Mike DeWine

Mr. DeWINE

Mr. DeWINE. That is correct. If the Senator will yield, what we have done with this is to try to model the Massachusetts program. What Massachusetts has been able to do is to work out, it is my understanding, an agreement between the private banking community and the State to have a system that is not overly burdensome on the banking community; it is something that they can live with but something also that gives the information to the people who need it and give it in a very timely fashion. Let me just say that one of the things we did, Mr. President, is we checked with the Ohio banking community, just to try it out. We said, would you be willing to do something like this? And the answer was, we are citizens of the State and we want to be good corporate citizens. We want to help out. It is something we can live with. If it is not overly burdensome and is directed at dealing with the problem, we are more than happy to comply. What will happen, as the Senator knows, many times people move from State to State. With all States doing this, we will have in the law the system where the States can share information. And so what I would anticipate once this system is fully up is that not only in Ohio would you basically get this information, but if a person took off and went to Connecticut or Rhode Island or Arizona, that information could be shared by cooperating with that State.

Mr. DeWINE. That is correct.

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, one of the reasons that our welfare costs today are so high is the number of absent deadbeat parents who, in spite of a court order, in spite of judicial determination that they owe weekly or monthly child support, still flagrantly refuse to pay child support. This amendment goes a long way, I believe, to help deal with this problem. Let me take just a moment, if I could, to congratulate Senator Dole and to congratulate everyone else who has been directly involved in this bill because the child support enforcement section is a very good section. It was written after consultation with experts in the field, people who deal with this every day out in the 50 States who have to face the problem of trying to track down these deadbeat parents and then after they find them trying to figure out how to get money from them. This particular amendment that I am offering was also based on our consultation with experts in the field, particularly the State of Massachusetts, which has some very, very good success. In fact, this particular amendment was modeled after what Massachusetts is doing. The purpose of this amendment is to make it easier for States to crack down on deadbeat parents. We, of course, are all aware, Mr. President, that one of the key causes of our social breakdown is the failure of parents to be responsible for their own children. The family ought to be the school for citizenship, preparing the children for a responsible and productive life. Too often it is just the opposite, and parents do not do that. When they do not pay their child support, it is certainly very difficult for society to step in and fill the gap. We need to reconnect parenthood and responsibility, and making absent parents pay is one way that we can do it. We need to help States locate deadbeat parents and help States establish support orders for the children, and then finally enforce these orders. My amendment attempts to address this problem by providing for a more timely sharing of information with the States. As I said at the beginning, it is good to get the child support order. It is good to locate the parent. But if you cannot figure out where the parent's assets are, it does not do anyone any good. It does not do the children any good. It does not do society any good. So what this amendment is aimed at doing is making it easier to locate the assets of the parents. Today, Mr. President, the Federal Parent Locater Service in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services gives the States banking and asset information about potential deadbeats on an annual basis--once a year. Now, if you go out into the States and talk with people who have to track down these deadbeats, they will tell you how difficult that whole process is. I first became involved in this a number of years ago, in the early 1970's when I was a county prosecuting attorney. I cannot tell you how frustrating it was. You got a support order. You got a judge to say the person owed so much money. And then they took off. You could not find them. Then after you found them, you could not figure out where their assets were. This amendment will help in that area. If you have to wait, Mr. President, a whole year to get the information about the bank assets of an individual, sometimes a year and a half, obviously many times that information is stale and many times that information does not give you the true information you really need. The person may have moved. They may have changed banks. They may not have any assets in the bank, et cetera. My amendment will allow States to enter into agreements with the financial community in their States to match financial data with child support delinquency lists on a more frequent basis. Not only will States get information on an annual basis, this [[Page S 13595]] amendment will allow for more timely information on a quarterly basis. This quarterly system has already been implemented in the State of Massachusetts and the results have been nothing short of phenomenal, which this chart indicates. In 1994, Massachusetts child support enforcers collected $2.7 million in past due child support. This year, Massachusetts began a quarterly reporting system, and collections have dramatically increased. At the current rate, their child support collections for 1995 will be at $9.6 million. That, Mr. President, is more than three times what they collected last year. The year before, $2.7 million; this year, $9.6 million. Let me congratulate and also thank Marilyn Smith, who is the director of the Massachusetts Child Support Enforcement Agency, who worked with my office and with Dwayne Sattler of my office and the rest of my staff to really get the language down so that other States would be able to do what Massachusetts has done. So, Mr. President, when you are looking at what works and what does not work, this works. In short, when child support enforcers have timely information, they can make deadbeat parents pay what they owe, and that means more parents responsible for their children. We have received the CBO scoring on this amendment, and it will be at least revenue neutral. As someone who has worked in this field and did this for a number of years, let me tell you my guess is it is going to be a lot better than revenue neutral. This is going to be a very positive thing for each State. I believe it will save money for the Federal Treasury as more and more parents own up to their financial responsibility of having children. This amendment is cost-effective and it is necessary. The child support enforcers are doing a very tough and difficult job, facing horrible obstacles every single day. I think we should cut by 75 percent, which is what this amendment does, the amount of time they have to wait to get this valuable information. Information is power, they say, but in this case information is money. So if you get the information on time, you take the court order, you go in, slap a lien on the bank account, you draw the money out, and guess what? That deadbeat parent has now started contributing his or her fair share not just to that family, which is the most important thing, but also to society as well. That is why I believe my amendment will do a great deal of good. I urge it be adopted. Mr. President, let me just clarify for the record that the amendment that I am modifying is amendment 2517 and not 2519. I thank the Chair. Mr. CHAFEE addressed the Chair.

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to modify my amendment No. 2517, and I send the modified amendment to the desk.

Mr. DeWINE

Mr. DeWINE. I yield the time.

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. President, the amendment which Senator Kohl and I have proposed really is a very simple one. It encourages States to work to keep people off of welfare before they ever go on welfare. I think this is not only the right thing to do from a humanitarian point of view but it is also the most cost effective thing to do. In fact, we have seen several States make great progress with their programs to do this--Utah, Wisconsin, and there are many other States that are now just starting this type of a program. I believe that without this amendment the underlying bill would have the unintended consequence and resolve of discouraging States from this type of early intervention. And I think everyone agrees we should be encouraging States to do so. Our amendment would give States credit towards their work requirement for reducing their caseload by helping people before they ever go on welfare. As I said, Mr. President, I think it is a very simple amendment. But I think it is an amendment that will in fact make a difference and will in fact encourage the States to do what everyone agrees needs to be done; that is, keep people from getting on welfare. I might add, Mr. President, that it does not give the States credit towards their work requirement if, in fact, the reduction in caseload is achieved merely by changing the requirements for being on welfare. These have to be actually meaningful reductions that are achieved in other ways. Of course, one of the ways to achieve those is, in fact, by having that very, very early intervention.

Mr. DeWINE

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to add the name of Senator Kohl as a cosponsor of this amendment.

