Jim Clyburn

Mr. CLYBURN

Mr. CLYBURN. If the gentleman would yield, let us look at another issue here, the issue of productivity. As my colleagues know, one of the things that we hear about affirmative action is that it requires that you hire unqualified people.

Mr. CLYBURN. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, before we leave the area of quotas let me point out something here. I have in my hand here a review; sort of an overview, I guess, is more of what it is; that was requested by one of the members of the other body who is now running for President. He asked the Congressional Research Service to give him an overview of all of the affirmative action programs in the Federal Government, and this document contains around 160 instances where references to affirmative action are made in one form or another, and the interesting thing is there is nothing in any of it that talks about quotas. In fact, Mr. Speaker, I think it was the Washington Post that wrote a story after this was published, and they had in their headlines: No, affirmative action does not require quotas. So I would hope that those people who continue to harp on that, because they know it is an inflammatory term, would stop being so dishonest with the American people and actually say what the facts are. Now, Mr. Speaker, the interesting thing about this is one little line in here that I want to just read because I think it tells it all. In this report it says no quotas, but goals and timetables. However it says the goals may be waived where not practicable due to unavailability of people in the work force. So even when you set out the goal, even when you set the goal out, if you find that in trying to reach this goal that there is not the kind of availability in the work force that you had anticipated, that goal is then set aside. So Mr. Speaker, I think that that says it all, and so I think the gentleman is absolutely correct, and I am glad that he took us down that discourse so we could clear up this issue of quotas because I think it ought to be said over and over again because I think that there are those who are trying to inflame the American public on this subject by using that term.

Mr. CLYBURN. I thank my good friend, the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Thompson], for getting us started on this discussion this evening. Mr. Speaker, all weekend I listened to the various talk shows, I listened to all of the Sunday morning newscasts, and in every instance we heard people discussing this issue of affirmative action, whether or not we have reached a point in our existence when affirmative action is no longer needed. Let me begin, Mr. Speaker, by looking at affirmative action, where it got started and what it is all about, and why it was ever necessary in the first place. Affirmative action, to begin with, is grounded in an executive order, Executive Order 11246, which was signed by President John F. Kennedy, signed by President Lyndon Johnson, and all Presidents since. Now, the whole purpose of this executive order was to move beyond the passive notion that we should not discriminate on the basis of one's color and, of course, it is interesting that in a subsequent executive order, the issue of sex was added as well. Now, what the attempts were, they were simply methods to say we cannot just say that we would no longer discriminate. We have to mix some affirmative efforts to go out and let people know that there will no longer be discrimination, that they are welcome to come in and apply for jobs, they are welcome to come in and apply for Federal contracts, and that they will be treated fairly and given an opportunity to participate in the mainstream of the economic activity of our society. And so throughout the years there has been discussion as to whether or not affirmative action really works. In the early 1980's this discussion became pretty loud and, of course, the then Reagan administration undertook to look at affirmative action and to see whether or not it worked and then to find out whether or not it unnecessarily trammeled upon the rights of other citizens, and so the administration brought in a Dr. Jonathan Leonard, a professor from California, who looked at the affirmative action programs and made a report that these programs did, in fact, work. But, secondarily, he found that there was no proof, no facts to sustain the allegations that these programs unnecessarily trammeled on the rights of white men as well as other citizens. It seemed as if this was not good enough, and so this administration undertook a second study. This time it was done by OFCCP, the Office of Federal Contracts and Compliance, and in this instance, the results were the same, that the programs worked, that they did, in fact, bring people into the mainstream of economic opportunity, people who had not been allowed to participate before, and again, secondarily, that these programs did not, in fact, unfairly trammel upon the rights of white men. And so then we continued with this executive order all the way down until the present day. Now, along the way, there have been those who have participated in this program of affirmative action, many of them very serious, others a little bit disingenuous. We have had people who have put programs together knowing full well that they were not legitimate programs, in an attempt to undercut, to discredit, to in some way bring embarrassment and shame upon a noble effort to bring people into the mainstream of the economic activity of our society. And then there have been others who, out of a notion to do right, have been very, very anxious and, in some instances, overly so, and they, too, have brought programs into being which did not pass judicial muster. Let me give you an example. In my other life, I ran a State agency in South Carolina, the South Carolina Human Affairs Commission, and part of my responsibility at that agency was to do the affirmative action coordination and planning for the State of South Carolina. And I remember one instance when a school district from the upper part of the State began to have a little trouble. These things usually come about because of one hiring decision that was made and did not go the way somebody wanted it to go, and in this particular instance, they had begun to have problems in their communities, and then they asked me to come up and to help them with it and Now, Mr. Speaker, when I went up, we did our analysis, and what you have to do in all of these instances is not just go on what somebody feels, but you go out and you analyze the work force, you look and see how many people are out there in the work force, not how many people are in the population, but how many people are in the work force who have the requisite skills for the kind of work that is needed, and in this particular instance, we went out and we analyzed the community's work force, and we looked at the work force at the school district. We came to the conclusion that there was no underutilization of blacks in that district at all, and so when we finished doing the affirmative action plan, we said to the school district, ``Now, look, here is our analysis. Here is your affirmative action plan. But we would recommend that you do not use it, because there is no need for it, because when we did our analysis, we went through what we call our eight-factor analysis. We found that there was no underutilization of blacks in this work force.'' They were shocked. The community was shocked. But when we explained to them what a real affirmative action plan is, they all accepted and even today, that school district is now doing well, and I am pleased to say is a school district that had about, I think, around 23 percent of the population is African American, yet the school district followed, by about a year after we left there, they hired a black superintendent to run the district. But they never had to use an affirmative action plan, because once we analyzed their work force and compared it with the availability of blacks in the labor force, then we found out that affirmative action was not needed. And so my point here is simply this: All of these people who are talking about affirmative action, I would wish that they would get beyond the emotional diatribes and begin to look at what this program really is and look at exactly how it came into being and how it ought to be operated. And I do believe that all fair minded, maybe not everybody, but all fair-minded people, when they take a look at these programs and see exactly what they mean and exactly how they are carried out, we would not be talking about whether or not we should do away with affirmative action. We will be talking about how we can take this principle and apply it to all aspects of our society and begin to bring people into the mainstream. Now, Mr. Speaker, I have been joined now by the gentleman from Alabama [Mr. Hilliard], and I see my good friend, the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Thompson], now has all of his statistics with him, so I am now going to yield back to the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Thompson], so that we can take us further on this discussion, and I will come back at a later time.

