[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 94 (Tuesday, July 18, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H5321-H5327]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SENSE OF CONGRESS REGARDING WELFARE REFORMS
Mr. HERGER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the
concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 438) expressing the sense of the
Congress that continuation of the welfare reforms provided for in the
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996
should remain a priority.
The Clerk read as follows:
H. Con. Res. 438
Whereas the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)
program established by the Personal Responsibility and Work
Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (Public Law 104-193)
has succeeded in moving families from welfare to work and
reducing child poverty;
Whereas there has been a dramatic increase in the
employment of current and former welfare recipients;
Whereas the percentage of working recipients reached an
all-time high in fiscal year 1999 and held steady in fiscal
years 2000 and 2001;
Whereas, in fiscal year 2004, 32 percent of adult
recipients were counted as meeting TANF work participation
requirements, significantly above pre-reform levels;
Whereas earnings for welfare recipients remaining on the
rolls also have increased significantly, as have earnings for
female-headed households;
Whereas single mothers, on average, earned $13.50 per hour
in 2004, almost three times the minimum wage;
Whereas the increases have been particularly large for the
bottom 2 income quintiles, that is, those women who are most
likely to be former or current welfare recipients;
Whereas welfare dependency has plummeted;
Whereas, as of September 2005, 1,887,855 families,
including 4,443,170 individuals, were receiving TANF
assistance, and accordingly, the number of families in the
welfare caseload and the number of individuals receiving cash
assistance declined 56 percent and 61 percent, respectively,
since the enactment of the TANF program;
Whereas, since the enactment of welfare reform, the number
of children in the United States has grown from 69,000,000 in
1995 to 73,000,000 in 2004, which is an increase of
4,000,000, yet 1,400,000 fewer children were living in
poverty in 2004 than in 1995--a 14 percent decline in overall
child poverty;
Whereas the poverty rates for African-American and Hispanic
children also have declined remarkably--20 percent and 28
percent, respectively, since 1995;
Whereas, as a Nation, we have made substantial progress in
reducing teen pregnancies and births, slowing increases in
non-marital childbearing, and improving child support
collections and paternity establishment;
Whereas the birth rate to teenagers declined 30 percent
from its high in 1991 to 2004. The 2004 teenage birth rate of
41.2 per 1,000 women aged 15 through 19 is the lowest
recorded birth rate for teenagers since 1940;
Whereas, during the period from 1991 through 2001, teenage
birth rates fell in all States and the District of Columbia,
Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands;
Whereas such declines also have spanned age, racial, and
ethnic groups;
Whereas there has been success in lowering the birth rate
for both younger and older teens;
Whereas the birth rate for those aged 15 through 17
declined 43 percent since 1991, the rate for those aged 18
and 19 declined 26 percent, and the rate for African American
teens--until recently the highest--declined the most--falling
47 percent from 1991 through 2004;
Whereas, since the enactment of the Personal Responsibility
and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, child
support collections within the child support enforcement
system have grown every year, increasing from $12,000,000,000
in fiscal year 1996 to over $22,000,000,000 in fiscal year
2004;
Whereas the number of paternities established or
acknowledged in fiscal year 2003--over 1,600,000--includes an
almost 300 percent increase in paternities established
through in-hospital acknowledgement programs promoted by the
1996 welfare reforms, and there were almost 915,000
paternities established this way in 2004 compared to 324,652
in 1996;
Whereas child support collections were made in nearly
8,100,000 cases in fiscal year 2004, significantly more than
the almost 4,000,000 cases in which a collection was made in
1996;
Whereas the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Reconciliation Act of 1996 gave States great flexibility in
the use of Federal funds to develop innovative programs to
help families leave welfare and begin employment, and to
encourage the formation of 2-parent families;
Whereas annual Federal funding for under the new TANF block
grant program have been held constant at the all-time highs
set in 1995, despite unprecedented welfare caseload declines
and despite the fact that States may spend as little as 75
percent as much as they spent spending under the prior AFDC
program;
Whereas total welfare and child care funds available per
family increased over 130 percent between 1995 and 2004, from
$6,934 to $16,185;
Whereas child care expenditures have quadrupled under
welfare reform, rising from $3,000,000,000 in 1995 to
$12,000,000,000 in 2004;
Whereas, under the TANF program, States have enjoyed
significant new flexibility in making policy choices and
investment decisions best suited to the needs of their
citizens;
Whereas, despite all of these successes, there is still
progress to be made;
Whereas significant numbers of welfare recipients still are
not engaged in employment-related activities;
Whereas, while all States have met the overall work
participation rates required by law, in an average month,
only 41 percent of all TANF families with an adult
participated in work activities for even a single hour that
was countable toward the State's work participation rate;
Whereas, in 2002, 34 percent of all births in the United
States were to unmarried women;
