Neil Abercrombie

Mr. ABERCROMBIE

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I began my discussion during the rule by quoting the Constitution of the United States, and the reason you can say it is not about free speech, it is about money, thus implying that all of us who are trying to stand up for the Constitution are doing it for some nefarious reason because you have this Constitution that says you have free speech: ``Congress shall make no law respecting abridging of the freedom of speech.'' Now, if you are having difficulty finding out whether people are acting crookedly, that is something we have to overcome in a free country. You cannot come down here and make the argument that somehow we are favoring money over free speech when the Constitution says it is supposed to be tough to get rid of free speech.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the welfare reform conference agreement. Instead of addressing the causes of poverty, this bill penalizes people for falling on hard times. Yes, Mr. Speaker, we do need to change the welfare system; but it is cruel and mean-spirited to dismantle altogether the safety net and basic services for poor families and disadvantaged children. The Republicans' answer to welfare reform is to deny basic assistance to lawful immigrants who pay Federal taxes, pit foster children against victims of domesitc violence for the same scarce funds, eliminate assistance to disabled kids, and cut programs to reduce child abuse. The reductions in basic programs for low-income children, families, and elderly and disabled people contained in the conference agreement on welfare reform total nearly $80 billion over 7 years, compared to what the programs would cost under current law. As a result of these reductions, the legislation would increase poverty among children. An Office of Management and Budget [OMB] analysis found that the welfare conference agreement would add 1.5 million children to the ranks of the poor. Furthermore, these figures understate the bill's overall impact on child poverty. These figures reflect the legislation's impact just on children whose incomes would exceed the poverty line without the legislation but who would be pushed below the poverty line by the legislation. Yet, the conference report also would have a second major effect on child poverty--it would make large numbers of children who already are poor still poorer. According to the OMB study, the depth of child poverty would be increased by one-third. The deep benefit reductions in the welfare reform conference report extend far beyond single-parent families on welfare. The large food stamp benefit cuts affect the working poor, the elderly and disabled poor, and welfare recipients alike. The changes in the SSI program adversely affect large numbers of low-income disabled children as well as elderly poor individuals. Changes and reductions in the child protection area will result in fewer services for abused and neglected children. These changes have little to do with reducing out-of-wedlock births or moving welfare families to work. Unfortunately, certain members of the Republican Party have perpetuated the myth that welfare recipients do not want to go to work, leading to a feeling of resentment toward recipients by the American public. This is simply not true. Forty percent of single mothers combine work and welfare or cycle between these two income sources while on welfare. The majority of people who cycle on and off welfare have substantial work experience--on average about 6.5 years. However, there are many barriers facing poor American families that prevent them from holding down a permanent job. The primary barriers are lack of medical coverage and lack of adequate child care services. Single-parent families, making up the vast majority of families on AFDC, cannot leave welfare because many jobs do not offer health insurance. AFDC recipients lose their Medicaid benefits when they accept a job and there is no safety net coverage to fill this important need if their new job does not include health insurance. In addition, in every State, including Hawaii, there are waiting lists of up to several years for guaranteed child care for the children of poor families who seek work after welfare. Welfare reform should ensure that these two major barriers are addressed. Furthermore, many AFDC recipients do not have adequate education or job skills to find a job which would earn them a family wage. Most jobs available to unskilled and uneducated head of households pay the minimum wage, currently $5.25 an hour in Hawaii. With a minimum-wage job, an individual in Hawaii would earn approximately $10,000 each year. This is not adequate for a family to survive. It is also important to remember that our economy does not generate enough jobs for all the people who want them. Today approximately 8 million Americans are currently unemployed and looking for work. Criticizing families on welfare without keeping in mind the limits of the job market condemns them for the failings of the economy. Many welfare reform advocates have suggested that by eliminating benefits or enacting punitive measures we can solve the problem of welfare dependence. Welfare reform including punitive measure such as cutting off recipients at 2 years or cutting off benefits for additional children would be devastating to poor families in America. According to recent studies, welfare programs are not the reason for rising births to unmarried mothers. Similar studies reveal that welfare recipients are not motivated to have additional children by the prospect of additional benefits. The fact is that, on average, families receive only up to $69 per month for an additional child. This is not even enough to cover the cost of diapers for a new baby. In Hawaii an additional child brings in only $147 in additional cash assistance. Current AFDC payments are not windfall benefits. In Hawaii, an AFDC family of three receives $712 in cash assistance each month. This amount is reflective of the high cost of living in Hawaii when compared to other States. In Alabama, for example, three-person families receive $164 in cash assistance each month. I challenge any critic of welfare recipients to live comfortably on this income. Furthermore, AFDC benefit levels have declined by 42 percent in the last two decades. The average monthly benefit for a mother of two children with no earnings has shrunk in constant 1992 dollars from $690 in 1972 to $399 in 1992. In addition it is estimated that welfare recipients now lose up to a dollar in benefits for each dollar earned in a new job. Welfare recipients need the same incentives to work that other Americans have. We must end welfare as we know it by crafting a fair and just system to empower recipients to achieve permanent self-sufficiency without punishing them for being poor. I believe that the people of Hawaii and all Americans recognize that government has a role to play in ensuring that our families maintain an adequate quality of life and have access to basic human needs. We understand that by simply eliminating benefits for poor families we do not eliminate their needs. Most importantly, we cannot forget who is receiving the AFDC benefits. Over 66 percent of all recipients of AFDC are children and 100 percent of the adults receiving AFDC are caring for children. Thirty-five percent of all AFDC families include a child under age 3. If we remove the minimum safety net completely we will be abandoning our children. We know that family poverty harms children significantly and places young children at risk. Ultimately society will suffer for the abandonment of families and States will have to shoulder the burden of homelessness, crime, family violence, substance abuse, and health problems. We should improve the lives of the American poor by changing the welfare system in a positive, not a punitive, effort.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I thank the gentleman very much, and I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Yes. If the gentleman would yield just a moment longer, the first time, Mr. Majority Leader, as I understand our recess resolution, that we would be called to make a determination or that the majority would be called to make some determination as to whether we continue in recess, et cetera, would be next Wednesday; is that correct?

