TANF and Related Programs Continuation Act of 2004

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4589) to reauthorize the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant program through September 30, 2004, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, well, here we go again, another 3 months, another extension of welfare programs. Today, the House will approve the seventh straight extension of welfare programs since September 2002. Since then, the number of Americans collecting welfare has continued to track downward. Fewer people are dependent on welfare checks, which is good. That follows historic declines in welfare caseloads from 1996 through 2001 as pro-work reforms cut caseloads in half and more than 2 million children left poverty, but we want to do much much more.

We want more welfare recipients to prepare for work, which is the true path off welfare. We want to help more parents marry or stay married, which helps them and helps their children. We want to help more parents get ready for full-time work, which is what it takes to lift families out of poverty. We want to provide more child care so more parents can go to work, knowing their children are cared for and safe.

For the past 2 years, we wanted to do all of those things. In fact, the House passed legislation to do all of that and more, twice. In both 2002 and 2003, the House passed comprehensive welfare bills to strengthen the historic 1996 welfare law for years to come. More low- income families would have gotten more help and more would have left welfare for the workforce; but instead, we have waited and waited and waited some more.

For the past 2 years, we have waited on the other body to pass its version of a real welfare bill. For a time this spring it looked like the other body would pass a bill to make available these additional resources for low-income families. That did not happen, and so we are here waiting some more.

Some in this town apparently think by delaying and obstructing the legislative process they will get their way in the end. I wish them luck. I think they are wrong, and low-income families will continue to pay the price for their obstructionism.

I am a fiscal conservative. I am for less government spending, not more. I think that expands the bounds of freedom and opportunity, but I am also a realist. I have seen how welfare reform has lifted literally millions of families out of dependence.

Welfare reform has saved taxpayers money, but it has not been free. It will not be free in the future. The House-passed welfare bill includes reforms and resources needed to help more low-income parents go to work. The families in need will not get a dime of the additional help we included in the House-passed bill unless we can reach final agreement on a real reform bill.

As time passes, budget pressures will only squeeze tighter and tighter, and the additional help we have offered will become only harder to come by.

Given that fact, and the fact we offer to do so much more, give much more to help needy families, it is a tragedy we are back here today with yet another short-term extension that does not give States the certainty they need to best plan for the future.

Mr. Speaker, I wish the legislation before us today were not needed, but we do need to pass this bill. I urge support for this bill, which buys us another 3 months in the hopes the other body will finally act on a broader welfare reform bill.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw), a member of the Committee on Ways and Means, also the former chairman of the Subcommittee on Human Resources, where this historic legislation originally was enacted in 1996.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson), a former chairman of the Subcommittee on Human Resources.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

We have heard a great deal from the other side indicating that evidently when this bill originally came through, the historic 1996 legislation, that it was bipartisan. Yet we have heard the chairman that was chairman of the committee during that time indicate just the opposite, and I believe that the record certainly indicates that. The other side, the other party, opposed this legislation in committee and opposed it on the floor when it was voted on. It did that three times. It overwhelmingly opposed it. It was not until President Clinton finally said he was going to support it that there was finally, for basically the first time, any support from the other side. I think the record should show that to be the case.

Another point is when all we do is extend this legislation and do not go with H.R. 4, what we are doing is denying an additional $4 billion for child care over the next 5 years. There is no assurance of full TANF funding for the next 5 years. In the area of marriage and families, there will be no additional $1.5 billion targeted to promoting healthy marriages, no added State flexibility to count spending on strengthening families. It goes on and on on what we will be denying ourselves. It also denies the added flexibility to spend an additional $4 billion in unspent prior TANF funds.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I wish the legislation before us today were not needed. But we do need to pass this bill. That is the only way we can have any hope of reaching agreement this year on ways to better assist low-income Americans in going to work and supporting their families.

I am pleased that the House has taken action on that important goal and look forward to defending our broader welfare reauthorization bill, H.R. 4, in conference. It is a good bill which promotes stronger families, healthy marriage, and more involvement by fathers in their children's lives, which all would improve child well-being. H.R. 4 also expects and supports more work in exchange for welfare benefits. That is what made the 1996 welfare reform so successful at lifting families off of welfare and out of poverty and dependence.