Mr. CLYBURN. In closing, let me just say this, as I say so often. Affirmative action is in fact an experiment. we are experimenting with a method by which we can overcome the current effects of past discrimination. Our society, this democracy that we live in, is in fact an experiment. But as we look at all the groups of people that make up this great Nation of ours, we have to think about the different religions, different cultures. There is no religion that we call American, there is no culture that can be called American. America is a mosaic of many things. Jews celebrate Yom Kippur, Christians celebrate Easter, Italians celebrate Columbus Day, black Americans celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday, Irish-Americans celebrate St. Patrick's Day, all of that, and we participate with each other, trying to make sure that people learn to respect these different cultures and these different religions. If we can do that, then I think that what we need to do is learn to carry that same respect and participation into the workplace as well. If we can do that, I think that America is going to be a much better place for all of us.

Mr. CLYBURN

Mr. CLYBURN. Mr. Speaker, let me just close this special order tonight by thanking the two of you for participating and to say that affirmative action is, in fact, an experiment. We are experimenting with ways to try to level the playing field, ways to try and bring people into the mainstream of our society. But America is an experiment. We are experimenting with something we call democracy. There is no religion that can be called American. There is no culture that can be called American. America is just a place where many cultures, many religions are all here trying to work together, trying to find common ground and in all of that, hopefully, doing so while recognizing and respecting the diversity that exists in all of us. On March 17, when I get up in the morning, I am going to put on something green, a tie or jacket or something, because I want to join with my Irish American friends in celebrating St. Patrick's Day. It does not take anything away from me to do that. In fact, I feel bigger and better when I do that. And I would hope that the day will soon come when all others can join me in celebrating those things about my culture that I hold near and dear. When we can do that, I believe we will have reached that goal that all of us would like to have achieved, that is, a color-blind society.