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. ABERCROMBIE

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Is it not the case then in the very areas where we are cutting children and elderly, in those very cases where there are clear changes adversely affecting those groups, that the gentleman had made a detailed presentation this evening on, the exact opposite situation coming into effect when it comes to what I call tax giveaways? These are not cuts, although it is portrayed in the press over and over again, I guess in shorthand version, $245 billion in tax cuts as if something was being taken away. Is it not the case, is it not the fact, that it is the exact opposite, that these are giveaways, that the speculative stock market that is operating right now is waiting with the proverbial bated breath for these tax giveaways to come into effect so they can take advantage of the speculative market that has been created?

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Would the gentleman agree then perhaps his $240 to $245 billion that is now scheduled to go in tax giveaways might better be invested then in the people's structure and infrastructure of our country?

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I believe the gentleman would agree that the proposal before us now, far from creating a national health care system, would do the exact opposite. An article from the New York Times from the 31st of October indicates, and I am quoting: The House version of the legislation would allow doctors to start physician-run health groups without the financial and regulatory requirements that States impose on similar organizations. Instead the House bill would authorize development of a new Federal regulation to police the doctors. The bill could make it easier for doctors to set prices in a way that now violates antitrust laws. This would be the ultimate result. I know the gentleman's time is coming fairly close to an end. I just want to indicate at this juncture that I stand with him on this, and I think it is very important during these special orders for us to come down here and try and cut through the ritualized rhetoric that is on the floor about a balanced budget and start talking about balancing our communities in terms of opportunity and justice.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Is it not a fact, though, that those veterans, whom we are all very happy about in terms of at least being able to receive some benefits, they in fact are voters? Is there not a large group of people, is it not a fact that there is a large group of people, the children of this country, who are going to be aversely affected or left out of the equation?

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I beg your pardon. I had heard you speaking previously at one point, if I am not mistaken, about veterans' programs.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. If I am not mistaken, is not the gentleman from Vermont a member of the veterans' committee?

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Vermont. My remarks at this stage have to do precisely with this question of the deficit and very frankly, Mr. Sanders, why we are here this evening. It may be that some of our colleagues and perhaps others who will be paying attention to our remarks here are wondering why four days before Christmas are we here doing this? For those who are not aware, perhaps even among our colleagues, we passed a, not we, I think the gentleman and myself voted against it today, a resolution to go on recess. Perhaps you could comment, has this deficit gone on a recess? Has this lust to so-called balance the budget gone on a recess?

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. In that context, if the budget as proposed by the Republican majority, all of whom have disappeared tonight, comes into effect, is there not another class of vulnerable people who will be adversely affected, the elderly in need of Medicare assistance, particularly those in nursing homes? The gentleman may be aware of a Consumers Union and National Citizens Coalition for Nursing Home Reform report which just came out, and I am quoting from it, saying that the budget reconciliation bill that we have yet to consider from the Republican majority, and I am quoting now, ``would endanger the lives of America's most vulnerable elderly citizens'' by providing no standards of care. I know the gentleman has spoken in the past in this area, that, minus the rules that are in effect now enforced by the Federal Government, the much maligned Federal Government, it is easy to talk about it when it is taxation, but when it comes to assisting the helpless, assisting the elderly, assisting those most in need, which is, after all, the fundamental basis of governmental assistance in the first place, are we taking care of those in the community that need the assistance? Is it not the case, would the gentleman agree, that it is precisely those people on Medicaid, in the nursing homes, who need the protection of Government, who would be most adversely affected should this budget move forward?

Mr. ABERCROMBIE

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, most respectfully, I thought I was obeying your admonition to speak through you.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I did not ask a parliamentary inquiry. The Speaker admonished everybody to address questions through him. I asked, Mr. Speaker, whether the maker of the resolution could advise me whether or not that means that all codels will be canceled? I think that is a fair question.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, in that context, can you inform me then if this resolution passes, does that mean that all codels will be canceled?

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, would the majority leader kindly yield for one question?

Mr. ABERCROMBIE

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, on the last vote, rollcall 870, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been here, I would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. ABERCROMBIE

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I thank the Chair very much.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. If that is the case, Mr. Speaker, somebody should have taken down the words.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, in asking that we reject this rule, I want to reiterate that the proposition before us has been prepared by the majority staff. It purports to utilize Congressional Budget Office projections, and perhaps something of what the President has proposed in one form or another. But I would submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that the real agenda here today is to do the following, in the guise of balancing the budget: To actually undermine and in fact to subvert Medicare and Medicaid and to see to it that a tax giveaway goes to the very wealthy people in ths country, and ultimately to privatize Social Security. That is the real agenda, I believe, behind the whole argument about the balanced budget, because this balanced budget is nothing but an illusion. As the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Taylor] indicated previously, from a copy of a letter I have from the Congressional Budget Office in 1996, the deficit under the Republican budget proposal is $260 billion. Reject the rule and the resolution.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Did I understand you correctly, just before your last sentence, that you did indicate that the words taken down were not out of order, question No. 1; and, No. 2, question No. 2, did you make an admonition to the body not to make direct references to the President?