Whereas, despite recent progress in reducing teen pregnancy
in general, with fewer teens entering marriage, the
proportion of births to unmarried teens has increased
dramatically to 80 percent in 2002 from 30 percent in 1970;
Whereas the negative consequences of out-of-wedlock birth
on the mother, the child, the family, and society are well
documented;
Whereas the negative consequences include increased
likelihood of welfare dependency, increased risks of low
birth weight, poor cognitive development, child abuse and
neglect, teen parenthood, and decreased likelihood of having
an intact marriage during adulthood, and these outcomes
result despite the often heroic struggles of mostly single
mothers to care for their families;
Whereas there has been a dramatic rise in cohabitation as
marriages have declined;
Whereas an estimated 40 percent of children are expected to
live in a cohabiting-parent family at some point during their
childhood;
Whereas children in single-parent households and
cohabiting-parent households are at much higher risk of child
abuse than children in intact married families;
Whereas children who live apart from their biological
fathers are, on average, more likely to be poor, experience
educational, health, emotional, and psychological problems,
be victims of child abuse, engage in criminal
[[Page H5322]]
behavior, and become involved with the juvenile justice
system than their peers who live with their married,
biological mother and father;
Whereas, despite the strenuous efforts of single mothers to
care for their children, a child living with a single mother
is nearly 5 times as likely to be poor as a child living in a
married-couple family; and
Whereas, in 2003, in married-couple families, the child
poverty rate was 8.6 percent: in households headed by a
single mother the poverty rate was 41.7 percent: Now,
therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate
concurring), That it is the sense of the Congress that
increasing success in moving families from welfare to work,
as well as in promoting healthy marriage and other means of
improving child well-being, as promoted by the welfare
reforms in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Reconciliation Act of 1996, are very important Government
interests and should remain priorities for the responsible
Federal and State agencies in the years ahead for assisting
needy families and others at risk of poverty and dependence
on government benefits.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Miller of Florida). Pursuant to the
rule, the gentleman from California (Mr. Herger) and the gentleman from
Washington (Mr. McDermott) each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California.
General Leave
Mr. HERGER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and
to include extraneous material on the subject of the concurrent
resolution under consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from California?
There was no objection.
Mr. HERGER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of House Concurrent
Resolution 438. This resolution does something we don't do enough of in
this institution: It takes a look back at what Congress tried to do in
the previous years and assesses whether we got it right. As the text of
the resolution suggests, many people, including some former critics,
think we got it right.
Mr. Speaker, the results of the 1996 welfare reform are remarkable in
terms of achieving and in some cases exceeding the goals the Nation
laid out when Congress took on this challenging issue. Former Wisconsin
Governor and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson has
called welfare reform one of the most successful social policy changes
in U.S. history, and I think he is right. In terms of reducing
dependence, promoting work and earnings, and reducing poverty, it would
be hard to mask the outcomes of these reforms.
I would also like to thank my colleague Clay Shaw for his steadfast
leadership and tireless work to enact these remarkable reforms. Welfare
reform did not happen overnight. And it would not have happened without
his strong leadership.
Ten years ago today, this House passed what went on to become the
landmark 1996 welfare reform law. At that time nearly 12 million
parents and children were dependent on the government. Today, after 10
years of reforms and much success, that number is down to fewer than 5
million individuals dependent on welfare checks for support, a decline
of an unprecedented 64 percent, almost two-thirds. Millions of those
families now collect a paycheck instead of a welfare check. Since
welfare reform was enacted, we have seen a sharp increase in work among
welfare recipients. This is a stark contrast to the Nation's former
welfare program under which there was no incentive to work. In fact,
the prior program actually punished work. But today, because of welfare
reform, work among those on welfare has more than doubled. And to
support working families, the amount taxpayers provide for child care
has tripled from $4 billion to nearly $12 billion today.
Back in 1996, welfare reform opponents argued that if enacted, this
law would result in millions of additional children living in poverty.
However, they were wrong with this prediction as they were with all
their other predictions about what this law would accomplish. Compared
to 1996, 1.4 million fewer children are in poverty today. This is a
direct result of the pro-work, pro-family policies passed in 1996 and
which are still in place today.
Earlier this year, the House accompanied by the Senate sent President
Bush legislation to extend and strengthen the 1996 reforms to help even
more low-income parents go to work. All States are now busy revamping
their programs to meet that challenge. Based on the results of the 1996
reforms, we should have great confidence that millions more families
will succeed in finding and keeping jobs in the years ahead. That is
something every Member and, indeed, every American should support.
