[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 103 (Wednesday, June 19, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3827-S3829]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                Temporary Assistance for Needy Families

  Mr. DAINES. Mr. President, I am here today to discuss an issue that 
is very important to Montanans, folks across the Nation, and many of my 
colleagues here in the Senate, and that is the Temporary Assistance for 
Needy Families Program, commonly known as TANF. That is our Nation's 
cash-assistance and services program for low-income households with 
children.
  I am joined today by my esteemed colleague and my friend, the Senator 
from Iowa, Mr. Grassley. I have the privilege of serving on the Senate 
Finance Committee, chaired by Senator Grassley, which has jurisdiction 
over TANF. Chairman Grassley, like me, knows how important it is to 
ensure that this program is working as intended and that it is helping 
families move into jobs and toward self-sufficiency. Of course, it was 
Chairman Grassley who helped bring about the last significant reform to 
TANF in 2006. I am glad he is leading the committee as we try to pass 
meaningful reforms again this year.
  We are here today because we cannot ignore that Congress is about to 
do a straight continuation of funding of TANF for the 39th consecutive 
time despite the fact that this program needs reform.
  TANF, created with bipartisan support in 1996, was a huge success for 
the American people. Let me say that again--with bipartisan support. 
After TANF became law, welfare caseloads plummeted, child poverty 
declined, and employment among low-income parents actually went up. 
TANF recognized that finding and maintaining a job is the most 
effective way for families to go from government-dependency to self-
sufficiency.
  However, more than 20 years after these historic 1996 reforms, 
Congress has neglected to act on the loopholes that hold States 
accountable for work requirements. In fact, today, very few States, 
including my home State of Montana, are meeting the work participation 
rate that is required by the law. The law calls for 50 percent of 
welfare enrollees to be engaged in work, but in Montana, they are only 
reaching one-third of that.
  Many States are also using TANF dollars for purposes unrelated to 
work. States need to be providing families with the support they need, 
and that is why I am taking action. That is why I introduced 
legislation earlier this year--the Jobs and Opportunity with Benefits 
and Services Act, better

[[Page S3828]]

