[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 118 (Friday, July 31, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2126]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    INTRODUCTION OF H.R. 3329, THE LOOK-BACK ELIMINATION ACT OF 2009

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                            HON. JOHN LEWIS

                               of georgia

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, July 30, 2009

  Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I am proud to introduce the 
Look-Back Elimination Act of 2009.
  I am proud to serve on the Ways and Means Committee Subcommittee on 
Income Security and Family Support led by Chairman McDermott. I would 
like to thank Chairman McDermott, my good friend, the Gentlewoman from 
Nevada (Ms. Berkley), and all of my colleagues on the Subcommittee for 
their hard work in the areas of child welfare and foster care.
  Today, American families are struggling in ways not seen since the 
Great Depression. Rising unemployment, health care costs, and a 
struggling economy are all taking their toll, and children in the 
foster care system must not be forgotten during these very difficult 
times.
  When Congress passed welfare reform legislation in 1996, they 
eliminated the existing Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) 
program, which was a cornerstone of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's 
New Deal, and replaced it with the Temporary Assistance for Needy 
Families program, or TANF. At the same time, Congress locked the income 
eligibility requirement for federal foster care and adoption assistance 
benefits at the various existing 1996 income thresholds established by 
States under the now nonexistent AFDC program. This is known as the 
look-back standard.
  Since that time, the federal law has not been changed, and despite 
changing economic realities like inflation and wage growth, states 
cannot update their income eligibility requirements. As a result 
thousands of children in foster care and adoption assistance programs 
are ineligible to receive federal benefits.
  Last year Congress passed and the President signed legislation to 
phase out the look-back standard for children in the adoption 
assistance program. The bill I am introducing today would assist the 
other children affected by the look-back standard--those in the foster 
care system. We need to help these children, and we need to help them 
now.
  The look-back standard sets the income limit for eligibility at 
thirty-one percent of the federal poverty level--a level so low that 
even a parent's part-time job at minimum wage could render a family 
ineligible. As a result, states are prohibited from using federal funds 
to assist those most in need. In my home state of Georgia almost sixty 
percent of children in the child welfare system cannot receive federal 
IV-E assistance. Thousands more foster care children across the country 
are ineligible to receive benefits. This is wrong; it is just plain 
wrong.
  Foster care children need this support, and states are struggling to 
juggle services to try and prevent children from falling through the 
cracks. You just cannot put a price on helping a child. We must have 
this oversight corrected. I urge all of my colleagues to join me in 
supporting this commonsense legislation.

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