Again, I would like to thank Clay Shaw for all his work in this area
over so many years. I look forward to continuing to work in the years
ahead to support all families in their efforts to end their dependence
on government assistance.
I urge all my colleagues to support this resolution.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
We have before us today a Republican resolution that should be
backdated to the last Democratic President, if it is to be honest,
because when America actually made great strides in decreasing poverty
it was during that administration. But that is not what we are about
today. This is a PR event.
H. Con. Res. 438 is a Republican attempt to take a victory lap on
something they have done right. I mean on the war and gas prices and
everything else, they cannot say anything. But in the run-up to this
election, they are borrowing the vision and the success under the
leadership of Mr. Clinton.
The resolution is not about reducing poverty. It is about increasing
Republican poll numbers. America's poor and disadvantaged deserve a
fair shake, not a glad hand.
It is unmistakably clear that domestic priorities under the current
Republican administration and Republican Congress have focused on the
rich, not the middle class, not the working class, and certainly not
the disadvantaged class. And the record will show the great strides we
have made to reduce poverty peaked in the year 2000, the beginning of
the Bush administration, and they have been on a downward spiral ever
since. The rate of poverty has been climbing during the Bush
administration. The number of two-parent families living in poverty has
increased during the Bush administration, and the number of American
children living in poverty has also increased during the Bush
administration.
Now, you have to draw the line somewhere; so I intend to vote ``no''
because I want a real agenda for reducing poverty in America. Congress
needs a renewed commitment, not a disingenuous celebration. It was the
pre-Bush economy that boosted the value of work. And that is not all.
This resolution ignores the domestic priorities championed by Democrats
that have made a meaningful difference in the lives of ordinary
Americans, like the earned income tax credit.
Instead of a resolution meant to increase the poll numbers, we ought
to be passing legislation to increase the minimum wage. We have tried
and we have tried, and you can really do something for poverty if you
would do it. In one stroke we could do more to reduce poverty in this
country than all the resolutions that you have offered since the
President took office 6 years ago.
That is an honest assessment of the situation. There is a concurrent
resolution I authored with Mr. Levin. Since the Republicans will not
allow us to consider it, let me take a moment to discuss it. It offers
an honest assessment of where we are today. It highlights the progress
made in the second half of the 1990s on poverty and unemployment. It
also makes it clear that poverty has increased since 2000 with more
than 5 million more Americans falling into poverty, including 1.5
million children. If you call that success, it is a strange success.
The percentage of single moms who are working today has declined by 4
percent since the beginning of the Bush administration. And we are
sticking the States with new unfunded mandates; so there will be much
less money available in the next several years to deal with this
growing problem. That is the Republican solution.
Our resolution makes reducing poverty a national priority, not
wishful thinking, by supporting the States,
[[Page H5323]]
who are the Nation's first responders in fighting poverty. We would
like to have a great debate over whether or not America's best interest
is served by a Republican resolution created for the campaign trail or
by a Democratic resolution created to meet America's needs. As it now
stands, the debate is about Republican photo ops and press releases,
which I am sure have already been mailed.
This resolution is designed by the Republicans so that they can try
to take a victory lap after some successes in the welfare. But there
cannot be a victory lap because the race is not over. Poverty is up,
wages are down, and the working poor are losing in the Bush economy.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. HERGER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
It would be nice if today we could all work in a bipartisan way to
take credit for something that Congress has done which has been so
incredibly successful. I really regret the negative tone I hear from my
good friends on the other side of the aisle.
They made the comment that President Clinton had signed this. I think
we should let the history speak for itself.
{time} 1415
The fact is, after the Democrats opposed this legislation every inch
of the way, opposing it in subcommittee, opposing it in the full
committee, opposing it on the House floor, voting against it, and then
having President Clinton vetoing it, not once, but twice, and only
before the election where he was afraid that maybe the people might
throw him out if he continued to oppose it did he finally sign it, did
we finally get it. And after these dire predictions that the sky was
going to fall in, that we have these incredible results that we have,
again, it would be nice if we could all take credit here for something
we have done well. It is regrettable we can't.
Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from
Florida (Mr. Shaw) and ask unanimous consent that the gentleman control
the time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman from
Florida (Mr. Shaw) will control the balance of the time.
There was no objection.
Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Delaware (Mr. Castle), who has a different view of welfare reform as
the Governor of a State who did a tremendous job in that capacity at
the time we were changing welfare reform and the way it served America.
Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and for
the wonderful job he has done on this.
We started on welfare reform in Delaware very early on, long before
the Federal Government started to look at it, and, obviously, it
involved people having to go to classes and having to go to work. It
was rather unique at the time.