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 2518, the caseload diversion amendment.

Mr. DeWINE. Thank you, Mr. President. Amendment No. 2518

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I inquire of the Chair what the pending business is.

Mr. DeWINE. Let me close by reading from an article of the Sunday, July 2, 1995, Baltimore Sun. This references the Rutgers study that my friend from New Mexico has already mentioned. Let me directly quote from the article. ``A recent Rutgers University study indicates that New Jersey's family cap has had no impact on welfare mothers.'' Later on in the story, this quote appears, again reading from the same article: ``However, the 4 percent increase in the abortion rate occurred over a relatively short period of time.'' So the article points out you still cannot tell what the statistics really mean. I think we should err on the side of States. I think we should err on the side of caution. I think we should err on the side of allowing the States to truly be the laboratories of democracy. I am convinced that this is the only way that we are going to in any way begin to deal with our welfare problem. Nobody knows all the answers. We have suspicions about what we think might work. In this bill, Mr. President, we should encourage more creativity, more diversity, more taking of chances. Quite frankly, trying to run welfare from this body and the other body and the bureaucrats in Washington, DC, has not worked. We ought to try something else, and support for the Domenici amendment really, when you strip everything else away, is a statement that we want to turn this responsibility and the creativity, opportunities, back to the individual States. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of Senator Domenici's amendment. I think, as we debate welfare reform tonight and as we debate the amendment of my friend from New Mexico, we need to step back a little bit from this whole welfare debate. We are a number of days into this now. It is rather late in the evening. But I think we need to look at this from the big picture. Mr. President, one of the main reasons that we are on the floor tonight debating meaningful, true welfare reform is because our current welfare system simply does not work. We have decades of experience. We have decades of experience and examples of what does not work. Quite frankly, what we do not know is what does work. We are just now, in the last several years, beginning to see more experimentation at the State level. And while some of the early returns are in, frankly, it is still very difficult to see what works and what does not work. I support this bill because I believe that all wisdom does not reside in this Capitol Building, in this U.S. Senate, in the House of Representatives. And I am convinced that the only way we are going to genuinely reform welfare is to allow the States to truly be the laboratories of democracy, and to allow them to experiment, and to make it so that no longer will they have to come, hat in hand, on bended knee, to a bureaucrat in Washington, DC, to see whether they can get a waiver or an exemption, or if they can try something different-- something that might even work, Mr. President. That is the background by which I approach this amendment. Both sides of this particular debate on this amendment, I think, would agree--and do agree--about the tremendous problem, the tragedy that we have in this country today with the growing rate of illegitimacy. Senator Moynihan, who was on the floor a few minutes ago speaking in favor of the Domenici amendment, is probably the foremost experiment in the country on this issue. He forecasted, long before anyone else understood, the importance and significance of what the trend lines really meant. The tragedy today, Mr. President, is that in some of our major cities, two out of every three births are, in fact, illegitimate. On the national average, we are approaching one out of three. None of us know what the long-term consequences of this will be. But neither do we know what to do about it. We have heard already, just in the short amount of time we have debated this tonight, several different studies that have been cited. I will cite one in a moment. But the fact is that we do not have enough years of experience in New Jersey, or in any other State, to know what effect this family cap has. Does it increase abortions? Does it, in fact, cut down on the illegitimacy rate, without increasing abortions? We have two studies, with contradictory results. The jury--as we used to say when I was a county prosecutor in Greene County--is still out, deliberating. We do not know. What kind of arrogance is it for this Congress and this Senate--I use the word ``arrogance''--how arrogant would we be--when we do not know what works and what does not work, when we really do not know how to get at the issue of illegitimacy, certainly not from the Government's point of view, if the Government can do anything about it--to then turn around and tell every State in the Union that this is what you have to do; we now know best. And to put it on maybe a partisan point of view, now that this side of the aisle is in control, we do not like your mandates, but we like our mandates. Arrogance. I have been on this floor before talking about things where I thought there should be Federal mandates and where I thought there should be uniformity. But I did so only when I felt, at least, the evidence was overwhelming that we knew what worked and what did not work and the statistics just did not lie. In this case, we do not know what the statistics show. We just do not know. So this is one U.S. Senator who is not going to take a chance that this action by this body of telling every single State of the Union what they have to do--I am not going to take the chance that it might just increase abortions, or it might not work at all. It might not have any impact. So I am voting with my friend and colleague from New Mexico, and I think it is proper, as he has very well stated, to restate what his amendment does. It does not tell any of the States what to do. A State can impose a cap. A State can impose a very tough cap if they want to. They can impose a cap as New Jersey has. However, under Senator Domenici's amendment, we would simply say we are not going to tell you that you have to do that. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be added as a cosponsor to the amendment.