Mr. CLYBURN. I thank the gentleman for his remarks. Before I go to my good friend Mr. Thompson from Mississippi, I want to say I notice that Mr. Hillard brought up the Washington Post of today. There is another very interesting article in today's Washington Post on the subject of affirmative action. You may recall one of the leading contenders for the Presidential nomination from the other party requested some information from the Congressional Research Department on the question of affirmative action. He has received that. I am pleased to have a copy of that. The Washington Post did an article today on that, and it is kind of interesting. The subheading indicated that affirmative action as practiced by our Government does not mean quotas. But that is not the first study to do that. I remember, I think his name was Dr. Leonard, I can't remember his first name at the moment, did a study for President Ronald Reagan, a learned professor from California

Mr. CLYBURN. Let us yield just a moment, if we might; we have been joined by the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Fields], and I want to go to him in just a minute, because you just talked about the TRIO program. It was my great honor 2 weeks ago to meet with all of the southeastern participants of TRIO, that is, Outward Bound and Talent Search. It was my great honor to direct the Talent Search program some 25 years ago. Of course, I know that the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Fields] was one of those TRIO students, and is a great success story as to how that all works. I was looking up some statistics trying to figure out, not an affirmative action program, but it was put in place for the express purpose of doing affirmative things: 42 percent of all the students in the TRIO program are white students, 42 percent. Thirty-four percent are black, and the rest are basically Hispanic. So my point is you can in fact devise a program that will reach out.

Mr. CLYBURN. Absolutely.

Mr. CLYBURN. Absolutely.

Mr. CLYBURN. I thank the gentleman very much. Let me see if I may set the stage here a little bit. When we talk about affirmative action it is kind of interesting we hear so many people discussing it who seem not to really know what it means. As a concept, affirmative action is just a program or policy that is in place in order to remove the current and lingering effects of past discrimination. That is all it is. There are many ways to do that. We look at it in various fields. We just had a discussion earlier this week over what we need to do to affirmatively make programs possible for people of color, minorities, if you please, in this instance blacks and Hispanics, to own radio stations. Here we are at the time the policy which we just voted to eliminate was put in place, one-half of one percent of all of the radio stations in this country were licensed to minorities. Now that is blacks who, according to the census I just received, constitute about 13 percent of our population, Hispanics somewhere around 9 percent, 10 percent, or 11 percent, depending upon how you categorize it, but fully 25 percent of our citizens owning one-half of one percent of the radio stations. So how do you do about rectifying that? We put in place a rule, not a law but a rule, FCC rule, and what we said in that rule was that anybody who would agree, nobody is going to make you do it, but if you say you will sell your cable or whatever your media may be, radio station, to a minority you get a tax credit for doing it. And so here we are putting the program in place, a program which quadrupled, better than quadrupled that. Today that number went to 3 percent. So we know that it worked, and so here we are going backwards on that, and then the question then becomes why is it that we do not keep the program in place to see can we get in the next few years to 10, or 12 percent or something approximating these people's presence in our population.

Mr. CLYBURN. I thank the gentleman very much. Let me say before I go to our friend the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Thompson], I am glad you pointed out the affirmative nature of the Executive order of President Truman as it relates to the Armed Forces. It may be good for people to know that in 1961, I think March of that year, President Kennedy issued an Executive Order No. 10-924. In that Executive order he said something very interesting, that it is the plain and positive obligation of the U.S. Government to promote and ensure equal opportunity for all qualified persons. The question, the two operative words there are to promote and to ensure. It did not say to make a statement, but to actively promote, to actively go about doing something; and to ensure the equal opportunity. I want to point that out, because the Executive order that a lot of us talk about that came along later under President Johnson who reissued this Executive order but also issued in addition to it 11-246, and that is when we first heard the terms being used affirmative action, because that Executive order called upon the Government to take affirmative steps to ensure, not just to say we will not discriminate, that is a passive thing, but to be active and say we are going to go out and we are going to recruit where we did not recruit before. I remember when I was a student at South Carolina State University, I graduated from there back in 1962, when minority people went out recruiting people to work in the various industries around the State of South Carolina, nobody ever came to South Carolina State University. I do not know if they came to Tougaloo. But nobody ever came to South Carolina State. I never knew where the jobs were. Nobody in my class knew where the jobs were. Nobody ever said that this place is open for you and you should feel free to come and apply for one of the jobs here that you are qualified for. So like everybody else, we felt obliged to go and teach school, or some of my friends later on went to law school. But I went out and I taught school until such time as things opened up and I could go and apply for one of those jobs. I am going to yield now to our good friend the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Thompson]. Maybe he can shed some additional light on this subject.