I remember going to the first class, it was 19 people, 18 women and a
man, and I sort of trembled. I was Governor of Delaware and I was a
little nervous about that because I figured they wouldn't be receptive
at all.
My mind was completely turned around going to that class when those
19 individuals said thank you for giving us the opportunity. They were
being educated at that point. I went to their graduation later. They
then went on to get jobs, and they subsequently went off welfare and
became contributing citizens.
I can't tell you the value of this program, the self-esteem of
individuals who have been through this. You can look at the statistics,
be it 40, 50, 60 percent, in the various States, and that is about
where it is, for the reduction of people on welfare. And you say
perhaps it saved money, although, frankly, it doesn't save a lot of
money. It costs a lot to educate and day care and everything else.
But the bottom line is that we have actually helped individuals.
Indeed, it is a program which I think Republicans and Democrats have
been supporting and should take credit for. And I certainly give some
credit to President Clinton, because I worked with him as a Governor on
this program as well.
But it has made a huge difference in their mindset. It has made a
huge difference in their families' mindset. It has made a difference in
the children of these individuals, who see their parents going off to
work and earning a living, perhaps having a little more spending money
and being able to hold themselves high as far as their immediate
society is concerned.
This has been a highly successful program. It is true, I think, what
Tommy Thompson said about it, and that is it is perhaps the greatest
social reform program we have seen in this country.
Every now and then something comes along which really can make a
difference in the lives of people. I just would like to thank all those
who worked on this, and I worked with some of them, mostly members of
the Ways and Means Committee when they were working with Clay Shaw and
others, because there was a lot of opposition to this.
But, indeed, it is a program which worked, it is a program which
should be continued and expanded if possible, and it is a program for
which I think we will always look back and be able to take some good
positive credit for.
Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman
from California (Mr. Stark).
(Mr. STARK asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. STARK. The resolution before us, Mr. Speaker, ignores the
realities of increasing child poverty, stagnating wages and lost
opportunities for those families and children left behind by the so-
called success of the welfare reform. Pilot Shaw has landed his plane
on the aircraft carrier and said ``mission accomplished,'' and the
carrier sank.
This resolution, looking at a 10-year window, ignores the disturbing
trends of the last 5 years during the Bush Republican Presidency. Total
poverty has increased for 4 consecutive years, and more than 37 million
people are living in poverty today. Child poverty has been on the rise
for 5 straight years, and 13 million children are struggling in poverty
today. Real wages for low-income workers have been stagnant for 5
consecutive years. It is time for the minimum wage to be raised, but
the Republicans don't care to represent poor people, only rich.
Nearly one in three poor single women are not working and not
receiving TANF assistance, and fewer than half of the families eligible
for TANF receive it. Child care funding under the Republicans is $11
billion short of what CBO estimates the States need. The administration
funneled $2 billion alone to religious organizations, trusting in this
faith-based stuff, and the GAO has found the Bush faith-based
initiative lacks accountability and safeguards against discrimination.
And this has been, as Congressman Shaw would claim, the most successful
social policy in history.
What is it, sir, that you don't understand about the word
``failure''? Instead of engaging in this political public relations
charade, we should be working on a bipartisan basis to confront
realities of poverty in this country. We should move ourselves into the
present and work to ensure that we provide States with the resources
they need to move families out of poverty, instead of wasting time
defining marriage.
We should focus on real programs that help families improve their
lives. We need to improve their lives, expand the Earned Income Tax
Credit, raise the minimum wage, increase access to Medicaid and
Medicare, CHIP and food stamps. We need to provide work supports such
as sufficient funding for children, remove the barriers to employment,
provide education and training opportunities and get to work and solve
the problem of poverty, instead of making tax cuts for the very rich
and ignoring the middle class and doing it on the backs of the poor.
That is the Republican way. The Democrats' way is to help everybody in
this country rise out of poverty.
Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished member
of the Ways and Means Committee, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr.
English).
Mr. ENGLISH of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the
gentleman who as chairman of the Human Resources Subcommittee when I
was a freshman was one of the key players in steering the welfare
reform through.
[[Page H5324]]
I was a freshman when our new majority came to power and was
determined to do things differently. As a result, we were able to push
forward on a key initiative to change the welfare system in a
fundamental way. We were successful. We came up against terrific
resistance, initially resistance from the administration; but we were
able to steer it through. Ten years later it is clear that we were
successful.
As the gentleman said, this is a profoundly successful social reform.
It is the most successful reform for bringing people out of poverty
that we saw in the 20th century.
We have seen dramatic reductions in welfare dependence, fewer
families in poverty, increases in work and earnings and declines in
waste, fraud and abuse of welfare benefits. And this has occurred, I
believe, in the context of a clear contrast, because they took a
completely different position when we put forward this new welfare
reform initiative.
