an 82-percent increase in collections. With the House cut, deadbeat 
parents get off, kids suffer, and the goal of self-sufficiency becomes 
less attainable for more custodial parents trying to stay off of 
welfare.
  Cutting this program is outrageous. I urge my colleagues again to 
send a loud and clear message to the House and the American people that 
the Senate will not accept these cuts in the Child Support Enforcement 
Program.
  Again, I wanted to talk about those three. Now I will offer one 
motion with Senator Smith. Senator Kohl is going to offer another. 
Senator Reed of Rhode Island and Senator Collins will be offering 
another.
  Last evening, we met, conferees met on the Labor, Health and Human 
Services, Education appropriations bill. As you know, the Senate passed 
their version. The conference was abysmal in that the House insisted on 
all their provisions. It went back to the House. The House defeated it. 
So we went back to conference again last night.
  I pointed out that there are three avenues of cuts that are going to 
hurt low-income families right before Christmas, at least Christmas to 
those of us who are of the Christian faith. Think about what is 
happening right before Christmas.
  We are going to cut programs for some of the most vulnerable of our 
citizens in the Labor-HHS appropriations bill. We are cutting Head 
Start. We are cutting assistance programs in health. We are cutting 
programs such as LIHEAP that give people a little hope that they will 
have enough money to pay their fuel bills. We have all these cuts 
coming in the Labor-HHS bill.
  But that is not the end of it. We now have this reconciliation bill 
that is going to cut the very things I talked about--the child support 
enforcement program, Medicaid, food stamp cuts. So we are going to 
whack the poor right before Christmas with the Labor-HHS-Education 
appropriations bill. We give them another backhand in the 
reconciliation bill, if we take what the House has. And then there is 
one more coming. It is my understanding that the DOD appropriations 
bill will have a 1-percent across-the-board cut in these discretionary 
programs, another cut to the most vulnerable of our citizens.
  So right before Christmas, we say to the poor in this country, to the 
low-income families working and struggling to pay their heating bills, 
keep their families together, trying to make it through the winter: 
Hang your stockings. And guess what this Congress is going to put in 
them. Three lumps of coal.
  That is what we are doing to the poor. I can't believe we are doing 
this right before Christmas. Yet right before Christmas, we are going 
to try to enact a tax cut of which over 50 percent goes to people 
making over $1 million. If my figures are right, I think

[[Page S13494]]

less than 7 percent of the money in the tax cuts goes to people making 
less than $50,000 a year. Ninety percent goes to people making over 
$100,000 a year. The most vulnerable people work for the minimum wage, 
people who are making 8 bucks an hour. Guess what that is a year? That 
is 16,000 bucks a year. Try feeding two or three kids on that.
  I don't understand how we can do this at this time of year. I don't 
understand how we can do it at any time of year. But you would think 
now our consciences would bother us in making these kinds of cuts. It 
is almost as if this Congress is trying to rewrite Charles Dickens' 
``Christmas Carol.'' Remember Scrooge in the ``Christmas Carol'' has a 
change of heart at the end and sees clearly what the spirit of 
Christmas is all about. It is as if this Congress is rewriting Charles 
Dickens' tale and Scrooge does not have a change of heart right before 
Christmas. It is as if this Congress, if we proceed down this path--and 
it looks as though that is where we are headed--truly will be the 
Scrooge who is stealing the food from young kids, taking away hope that 
low-income families have, destroying the hope a lot of low-income 
families have. All for more tax cuts for some of the most privileged 
people.
  We all have friends, a lot of friends who make a lot of money. I 
don't hear them clamoring for these tax cuts. In fact, what I hear them 
saying is: Why are you doing this? Why don't you take care of the 
business of the country? Why don't you do something about education and 
health care and getting people out of poverty and getting people jobs 
and getting people work? That would be a better use than giving the 
rich a few more dollars with which to buy another diamond or a 
wristwatch that costs $25,000. I saw a wristwatch advertised in the 
paper for $25,000. Why would anyone buy a wristwatch for $25,000. All 
it does is tell the time.
  I have a watch. It might have cost me about 75 bucks. I have had it 
for 10 years. I had it repaired once.
  I don't mind if people who have a lot of money want to spend it that 
way. But why are we cutting the taxes for these people and then, to 
make it up, cutting food stamps? It would be one thing if you could say 
with a straight face: We have to do it to cut the deficit. But guess 
what. Under this reconciliation bill the deficit goes up, not down. So 
with the tax cut we get a bigger deficit. And then we are still cutting 
food stamps, Medicaid, LIHEAP, and a number of other programs that are 
out there that help low-income people.
  I hope at this time of year especially we will think long and hard 
about what we are doing around here and that we will come to our 
senses. The Senate has acted well. We acted in a good, bipartisan 
fashion to do these things. I hope tomorrow when we vote on the various 
motions to instruct, we will have that same bipartisan approach as we 
had before. Hopefully, there will be a new spirit across the Capitol in 
that House Members will agree to go along with the Senate provisions 
and not cut food stamps and LIHEAP and the child support enforcement 
program, among a number of others.
  We await the majority leader making his motion. Until that point, I 
yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I come to the floor to advise the American 
public. We just heard a very eloquent talk by the Senator from Iowa on 
the motion he plans to offer to instruct conferees on food stamps, but 
I think it is very important that the American people recognize that 1 
out of every 19 people in this country who receive food stamps receive 
them illegally. In other words, they are not eligible.
  In this motion to instruct, it states in No. 5:

