John Breaux

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. Absolutely.

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from West Virginia.

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I yield to the distinguished ranking member of our Finance Committee, the Senator from New York, 8 minutes.

Mr. BREAUX. Why is it inappropriate? If the States can save a dollar, why should not the Federal Government save a dollar?

Mr. BREAUX. The decision of what the States do is their decision taking into account the cost of living in the respective States. The cost of living in Louisiana is substantially less than in your State or New York. That is a State decision. But with the Senator's own amendment--the alternative does not in fact lock in the Federal Government at 100 percent. If it is inappropriate to lock in the States, why is it appropriate to lock in the Federal Government at 100 percent no matter how much the State reduces their caseload? Under your approach, the Federal Government continues to have to give 100 percent of what they are giving in 1994. If we are going to have savings, why should not the Federal Government share in the savings, which, according to the Congressional Budget Office, saves the Federal Government $545 billion?

Mr. BREAUX. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. BREAUX. Back to the basic point I think the Senator is making, it is that somehow if the Breaux amendment passes States will not be able to reduce the amount of money they spend on welfare. That is absolutely and clearly incorrect. States are encouraged to spend less through reforms. We just say if they are spending less than 90 percent of what they spent the year before, the Federal Government will also reduce our contribution. Does the Senator disagree that under the Republican proposal, you lock in the Federal contribution for 5 years? Even if the State has less people on welfare, saves money, the Federal Government is still required to spend 100 percent of what they spent in 1994?

Mr. BREAUX. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I yield myself 30 seconds just to make the comment that there clearly must be a grave amount of misunderstanding of what the Breaux amendment does. The Breaux amendment allows the State to spend as much or as little as the State wants to spend. But it says that when a State spends 10 percent less than they are spending now, the Federal Government will also reduce our contribution. We on our side, in a bipartisan spirit, do not want to make the Federal Government spend 100 percent of what we are spending now for the next 5 years. If the State reduces their amount, the Federal Government should have the right to do that, as well. That is what the Breaux amendment is all about. I yield at this time to the very distinguished Senator from Vermont, who has a long history of outstanding work in welfare reform and looking out for the needy. I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Vermont.

Mr. BREAUX. If the Senator will yield further on that point, just to clarify. It is an important point. Under the Republican amendment, the Federal Government is locked into spending 100 percent no matter what the State does.

Mr. BREAUX. Does the Senator realize the Republican amendment locks in the Federal contribution at 100 percent for 5 years? Even if the State is successful in reducing the amount of people on welfare, your amendment locks the Federal Government into spending 100 percent for 5 years. If it is improper to lock the State into spending 90 percent, why is it proper to require the Federal Government spend 100 percent, even though you have fewer people on welfare?

Mr. BREAUX. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. BREAUX. Now the Senator is arguing that 45 percent is the appropriate, proper amount?

Mr. BREAUX. I thank the Senator.

Mr. BREAUX. I yield 2 additional minutes.

Mr. BREAUX. I commend the Senator for her comments on this legislation. And I prefer calling it the Breaux-Snowe amendment and thank her for her contribution in that regard. I wanted to--the Senator served in the other body, as I have. And the statement that some have said is that, ``Well, you know, we really think that 75 percent is an appropriate amount. That is why we should pass a maintenance-of-effort requirement, and the States will have 75 percent, and then when we go to conference we will come back with 45 percent, and that will become law.'' And my concern is--and I ask the Senator to comment--the other body has a zero requirement for the States spending anything. Does the Senator from Maine also have the same concern about what would happen in the conference if we start out and figure it with a substantially lower amount than the body of this amendment?

Mr. BREAUX. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. BREAUX. I will be happy to yield 5 minutes.

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I ask, how much time does the Senator desire?