It is past time for additional commonsense measures to help the 2 million parents that remain on welfare today go to work and better support their families.

Mr. Speaker, during the June 22, 2004 House debate on extending welfare programs, Democrats suggested the process behind the historic 1996 welfare reform law was far more bipartisan than today.

They need to recheck the facts.

The Republic reauthorization bills passed by the House in 2002 and 2003 were more ``bipartisan'' than two out of three welfare bills considered in the mid-1990s.

During the 1990s, the vast majority of House Democrats OPPOSED welfare reform at every stage in the legislative process. The single exception was on the conference report that became the 1996 welfare reform law, when 50 percent of Democrats voted for welfare reform--but only after then-President Clinton announced he would sign the Republican bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Herger) for yielding me this time this morning.

In 1996, this House embarked, I think, upon a huge social experiment. We, for the first time in decades, had changed the way or moved away, from the policy of rewarding people not to work, to have kids and not to marry. We changed the world; and as a result of that bill, and I remember it so well, we passed it three times out of here and it was vetoed twice by President Clinton, but on the third time, much to his credit, he came on television, right before the vote, I was watching it in the cloak room, and announced that he was going to sign the bill. As a result, we got good bipartisan support, and that was tremendously important; and it was important because it was a situation and it set the record really straight as far as the Congress of what we were trying to do which is to help people out of poverty, to help people take control of their lives, take control of their families, not to be dependent on some huge massive welfare that was suffocating them.

We found there were people living in neighborhoods where nobody in the entire neighborhood worked, and the only people that they would ever see that were making a dollar were out in the street selling drugs. We have changed that.

This social experiment has been, I think, one of the greatest steps forward since I have been in the Congress; and I am very, very proud to have been a part of it.

But the real champion of welfare reform has been the welfare mothers, those that get up in the morning, get their kids dressed and ready for school, see them off to school or take them to school, then go to work and then reverse that process in the afternoon to pick them up from child care and bring them home, take care of them, fix their meals, do their homework, and then start it all over again the next day. These are the champions of welfare.

Yet, in February of 2003, this House, with a heavy Republican vote and 11 Democrats joining with us, put a long-term extension of welfare reform into place.

We are now waiting and waiting and waiting for the Senate to take action on this particular bill, and it is frustrating. We have had now five or six extensions, short-term extensions, and we are not getting to the meat of the nut, and that is that we need to set this in law permanently.

But this is something Congress should be very proud of. Both political parties should be very proud of what we have done and what we have accomplished. We have given these people a life. We have given them a life. And this is tremendously important. There were so many back then, when we passed welfare reform, that said we were going to have kids sleeping on the grates. They are not.

We have taken over 2 million kids out of poverty. We have cut the rolls in half and people are working. For once, these welfare moms are now role models for their kids. They have shown that with our just having a little bit of faith in the human spirit, they can become a family and they can become a role model for their kids. We heard this in testimony before the Subcommittee on Human Resources that I once chaired.

So I certainly support this short-term extension until September. I wish we were here working on a conference report back from the Senate, but that is not to be. And because of their rules, they have got this thing bottled up over there. But I would hope that we could get this thing moving and that we could get it back here on the floor.

We were very, very careful, and have all through this entire debate been very, very careful to be sure that we have child care in place, that we do not take away the Medicaid that is so important to so many of these people, and other benefits that we hold up so that these people do not have to have a fear of coming off of welfare and going to work.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I say to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin), that in March, reading from the gentleman's own statement, he says, ``You have stonewalled. It is not the Senate. They are now moving ahead.''

They are moving ahead? You asked for bipartisan support. You asked for working together. We do not write the bills in the Senate. Let them write the bill, pass a bill, send it back, and we will get it into conference. What is everyone afraid of?

What is it the gentleman has a problem with? And then be very specific. We put $4 billion additional in child care. I know he is for that. We have full TANF funding for the next 5 years. He should be in favor of that. Supplemental grants. Contingency funds for States with increased need.