Mr. CLYBURN. Thank you very much, Mr. Thompson. I do not know how many minutes we have left, but let me go to Mr. Hilliard for his closing remarks and hopefully he will save a couple of minutes for me to close.

Mr. CLYBURN. Mr. Speaker, let me begin by paying homage and respect to those who give their lives and sacrifice also at Iwo Jima 50 years ago. We all owe them a great deal of debt and gratitude. Of course, as I think about all of the sacrifices that were made at Iwo Jima, I think that this was four years before the Executive Order, 5 years before the Executive Order by President Truman that made it possible for many of the men who made sacrifices at Iwo Jima to get some semblance of the recognition that they were due. Because it was by Executive order of President Harry Truman that the Armed Forces were integrated and that men of color were then able to take their rightful places in the overall defense of our Nation. And we have come a long way from that, all the way up to having recently celebrated a person of color to hold the highest military office in our land. And we all join tonight with those who have gone before us this evening to celebrate those sacrifices. Of course, that brings me to the issue that we are here to discuss tonight, an issue that we are hearing a lot about today, the issue of affirmative action. I am pleased to be joined tonight for this special order by my good friend, the Representative from Mississippi, Mr. Thompson, Bennie Thompson, and my good friend, the gentleman from Alabama, who is Representative Earl Hilliard. The three of us tonight are going to spend just a little time, hopefully trying to shed some light on a subject that has been the object of a lot of heat in the last few days. Let me begin by stating what I think is the obvious for all of the people of goodwill in our great Nation. And that is the goal that we all strive for, and that is a goal of a color-blind society. That is what our goal is. I would suspect that that is the goal of most honest, right-thinking, reasonable people in America. The question becomes, how do we get there? I do not believe that anybody would read the recent census figures that arrived in my office today over exactly where all of the segments of our society stand; that is, where they stand as relates to equality of pay, the relative pay of one group as opposed to the other. We all understand that that is something that needs to be addressed. One of our Supreme Court justices said a few years ago that in order to get beyond color in our society, we must first take color into account. Let me share, Mr. Speaker, with the listeners tonight something that I think makes that point very, very vividly. I hold in my hand an article from a newspaper in my State, published on February 6. It is interesting. This article says that of the 119 occupied seats on boards and commissions in a particular county, 77 percent are filled by men and 95 percent are filled by whites. Now, the interesting thing about this is that the gentleman in charge of all of this had this to say, and I quote: ``I do not think anybody has ever really paid any attention to it. Women can do the job as well as men. But I don't know if we have ever taken a look at it. Maybe we should.'' Then one of the elected officials from that same county had this to say about this: ``The racial and gender makeup of commissions is something I had really not thought about. Maybe we should commission a study of the issue.'' Now, Mr. Speaker, what we want to talk about here tonight is exactly this. This is something that people just do not seem to think about, because it is taken for granted. For some reason people just feel that things, we have been doing it this way, so there is nothing wrong with continuing to do it that way. But the fact of the matter is, for us to reach a color-blind society, we must first take color into account. And so tonight I am pleased to be joined first by my friend, the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Hilliard, who I am going to refer to at this time, for him to sort of set the stage for us as we try to discuss this issue to the point that maybe we can get some good, high-level intelligent discussion of this rather than all the heat that we have had in the last days. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Alabama [Mr. Hilliard].

Mr. CLYBURN. Absolutely, His conclusion, affirmative action works. It does not mean quotas. It works. He went on to say something else, it works for nonblack people as well. And there was even a second study done under the Reagan administration by OFCCP, I don't recall the man's name now that did the study, but Ellen Schlam was the director of OFCCP at the time. The study was done at her direction. That study concluded that affirmative action worked and it did not work to the disadvantage of white males. So what has happened here is that there has been a concerted effort on the part of those people in our society who would like to see equality of opportunity denied to people who have sort of conjured up all kinds of fears, and they have appealed to the worst in many of our citizens, and they have turned people against certain segments of our society on this question. But every time it is studied, as was recently done and published today in the Washington Post, they find out that it does not mean what people say it means. Now let me, before going to Mr. Thompson, say this: It is kind of interesting. You know, if we had a container here with a cross-bones on the bottle, nobody would want to touch it because they would say there is poison in there. Well, the fact of the matter is, no matter what is on the label, we have to examine the contents to know what is there. So the point is there are a lot of programs that have had the affirmative action label put on them which were in fact not affirmative action, and the courts have made that very clear to us. I yield to my good friend from Mississippi.