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, the purpose of our amendment was to make sure the States tackle the underlying problem of the welfare system. Too often, welfare ends up being quicksand for people--quicksand instead of a ladder of opportunity. The underlying legislation before us will help change this by creating a real work requirement that will help boost welfare clients into the economic mainstream of work and opportunity. Mr. President, we need to help people get off of welfare. One very important way we can do this is by helping them avoid getting on welfare in the first place. That brings me to the specific proposal contained in my amendment. This amendment will give States credit for making real reductions in their welfare caseload--not illusory reductions based on ordinary regular turnover, nor, for that matter, reductions based on changes in the eligibility requirements. No. What we are talking about is real reduction in caseload. Let me cite a statistic, Mr. President. Since 1988, over 14 million Americans have left the AFDC rolls. That is the good news. Now for the bad news. Over the same period there has not been a reduction in the welfare caseload. In fact, there has been a 30 percent increase in the net welfare caseload. More people are coming on welfare every day than are getting off. So it is clear that our problem is not just a problem of getting people off welfare. We also have to slow the rate of those going on welfare. We have to make sure, Mr. President, that we keep our eye on the ball, and the ball in this case is keeping people out of the culture of welfare dependency and off welfare. Under the bill, States will have to meet a very specific work requirement, and that is good. But I think this policy will have an unintended side effect--a side effect that none of us will want. It is a side effect I believe my amendment will cure. Mr. President, if there is a work requirement, States obviously have an incentive to meet that requirement. If States face the threat of losing Federal funding for failing to meet the work requirement, they could easily fall into the trap of judging their welfare policies solely by the criterion of whether or not they help meet the specific work requirement. What we have to remember is that the work requirement is not an end in [[Page S 13375]] and of itself. Our goal rather is to break the cycle of welfare dependency. We have found that helping people before they ever get on AFDC--through job training, job search assistance, rent subsidies, transportation assistance, and other similar measures--all of these things are cheaper to do. There are cheaper ways of doing this than simply waiting for the person to fall off the economic cliff and become a full-fledged welfare client. One positive measure, Mr. President, some States have taken, a measure that we should encourage, is remedial action, early intervention to help people before they go on the welfare rolls. In the health care field we call this prevention. In welfare, as in health care, it is both cost effective and the right thing to do. Mr. President, the last thing we want to do in welfare reform is to discourage this kind of prevention program. Just the contrary. We in this Congress through this bill should try to encourage the States to do this. But under the current bill, as currently written, States are given no incentive to make these efforts to help people. If anything, there is a disincentive. If a State makes an active, aggressive, successful effort to help people stay off welfare, then the really tough welfare cases will make up an increasing larger and larger portion of the remaining welfare caseload. That will in turn make the work requirement every year tougher and tougher to meet. Under the bill, as currently written, without my amendment, there is an incentive to wait to help people--to wait until they are on welfare. Then the States can take action, get them off welfare, and get credit for getting people off welfare. Mr. President, if the States divert people from the welfare system, keep them off, stop them from ever going on by helping them, the people who stay on welfare will tend to be more hard-to-reach welfare clients. And that will make it more difficult for the States to meet the work requirement. That really is exactly the opposite, Mr. President, of what we should be trying to do. My amendment would eliminate this purely perverse incentive. My amendment would give States credit, credit toward meeting the work requirement if they take steps to help before they go on welfare--and, in doing so, keep those people from falling into the welfare trap. Helping citizens stay off welfare is just as important as making welfare clients work, and just as important as getting people off welfare. Indeed, the reason we want to make welfare clients work, of course, in the first place is to help them off of welfare. But--there is a very important provision in my amendment--we cannot allow this new incentive for caseload reduction to become an incentive for the States to ignore poverty, and to ignore the problem. Under my amendment, a State will not--let me repeat--will not get credit toward fulfilling the work requirement if that State reduces the caseload by changing the eligibility standard. They get no credit for that. A State will get credit toward a work requirement by reducing caseloads through prevention and early intervention programs that help people stay off welfare in the first place. Ignoring the problem of poverty will not make it go away. Arbitrarily kicking people off of relief is not a solution to welfare dependency. States should not--let me repeat--not get credit under the work requirement of this bill for changing their eligibility requirements. Welfare reform block grants are designed to give States the flexibility they need to meet their responsibilities. They must not become an opportunity for the States to ignore their responsibilities. States need to be rewarded for solving problems. Giving States credit for real reductions in caseload will provide this reward. I believe my amendment will yield another benefit. It will enable the States to target their resources on the most difficult welfare cases, the at-risk people who need very intensive training and counseling if they are ever, ever going to get off welfare. It will not do us any good as a society to pat ourselves on the back because people are leaving AFDC if at the very same time an even greater number of people are getting on the welfare rolls and if the ones getting on are an even tougher group to help than the ones who are getting off. The American people demand a much more fundamental and far-reaching solution. They demand real reductions in the number of people who need welfare. Two States, Mr. President, Wisconsin and Utah, have really led the way with the kind of prevention programs that I have been talking about. Other States, including my home State of Ohio, are starting to implement this type of program, a prevention program, to help people before they literally drop off the cliff and go down into the abyss of welfare, some of them never ever to climb out. As part of this welfare reform legislation, I believe we have to encourage States to take this type of remedial action, to take this type of action that will in fact make a difference in people's lives. Reducing the number of people who need welfare in this country is going to be a very tough task, but it is absolutely necessary that we do it. The issue must be faced. I believe it will be faced with all the creativity at the disposal of the 50 States, the 50 laboratories of democracy. How are States going to do it? There are probably as many ways of doing it as there are States. There is no single best answer. That is the key reason why we need to give the States flexibility to experiment. In Wisconsin, for example, the Work First Program, with its tough work requirement, has reduced applications to the welfare system. That is a promising approach, reducing the number of out-of-wedlock births and getting rid of the disincentives to marriage. The bottom line is simply this: We have to solve the problem and not ignore it. States should be encouraged to take action and to take action early to keep people off welfare, to help them before they drop down into that welfare pit. This is the compassionate thing to do. It is also the cost-effective thing to do. That is why I am urging the adoption of this amendment. I thank the Chair.