Mr. Speaker, I would have to revise the memory of the other side. We wanted to work with the Democrats all through this process of writing this bill. The gentleman from Michigan was very much involved in that at that time. They chose not to. In committee they voted against the bill, even the one that eventually passed. When it came to the floor, they voted against the bill, even the one that eventually passed. It was not until we got to the conference and the President put his force behind this bill that they came aboard. I do not know where all of this bipartisan stuff came from, but it certainly did not come out of the committee.

I think we need to be straight on history here. The Republicans led the way on welfare reform. Period. Even though the President signed it on August 22, 1996, much to his credit. I will give him credit, also, as being very, very forward looking when he was Governor of the State of Arkansas, but then he retreated under the pressure of the Democrat leadership here in the House; and it was not until right before the election in August that he finally conceded that he would sign the bill, and we sent it to him, and he had a big ceremony and everybody was there and everybody took credit for it.

Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman from Michigan, I did not misstate it. I gave President Clinton full credit. As Governor Clinton he was ahead of his time. But he pulled back as soon as he got here. Something happens to folks when they come here to Washington. We get good Democrat Governors from the South, they come up here and all of a sudden they cave to their majority leaders here in the House of Representatives. It is a fact of life. That is exactly what happened.

But I do give Governor Clinton a lot of credit. And then finally in 1996, August of 1996, I give him credit for having signed the bill. I have been very careful to do that. We looked to the Governors for flexibility. We looked to the Governors for leadership. They were on the front line of welfare reform long before the Federal Government came along. We learned a lot from the Governors throughout this country, Democrat and Republican, including my own Governor Chiles, we worked with him, Engler, a bunch of them. We had some wonderful Governors that we worked with, we talked to, and we went to for advice. It was up to them to run these programs, and we wanted to be sure that we were sending something to them that was quite doable.

Mr. Speaker, I favor this legislation. I want, though, the record to be clear as to why we are where we are today.

Way back, it seems like many years ago, we passed welfare reform. It was not an easy journey. There were differences of opinion. President Clinton had urged that we reform welfare. There were differing views as to how to do that. We did work on a bipartisan basis. It was not easy. President Clinton vetoed, in essence, the first two because of inadequate attention to child care and to health care, and that pressured us to continue to find a bipartisan answer.

And I mean bipartisan in the sense that there was strong adequate support from both sides of the aisle, even though there remained some differences. And it became law. And I think the record is that it basically worked. It was a positive step forward. It worked in the sense that many, many millions of people moved off of welfare into work. And that was good for them, it was good for their families, and it was really good for the country.

However, the fact remained, and we do not have all the data, in part because the Congress did not provide enough money to follow this, despite our efforts to do so, but I think the data are pretty clear that while millions moved off of welfare, a very substantial number of them, while working, remained in poverty. So the question became: What next with welfare reform? How do we make it even more effective for the people on welfare who want to move off? How do we make it even more effective for their families?

Here, there was a misstep. And the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin) has painted that misstep, and others of us who have joined him in this. There were two problems: Number one, substantively, instead of moving on into the next phase of welfare reform so that people who move from welfare to work would move up the ladder, would move out of poverty, there was, instead, a proposal that did not really help people do that; inadequate attention to child care and really inadequate attention to transitional health care through Medicaid.

There was, instead, as the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin) has described, a kind of tying the hands of the States, instead of continuing to give them the flexibility that helped people move from welfare to work. As a result, the majority of the State directors in the welfare field opposed what was being suggested by the majority here.

So I think substantively there was some real problems with it. There also was a second flaw, and that was a failure to try to work this out in a bipartisan way. And that became typical, or was typical of the way the Republican majority in the House looked at matters. It was not only welfare reform, but virtually everything else. Instead of sitting down with those of us who wanted to work with them on the subcommittee and on the full committee, essentially the majority crafted its bill, found a small number of Democrats, very small, to support it, and did not look for the bipartisan basis that was true of the original Act.

And so it went over to the Senate. It got off on the wrong foot here. And so what has the answer been? Blame the Senate, though it is controlled by the same party as controls this House. But there were differing views in the Senate, including among Republicans, some of whom we had worked with when they were in the House before, and some of the Democrats.

Well, anyway, so there has been this stymie of the process and here we are again with a short-term extension. It is better, obviously, than nothing, and I think a short-term extension is better than if the Senate had simply adopted the House bill, which it never was going to do.