Mr. CLYBURN

Mr. CLYBURN. Mr. Speaker, as I rise today in honor of Black History Month, I rise to look back on the history of a proud people, who despite seemingly insurmountable odds, made a way out of no way, and made their indelible mark on American history and culture. The names are familiar to us: Frederick Douglass, the great abolitionist; George Washington Carver, the brilliant scientist and inventor; Harriet Tubman, a feisty former slave who led hundreds of slaves to freedom; Booker T. Washington; W.E.B. DuBois, and hundreds, yes, thousands of others. There are some more recent names, of course: The great civil rights leader and Noble Prize winner, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and many others during his period. And today, in my native State of South Carolina, Judge Matthew Perry, Judge Ernest Finney; and civil rights activists Septima Clark and Majestica Simkins. All of these have made significant contributions toward the development of African-Americans in our great Nation. I would like to pause here at the mention of these illustrative South Carolina trail blazers, because I would like to talk for a few minutes about South Carolina history; to be more specific, a particular timeframe in South Carolina history. The period is 1868 to 1878, that brief time just after the Civil War, during which black South Carolinians held Federal and State public offices in numbers approximately close to their presence in the South Carolina population. They seemed to have been well on the way to becoming full participants in what this Nation so fondly calls a democracy. I want to pay special attention to this period in South Carolina history, because of its powerful parallels to what seems to be happening in the Nation as a whole today. Let me set the scene for you. The time is 1868, just a few years after the Civil War. The Black Code, a set of State laws restricting the rights of newly freed slaves, had been deemed null and void 2 years earlier in 1866. A year later, in 1867, blacks in South Carolina registered to vote. In 1868, South Carolina adopted a new State constitution which among other things provided for equal rights for Negroes, abolished property qualifications for holding office, and established a free public school system. And I might add, Mr. Speaker, the general assembly that gave us all of that was two-thirds black. In 1873, the State university opened to blacks. A black man, Pennsylvanian Jonathan Jasper Wright, sat on the South Carolina Supreme Court from 1870 to 1877. Blacks served in the State legislature, including Francis L. Cardoza, a Charleston, SC-born educator, who served as Secretary of State and State treasurer, and later served here in Washington, DC as principals of various DC schools. In fact, today one of those schools, Cardoza High School, bears his name. South Carolina had its share of black representatives in Congress, the first one being Joseph H. Rainey, and then George Washington Murray, who served from 1893 to 1895, and again from 1896 to 1897. Murray was the last black Congressman to serve the State before I was elected in 1992, 95 years later. Why did it take so long to elect another black representative? What happened in South Carolina and other places throughout the country just after Reconstruction? Here is where parallels can be drawn between then and now. South Carolina's political climate shifted, along with its economic climate, in the 1870's. Cotton was no longer king. Industrial technology had yet to make its big debut in the South. And both blacks and whites were going hungry as a result. Enter into this unstable economy the likes of ``Pitchford Ben'' Tillman, who became Governor of South Carolina in 1890, and later a U.S. Senator in 1894. By playing on the fears of hungry and angry white farmers, who, looking for a scapegoat for their plight, immediately pointed the finger at what they called uppity free blacks. Tillman was successful in revising the State constitution, and by 1895, almost all blacks were disenfranchised and a rigid policy of racial segregation was developed that would last until the civil rights movement of the 1960's. Now, let us draw some parallels to what is happening today. Let us look fallen in recent years due to an increase in service-oriented jobs, the Nation's changing economy has left whole segments of the population unprepared for competition in increasingly technical job markets. Compare also the political climate, where so-called leaders have risen to prominence by blaming practically all of the Nation's budget woes on everything from welfare mothers to affirmative action, to crime prevention programs. As I watch the witch hunt on African-American office holders and potential political appointees that we are experiencing today, as I hear the lopsided debates for abolishing affirmative action, as I see the legal maneuvers involved in countering what some have labeled bizarre-shaped congressional districts, I cannot help but wonder in which direction are we headed? Mr. Speaker, I close by saying as I used to say to my students when I taught in the Charleston, SC public schools, if a thing has happened before, it can happen again. As I close, I want to say in this current political climate, I want to applaud all of the black Americans who were pioneers, as well as those here this evening carrying on their legacy. I want to applaud all of our fellow white Americans who understand this history, who know what it means, and who are working with us to make sure that the clock is not turned back, to make sure that we do not repeat that period of our history, and I want to say to all of them, good luck and Godspeed, and I know what the apprehensions are.