Mr. DeWINE

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss three amendments that I intend to propose later in regard to this bill we are engaged today, this week, and probably into the next week with one of the most fundamental reforms of the welfare system in over a generation. It really is a debate of great historic importance to not only the people who are on welfare, but to all Americans. The millions of Americans who are trapped in the cycle of welfare dependency need a way out. As we work on this bill, I believe that we have to make absolutely sure that as we do this, we do, in fact, give them a way out and not just put them into another revolving door. The purpose of the first amendment that I will offer will be to make sure [[Page S 12806]] that the States tackle the underlying problem of the welfare system. Quite frankly, Mr. President, too often welfare ends up being quicksand for people instead of a ladder of real opportunity. The underlying bill that we are working on will certainly help change that and helps change it by creating a work requirement that will help boost welfare clients into the economic mainstream of work and opportunity. We need to help people get off welfare. One very important way we can do this is by helping them avoid getting on welfare in the first place, and that is one thing that sometimes we miss in this whole debate about welfare. We do need to worry about how to get people off welfare. But if we can take action as a society that keeps them from ever going on welfare, that is a great accomplishment as well. It will not only do society a lot of good, but it will be very important to the individual who we are talking about. So this brings me to the specific proposal contained in my first amendment. This amendment would give States credit for making real reductions in their welfare caseload, not illusory reductions based on just ordinary turnover. What am I talking about? Since 1988, 14 million Americans have gone off welfare--14 million. Yet, during that same period, there has been a 30 percent net increase in the welfare caseload. What this tells us is there are a lot of people going on, a lot of people going off, but we are getting more people coming on than are going off. So we have to make absolutely sure that we keep our eye on the ball and, really, the ball that we are trying to keep our eye on is the objective of keeping people out of the culture of welfare dependency. Under the bill, States will have to meet a work requirement, and that is good. But I think this policy will have an unintended side effect, a side effect that I believe my amendment will help cure. If there is a work requirement, States certainly will have an incentive to try to meet that requirement. If States face the threat of losing Federal funding for failing to meet the work requirement, I am afraid that they could easily fall into the trap of judging their welfare policies solely--solely, Mr. President--by the criterion of whether or not they help meet just that work requirement. I believe that what we have to remember is that the work requirement is not an end in and of itself. Our goal must be to break the cycle of welfare dependency, and we have found that helping people stay off AFDC, never going on, through tools used by the Government--job training, job search assistance, rent subsidies, transportation assistance, and other similar measures--is a cheaper way of doing this than simply waiting for the person to fall off the economic cliff and become a full-fledged welfare client. It just makes common sense. If we as a society can intervene early, it is going to be cost-effective and it is going to work and it is going to make the difference in people's lives. Under the bill as written, States are really given no incentive to make these efforts to help people. If anything under the bill, there really is a disincentive to do this. If a State takes an active, aggressive, successful effort to help people stay off welfare, then the really tough welfare cases will make up an increasingly larger proportion of the remaining welfare caseload, and that will make the work requirement much tougher for a State to meet. Under this bill as written, there is incentive really to wait to help people, to wait, to wait until they are actually on welfare. Then the States can get credit for getting people off welfare. That really does not seem to me to be the right way to do it or the right incentive. If States divert people from the welfare system by helping them stay off welfare in the first place, then the people who stay on welfare will tend to be more hardcore, more hard-to-reach welfare clients, and that will make it more difficult for States to meet the work requirement. That, Mr. President, really is exactly the opposite of what we should be trying to do. My amendment would eliminate this truly perverse incentive. My amendment would lower the work requirement that States have to reach by the very same amount that the States have reduced their welfare caseload. Helping citizens stay off welfare is just as important as making welfare clients work, just as important as moving people off welfare. Indeed, the reason we want to make welfare clients work in the first place is, of course, to help them get off welfare. But--and this is a very important provision in my amendment--we cannot allow this new incentive that I propose for caseload reduction to become an incentive for the States to ignore poverty. Under my amendment, States will be given no credit for caseload reductions achieved by the changing of eligibility standards. Ignoring the problem of poverty, Mr. President, will certainly not make it go away. Arbitrarily kicking people off of relief is not a solution to welfare dependency, and States should not--I repeat, not--get credit for changing their eligibility to meet this objective. Welfare reform block grants are designed to give States the flexibility they need to meet their responsibilities. They have to have more flexibility. But they must not become an opportunity for the States to ignore their responsibilities. States do need to be rewarded for solving the problem. Giving States credit for real reductions in caseload will provide this reward. I believe this amendment will, in fact, yield another benefit. It will enable States to target their resources on the more difficult welfare cases: the at-risk people who need very intensive training and counseling if they are ever going to get off welfare. It will not do us any good as a society to pat ourselves on the back because people are leaving AFDC, if at the very same time an even greater number of people are getting on the welfare rolls, and if the ones getting on are an even tougher group than the ones who got off. The American people demand a much more fundamental and far-reaching solution. They demand real reductions in the number of people who need welfare. Reducing the number of people on welfare is certainly going to be a very tall order. Since 1988, only half a dozen States or so have really managed to reduce their caseload. One of them, Wisconsin, has managed a very significant reduction. It is going to be tough, but it is absolutely necessary. This issue simply must be faced, and it will be faced with all the creativity at the disposal of the 50 States, 50 laboratories of democracy. How are States going to do it? There are probably as many ways of doing it as there are States. I think that is one of the positive things about the underlying bill. There is no single best answer. That is the key reason why we need to give the States the flexibility to experiment. In Wisconsin, for example, the Work First Program, with its tough work requirement, has reduced applications to the welfare system. That is a promising approach. We have to do other things, such as reduce the number of out- of-wedlock births and get rid of the disincentives to marriage. The bottom line is this, Mr. President: We have to solve the problem and not ignore it. States should be encouraged to take action. But they should be encouraged to take action early to keep people off of welfare, to help them before they drop into the welfare pit. I believe this is the compassionate thing to do. I believe it is the cost- effective thing to do. My staff and I, Mr. President, have spent a considerable amount of time talking to the people who run Ohio's welfare operation, both at the county levels and at the State level. One of the problems that they have continued to talk to me about is just what I have talked about, and that is, that what we really need to do is keep people off of welfare. We do not want to be in the situation that I used to find years and years ago when I was practicing law and when I was county prosecuting attorney, where we would have situations where people were having problems, where people needed help--either job training, or education, or just a little help to tide them over--and they could not get that help. What the welfare department would have to tell them is, wait until you get the eviction notice, wait until they start putting your clothes and everything else out on the street, then we can help you, then you [[Page S 12807]] can get on welfare. And once you get on welfare, all these things will happen and you will get all these benefits. Our director, in the State of Ohio, of welfare, Arnold Tompkins, makes an analogy to a light. He says you go up with the switch or down, and you are either on welfare or you are not. If you are on it, you get all these benefits. If you are not, you do not get the benefits. We have a difficult time giving people some help to stay off of welfare. I think what we must make sure we are doing when we pass this bill-- which is a very, very good bill, and one of the reasons it is a good bill, it has a realistic work requirement in it. One of the things we have to make sure we are doing is allowing the States the flexibility and giving them some incentive to try to take the actions early on which will prevent someone actually from ever going on welfare. We must make sure that we, as we write this bill, give the States credit for having done that. Let me turn to the second amendment that I intend to propose. It has to do with a rainy day fund. This amendment is a very simple one. It is a recognition of economic realities. When a State faces a recession, a number of things happen. One of them is that the welfare caseload goes up. The other thing that always happens is the revenues going into the State go down. It is as simple as that. When States are in the middle of a serious recession, they are reluctant to borrow from a loan fund because they are, frankly, afraid they will be unable to pay the money back. I do not blame them. I believe that we need an unemployment contingency grant fund to make sure that when a recession hits, the Federal Government will remain a partner in the process of taking care of the welfare population. You will notice I say ``partner.'' It should be just as clear, Mr. President, that this rainy day fund must not become a back door to the re-Federalization of welfare. The threshold for disbursements from this fund, I believe, has to be tough. And the threshold in my amendment is, in fact, tough. It has been described as follows: A State, under my amendment, will not qualify if it has a ``cold.'' It will only qualify if it has ``pneumonia.'' It is my hope that this amendment will not be controversial. I believe it is a necessary precaution for the inevitable downturns in the economic cycle. Under this amendment, the State has to meet two conditions to qualify for aid from this fund. First, it has to maintain its welfare effort at the fiscal year 1994 level. And unemployment has to be two percentage points higher than in the previous year. States will then have to match these Federal funds at the same rate as the matching formula for Medicaid. And they will have to maintain their own effort. This is a tough requirement, but I believe it is fair, and I believe that it will be of immense help to the States. Mr. President, we need this rainy day fund, and we need to make sure that it is not abused. Let me turn to the third amendment I intend to offer. It has to do with a subject that has troubled me in this country for many, many years, and that is the issue of child support and child support enforcement. When I discuss this issue, I again have to go back, in my own mind, at least, to my experience as a county prosecuting attorney. One of my jobs, of course, was to try to enforce the child support enforcement laws. Mr. President, the third amendment really is an attempt to make it easier for States to crack down on deadbeat parents. We are all aware that one of the key cost causes of our social breakdown is the failure for parents to be responsible for their own children. The family ought to be the school for citizenship--preparing the children for responsible and productive lives. When the parents do not do that, it is very difficult for society to step in and fill the gap. We need to reconnect parenthood and responsibility. We need to help States locate these deadbeats, establish support orders for the children, and enforce the orders. My amendment attempts to address this problem in two ways. First, it provides for a more timely sharing of information with the States. Today, the Federal Parent Locator Service, in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, gives the States banking and asset information about potential deadbeats on an annual basis, only once a year. Mr. President, talk to the people who have to track down these deadbeats, and they will tell you and other Members of the Senate how difficult that process is. As I mentioned, I used to do this when I was a county prosecutor. If you have to wait a whole year to get information about a deadbeat, there is a pretty good chance that that deadbeat is going to flee your jurisdiction. The information that you get may be up to a year old--or even more--and will simply not be information that will do any good. My amendment is simple. It would change that reporting requirement from an annual basis to a quarterly basis. Mr. President, these child support enforcers are involved in a very difficult but a very important job. I believe that we should cut--by 75 percent--the amount of time they have to wait for this very important information. Mr. President, I look forward to the debate on these and the other amendments offered by my colleagues. I believe that we have a great opportunity in this year's welfare reform bill--an opportunity to change the direction of welfare and to really change the direction of this country. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. DeWINE

