[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 108 (Wednesday, July 18, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Page S5136]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. HATCH (for himself, Mr. Roberts, Mr. Cornyn, Mr. Grassley, 
        Mr. Enzi, Mr. Coburn, Mr. Crapo, Mr. Thune, Mr. Burr, Mr. Kyl, 
        and Mr. McConnell):
  S. 3397. A bill to prohibit waivers relating to compliance with the 
work requirements for the program of block grants to States for 
temporary assistance for needy families, and for other purposes; to the 
Committee on Finance.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, today I introduce the Preserving Work 
Requirements Act of 2012. Chairman Camp of the House Committee on Ways 
and Means will introduce a companion measure in the House. This bill 
halts last week's unprecedented power grab from the Obama 
administration, whereby unelected bureaucrats unilaterally granted 
themselves the authority to waive Federal welfare work requirements.
  To put this another way, unelected bureaucrats ignored the law passed 
by Congress, the elected representatives of the American people. They 
ignored the work requirements intended by Congress and by the 
Presidents of both parties who signed welfare reform and its subsequent 
reauthorizations.
  Ultimately, they decided they knew better than the American people. 
The American people, through their representatives, enacted work 
requirements in welfare reform. These unelected administrators decided 
they did not like these work requirements, so with the stroke of a pen, 
they have attempted to eliminate them. Not to put too fine a point on 
it, but this action is fundamentally illegitimate in a Democratic 
Republic and is just the latest example of President Obama's 
administration acting without legal warrant when the law stands in 
their way.
  The Camp-Hatch bill, introduced today, is cosponsored in the Senate 
by my friends and colleagues, Leader McConnell and Senators Grassley, 
Kyl, Crapo, Roberts, Enzi, Cornyn, Coburn, Thune, and Burr--valuable 
and distinguished members of the Senate Finance Committee.
  This bill includes dispositive findings clearly demonstrating that 
the Obama administration acted outside the scope of the law and the 
clear intent of Congress. I would like to stress the fact that I am 
introducing this legislation because I believe the Obama administration 
grossly undermined the constitutional authority of the legislative 
branch to effect changes and settle the law.
  It does not mean I believe the 1996 law is perfect in every way and 
cannot be improved upon. That could not be further from the truth. A 
case could be made that due to prolonged inaction the TANF Programs, 
the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Programs, have withered on 
the vine, and now many States see TANF as a funding stream rather than 
a welfare program.
  An exception to this is my State of Utah. Utah runs a gold standard 
welfare program which focuses, like a laser, on work. By work, I mean 
real work, as in a paying job; work as most Americans define work, not 
work as defined in the ``Alice in Wonderland'' world of TANF, where 
running errands, smoking cessation, and bed rest count as work. Utah 
would like some relief--I think a lot of other States, in addition to 
Utah, would like some relief--from a number of administrative 
procedures in order to focus even more vigorously to moving welfare 
clients to jobs. This is a very reasonable proposition, especially if 
combined with a robust evaluation of the success of moving clients into 
work.
  I do not want the introduction of this legislation to prevent the 
Obama administration from bypassing Congress to imply that when 
Congress does take up the reauthorization of the TANF Programs, that I 
will not be open to giving States flexibility in exchange for results. 
The fact remains that this administration and the Democratically 
controlled Senate could have made welfare reform a priority for several 
years. They did not. For the administration to be arguing now that they 
need to give States flexibility under TANF rules is so urgent the need 
to bypass Congress right this very minute does not pass the laugh test.
  I am going to do everything I can to stop the administration from 
going forward with its waiver scheme. Then we should roll up our 
sleeves and take a good, honest look at how welfare reform has been 
working for the past 16 years.
  Domestic social policy is rarely permanently settled. Things change; 
people change. A law that is more than halfway through its second 
decade can most assuredly be updated and improved. That is why we have 
reauthorizations. I do not view the Preserving Work Requirements for 
Welfare Programs Act of 2012 as the end of the debate on how best to 
get families out of poverty. In fact, I see it as the beginning of what 
I hope will be a thoughtful and deliberative discussion of these 
critical issues.
  Finally, some in the press have attempted to characterize this 
debate, which at its heart is one of Executive overreach as a standoff 
between me and my own home State of Utah. As they say in the country, 
that dog just won't hunt. I have consistently supported State 
flexibility in exchange for measurable outcomes. One of the few pieces 
of domestic social policy legislation that has actually been enacted 
during this session of Congress, Public Law 112-34, was authored by 
Chairman Baucus and me to provide States with waivers to improve 
outcomes in their child welfare systems. Utah has applied for one of 
these child welfare waivers. As Casey Stengel said: You can look it up.
  I worked very hard back in the middle 1990s to get welfare reform 
passed. We required a work part of that. We said: We are going to help 
you folks. We are going to subsidize you, we are going to give you help 
financially, but at the end of a certain period of time, you better 
have a job. The work clauses of that bill have helped millions of 
people to get jobs and get the self-esteem that comes from working and 
supporting themselves. To have this administration unilaterally, and 
without any congressional authorization, modify that work requirement 
is just plain wrong.
  Frankly, I will be for flexibility in the work requirement, but I 
don't consider bed rest work. We can list 10 or 15 other things that 
the administration has been talking about that don't qualify for work 
either.
  This is an important issue. I hope the Congress will stand up for 
itself and let this administration know there is a limit to what we are 
going tolerate from an Executive order standpoint.
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