Mr. CLYBURN

Mr. CLYBURN. I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, I wish to support the alternative to what is being proposed. As Members know, all of us agree that there ought to be a way to pay for the 25-percent deduction of health insurance. This issue is not about that at all. I think that we know, from those of us who have been dealing with health insurance and its reform, that this is something we support. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this legislation. Let me first make this clear, I strongly support a 25-percent deduction for health insurance costs for self-employed individuals. This deduction has long been allowed and should continue. However, the financing for the permanent extension should not come from the repeal of the minority tax certificate program administered by the Federal Communications Commission. Since 1978, the FCC has developed its program of tax certificates, under Internal Revenue Code section 1071, which encourages minority ownership of telecommunications properties. The program has led to a five-fold increase in minority ownership of radio and television broadcast stations, and to an increase in minority ownership of cable systems, as well. This program, which allows a seller of a telecommunications property to defer gain on an FCC-approved sale to a minority interest, has enjoyed bipartisan support. In 1982, a Reagan administration-controlled FCC both extended the policy to cable systems and expanded the program to include investors who contribute to the stabilization of a capital base of a minority enterprise. Every year, from 1987 to 1994, Congress has repeatedly supported this program in annual appropriations legislation. Through a legislative rider, Congress has, among other edicts, prohibited the FCC to retroactively apply changes to this program. The current rider expires at the end of the 1995 fiscal year. While the FCC is currently forbidden by law to retroactively affect the tax certificate program, this legislation is now asking Congress to do just that: Repeal the minority tax certificate program retroactively to January 17, 1995, which we all know is targeted at a deal between the Viacom company and an African-American businessman. This request comes after lightning-quick and less than adequate consideration of this program by the Committee on Ways and Means. On February 8, 1995, the full committee, acting solely on the one hearing on the issue, reported H.R. 831 without amendment. Tax certificates make it possible for minorities to gain access to two vital ingredients needed to achieve ownership: information available about broadcast properties and access to capital. Tax certificates encourage brokers to seek out minorities as prospective buyers of broadcast properties. Without the program, minorities are less likely to be informed of prospective sales. The importance of the tax certificate program to all participants in the telecommunications field, the inadequate consideration by the Committee on Ways and Means, the bill's retroactive effect raise serious questions about the direction this body is going in, with respect to affirmative action. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to vote against this legislation.

Mr. CLYBURN

Mr. CLYBURN. Mr. Speaker, there has been much talk about reforming welfare; about getting people off the Government dole and on to the payrolls. Well, Mr. Speaker, if we expect people to work, these jobs should at least provide a livable wage. While it is true that the economy is growing, the deficit is falling and unemployment is declining, many American are still finding it difficult to make ends meet. The current minimum wage is $4.25 an hour, or $8,500 a year. You tell, me, Mr. Speaker, how can one person live off such an income, much less a family? The President has introduced a proposal to raise the minimum wage to $5.15 an hour. I would take that one step further. I have introduced a bill, H.R. 768, the Livable Wage Act, which would raise the minimum wage to $5.30 an hour by the year 2000. Mr. Speaker, if we truly want welfare reform let us put the Livable Wage Act into law.