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, what we present today in this amendment is a bipartisan effort, which is the way that welfare reform has to be accomplished in this country. There is no way that we as Democrats can write the bill by ourselves. There is no way the Republicans, by themselves, could write a bill that will become law. This amendment recognizes that, and it is a bipartisan effort. We have worked with distinguished Members of the other side, Republican colleagues, to craft this amendment to make it fair, to make it one that can receive bipartisan support and reach a majority. It may not be perfect, but I think it reflects the best thoughts of those of us who have been involved in this effort for a long period of time, and I ask that our colleagues give it their favorable consideration. Let me just preface what my amendment does by mentioning, just for a moment, a little of the history of this effort to try to solve welfare in our country. It has always been a joint effort between the States and the Federal Government. On average, the States generally contribute about 45 percent of the total welfare funds to welfare programs within their State borders and the Federal Government contributes the other 55 percent, on the other hand, of the welfare dollars going into various States. It has always been a joint venture, if you will, a partnership, if you will, between the Federal Government and the States. For the first time in the 60-year history of this bill, the other body--our colleagues and friends in the House--has terminated that partnership. They [[Page S 13318]] have said that there is no longer any requirement that the States put up any money if they do not want to help solve this problem. They say they are for block grants, and that in their minds means that the Federal Government sends them all of the money and they have no obligation to put up anything. They say that the Federal Government will continue to give the same amount over the next 5 years even if some of the programs that they have developed in their State reduces the number of people on welfare. That is right. Under the House proposal, the Federal Government would continue to send the States the same amount of money every year for welfare even though there are fewer people each year in that State that are on welfare. What kind of a partnership is that? That is giving the Federal Government all of the responsibility of raising all of the money, and giving the States the same amount of money each year, no matter what happens within those State borders. I think the concept of block grants can be made to work sometimes, but it has to be a partnership. We all know that when you are spending somebody else's money, it is much easier to spend it in any way you want to spend it. All of the legislative bodies, if they think the money is coming from Washington, are less responsible, in my opinion, when it comes to spending those funds than if they have to raise it through the tax programs in their respective States. We have all heard stories about block grant programs that have not worked at this very point in the sense of having States misuse block grants coming from the Federal Government. We heard the story about the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration block grants. Someone in one community was using the Federal money to buy a tank for the police chief. Why not? It is Federal money. They did not have to contribute to it. They thought it was a nice thing to do, and they did it. So the police chief got a tank. The Wall Street Journal just recently reported how State auditors in one State discovered that the State squandered $8.3 million in Federal child care grants on such things as personal furniture and designer salt and pepper shakers. Robert Rector, of the Heritage Foundation, certainly not a Democratic organization by any stretch of the imagination, recently commented on this phenomenon by saying: If there's anything less frugal than a politician spending other people's money, it's one set of politicians with no accountability spending money raised by another set of politicians. That is the point, Mr. President. That is the reason the Finance Committee considered this proposal, a proposal that said the Federal Government would continue to maintain our effort here in Washington in helping to solve welfare problems, that the State had no obligation to spend any of their money whatsoever. Therefore, I offered an amendment in the Finance Committee which required the States to maintain the same effort the Federal Government was maintaining; that if the States reduced by $5 the amount of money needed for welfare because of fewer welfare people, then the Federal Government would reduce our contribution by the same amount. That is why the amendment that is now before the Senate has been scored by the Congressional Budget Office to save $545 million over 7 years. This is a bipartisan amendment that the Congressional Budget Office says will save $545 billion over the next 7 years. That is why I think that all of our colleagues who are interested in trying to save money on welfare reform would look with favor and support my amendment. I want to point out on this first chart how the current system works, and why I think it makes sense. When you have a real partnership, with Federal and State funds both being used and contributed, you see here in the chart that about 9 million children of America get help and assistance under this program. You see, according to the blocks