So I really want to join with the gentleman from Maryland and with others to say to our colleagues on the Republican side, maybe it is not too late to go back and try to do this together. If you fail to do so, we will have missed the chance to have gone to welfare reform phase two. I cannot emphasize how important it is for us to undertake that effort, because welfare reform did help people move from welfare to work. But as I said, too many of them remain in poverty. People are working, but they have joined the working poor. And we can help them who want to do better. That is our challenge, and that is where the House majority has failed.

So let us be bipartisan as best we can today by supporting the extension, but let us do even better. Go back and see if we can write a bill that can pass this House on a bipartisan basis, go over to the Senate so it can work on a bipartisan basis, and we can have further meaningful welfare reform in our country.

I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, no one is afraid of anything. Here is the problem. You started on the wrong foot here. You started with a bill that the States opposed. You did not sit down with us and try to work out these issues. And so, essentially, you threw it to the Senate to try to do so.

At some point, I thought that the Senate might be able to overcome the wrong start that was made here. There was no, zero, excuse for the failure to sit down with us, those of us who had worked together in 1995 and 1996 and see how we would shape a welfare reform bill that moved this process ahead. Instead, you got the States into total turmoil. Most of the directors opposed your bill. Governors came in and said that you were tying their hands.

So, Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw), with due respect, that is the answer. The House has used the process, passed something that is far out and then left it to the Senate.

Do it right here in the first place.

Let me take back my time. The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin) and the rest of us spelled out the problems with the bill: inadequate child care moneys, and that is a problem over in the Senate; allowing waivers, essentially saying to Washington, you will decree the nature of welfare reform instead of leaving it to the States.

Those were the problems. And also having prescriptive provisions regarding hours of work that the States opposed, preventing States, including my State of Michigan under John Engler, to continue the process that they had started. They would have canceled out

that State discretion. That was the trouble.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Florida misdescribed 1995 and 1996. I do not think it does any credit for him to describe it that way. There was a major effort, there were differences; but we worked together. There were differences. We worked together on a bipartisan basis. He misdescribed President Clinton's position, also, who, before he became President, talked about reform of welfare and who worked as President to make sure it happened in the right way.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I support this legislation to extend the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, program for the next 3 months. The bill will allow our States to continue to provide assistance to struggling families while also providing a variety of services to help people leave welfare for employment.

Additionally, this legislation would extend a number of important related programs, including transitional Medicaid which provides continued health care coverage for people leaving the welfare rolls to go to work.

Like the previous six welfare extensions passed by Congress over the last 2 years, this bill is a simple extension of current law. It does not include any of the controversial policy changes to the underlying program which were incorporated in the legislation that passed this body; and for not including those controversial provisions, I commend my friends on the other side of the aisle.

While I support this temporary extension, I wish we were here today, as the chairman of our subcommittee has said, to pass a long-term bill to help our States plan future efforts to move individuals from welfare to work. I, however, disagree with my subcommittee chairman in that the legislation that passed this body, in my view, and I think in the view of the experts in this area, makes it more difficult for us to accomplish the goal of a long-term extension of the welfare program.

The House-passed welfare bill was denounced by Governors, mayors, State welfare administrators, and poverty experts as an inflexible, unfunded mandate. The divisive debate instigated by the legislation has stymied a goal that should be bipartisan, extending the 1996 welfare reform law.

We are now on the seventh temporary extension of TANF funding. This process leaves the States uncertain about the future Federal funding levels and policy requirements, which in turn makes long-term or even intermediate range planning increasingly difficult for the State welfare programs.

Given this problem and the apparent deadlock on a broad reauthorization bill, the time is coming for Congress to pass a long- term continuation of TANF. For example, after this next extension expires at the end of September, Congress could extend the current law for 5 years. Mr. Speaker, considering how we on both sides of the aisle have hailed the success of the 1996 law, it is surprising to me why it is so difficult for us to at least use that as the building block, rather than as an area to impose new requirements on our States that are not funded by additional resources.

If we did extend the current law for 5 years, we could use that as a stepping-stone to debate other proposed reforms separately. At the very least, this step would ensure the continuation of a program that many of us have declared a success.