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

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I thank the Chair. (The remarks of Mr. DeWine pertaining to the introduction of S. 1197 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I thank the Chair. (The remarks of Mr. DeWine pertaining to the introduction of S. 1190 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. DeWINE

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation that will establish an 87-mile section of the Ohio and Erie Canal between Cleveland and Zoar, OH, as a National Heritage Corridor. Mr. President, the people of northeast Ohio are committed to preserving the rich historical heritage of this part of our State. I think the kind of Federal protection envisioned by this legislation is long overdue. In 1991, Congress funded a study by the National Park Service to explore the proposed corridor area--and to examine various suggestions on how to make the best possible use of this terrific resource. The Park Service's research concluded that this area was suitable for inclusion in the National Park System as an affiliated area. The bill I am introducing would act on that recommendation. This bill would establish funding for the project through a cost- shared public-private partnership with the Department of the Interior. It requires that every Federal dollar be matched--one-for-one--by money from local investors. Mr. President, knowing the great enthusiasm that exists for this project in the numerous affected communities in northeast Ohio, I am extremely confident about the response we can expect to this system of matching funds. The bill provides for up to $250,000 per year for 3 years in funding for the management entity of this historic corridor. In addition, it provides for development grants of $1.5 million per year for up to 6 years. These grants would require a 70-percent non- Federal match. Mr. President, Ohio is ready to grant one of its most beautiful and historic areas the measure of respect and protection it truly deserves. I agree with [[Page S 12386]] the National park Service--and with the people of Ohio--on this issue. And that's why I am proposing this legislation today. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce, along with my distinguished colleague Senator Graham of Florida, the Ricky Ray Hemophilia Act of 1995. This legislation will serve as the counterpart to similar legislation introduced in the House of Representatives by Representative Goss of Florida. Mr. President, the purpose of this legislation is to offer some measure of relief to families that have suffered serious medical and financial setbacks because of their reliance on the Federal Government's protection of the blood supply. Last month, the Institute of Medicine released the findings of a major investigation into how America's hemophilia community came to be decimated by the HIV virus. In the early 1980's, America's blood supply was contaminated with HIV. Many Americans have become HIV-positive by transfusions of the HIV-tainted blood. One particular group of Americans has been extremely hard-hit by this public health disaster. There are approximately 16,000 Americans who require lifelong treatment for hemophilia, a genetic condition that impairs the ability of blood to clot effectively. In the early 1980's, more than 90 percent of the Americans suffering from Severe hemophilia were infected by the HIV virus. More than 90 percent. That is a major human tragedy. And the IOM report has alarming things to say about the level of Federal Government culpability for this disaster. Point One. The Federal agencies responsible for blood safety did not show the appropriate level of diligence in screening the blood supply. In January 1983, scientists from the Center for Disease Control recommended that blood banks use donor screening and deferral to protect the blood supply. According to the IOM report, and I quote, ``it was reasonable''--based on the scientific evidence available in January 1983--``to require blood banks to implement these two screening procedures.'' The report says--and I quote--that ``Federal authorities consistently chose the least aggressive option that was justifiable'' on donor screening and deferral. The report's conclusion is--and I quote: The FDA's failure to require this is evidence that the agency did not adequately use its regulatory authority and therefore missed opportunities to protect the public health. End of quote. By January 1983, epidemiological studies by the Center for Disease Control strongly suggested that blood products transmitted HIV. First of all, it was becoming clear that blood recipients were getting AIDS-- even though the recipients were not members of a known high-risk group. Second, the epidemiological pattern of AIDS was similar to that of another blood-borne disease (hepatitis). According to the report, these two facts should have been enough of a tip-off to the public health authorities. As early as December 1982, the report says, [p]lasma collection agencies had begun screening potential donors and excluding those in any of the known risk groups. The report says that Federal authorities should have required blood banks to do the same. Point Two. The Federal agencies did not move as quickly as they should have to approve blood products that were potentially safer. The IOM report says that certain heat treatment processes--processes that could have prevented many cases of AIDS in the hemophilia community--could have been developed earlier than 1980. I quote: In the interval between the decisions of early 1983 and the availability of a blood test for HIV in 1985, public health and blood industry officials became more certain that AIDS among hemophiliacs and transfused patients grew. As their knowledge grew, these officials had to decide about recall of contaminated blood products and possible implementation of a surrogate test for HIV. Meetings of the FDA's Blood Product Advisory Committee in January, February, July and December 1983 offered major opportunities to discuss, consider, and reconsider the limited tenor of the policies. I say again, Mr. President: Major opportunities. Major opportunities to change the course of the Government's blood- protection policies. The report continues, and I quote: For a variety of reasons, neither physicians . . . nor the Public Health Service agencies actively encouraged the plasma fractionation companies to develop heat treatment measures earlier. Despite these opportunities and others to review new evidence and to reconsider earlier decisions, blood safety policies changed very little during 1983. Mr. President, I cannot avoid agreeing with the conclusion of this report: ``[T]he unwillingness of the regulatory agencies to take a lead role in the crisis'' was one of the key factors that ``resulted in a delay of more than one year in implementing strategies to screen donors for risk factors associated with AIDS.'' Point Three. The Federal Government did not warn the hemophilia community, when the Government knew--or should have known--that there were legitimate concerns that the blood supply might not be safe. According to the report, ``a failure of [government] leadership may have delayed effective action during the period from 1982 to 1984. This failure led to less than effective donor screening, weak regulatory actions, and''--this is the key, Mr. President--``insufficient communication to patients about the risks of AIDS.'' As a result, Mr. President, and I am again quoting from the report: ``individuals with hemophilia and transfusion recipients had little information about risks, benefits, and clinical options for their use of blood and blood products.'' The response of ``policymakers'' was ``very cautious and exposed the decision makers and their organizations to a minimum of criticism.'' In effect, Mr. President, the inertial reflex of bureaucratic caution led to a serious failure to protect the public health. The Americans suffering from hemophilia were relying on their Government to exercise due care about the safety of the blood supply. It is my view, in light of the very important report released by the IOM, that the Government failed to meet its responsibilities to the hemophilia community. The Government's failure caused serious harm to real people--people who were counting on the Government to meet its responsibilities. A woman in Grove City, OH, lost her husband to AIDS and hemophilia two years ago. She writes--and I would like to quote this: ``[He] was a young man who died of AIDS from bad factor''-- Factor, Mr. President, is a product that helps blood to clot--a crucially important medical product for people who suffer from hemophilia. She writes: He ``died of AIDS from bad factor, something . . . which we thought was saving his life, only to find that it would be a death sentence.'' This woman is speaking for every person in the hemophilia community who has lost a loved one because of the tainted blood supply. A young woman from Jackson County, OH, tells a similar story. Her father was a farmer who had hemophilia. She writes: When a blood product (Factor IV) to help stop his bleeding came along, it opened up so many doors for him. He could now do his work not in pain . . . it would now be easier to just walk around. This medicine was thought to be a miracle. But things began to unravel, when I was 18, I found out my father was HIV positive, he had been infected from contaminated factor IV. He died approx. 1\1/2\ [[Page S 12383]] years later but not before he was stripped of self esteem, dignity, and the ability to do anything that made him who he was. . . . He lost his ability to trust. Trust, Mr. President. That is what this legislation is all about. A substantial number of citizens trusted the Government to exercise due vigilance, and the Government let them down. It is only right that the Government try to offer them some measure of relief. Let me say a few words about the actual legislation I am introducing today. Mr. President, I recognize the budgetary realities we have to confront. As we move through the process, we will have to address the issue of compensation. I think it is absolutely essential that we begin this process--now. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DeWINE