here, that we have five blocks with the representative Federal contribution and four blocks representing the State contribution to help 9 million kids. That is the current partnership. Without any State funds, under the House bill, if you say all right, the State does not have to put up anything, obviously, you are going to lose the blue boxes which represent the State contribution and instead of helping 9 million children get aid and assistance, you are now only helping 5 million. What we are saying essentially by this amendment is that we want to maintain the partnership, we want to maintain the effort. We think what the House has proposed is absolutely unacceptable because it says that States should not have to contribute anything if they do not want to. That is not what real reform is all about. The second chart that we have would also show something that I think is important. It shows that if you have the States willing to put up nothing, how it would affect the number of jobs that have been created over the past years. Right now, there are 630,000 job slots. These include work programs, education, training, and child care that are provided for through the Federal and State partnership. If State spending were to be cut by 10 percent, which would be allowable under both the House and the Senate proposals, if they were cut by only 10 percent, you are talking about a cut down to 290,000 jobs being available, a dramatic reduction. If the States were to cut their contribution by only 20 percent, you would not have any jobs funded at all. We all know that without work, you are not going to have real reform. Welfare reform is about creating jobs. If you allow the States to do less than they have been doing, or nothing at all, you are going to obviously dramatically adversely affect the creation of jobs under the welfare reform bill. Therefore, this amendment is absolutely critical. The third thing is that my amendment would enable both the Federal Government and the State governments to share the savings of welfare reform. One of the reasons we are trying to enact welfare is to save both the Federal Government and the State governments money. My amendment says that if the State government is going to reduce the amount of money they spend on welfare, so should the Federal Government. The House bill, in comparison, says: Look, if the States are going to spend a lot less because fewer people are on welfare, the Federal Government is still going to continue to give the same amount of money to the States. What kind of nonsense is that? If the State is getting $10 million from the Federal Government and reduces the number of people on welfare, under the House bill they still get the same amount of money from the Federal Government. There is no reduction. That does not make any sense whatsoever in times of tight budgetary restriction. If the State government can save money because of fewer people being on welfare, that is a good thing to happen. But the Federal Government should also say that we should also be able to reduce our contribution if the States have been able, through new inventive programs, to reduce the number of people on welfare. Also, my amendment, which requires the States to continue to contribute 90 percent of their funding, would discourage the supplementing of existing State resources. With the budget that we passed in the Congress, we made a clear statement that, ``Federal funds should not supplant existing expenditures by other sources, both public and private,'' and that the ``Federal interest in the program should be protected with adequate safeguards such as maintenance of effort provisions.'' My amendment would ensure that Federal dollars are not used to replace State welfare spending, which could be diverted to other uses like roads and bridges. Mr. President, simply put, under the House-passed amendment on welfare reform, the States under this provision have no requirement to have any maintenance of effort, no requirement to participate financially in solving the welfare problem. If a State wants to say, ``Well, we used to spend X amount of dollars on welfare programs. We want to take half of that, and we are going to use it for roads and bridges, or to buy furniture for State employees, or we are going to use it to pay for State raises for all of the State employees,'' Mr. President, under this amendment, the Federal Government still continues to contribute the same [[Page S 13319]] amount. The State is left off the hook for any real obligation to help solve the problem. We are not going to be able to solve the problem just here in Washington. States are going to have to be involved, and they are going to have to be involved financially in order to see that the programs are handled properly, that there is a real interest in the program, and that adequate funding for the program is available. We all know that when you come to lobbying for scarce State funds that people on welfare, and children in particular, who are innocent victims, do not have a very strong lobby. People who build roads and bridges and highways do. So if a State all of a sudden sees the House-passed bill in front of them they are going to say, look at this pot of money. We are going to take all the money that we used to use for welfare, and we are going to build roads and bridges and give State pay raises because that is what gets you reelected. I think that is wrong. Another thing that they could say is by reducing the amount of money they contribute to welfare programs, by reducing the income of