known as the JOBS Act--to reauthorize and modernize the TANF Program.
  The JOBS Act would help our low-income families find work and have 
every opportunity to climb the economic ladder. It would require State 
caseworkers to engage with jobseekers to help them not only find a job 
but then to keep that job.
  My legislation takes into consideration all aspects of a person's 
life, including mental health, drug addiction, and alcohol addiction. 
It also increases resources for childcare to refocus dollars back to 
supporting work.
  Congress should be working to help families thrive in this growing 
economy. In fact, right now in the United States, there are 7.6 million 
new job openings. In fact, right now in the United States, job openings 
outnumber the jobseekers. As employers are looking to hire, we need to 
close the jobs gap and ensure that the Americans who need them most are 
filling them. This is an opportunity for mobility--to step toward the 
American dream.
  Chairman Grassley, would you agree with me that TANF is no longer 
meeting its welfare-to-work potential, and would you commit to working 
side by side with me and other supporters on modernizing TANF to bring 
about the reforms this program desperately needs?
  I yield to Senator Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Finance 
Committee.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. The short answer to your question is yes, but I would 
like to give a longer answer, if I could, and give you my perspective 
of TANF.
  TANF is an acronym for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families 
Program, which was created almost 23 years ago to provide help to low-
income families with children in order to promote work and to 
strengthen families.
  The creation of TANF sent a very clear message: People receiving help 
from the taxpayers should be expected to work, to prepare for work, or 
to take steps to become more self-reliant in exchange for having the 
taxpayers help you through difficult times in your life. TANF also sent 
another message, this one to our 50 States: In exchange for this 
funding, States must help people find work, prepare for jobs, or do 
other things that will help families get back on their feet.
  Besides Senator Daines' mentioning Montana, I presume that of the 49 
States, many are not meeting the requirements of TANF. Obviously, it 
does not make much sense for us to have standards if we don't enforce 
those standards.
  There have been many proposals in recent years to improve the 
program, but, unfortunately, none have become law. That is why I am 
grateful to be here with Senator Daines, who effectively represents 
Montana. I know Senator Daines has been working on fixing problems with 
TANF and getting more people from welfare to work.
  Other than these statements he is making here, this year, as evidence 
of his work, Senator Daines introduced a bill with Ranking Member 
Brady, of Texas, of the House Ways and Means Committee, that seeks to 
help more people find jobs and escape poverty.
  Senator Daines and I have agreed to work together, along with our 
other colleagues on the Finance Committee, to find ways to get 
something done on TANF as it has been too many years since any changes 
have been made to the program. I am grateful for his commitment to work 
with me to update this program, and I do look forward to working with 
the Senator and the other members of the Finance Committee to see what 
we can agree to, for reforms are needed more now than ever.
  To my colleagues and people in the Senate who feel this way or to 
people outside the Senate who feel this way with regard to any talk of 
reforming TANF as being needlessly harmful to the people whom Senator 
Daines and I want to help, I say what is really harmful to people is, 
if there are incentives to stay on government programs, because being 
on government programs guarantees a life of living in poverty.
  What our goal should be for everything is to help people get out of 
poverty, and the way to get out of poverty is to be in the world of 
work if you have the capacity to work. Maybe some people who have 
certain physical conditions aren't able to work, and we have to help 
those people. Yet, for people who have the capability of improving 
themselves, they ought to be incentivized to improve themselves. Not 
only that, but it would work well for the needs of our labor market's 
requirements right now, and the Senator gave the statistics that there 
are more job openings than there are people for those jobs.
  In the final analysis, if we want to get people in the workplace, we 
ought to have programs that incentivize people to go to work, and our 
reforming of TANF takes care of some of that. We also have to get rid 
of this cliff we have; that being, when people make $1 more than what 
they get from the government programs, they lose everything. I can give 
you an example.
  When I went to a factory in Northwest Iowa, I asked: Have you ever 
thought about encouraging people who are on welfare to come to work?
  He said: We have one. He works until he makes about $800. He quits 
for the rest of the month and then comes back at the beginning of the 
month because he knows he is going to lose all of those benefits.
  It seems to me we ought to do away with that cliff and that we ought 
to encourage people to get jobs. If they make more money, they 
shouldn't lose everything all at once. Then, as they work their way up 
the ladder and improve themselves, maybe they will be off of the 
programs entirely.
  In being a humanitarian, that is the way I see it. You are not a 
humanitarian if you give a person a life in poverty, which is what life 
is if you are just on government programs. In most cases, you have to 
be in poverty to qualify for the programs. Yet a few working people 
qualify for some. In helping to be humane to people, we provide a 
process for them to be in the world of work and improve themselves. So 
I look forward to working with the Senator.
  Mr. DAINES. Mr. President, I thank Senator Grassley.
  He has been a strong advocate for policies that uplift rural 
communities, and he gets to all of Iowa's 99 counties every year. I 
would bet Chairman Grassley probably has a lot of stories to talk about 
as to what is going on because he is in touch with the folks back home 
who are in these rural communities. Montana is similar. We both come 
from States that have strong ag heritages, and we have a lot of rural 
communities. We need policies that will uplift these rural communities 
and, importantly, strengthen our families.
  It is time we see some real change--to stop kicking the proverbial 
can down the road and OK these consecutive, short-term 
reauthorizations. That is something DC is pretty good at--short-term 
reauthorizations, like the 39 we have seen in the last decade with 
TANF. What we need are permanent reforms rather than these temporary 
extensions.
  I thank Senator Grassley for joining me today in this colloquy and 
for his commitment to getting something done.
  The chairman is a ``getter done'' kind of leader, and he couldn't 
have said it any better than in his talking about removing families 
from being dependent to being independent. We have plenty of provisions 
here to make sure we take care of those families who, maybe, don't have 
a choice if there are addiction issues or if there are childcare 
problems. We have to make sure they will have the ability to get the 
help they need, but we want to move them into the workforce. With all 
of these jobs being available right now in this economy, we could solve 
two problems. That is why we need these TANF reforms.
  I thank the Senator for joining me today and for his commitment to 
getting something done. I am positive TANF reform will lead to great 
success for people in Montana, for people in Iowa, as well as for 
people in the rest of the country.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cotton). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

[[Page S3829]]