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, we have begun today in the U.S. Senate a historic debate. My colleague and friend from Iowa has just said it is a debate that is, frankly, long overdue. It is a debate about an issue that deeply troubles the American people. As I have traveled in my home State of Ohio over the last few years, I have not been able to find anyone who thinks that our current welfare system works very well or that it cannot be improved. I have talked to people on welfare. I have talked to people who have been on welfare who are now working in the private sector. I have talked to other taxpayers. No one, Mr. President, thinks our current system works. This is truly a monumental task that we have begun today. The tragic fact is that there are too many people in this country who are literally trapped in a cycle of welfare dependency. Mr. President, America simply cannot afford to continue in this direction. It is fundamentally, morally wrong that a sizable portion of Americans, a sizable number of Americans, should be excluded from what most of us consider the American mainstream. Mr. President, let me state what I do not mean by ``mainstream.'' I am not talking about a narrowly defined lifestyle or conventional set of values on controversial issues. That is not what I am talking about. What I am talking about is the bare essentials of participation in American life, holding down a job, being responsible for your own children, and living in the reasonable expectation of physical safety for you and your loved ones. Mr. President, I strongly support the current welfare reform effort that is being undertaken, for one simple reason. I believe it has the potential to help rescue a whole generation of Americans. It will give them the bare essentials of American life, a chance at the American dream. If we are to succeed, I believe we must tackle the welfare system in a truly fundamental and comprehensive way. As we know, Americans on welfare today may get, in addition to AFDC, cash payments and a whole host of other benefits--housing, food stamps, job training, education, child care, and other services. These are things that, as we discuss the issue, most of us just lump together and refer to as ``welfare.'' Mr. President, some would have us focus our welfare reform efforts just on AFDC or just on a few of these programs. I think to limit reform just to that would be a mistake because it really does not go far enough. It would not go far enough to solve the problem. To solve the problem that we face, we need to tackle the welfare system in its totality. The welfare reform approach I am supporting would block grant as much as is prudently possible of the Federal welfare responsibility back to the States. I believe that we should end the decades-long practice of dictating welfare policy from the Federal level. Why? Because, if you look at the welfare debate today, one key fact becomes astoundingly clear. We just do not know the answers. We know what does not work. We have seen that for over 30 years. But we really do not know what works nor what will change things. We have heard on the floor, and we just heard from our colleague from Iowa examples of what his State is doing. We have heard examples of what other States are doing. And many of these, I think, are great ideas. But we have not been about these changes long enough that we in Congress should feel confident enough that we should turn to a State and say, ``This is the one way to reform welfare. This is how you have to do it. This is what we know works.'' Because the truth is, Mr. President, we do not know for sure what will work. We have had 30 years of experience in knowing what does not work. We as a nation are only just beginning to come to grips with the collapse of this decades-old experiment with welfare. Most people concede that this experiment has failed, but we have not developed a new consensus on what kind of system should take its place. Mr. President, as a Senator who has served in State and local elective office for a number of years, let me say that I do not--I repeat, I do not--believe that it is bad. I do not think it is bad that we do not yet have a consensus, because the lack of a new consensus gives the States a great opportunity to experiment; an opportunity to experiment, though, Mr. President, only if we allow them to do that. Mr. President, welfare today is an area which we know does not work. Our current policy does not work and has not worked for decades. But what we do not know is what works. We do not have the answers on how to get people off welfare onto work and into the American mainstream with a chance at the American dream. Some States, as we have discussed, have experimented on welfare, but we do not have enough history on these experiments to totally judge their success. As we used to say when I was a county prosecutor and we were waiting for a jury to come back with the verdict, the jury is still out. We just do not have the experience level to give us enough confidence to impose on the States mandates. To impose these programs on all States, to impose Federal uniformity of programs we are not sure of would be, I think, a serious mistake and would not be true and meaningful welfare reform. It is not the way to change the direction of this country. That is why, Mr. President, this is exactly the kind of problem that ought to be turned back to the States. By focusing on federally written programs and forcing State welfare policy to conform to a mold shaped in Washington, DC, Congress in the past has seriously weakened the ability of States to adapt, to experiment, to find out what [[Page S 11767]] really works to solve their own problems in their own way and maybe to point out useful directions for other States. It is very important to note that in the kind of block grants I support, we stop telling the States step by step how to do welfare. We want to tell the States, this is what we should do; here is the purpose you can spend the money on; but we in Washington will no longer dictate the means you can use to achieve that purpose. In some of the block grant proposals that are before us, there is even some additional flexibility. States can take up to 30 percent of the block grant and use it for any welfare purpose at all, still serving people but giving the States that needed flexibility. Make no mistake about it: Welfare needs are different from State to State. They are even different from county to county. The needs of my Adams County, OH, and Cuyahoga County, OH, are fundamentally different. They both have needs; they both have people on welfare; but they are fundamentally different counties with different problems. Some counties may need more child care, some may need more child welfare service. I favor an approach that gives Governors the flexibility to solve problems. I think that would be a huge step forward. Let me summarize it this way. I think our goal should be not to fund programs. Rather, our goal should be to solve problems, to get people off welfare and into the work force. That should be the goal in any welfare reform bill that this Senate adopts. As we move forward in this debate, we must be careful not to succumb to the desire to tell States how to meet the goals in these block grants. We must be vigilant and avoid a refederalization of welfare through the back door. We cannot on the one hand say the States have this flexibility and then on the other hand tell the States what to do. We cannot on the one hand say that a problem in the past has been that Washington has mandated too much, and now that the complexion of the Senate and the Congress has changed, we who happen now to be in the majority party know best and we should write the dictates and mandates from Washington. That, in my opinion, would be a mistake. I find some of these mandates that have been discussed to be quite troubling. We are just beginning to unburden the States from a Federal system that for too long has prevented States from making changes, trying new approaches. It would be a serious mistake to move from that system to a system in which we force States to implement various reform measures prescribed by the Congress. Let me give you a couple of examples. I think we all agree that when a large portion of the children in society do not have two parents, society is going to be a lot worse off. We agree that America would be a better place if there were fewer out-of-wedlock births. When two- thirds of the children in some of our major cities--two-thirds, Mr. President--are born outside of marriage, we are ensuring permanent poverty and hopelessness for a very large group of young Americans. The result will be extremely dangerous not only to those children but to American society. According to the Congressional Budget Office, half of all teenage unwed mothers are on public assistance within 1 year of having their first child and within 5 years, 77 percent are on public assistance--77 percent. Children who do not have fathers around are five times more likely to be poor than children who do. Those are the facts. They are 10 times more likely to be extremely poor, to live in the kind of grinding poverty from which it is very hard to ever escape. Do we have a Federal cure for illegitimacy? Are we in this Chamber certain enough about whatever that cure might be that we are prepared to mandate it and to say every State has to impose it? Let me tell you, I know one Senator who is not so sure of what that answer is. In this context, let us talk for a moment about the proposed family cap. In New Jersey, they have experimented with denying additional welfare benefits to mothers who have more children on welfare. An initial study released late in 1994, which has been referred to on this floor, seemed to indicate the New Jersey family cap had caused a serious decline in the birth rate to welfare mothers, somewhere between 19 and 29 percent. So the family cap is a great idea, right? Well, hold on a minute. We have another study, and this study has been referenced in the Chamber today as well. This study, based on a more complete sample, was conducted by Rutgers University. This study indicated that the denial of benefits made very little difference in the births, very little difference in behavior of welfare mothers. It found the drop in the birth rate was roughly the same among a control group, women who were exempt from the family cap law, as it was among those who were subject to the cap. There is also some indication that the New Jersey cap might have led to an increase in the number of abortions. This Senator is deeply concerned about that, as I know a number of Senators are. I think it is a concern that we should not just dismiss. Clearly, we do not yet know what works in this area. Therefore, now is not the time to impose Federal uniformity based on guesswork. We are in the middle of a controversy that is far from resolved, and what we need more than anything else is facts. State experimentation will help us find these facts. Mr. President, are we certain enough about the wisdom of the family cap at this time, at this place to write it into Federal law? Are we certain enough to make every single State live by it? I know one Senator who is not. Let me turn to another issue, and that is the work requirement. If there is one thing that will change welfare more than anything else, it is getting people to work. The statistics are overwhelming, that if an individual can get a job and hold that job for any reasonable period of time, the odds are that person then becomes a part of the mainstream. Part