a person, they are entitled to more food stamps because this is 100 percent federally funded. This is another unique way that the Federal Government is going to get stuck with the tab under the proposal in the House--let us just reduce the amount of money we give on welfare, and we know by doing that welfare recipients are going to get more in food stamps and, by golly, food stamps are paid for by the Federal Government 100 percent. Is this not a great way of getting rid of an obligation. What that is going to do is cost the Federal Government and the taxpayers substantial amounts of money. That is one of the reasons CBO has scored my amendment as saving $545 million over the next 7 years. There is no other amendment pending that is going to produce those types of savings. It is very simple. As a State legislator, I know if I reduce my State's spending on a program for welfare recipients, they are just going to get more money in food stamps that are paid for by the Federal Government 100 percent. Is that not a great way to get out of my obligation and stick it to the Federal Government and stick it to the Federal taxpayers because they are going to have to pick up 100 percent of the tab for the cost of food stamps. The only way we are going to solve this problem is with a real true partnership. My understanding of what the majority leader on the other side has offered is to say I think you have a point, Breaux, and this zero contribution by the States is really insufficient. They have devised an amendment I think that says, well, we are going to require the States to pay up to 75 percent of what they have been spending and contribute 75 percent for the next 3 years. But then after that it disappears. If a 75 percent contribution is good for the first 3 years, why is it not good for the life of the program or 5 years? What is magical about having it for 36 months and then, poof, it disappears? If it is good for the first 3 years, it should be good for the years of the program. The real critical point is this. And I am really trying to speak in a bipartisan fashion. If my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle really think 75 percent is a reasonable contribution by the States--I think it is too low, but they think it is reasonable--does anyone who has been around here more than 6 weeks think if we go to the conference with the House with the requirement that the States put in 75 percent of what they have been spending and the House has a provision which requires zero, does anybody think we are going to come out with 75 percent? Of course not. If you have been on a conference before, you know how these things are generally settled. You divide by 2. The difference between 0 and 75 is 37\1/2\ percent. And that is what likely is to come back from a conference when the House comes in with a zero requirement and the Senate comes in with a 75 percent requirement. So I urge my colleagues who may think that my requirement requiring a 90 percent contribution by the States of what they have been spending is too high to recognize that this bill has to go to conference. If we are going to come out with anything near 75 percent, I suggest it is absolutely essential that we come in with a minimum of a 90 percent requirement, knowing that in the conference it is going to be conferenced out and you generally split the difference when you go to conference. I think we can pass all the laudatory measures and resolutions we want saying that our conferees should stick with 75, and we know they are going to stick with 75, and they will argue for 75. That is good. That is fine. I have been on conferences time and time again, and I have been around here too long to know that is not what happens. The other body feels very strongly that there should be no contribution by the States. I think almost everybody in this body thinks there should be a contribution. If you think 75 percent is a fair amount, it is absolutely essential that we go to conference with a higher amount. Let me also say, Mr. President, that the amendment I have offered has a great deal of support from people who believe in block grants in particular. I know that Gov. Tommy Thompson from Wisconsin, who has been quoted so often on welfare, has said that ``welfare reform requires a cash investment up front. That investment eventually turns into savings.'' I agree with that, but I am concerned you are not going to be able to get money out of State legislative bodies for welfare reform without this provision. If States are told they do not have to put up anything, many States will put up nothing. That is simply a fact of life. Therefore, a requirement that they contribute in this maintenance of effort is absolutely essential. We can argue all we want about what is proper, 75 or 90, but I remind my colleagues when we go to conference we will be going to conference with a group of House Members who will feel very strongly that zero is the proper amount. If we are ever going to come out with something that maintains effort on the States at an appropriate and proper amount, then we absolutely are going to have to come in with an amount that is consistent with what I have in my amendment, and that is a 90 percent requirement. That allows the Federal Government to save substantial amounts of money--$545 million over 7 years as scored by CBO. It requires the States to participate in a partnership arrangement for the solving of this particular problem. Mr. President, with those comments, I reserve the remainder of my time at this point.