May I quote the gentleman who is managing the time on the other side.
It was just 10 years ago that he said of this legislation: ``It will
put 1\1/2\ million to 2\1/2\ million children into poverty. In about
1998, you are going to start to see the impacts on cities, with more
homeless families. They can't pay their rent. You will wind up with
people living under bridges and in cardboard boxes.'' That is what Mr.
McDermott said in 1995.
The reality is that we brought people out of poverty, we have brought
the caseloads down, we have given the States more flexibility to deal
with welfare problems. And it was this majority that fought them,
fought them successfully, got a bill to the White House that that
President could sign, and, in the process, started a transformation of
our welfare system which continues today.
Mr. Speaker, we should celebrate this landmark and move forward with
further reform of the welfare system.
Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman
from Michigan (Mr. Levin).
(Mr. LEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, the majority says they want to recognize the
past. What you are doing in this resolution is to twist it. So let me
say again what the facts were.
The bill was vetoed by Mr. Clinton, by the President, because of
inadequate child support and inadequate health care provisions. He so
stated. He had started this effort to reform welfare, but the
inadequacies in the bills that came before him required a veto.
What was the result of the veto, of the two vetoes? Money was put in
for child care and for health care. It is ironic that this resolution
brags about the amount of money for child care. Without those vetoes, a
lot of those moneys never would have been in welfare reform.
The same is true of transitional Medicaid.
So come here, but don't, for totally partisan electoral purposes
twist the history of this. You are twisting it. Maybe you think it will
gain you a few votes, but you lose your credibility and you lose any
chance of proceeding on a bipartisan basis.
You did the same thing in the bill that was passed just some months
ago on welfare reform. You cut child support. This resolution talks
about child support collections increasing; but in the bill that was
passed recently, you made arrangements for a reduction in child support
estimated by CBO to be $8.4 billion over the next 10 years.
You talk in this resolution about giving States ``great flexibility
in the use of Federal funds.'' That was one of the advantages of the
1996 legislation and that is one reason why a good number of Democrats
voted for it.
In the 2006 legislation, you reduced the flexibility of the States. I
want to just refer to some of the programs that the States have used
that would probably be disentangled by this 2006 legislation:
The Portland Program, that has some strategies so that people can
upgrade their skills and get out of poverty. The Corpus Christi
Employment, Retention and Advance Program. The Maine Program, that does
rely on some higher education, including a 4-year degree. And also the
Utah Program, that was very advanced in terms of addressing substance
abuse and mental health. So you essentially have reduced the
flexibility of the States.
Let me talk for a moment about poverty and what was the main problem
with the 2006 legislation. The data that we have show this, more or
less, that 60 to 70 percent of the people who have moved from welfare
to work have been earning less than 42 percent of the median average
wage in their States.
We were hopeful in the 2006 legislation that we would take a further
step in welfare reform, that we would help people not only move from
welfare to work, but from welfare to work that would take them out of
poverty.
You, on a strictly partisan basis, did not even bother to talk to us.
You made no effort. You would not even work with us to try to provide a
law that would help people move from welfare to work.
So I regret your spurning any effort to make this resolution
bipartisan. I think instead of recognizing the past, you are mainly
twisting it; and there has been a failure of this Congress to take the
next steps in welfare reform so people move from poverty into something
beyond it when they move from welfare to work.
Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, it is amazing, the gentleman who just left the well,
when he would say this is a partisan resolution. I don't think the
Republican name is in this resolution whatsoever. It is a figment of
his imagination.
This was a team effort. President Clinton did sign this bill. This is
not a partisan resolution. So why don't you join with us and rejoice in
what we have accomplished.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr.
Linder), a distinguished member of the Ways and Means Committee.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H. Con. Res.
438, of which I am an original cosponsor, which expresses the sense of
the Congress that historic welfare reforms begun with the 1996 Welfare
Reform Act should continue forward and continue to remain a priority.
I wrote in 1979 that it was not uncommon for a government program to
be begun for noble worthy purposes and end up becoming an end in
itself.
{time} 1430
The more assistance that was distributed, the more necessary the
program, and the means became the ends. Before the consideration of the
welfare reform bill 10 years ago, there was no indication that some of
these government programs would be improved, much less encourage self-
sufficiency. This is not surprising, given how the welfare reform bill
was described on this floor as, ``the most cruel and shortsighted view
on public policy I have seen in 20 years'', and, ``a mean-spirited
attack on children and poor families in America that fails every test
of true welfare reform'', and ``a cruel attack on America's children''.