of them has the opportunity for the American dream. And that person may not have that same job in a year, year and a half, but if they get the first job and are able to hold it, it makes a fundamental difference. So there is more we can do. Debate has already indicated Senators on both sides clearly agree about the necessity of work. We all agree that work should be a condition for receiving public assistance. But I believe--I want to put out one cautionary comment at this time as we begin this debate--it is important we make the work requirement achievable by the States. The work requirement will have to be tough, but it will also have to be believable and achievable. In short, a strong work requirement has to work. Mr. President, I think one way that we can encourage work, the most effective way, is through the block grant proposal that is in front of us. By doing this, States will clearly have a direct incentive to get people off welfare and to allow them to become workers. This pressure will make a difference. Mr. President, tough choices on how to divide up a no longer unlimited stream of Federal dollars will cause the States to become innovative, to become bold, to experiment, and, I think, ultimately to learn from the experience of other States as well. And that will make a difference. Mr. President, when you are a government with limited welfare dollars, and you are trying to reduce your welfare caseload, you are going to start looking at the people who are able-bodied and refuse to work. And by necessity, States will have to have a strong work requirement. I think the spending cap will also help us reduce the tide of out-of- wedlock births as well. Mr. President, fiscal pressure caused by the spending cap is going to do a great deal to focus people's attention on this tremendous problem of illegitimacy. As I mentioned before, the Federal Government does not know how to make people act responsibly, but we do know this, a State with limited resources and a serious poverty problem will have to make the wisest possible use of its limited resources. What is the best way, Mr. President, to balance our two goals, the goal of the need to help children who are born out of wedlock, help them, and the need at the same time to discourage people from having children born out of [[Page S 11768]] wedlock? I am not sure any of us really know. But I believe that capping the block grant proposal with a tough, yet achievable, work requirement will set the States on the road toward finding out. Let me talk about a positive Federal role, Mr. President. There are some areas in which the Federal Government can play a very helpful role. And I would like to talk about one such area right now. We are all angry, as the public is, about the men who father children and then run off without paying child support. Fifteen, 20 years ago in the late 1970's, when I was a county prosecuting attorney in Greene County, in the southwestern part of Ohio, I learned about this problem. I had to spend a lot of my time, my staff's time, chasing after these bums, trying to locate them, trying to get them to live up to what should have been their obligations. I had some very aggressive assistant prosecutors who helped me in this and who learned a great deal, as I did, about this problem. Nancy Nevins, Susan Goldie, they headed up our child support enforcement unit. And we found, as we delved into this problem, how big a problem it was and how oftentimes these absent fathers were individuals who had taken off across the State line, almost as if they knew, and I guess many of them did, that if they could get across the line and they could go into another State, that it was going to make it much more difficult to get them to live up to their obligations. Today, Mr. President, the statistics are staggering. I am told that 40 percent of the unsolved paternity cases nationwide are unsolved because the fathers have left the State. In Ohio that figure is closer to 45 percent. Clearly, a nationwide paternity data bank would be a big help to the State officials who are trying to track down these deadbeats. And we might even go further, Mr. President. We might even want to consider a national collection system to collect back child support from these deadbeats. Mr. President, clearly this is an area in which Federal coordination would actually help the States and not hinder their efforts to reform. But I do believe it remains generally true that the Federal Government does not have the answers on welfare reform. The Federal Government, Mr. President, needs to be honest about the real lessons of its three decades of failure. The welfare policy of the Federal Government is intellectually bankrupt and the U.S. Senate needs to put it into receivership. The receivers in this case are the 50 States, the 50 laboratories of democracy, 50 laboratories of reform. Many States, as we have already discussed today, are already showing terrific leadership in reforming their welfare systems. Mr. President, instead of taking the glimmerings of success of any single State and then imposing a rigid, absolutely uniform model on every other State, we need to make sure all States continue to experiment. Ohio, to take a single example, has been a leader in the drive for experimentation. Let me just give a couple examples. In 1989 Ohio received a waiver to try the LEAP program. LEAP stands for learning, earning, and parenting. The LEAP program created incentives for welfare clients to continue and then to complete their high school studies. And that program has met with modest success. In 1991, another example, Mr. President, Ohio received a Federal demonstration waiver for the Parents Fair Share program. That State program made noncustodial parents, parents who do not live with the child, either work or receive job training with a view toward supporting the child. It targeted those individuals. We have had success. Ohio, another example, received a Child of Opportunity waiver to help keep the children in school by punishing parents for the child's absenteeism. Another program, the Communities of Opportunity waiver allowed us to exchange AFDC and food stamp cash payments for employment subsidies. We were able to use this waiver to get private-sector jobs for welfare clients across the State, Cleveland, Akron, Columbus, Cincinnati. Another example, 1994, we wanted to decrease the penalties for moving from welfare to work. We received a micro-enterprise development waiver so we could remove some of the limits on the assets, the income of welfare recipients. Early on in the debate I heard the distinguished Senator from New York talk about that as being a problem, people not being able to keep enough of their assets. We encouraged them to move into the work force. Mr. President, what is interesting about all of these examples that I have given, and the Senator from Iowa and my other colleagues have given today, is not that they are good ideas, though I believe probably most of them are. What is notable is that each State has had to petition Washington, DC, for the right to try any of them. The President is now talking about speeding up the waiver process. And that is a good idea. President Bush, and now President Clinton, have granted waivers. That is absolutely true. And I think that the leadership from the top has been to try to get as many of these waivers granted as possible. But I believe that we still have a basic problem. And that is, the basic problem is, that these waivers are required at all, and in a time when we need to encourage not discourage State experimentation in solving problems. I asked one time, Mr. President, our director in Ohio, Mr. Tompkins, about what percentage of the waivers we asked to have granted were granted by the Federal Government? And he told me something very interesting. He said, ``The percentage will be relatively high. The problem is that we generally only ask for a waiver if we have a pretty good indication we are going to get it.'' It does not tell you or does not tell the reader of those statistics how often we wanted to do something, how often in our own experience we felt, we knew that some program would work or had a good chance of working and yet we were told off the record by the Federal bureaucracy that, ``No, look, don't ask us for that because we are just not going to give you that one.'' And so when we look at the statistics of waivers being granted, it does look good and it does look high. But what it does not show is the many times when the State was told, ``Just don't ask about that one because we are not going to grant it.'' Now, earlier this year, Mr. President, the Ohio General Assembly passed a major welfare reform bill. That bill contains a provision saying that a welfare client who gets a job can keep the first $250, plus one-half of the additional income earned for 1 year after starting work--an incentive to ease people off welfare. The goal, again, Mr. President, is to avoid penalizing the welfare client for trying to work in the real economy. To do this, we now need Federal permission. In fact, there are 15 other provisions in Ohio's newly passed welfare reform package, 15 other ways Ohio wants to experiment to see what works, for which we are awaiting the Federal go-ahead. Mr. President, we have to let the States be more flexible. Arnold Tompkins, who I referenced earlier, Director of Ohio's Department of Human Services, says he is frustrated by a system that really is too much like an on/off switch. Our department in Ohio, as is true in other States, is only allowed to help people when the people go on welfare. If you are ``on'' welfare, all kinds of benefits are going to be available to you. If you are ``not on'' welfare, many times nothing is available to you. Mr. Tompkins says that we need an approach that is more like a dimmer switch--a system that allows the human services officials flexibility to intervene in helping people to keep them off of welfare before they go on welfare. Maybe helping someone find other resources, Mr. President, like helping pay their rent or electric bill for a couple of months, will do a lot more good than waiting for them to be evicted and only then being able to sign them up for the full welfare program. I think it will be more cost-effective, and I think it will work. Mr. President, the States need to stay focused on the overall goal of keeping people off welfare. That is why we should, in addition to rewarding States that reduce their welfare case loads, reward States that help their citizens avoid having to go on welfare at all. I intend to return to this question later on this week, as the amendment process begins. Mr. President, for 30 years, Congress has created programs and trusted the [[Page S 11769]] programs to work. It is time to move the focus from programs to people. Mr. President, this is the whole welfare reform debate microcosm: Do we want the Congress to write yet another program? Or do we want States to come up with solutions? I think the American people do not want another program. They look at the problems of poverty in this country and they want answers. That is something the Federal Government really just does not have. Mr. President, I am proud to be a participant in the Senate's very historic welfare reform debate. It offers some real hope for a solution to America's social crisis. That is why I intend to work over the next few days with my colleagues on the floor to ensure that the bill we pass does as much as it possibly can to let the States succeed in truly reforming welfare. Mr. President, thank you very much. I yield the floor.