Mr. CLYBURN

Mr. CLYBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding to me. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to address the important issue of child support enforcement. There can be no denying that there is a problem. It is estimated that each year over $34 billion of child support goes uncollected. My own State of South Carolina has a collection rate of just 24 percent of court-ordered child support payments. But there is more to the problem than an inability to collect payments. For the many children whose paternity has not been established there can be no child support order. And in the relatively few cases where there is a court order, child support payments are rarely adjusted for inflation, and the amount averages less than $3,000 a year. Each year only $14 billion of the estimated $48 billion owed in child support is collected. The $34 billion left uncollected is the difference between financial independence and living in poverty or on welfare for many single parent families. In 1990, women headed 86 percent of the single parent families in this country, and single parent families headed by women are seven times as likely to live in poverty. Of the single parent families headed by women in 1990, almost 36 percent received some sort of governmental assistance. The statistics make it clear. Ensuring the full collection of reasonable child support payments is one of the most effective means to prevent many of our Nation's children from living in poverty. Child support payments could enable many single parent families to leave welfare or prevent them from entering the system in the first place. Yet, there is absolutely no mention of child support enforcement in the welfare reform bill included by the Republicans in their so called Contract With America. The Republicans claim that their bill will end dependency on welfare, eliminate out of wedlock births, and eradicate teenage pregnancy. They boast their bill will do all this, yet it leaves untapped the $34 billion of uncollected child support each year. According to the Republican bill H.R. 4, children born to unwed mothers under the age of 18, or 21 if the State so desires, will be permanently ineligible for welfare benefits. According to H.R. 4, benefits will also be denied to children whose paternity has not been established or who were conceived by or born to mothers while they were receiving welfare. Yet, while the Republican bill includes numerous provisions to exclude certain mothers and their children from receiving benefits, there are no provisions to crack down on deadbeat dads. The Republicans choose to focus on the failings of teenage mothers trying to raise their children on their own while making no attempt to punish fathers for abandoning their children. Mr. Speaker, it takes two. What kind of family values would our Government promote if it were to deny aid to children born to unwed teenage mothers while allowing a father to shirk his obligations as proposed by the Republicans? What kind of mixed message would we send to our teenagers that a teenage mother will be forced to live in poverty without any assistance as she struggles to raise her child while the father bears none of the burden? It is high time that we reformed child support enforcement in this country. Fathers must be identified, reasonable child support orders must be established, and child support payments must be collected.

Mr. CLYBURN

Mr. CLYBURN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this amendment, which will ensure that minimum Federal workplace standards will remain intact to protect the millions of Americans who work every day. This amendment is simply about saving lives. Despite the enormous strides made in the workplace over the last 25 years since the enactment of the original Occupational Safety and Health Act, hundreds of thousands of workers are still at risk in the workplace. I would remind my colleagues on the other side that in the OSHA regulations, as well as many other Federal regulations, especially in the civil rights area, there is a deferral procedure wherein States and localities are in fact deferred to. Now, Mr. Chairman, I want it to be clear that we are saying deferral here, and not referral. That simply means that in many instances we can defer to the States to establish their own procedures and their own regulations, and such was the case in North Carolina where that tragedy took place. During the investigation what we found was that in many of those instances, the kind of inspections that were expected to be taken place at the State level did not take place. Therefore, I think, Mr. Chairman, that we need to make sure with this kind of legislation that we establish these kinds of floors, so no State or locality can go beneath them. In 1970, Mr. Chairman, when OSHA was enacted, Congress considered these figures: Job-related accidents accounted for more than 14,000 worker deaths. Nearly 2\1/2\ million workers were disabled. Ten times as many person-days were lost from job-related disabilities as from strikes. Estimated new cases of occupational disease totaled over 300,000. In terms of lost worker production, wages, medical expenses, and disability compensation, the burden on the Nation's commerce was staggering. OSHA had to be enacted or we would have ended up with a net loss of billions of dollars from the gross national product. Without explicitly exempting workplace safety laws from this legislation, we open up the possibility of OSHA and all workplace safety laws being considered as unfunded mandates. All too often, Mr. Chairman, particularly in lower income and rural areas, as is much of my congressional district, some companies circumvent and violate OSHA laws and regulations, exposing employees to unsafe and unhealthy working environments. This amendment, Mr. Chairman, will at least allow minimum workplace guidelines to remain in place. Without this amendment, those who are least economically secure and who are less educated, and likely to be exposed to unfair, even inhumane working conditions, will be without protection. Therefore, Mr. Chairman, absolving employers from current workplace laws would be a tragedy in light of the tremendous potential harm that would be brought to workers across the country. I urge my colleagues to support this important amendment.