Mr. BREAUX. I ask unanimous consent at this time that Senators Jeffords, Kohl, Snowe and Baucus be added as original cosponsors to the amendment.

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, the pending amendment is the so-called Breaux amendment?

Mr. BREAUX

Mr. BREAUX. I thank the Senator for yielding. Mr. President and my colleagues, I take the floor to make comments in support of the Dodd-Kennedy amendment that is currently pending to the welfare reform bill. I do so with great enthusiasm because, like any effort, unless you have all the parts together you cannot accomplish the ultimate goal. In welfare reform there are a number of significant things that have to be done in order to pass a true reform bill. Congress cannot come on the floor, obviously, and pass a resolution that says welfare will be over with by the year 2000 and do nothing else. Any legislative effort that attacks this tremendous problem that we are facing as a Nation has to be composed of a number of significant measures in order to bring these measures together to accomplish real reform. It is not easy. It is not going to be cheap. But it is absolutely essential that we do it. One of the things that we as Democrats, and I think Republicans as well, agree on is that the welfare system as we know it today does not work very well for those who are on it, nor does it work very well for those who are paying for it. The system has generated generation after generation of people who are dependent on government help in order to survive. We in this Congress I think have an obligation to try to come up with a real reform bill that breaks that cycle. It is not going to be easy. I think it has to be bipartisan. We have to have our Republican colleagues join us when we have a good idea and I am willing to join them when they have a good idea. We do not have enough votes by ourselves to pass a welfare reform bill. We simply do not have a majority any longer. But I would suggest that they alone do not have enough votes to pass a bill that will be signed into law by this President unless we too are involved in helping to craft a measure that makes sense. Some have argued that the Federal Government and the States have been trying to solve the welfare problem for years and it has not brought about any real solution. Therefore, we are just going to give the whole mess to the States and let the States handle it because they are more inventive and have better ideas about how to solve the problem. I would suggest that approach is simply too simplistic and it is not going to work. This problem is big enough for both the Federal Government and the State governments working together to try to help solve this immense problem. I would suggest that State and local governments cannot solve it by themselves, and I would also suggest that the Federal Government cannot solve it by itself. Therefore, real reform has to be a coming together of the best ideas from the States and the Federal Government working together to provide money both from the State level and the Federal level in order to try to create sufficient funds to bring about real reform. [[Page S 13177]] There are those who suggest that, no, that is not the answer. We are just going to send all of the problems to the States and let them solve it. I have said that type of an approach is sort of like those of us in Washington putting all the problems of welfare into a big box and mailing it off to the States and say, ``Here. It is yours. You solve it.'' That is the block grant approach. When those State representatives and State officials open that box they are going to find a lot of problems. They are not going to find enough money to help them solve those problems. Therefore, it is absolutely essential, in my opinion, that we forge a joint venture, a partnership with the States and the Federal Government, to help bring about the best ideas and the best solutions to this problem working in partnership. The Federal Government should absolutely have to contribute money from the tax base that we have access to to help generate sufficient funds to solve the problems. But the States also have to participate. There are some who would suggest that the States should have no maintenance of effort at all. The Federal Government will pay the whole bill. But we will let the States get off without having to contribute anything. I think that is the wrong approach. Tomorrow, myself and others will be joining together to offer an amendment dealing with State maintenance of effort, to give the States an incentive to match Federal money to try to create a program that makes sense. I am absolutely convinced that if State officials, no matter how good and honest they are, know all the money in the program is going to be from Washington, they are less inclined to make the right decisions, to spend the money wisely, if they do not have to put up any of their own State dollars. Therefore, I think we have to urge them to participate, to maintain most of the effort they have made in the past and to join with us in a partnership arrangement to in fact solve this problem. Let me talk specifically just for a moment about the Dodd-Kennedy amendment. I do not think that there is a social scientist or a housewife or an individual in this country, no matter what their profession, who can look at the welfare problem in this country and say that we can solve it without addressing the problem of child care. We cannot solve welfare problems in this country just by passing a law that says all mothers should go to work and do nothing about the mothers who have small children at home, maybe 1 or 2 or 3 years old. We cannot pretend that if they have to go to work without something being done to help them with their child care, that is a real solution to welfare. In fact, that is not only not a solution, it in fact is a greater problem than we have right now. The Republican proposal requires--as does ours--that by the year 2000, 50 percent of the people who are now on welfare have to be in