       The Food Stamp Program operates efficiently and effectively 
     with its error rate at an all-time low.

  It is at an all-time low. It is 6.64 percent. In other words, 1 out 
of 14 who are getting food stamps have an error associated with what 
they are receiving, or 1 out of 15 or 16. But in terms of overpayments, 
5.5 percent of the money spent, $1.6 billion, is spent on food stamps 
to people who don't qualify.
  An easy way for us to control food stamps is to make the error rate 
less--in other words, to do a better job--instead of to gloss over and 
say we don't have a problem here and it is running efficiently and 
effectively. Anybody else in their own personal budget, if they were 
paying out 5.5 percent more than what they should be, would be quick to 
change that.
  The Federal financial management oversight subcommittee which I chair 
had a hearing this year. It is true, they have reduced the error rate 
some. But a 6.9-percent overall error rate is unacceptable, and a 5.5-
percent overpayment rate is highly unacceptable. In a time of 
tremendous budget deficits, in a time of war, and a time of natural 
disasters that have hit us greater than we have ever seen, accepting 
5.5 percent and saying we can't do better is unacceptable. It is 
unacceptable by everybody who lives by a budget out there who is an 
American citizen. For us to have a motion to instruct to say that is 
good, that is effective, that is efficient, it is not the truth.
  We need to be cognizant of the fact that we have a long way to go to 
help those people who need us with food but at the same time to not 
help those people who are cheating the system, who are squandering 
money that would otherwise go to people who have needs when those 
people who don't have needs are stealing from the system. I think it is 
important for the record to reflect that.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, this budget is about choices. We in 
Congress can choose to protect Medicaid, the Federal safety net for 
over 50 million Americans, by supporting the Baucus motion to instruct.
  Or we can turn our backs on the millions of working families who 
would otherwise be uninsured without the Federal guarantee of Medicaid 
benefits by giving States the green light to charge more in monthly 
premiums than are charged in monthly premiums under Medicare; by 
allowing Medicaid cost-sharing that can grow six times faster than 
wages; by permitting States to provide fewer Medicaid benefits to 
recipients in rural areas than those offered to recipients in urban 
areas; and by asking hospitals, pharmacists, and other health care 
providers to continue to participate in the Medicaid program even if 
they cannot cover their costs.
  If the Senate recedes to the House on Medicaid, then we will begin to 
undo one of the most important social programs of our time. And people 
and health care providers in our respective States will suffer greatly. 
In West Virginia, nearly 20 percent of our State's population--over 
350,000 people--depend on Medicaid for access to health care.
  Not only is it unfair to consider such draconian changes to the 
Medicaid Program in the context of meeting an arbitrary budget number, 
it is also unwarranted.
  Some of my colleagues have argued that Congress must reduce spending 
in Medicaid in order to decrease the Federal deficit. I would remind my 
colleagues that this budget does not decrease the Federal deficit. 
Instead, this budget could increase the Federal deficit by $10 to $20 
billion over the next 5 years. And that is not even considering the 
cost of adding more tax cuts.
  Even more important is the fact that there are other options on the 
table besides Medicaid that provide more than enough savings to meet 
the $10 billion budget target set by Congress. Reducing Medicare 
overpayments to HMOs saves nearly $12 billion over 5 years alone.
  America has a moral obligation to take care of its most vulnerable 
citizens. Programs that help low-income working families improve their 
lot in life should be the last resort when it comes to balancing the 
budget.
  Not supporting this motion to instruct fails our Nation's pregnant 
women, children, the elderly, and the disabled.
  I urge my colleagues to support this motion to instruct. The quality 
of life of 50 million Americans depends, on it.




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