In the meantime, Mr. Speaker, I support the temporary extension of the welfare-related funding provided by the legislation currently before us. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds mainly to comment on the comments of my friend, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw), in that I am one of those Democrats who supported the bill in 1996. It was a bipartisan bill. It was a good bill and it did move us forward. What is surprising to me is why the legislation that passed this body is so radically different, so prescriptive at the Federal level as to what the States must do; taking away the flexibility, putting in more mandates, and not providing the funds necessary in order to carry out the new responsibilities.

I am surprised that we moved in that new direction when we were moving, I think, in the right direction, and all we needed to do was fine-tune the 1996 law.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).

(Ms. WOOLSEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield 9 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin), a senior member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

(Mr. LEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I think the comparison to how we proceeded in 1996 versus how we have proceeded in the year 2002, 2003, and 2004 is very instructive. In 1996, we had a President who ran for the Presidency saying that he would end welfare as we know it. He established three parameters for a new welfare bill, which were flexibility to our States, accountability, and resources. In 1996 in a bipartisan manner, we passed welfare reform with the support of our national Governors. In 2002 and 2003 and 2004, this body has passed legislation in a very partisan manner, without the support of our national Governors, for good reason.

The three pillars on which welfare reform was built in 1996 which has gotten such praise from both sides of the aisle are severely compromised by the legislation that passed this body.

First, on flexibility to the States, we take it away in the bill that we passed. We cannot use vocational education as the States would like to do, and I can name example after example.

On accountability, we have make shiftwork rather than real jobs, people moving up the economic ladder in the legislation that passed this body. And in resources we provide $1 billion only in new child care that is mandatory, even though the estimates are that the mandates in this bill will cost our States an additional $11 billion, an unfunded mandate.

So, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this extension because it is clean. It has none of those extraneous issues in it. It extends the 1996 law for 3 additional months. And then I hope we will get back to working together as Democrats and Republicans for a long- term extension that builds on the success of 1996.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I rise in strong support of this legislation. Welfare reform has been simply an extraordinary success. Rarely has this United States Congress taken an action that has meant so much in people's lives, that has produced so much good in people's lives. Under our welfare bill today, we have $51 billion available for services to families. We used to have under the old program $5 billion. That is because we kept the money constant while the number of cases has dropped by half, so all that money is there for services. Now it is needed.

We have fought hard to keep that money flat. Why? Because we not only want the money to pay day care while you are preparing for work, but as you make that transition.

But there are some other statistics that bespeak the extraordinary human success of welfare reform. Black poverty among children living with one parent is at its lowest levels historically. That means there are fewer black children living with single parents in poverty than has happened in decades. I am proud of that. What it tells us is that black women once given the opportunity for training and work are succeeding and they are doing better and their children are doing better.

I support this extension. I am pleased with its parts, particularly the day care dollars, but I do wish that the Senate had taken up the reauthorization that we passed here on the House floor because it goes further. It begins looking at careers. How do we help women, primarily women, (although there are some men who are single parents and on welfare), how do we help those folks who are trapped in that situation as a result of a series of problems, not only think about how to go to work and how to meet the emotional needs of their children but how to go to work on the first rung of a career ladder. Then every year you move up, every year your salary progresses, every year you learn more, do more, take responsibility and get a greater reward in the form of a higher salary. So those, primarily women, can be not only role models for their children but successful economic and emotional parents.

In the new bill that passed this House, we drove the work requirement up from 20 to 24 hours a week. By doing that, we made clear that you needed to work 3 full-time days, but you were accountable for a 40- hour-a-week plan. We counted drug treatment as work under that plan. We counted mental health counseling as work under that plan. States could even count taking care of your children after school as work under that plan because each plan could be individualized.

But the sum and substance of it was that it structured that transition off welfare so that you could go to school 2 days a week, counting that as work, finishing up your degree while you are working 3 days a week, and you could create for yourself truly any future you wanted because mental health, drug treatment, those kinds of problems, if you are addressing them aggressively, could be counted as work, which they are; and education combined with work could be also counted.

We have a next step to take; and if the other body will work on reauthorization, we can move forward. But please vote ``yes'' on this extension today.