work. The Republican proposal and the Democratic proposal are the same essentially on that issue. The difference is how we get people to that point. The Republican proposal does not provide any additional financial assistance to pay for child care. That is the real defect in that approach. Our legislation, on the other hand, provides $9.5 billion in new funds over the next 7 years--which is more than paid for through spending cuts--to provide child care so people can go to work and we can have true reform. If the Republican proposal is adopted without the Dodd-Kennedy amendment, we are passing the largest unfunded mandate on to the States in the history of this country. We would do this at a time when the ink is not yet dry on the unfunded mandate legislation that so many people took so much credit for adopting--which recently this Congress passed and we sent to the President--saying that we are not going to pass an unfunded mandate on to the backs of the States any longer. But this bill without the Dodd-Kennedy amendment is, in fact, a huge unfunded mandate because it tells the States, Louisiana, or Massachusetts, or Utah, or any State in the Union, that they have to pay for the child care to put half of the people on welfare to work by the year 2000. But they are not going to be able to reach that goal without raising an incredible amount of State taxes in order to pay for the child care. I suggest that we ought to provide child care in partnership, the Federal Government and the States, and that is exactly what the Dodd- Kennedy amendment does. Over the next 5 years, Health and Human Services says that about $11 billion would be needed to meet the child care requirements of the Dole bill. The Dodd-Kennedy amendment provides those funds. The Republican bill does not provide those funds. I heard some suggest that the States will have more money because we will eliminate some of the red tape. How many times have we heard the argument that if you eliminate red tape, we will solve all the problems of Government? I have heard it time after time in the years that I have been in the Congress, both in this body and the other body that, well, if you eliminate red tape, the States would have enough money to do everything they have to do. That is a ridiculous notion. It is not true, and it is not factual. This reform is going to cost us money in order to achieve the long- term results. I should point out that the long-term result will be financially beneficial to society. It will be beneficial to individuals. It will make them more responsible citizens, and it will teach them that there is no free lunch; that people have to work in order to be able to be successful in this country. But again, it has to be a partnership. I know that my State of Louisiana cannot come up with the necessary funds to meet that 50- percent-work requirement in the year 2000. We are suffering, as many States are, from the lack of adequate funding for roads and hospitals and health care needs and all of the other needs that a State has to address. I suggest that child care is not a high priority among the people who get paid to lobby around State legislative bodies. Therefore, unless we require some type of a financial partnership to help provide for child care for mothers who are going to be required to go to work, those moneys will not be provided at the State and local level. The General Accounting Office recently released a research study which provided evidence of what I am saying I think in a very commonsense way. Their study, entitled Child Care Subsidies Increase the Likelihood That Low-Income Mothers Will Work, finds that among the factors which encourage low-income mothers to work, in fact, child care affordability is one of the decisive ones. I think we should listen to the General Accounting Office, which certainly is a bipartisan and nonpolitical organization, and their recommendation that we simply cannot have real reform in welfare, that we will not be able to get mothers who have small children to go to work, unless there is an answer to the very difficult child care problem. I have occasion from time to time in my State of Louisiana to visit welfare offices, to talk with groups that are trying to reform the welfare system, and great progress is being made, but in every one of these institutions, in every one of the talks I have been able to engage in, availability of child care was raised as such an important ingredient in the solution to this particular problem. Unless Congress acts in a forceful and affirmative way to guarantee child care funding will be available, I suggest that no matter how laudatory the other provisions of the bill happen to be, it will truly not be reform. What it will be is a major unfunded mandate on the backs of the States. I do not think we can find a Governor who is going to say they want to have to put 50 percent of the people to work without any help from the Federal Government. This is an absolutely essential, critical amendment. Without it, the bill I think will be fundamentally flawed and one that should not be signed into law. If we are going to do real reform, we have to recognize our responsibility in participating as a Federal Government along with the States and local governments to build the necessary funds to bring about a real reform bill. I congratulate Senators Dodd and Kennedy and all others who have joined with them in helping to craft this amendment. They have worked long and hard and tirelessly over the years to see to it that adequate child care is part of any reform package that [[Page S 13178]] we will consider in this Congress. Without it, this bill will not be reform. It will be highly destructive and should not be signed. With it, it will go a long way to fundamental bipartisan reform legislation to which President Clinton should proudly affix his signature. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I ask the distinguished manager of the amendment to yield to me 10 minutes.

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.