Well, as we mark the 10th anniversary of the signing of the bill, the
statistics show the successes. Welfare caseloads have declined almost
65 percent. The poverty rate has declined. The child poverty rate has
declined. The number of children lifted from poverty is 1.4 million,
and the number of adults receiving welfare and working has more than
doubled since 1996. The employment rate of never-married mothers has
increased by almost 35 percent.
We have achieved great progress in eradicating poverty in this
Nation. Ten years ago, thousands of poor people who deserve much more
from their government were unwitting pawns in the game for power over
the lives of others. The 1996 Welfare Reform Act has been enormously
successful and we must continue to help those who truly need assistance
while encouraging those who can support their families to do so.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill. I thank my
friend for yielding me the time.
Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Massachusetts (Mr. Neal).
Mr. NEAL of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for
yielding me the time.
Mr. Speaker, this marks the 10th anniversary of the passage of the
1996 welfare bill, a measure I voted for. And the legislation certainly
was not perfect, but the system that it supplanted
[[Page H5325]]
was even worse. Ten years on, instead of having a pep rally for TANF, I
think what we ought to be doing is having a serious conversation about
whether the program is being implemented in a way that effectively and
realistically moves everyone who can work into a job so that they might
support their family.
With Bill Clinton, the TANF program rightly demanded that able-bodied
people do everything possible to find and keep a job. But it also
recognized the fact that single moms needed help with child care and
transportation in order to successfully and permanently transition out
of public assistance. So the Clinton budgets provided that traditional
assistance.
The Clinton budgets also made enforcement of child support payments a
top priority, which gleaned billions of dollars, that pulled thousands
of women and children out of poverty. Bill Clinton insisted on an
increase in the minimum wage and an expanded earned income tax credit,
which helped people earning the lowest wages support themselves.
And the results spoke for themselves. Even as welfare caseloads
dropped, poverty rates fell for every year that Bill Clinton was in
office. So what has happened in the last 5 years? Child care, cut. Food
stamps, cut. Medicaid, cut. Child support enforcement, cut.
So it is a disappointment but not a surprise that poverty rates are
once again on the rise. According to the Census Bureau in 2004, there
were 13 million children living under the poverty line. Almost one
American child in five grows up in a family that cannot pay for the
bare essentials of life like food, shelter, and clothing.
How can we let this happen? Today I want people to listen to this.
Today a minimum wage worker in America who puts in 40 hours a week and
never takes a vacation day, listen to this, they earn, at minimum wage,
$10,700 a year before taxes.
That is not enough for a single mother with one child to clear the
poverty line. But I think it is the new face of compassionate
conservatism. That is a full-time working mom who cannot possibly make
ends meet for herself and her child. One in five kids in this country
grows up in poverty.
The welfare bill was supposed to counteract these trends, and when
Bill Clinton was in office it was doing a good job. But the programs
that helped welfare reform demonstrate progress like child support
enforcement, child care assistance, have been eviscerated by this
Congress and this administration. But we always have time here for tax
cuts for rich people. If we cannot take care of Paris Hilton, who can?
This welfare bill was a good start, and if properly implemented, it was
during the Clinton years, we would still be on the path to reform.
Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I would remind the gentleman in the well that it is rare
today that people work for minimum wage. But those who do earn $10,700
a year, they also get an earned income tax credit of $4,000. They also
get food stamps worth $2,000. They get rent subsidies which varies.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania
(Ms. Hart).
Ms. HART. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida for
yielding me time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this resolution. And I am somewhat
mystified by some of the claims made by my colleagues on the other side
of the aisle. I and several of my colleagues spent a significant amount
of time making sure that additional moneys were put into this
legislation when it was passed to make sure that there would be more
money for child care.
That was signed by the President and is current law today. We have
increased assistance to women who were on welfare, who are now working.
We needed to do that in order to make sure that their children would be
safe. Our goal of welfare reform was about family growth and security
and future financial security.
Our goal was certainly not to put the children in jeopardy, and part
of that complete goal was to make sure that they had availability of
child care. We have worked to make sure it is available at different
times of the day. We have worked to make sure that it is available and
convenient, and obviously that those who are providers are providing
safe child care.
Another point that I think is very important to refute is that there
is something wrong with the direction we are moving in, asking for
people to work more hours. Once they commit to receiving welfare, they
commit to work more hours, and they do so. What we found, the
statistics show that when people start to work, obviously, their
incomes will rise. They begin to climb the ladder of future success and
their children do not live in poverty.
I want to repeat this point, because again it is the most important
goal that we had of welfare reform, to make sure that from generation
to generation children are not living in poverty. And children have
been lifted from poverty as a result of our welfare reform, and more
will continue to be lifted out of poverty as a result of more work
requirements. These children will grow up with a great example of
industrious working parents, and they will do the same.
