[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 97 (Friday, June 15, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7789-S7790]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD AND HEALTHY FAMILIES ACT

  Mr. OBAMA. Mr. President, yesterday, just days before Father's Day, I 
was pleased to join my colleague and good friend Senator Bayh in 
reintroducing the Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act. 
Within the next few days companion legislation will be introduced in 
the House of Representatives by Congresswoman Carson of Indiana and my 
friend from Chicago, Congressman Danny Davis.
  It is time to address the crisis of absentee fathers. We must ask 
ourselves why more than a quarter of all American families have only 
one parent present, and more than a third live without their father. We 
must get a handle on why 40 percent of the children in America who live 
without their father have not seen him in over a year.
  There is no question that most single mothers are doing a heroic job 
raising their kids. They are working two and three jobs, dropping their 
kids off at school or daycare or with friends or relatives, responding 
to their illnesses, and, quite frankly, doing the work that is often a 
challenge these days for even two parents. My appreciation for single 
mothers is unwavering. My own father was not around when I was growing 
up, 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 both parents contributing their fair share, and the data shows 
this. Children are more likely to be poor and to do worse in school 
without both parents 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.
  It takes courage to raise a child. We can't simply legislate that 
courage 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 help those who 
are trying to do the right thing and eliminate some of the roadblocks 
they face. And we can provide some tools to help these courageous 
parents succeed.
  This act removes government roadblocks by eliminating a perverse 
disincentive to marriage in the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families 
program. Congress is sending the wrong message by telling States that 
they may be penalized for serving married couples. 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.
  This act also makes vital improvements to the child support system, 
which affects noncustodial fathers as much or more than any other 
government program. It will restore funding for child support 
enforcement and require States to pass the full amount of child support 
collected along to the family. Research has confirmed that a father is 
more likely to pay child support if he knows that the money is going to 
his kids.
  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. It is in the 
best interest of all members of his family that a father has an 
incentive to get a legitimate job and to begin taking care of his 
family.
  States are also provided 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.

[[Page S7790]]

  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 through 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.
  In both the Illinois State Senate and the Senate, I have led efforts 
to expand the earned-income tax credit, EITC, which is one of the most 
successful antipoverty programs in the country to date. It rewards work 
and supplements wages that may be too low to support a family. The 
Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act would double the number 
of working single adults eligible for EITC benefits, increase the 
benefit, reward and support parents who are current on their child 
support payments, and reduce the EITC marriage penalty which hurts low-
income families. Under this plan, full-time workers making minimum wage 
would get an EITC benefit up to $555, more than three times greater 
than the $175 benefit they get today. If the workers are responsibly 
supporting their children on child support, this bill would give those 
workers a benefit of $1,110.
  Additionally, 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 domestic violence and promote healthy, nonviolent 
relationships.
  I would like take a final few moments to talk about the breakdown of 
families in the African-American community, because the epidemic of 
absentee fathers runs deep. Today, 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. As our children grow up, statistics continue 
to paint a bleak picture. 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. 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 poverty and despair will continue.
  It is important to remember that there is no segment of our 
population no income level, no religion, and no race--that is immune to 
these challenges. Some segments of the population are worse off than 
others. However, I believe 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 tax loopholes. 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 my colleagues to support the Responsible Fatherhood 
and Healthy Families Act of 2007.

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