[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 87 (Thursday, June 29, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6793-S6794]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. BAYH (for himself and Mr. Obama):
  S. 3607. A bill to amend title IV of the Social Security Act to 
ensure funding for grants to promote responsible fatherhood and 
strengthen low-income families, and for other purposes; to the 
Committee on Finance.
  Mr. OBAMA. Mr. President, today, I wish to join my good friend, 
Senator Bayh, in introducing the Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy 
Families Act of 2006. This bill addresses a crisis afflicting too many 
communities and shortchanging the opportunities of too many kids in 
America: the absence of supportive fathers.
  If we are serious about breaking the cycle of poverty in America and 
raising healthy kids, we have to get serious about the breakdown of 
families. We can do that without blame or fingerpointing. We can do it 
an openness to new ideas.
  It is the same story all across America. More than a quarter of all 
families with children have only one parent present, and more than a 
third live without their father. And 40 percent of children who live 
without their father have not seen him their father in over a year.
  Many single mothers are doing a heroic job raising their kids. They 
are working two and three jobs, dropping the kids off at school and 
daycare, and, quite simply, being both a mother and a father to their 
children. I appreciate the work of single mothers, because my own 
father was not around during my life, and my mother and grandparents 
had to step up to the plate to fill my father's role. But most people 
would agree that children are almost always better off with a father 
contributing his fair share, and the data shows this. Children are more 
likely to be poor and to do worse in school without a father in their 
life. And a healthy relationship between children and their father is 
important to healthy growth and development.
  The Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act addresses these 
problems by removing government barriers to healthy relationships and 
responsible fatherhood. It improves the economic stability of parents 
who accept their parenting responsibility. Our bill sets a high 
standard for parents and helps them to reach it with incentives, 
support, and tougher enforcement of child support obligations.
  We can't simply legislate healthy families and expect all parents to 
get and stay married. We can't legislate good parenting skills or good 
behavior role models. We can't legislate economic success for all 
families. But we can eliminate some of the roadblocks that parents 
face, roadblocks often created by the government. And we can provide 
some tools to help these parents succeed.
  The first way this act removes governmental roadblocks is by 
eliminating a perverse disincentive to marriage in the Temporary 
Assistance to Needy Families Program. Congress is now telling States 
that they may be penalized for serving married couples. That is the 
wrong message to send. There should be equality for two-parent families 
receiving TANF, and States should not be required to meet a separate 
work participation rate for the two-parent families in their caseload.
  Second, this act makes important improvements to the child support 
system which affects noncustodial fathers as much or more than any 
other government program. We restore funding for child support 
enforcement and we require States to pass the full amount of child 
support collected along to the family. A father is more likely to pay 
child support if he knows that the money is going to his kids. Research 
from States that have implemented a ``full pass through'' confirm this.
  We also require States to review the amount of child support arrears 
that are owed to the State and we clarify existing State authority to 
forgive such arrearages. A father who earns only $10,000 per year, and 
who has $20,000 of child support debt because the State billed him for 
the Medicaid birthing costs of his child, is probably going to work 
underground and avoid paying child support altogether. He needs an 
incentive to get a legitimate job and to begin taking care of his 
family. It is in everybody's best interest.
  States are also providing funding to assess any other barriers to 
healthy family formation or sustainable employment created by their 
child support and criminal justice systems. They are encouraged to 
establish commissions to propose State law changes that would be in the 
best interest of children.
  Another important aspect of this act is fostering economic stability 
for fathers and their families. This act establishes three employment 
demonstration programs. One program is supervised by courts or State 
child support agencies that serve parents who are determined to be in 
need of employment services in order to pay child support obligations. 
The court can arrange temporary employment services for the father 
rather than throwing him in jail for nonpayment of support. The second 
is a transitional jobs program that combines temporary subsidized 
employment with activities that help fathers develop skills and remove 
barriers to employment. The third program establishes public-private 
partnerships to provide fathers with ``career pathways'' that help them 
advance from jobs at low skill levels to jobs that require greater 
skills and provide family-sustaining wages and benefits.
  These programs are modeled on successful initiatives in Indiana and 
Illinois and will be subject to rigorous evaluations to ensure the 
goals are being achieved.
  This bill fixes the earned-income tax credit to increase the 
incentive for fathers to engage in full-time work and paying child 
support obligations. The EITC is one of the most successful anti-
poverty programs because it rewards work and supplements wages that may 
be too low to support a family. Our bill ensures that the work 
incentives under the EITC also apply to noncustodial parents who pay 
child support. To be eligible for the enhanced credit, a low-income 
parent must be working and current on all child support obligations. We 
also accelerate marriage penalty relief for families who receive the 
earned-income tax credit. Perversely under the U.S. Tax Code, these 
families have been the last to get such relief.
  Finally, this bill improves the Responsible Fatherhood and Marriage 
Promotion Programs that were funded by the Deficit Reduction Act. 
Funding is increased and all fatherhood and marriage programs are 
required to coordinate with domestic violence prevention services to 
reduce instances of

[[Page S6794]]

domestic violence and promote healthy, nonviolent relationships.
  This bill takes these steps because Congress needs to get serious 
about the problem of family breakdown. This is a problem that cuts 
across all income levels, religions, races and ethnicities, and 
communities across this country. There is no segment of our population 
that is immune to these challenges.
  But some segments of the population are worse off than others. I 
would like to speak specifically, for a moment, about family breakdown 
in the African-American community--and not just because I, myself, am 
an African American. I am addressing this because I know, as Senator 
Bayh knows, and as most of my colleagues know, that a problem for one 
community is a problem for all of America. Hope deferred for one group 
is hope delayed for us all.
  Around 70 percent of Black children are born outside of marriage. Of 
the 30 percent born to married parents, more than half experience a 
divorce. That means that about 85 percent of Black children spend some 
or all of their childhood in a home without their father. Fewer than 6 
of every 10 young Black men are employed, and in some of our urban and 
rural areas the rate of unemployment is over 50 percent. Roughly one-
third of young Black men are involved in some way with the criminal 
justice system. And young Black men have the lowest educational 
attainment among Black and White men and women.
  These factors contribute to low marriage rates among African-American 
men. But by age 34, nearly half of Black men are fathers. And roughly 
two-thirds of all Black men leaving prison are fathers. I could quote 
statistics all day, but the bottom line is, as hard as some of these 
men try, it is likely that their children will also be denied the 
advantages of healthy parental relationships and married families. 
Their children will be more likely to live in poverty and to become 
young, unmarried parents themselves. Their children's life chances will 
be limited. The cycle of despair will continue.
  But there is reason for hope. At the time of the birth of the child, 
most fathers are close to both the mother and their child. The 
challenge is to maintain healthy relationships between parents and to 
strengthen the early bonds between fathers and their children. The 
challenge is to improve economic opportunity for all parents so they 
can support themselves and their families. The challenge is to break 
the cycle by strengthening America's most vulnerable and fragile 
families.
  That is what this bill does, and it is fully paid for by revenue 
raised by closing abusive corporate tax loopholes and blocking the 
exploitation of tax havens. This is a solid first step forward in 
removing government barriers to healthy family formation, and 
addressing the crisis of fatherhood among our Nation's low-income 
populations. I urge you to support the Responsible Fatherhood and 
Healthy Families Act of 2006.
                                 ______