Mr. Speaker, this Congress has a lot of missions before us. One of
them certainly is to help encourage people to grow in their abilities,
to grow in their talents and their willingness to teach their children.
This welfare reform bill has helped us in all of those counts. I
encourage my colleagues to support it.
Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman
from California (Ms. Woolsey).
Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, this resolution is a celebration of bad
policy. I voted against it when it was a Clinton proposal, and I voted
against it because my fear was, based on having been a past welfare
mom, my fear was that ultimately it would be the kids who suffered. And
how right I was.
So when the Congress reauthorized the welfare program recently, not a
single Democrat voted for it, because Democrats know that what this
bill does is fail to help families reach economic independence. Instead
it pushes families off welfare, into the workforce without sufficient
education, without adequate child care, and without a path to self-
sufficiency.
If the Republican leadership was truly interested in improving
families' welfare, it would be debating and passing an increase in the
minimum wage, and we would be doing that today, instead of talking
about celebrating welfare. The sad fact is that this Congress is more
interested that fewer people get help than whether fewer people need
help. And that is a shame.
I encourage my colleagues, please oppose this resolution, a
resolution that is trying to celebrate bad policy. A policy that keeps
children in poverty.
Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out to the gentlewoman
who just spoke that the poverty rate among children has dropped 13
percent since the passage of this resolution, and, Mr. Speaker, I
reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, could you tell us the time remaining?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman has 4\1/2\ minutes, and the
gentleman from Florida has 6 minutes.
Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, we go through a policy like this in 20 minutes. The
Republican policy toward children is, you have no entitlement to
anything. The point of welfare reform was to take away the entitlement
of health and welfare, and housing and food from children, to take away
the entitlement and put it to 50 States to whatever they want to do.
And we have 50 different plans in this country. The Republicans
define welfare, people, those eligible for TANF, in such a way that you
can drive down the numbers. You can push people off into work. And
there is nobody on this side who has not worked in their life, who does
not think it is a good idea to work.
But what we believe is that you ought to work for a wage that is fair
and provides a decent living. The Republicans for the entire period
this has been in place have refused to raise the minimum wage.
You want to drive people into poverty, and you did drive them into
poverty, because when they are in poverty you can make them do
anything. That is the way you keep the costs down in business, have a
workforce of people who have to work for the minimum wage, and that is
it for them.
Now, you have cut Medicare. Medicare in every State in this country
is
[[Page H5326]]
in a terrible mess. There are 300,000 children eligible for child care
in California who do not have access because there is no money. You say
to the mothers, go out and work. Leave your kids at home, leave them a
package of graham crackers, leave them a television, and leave them
with their 12-year-old sister. That is the Republican plan.
You also take away their housing benefits. When they go off of TANF
they do not get access to those housing benefits they had before. So
you take away every single piece of security for a child who knows they
have a home, who knows there is going to be food on the table, who is
going to have a parent there when they come home from school. And then
you ask yourself why you have a drug problem in this country. Why you
have kids getting in trouble everywhere, why the prisons are full.
This is the result of a public policy that says we do not believe in
the common good. We cannot tax the rich, oh, no, no, we must not tax
the rich, they need another wall around their compound. But you can put
kids out on the street, with their mother working down at the local
motel cleaning beds for $5.15 an hour, that is all right with you. It
is that that we object to.
It is not that we do not think people should work, we just think they
should work for a decent living, a decent wage, and you will not give
them that. You want to define success. The press release will say, we
have reduced the welfare rolls from 5 million, as it was in 2000, to
about 1.9 today.
But you will say nothing of the human misery you have created by
these policies. The reason none of us voted for the reauthorization
was, you put no additional money in for child care. And you cut the
benefits for health care. And you do not take care of the needs of the
kids. This is not about adults. Adults can make it. But it is a
question about whether we as Americans, as a part of the common good,
think children are entitled to a decent and safe childhood.
And your answer is, we cut the welfare rolls, raise the flag, let's
march around and have a big parade and we will send out press releases,
we cut the welfare rolls. But poverty has increased. You have 5 million
more people in poverty since Mr. Bush became President of the United
States.
That is not an enviable record; 1\1/2\ million more children are in
poverty. How can you celebrate that?
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
{time} 1445
Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I don't know quite where to start in correcting the
gentleman from Washington. First of all, he said that we didn't
increase child care. Well, we had just done over a $1 billion increase,
and that is just within the last few months. I would say that the
gentleman's memory is a little short.
He also talked about a secret Republican agenda. I was in charge of
this bill 10 years ago, and I insisted that we did not do any of that.
In fact, I don't know of anybody that was trying to do that. I
maintained that we had to keep up the food programs, we had to keep up
the Medicaid payments, taking care of the health care. We had to take
care of the kids. We had to produce child care, in addition to all of
this and all of the other programs that go along with the poverty
program.
But what did we expect? We expected people to climb out of poverty.
We are going to help them, but they are going to help themselves.
The problem of those who still oppose welfare reform is they have no
faith. They didn't have any faith in the human spirit. We did have
faith in the human spirit, and I can tell you the real champions, the
real heroes of welfare reform are those who pull themselves out of
poverty.
It is not the Members of Congress or the Senate that are sitting on
this floor. It is the single mom, and she is the hero.
We started this program about 15, 16 years ago. We worked hard on it
for many, many years. At every turn, we recognized the fragile nature
of those that we were trying to rescue. Oh, we had a poverty program
that was being guarded so carefully by those that wanted to pay people
not to work, not to get married and have kids, the most destructive
behavior you could possibly have.
I remember when we came to this floor and debated this bill. Some of
the comments that were made back then, and I will read one of the worst
ones, and I won't even mention the Member's name because I think it is
so bad. It says: read the proposal, read the small print, read the
Republican contract. They are coming for our children, they are coming
for the poor. They are coming for the sick, the elderly and the
disabled.
That is the stuff we were listening to on this floor when we were on
a rescue mission. Through the debate on July 18, 1996, after several of
the Democrat Members, some of whom have spoken today, spoke against the
bill, President Clinton announced that he was coming on to television.
We retired back into the Cloakroom to see what he was going to say. He
looked right into the TV cameras, and he said, I am going to sign this
bill.
Well, that brought about some Democratic votes, and it made it truly
a bipartisan bill. Since then, the statistical information that is out
there is history. Let me run down just some of the things that welfare
reform has accomplished.
Welfare caseloads are now down by 64 percent, as nearly 8 million
parents and children no longer receive welfare. The overall poverty
rate dropped 7 percent, the child poverty dropped 13 percent, the
poverty rate of young children in female-headed families, the group
most likely to go on welfare, dropped 15 percent from 1996 to 2004.
Compared with 1996, 1.4 million fewer children lived in poverty in
2004. That is a victory. That is a victory for the human race. That is
a victory for the poor Americans. The number of adults on welfare who
work has more than doubled since welfare reform. More broadly, the work
of all never-married mothers has surged 34 percent since 1996.
I will never forget, at one of our hearings, and I think, Mr.
McDermott, you were there, when one of the welfare workers came in and
was bragging about one of her clients who went to school. One of the
young kids had gone to school, and he raised his hand to get the
attention of the teacher. The teacher finally looked down and said,
What do you want? He says, My momma went to work today.
What a wonderful thing. That mother who had nothing to do all day but
sit around for the postman to come and bring her a check is now a role
model for that child. What a difference that this has made.
Yes, this was a rescue program. We paid a lot of money for job
training and things in order to accomplish this welfare reform package,
and it has worked.
I can tell you I was stunned when the President said he was going to
sign it, because all of a sudden I realized, my God, look what we have
done, look what we have done. Now I can look back with great pride and
see what this Congress did, what we accomplished, that rescue mission
that took so many people out of poverty.
Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of the bill.
Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the
welfare reforms provided in the Personal Responsibility and Work
Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. The House is considering H.
Con. Res. 438 that expresses the sense of the Congress that
continuation of the welfare reforms provided for in the 1996 welfare
reform act should remain a priority. The House Resolution marks the
10th anniversary of the 1996 Republican-led enactment of welfare
reform.
I strongly support H. Con. Res. 438 that celebrates 10 years of
success in reducing welfare rolls and helping children and families
escape from the cycle of poverty. Ten years ago, Republicans decided it
was time to reform our broken welfare system and give welfare
recipients the tools they needed to escape the system and build a
better life. Today, we can see the results of those efforts--a 64
percent decrease in welfare caseloads, a sharp decline in child
poverty, and a dramatic increase in the number of welfare recipients
who work.
Since Republicans have passed welfare reform in 1996, the overall
poverty rate has dropped 7 percent and 1.4 million fewer children are
living in poverty. I urge my colleagues to join me in support of H.
Con. Res. 438. Support of this resolution is support for
[[Page H5327]]
continuing to move from welfare to work more quickly and promoting and
encouraging stable, healthy families.
Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from California (Mr. Herger) that the House suspend the rules
and agree to the concurrent resolution, H. Con. Res. 438.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds having voted in favor
thereof) the rules were suspended and the concurrent resolution was
agreed to.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________