Mr. DeWINE

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, the Senator from Oklahoma has yielded me as much time as I desire in debate. Let me first thank the Presiding Officer for taking my place in the chair so I have the opportunity to discuss for a few minutes this very contentious and very emotional issue. Let me start, if I could, by trying to put this debate today, though, in perspective because the issue that we are debating today is very narrow. It is very narrowly drawn. Each one of us has very strong feelings about the abortion issue. As I look around this Chamber and see my colleagues who are debating this issue today, I think each and every one of us at one time or the other has done this before and our positions are very well known. Whether it is in this body or the other body, we have all debated this. The issue today is not the big picture issue about abortion. The issue today was defined very well by the Senator from Oklahoma. He has done it several times in the Chamber, but I wish to bring it back to that issue if I could. That issue is simply this: Should Federal tax dollars be used to subsidize abortion? That is it. That is what the issue is. Should Federal tax dollars be taken from citizens across this country, from every taxpayer, to subsidize abortions? Let us try to put the debate in even more perspective. The abortion debate and the abortion issue is one of the most--no, it is not one of the most; it is the most--emotional, contentious, gut-wrenching debates in which this country engages. It is an issue that divides families. It is an issue that divides friends to the point where most of us, most of us will not on a casual basis even talk about it. I know of no issue in this country that is so emotional and that at the same time finds the American people so divided. With that background, this not being just any ordinary issue where we are trying to decide whether we spend tax dollars or not, this is the moral issue, some people would argue, the moral issue of our day. On the one hand, the argument about freedom; on the other hand, the argument about life. That is the perspective that I think we have to take and the historical background as we come to this debate today. I find no compelling reason for this Congress, for this Senate to say to every American taxpayer, ``You have no choice; you have to subsidize abortion, and a portion of your income tax will be used, however small it might be, for something that you feel so emotional about and that you feel is such a matter of principle.'' When I was growing up in Yellow Springs, OH, a few of the people I knew, or at least knew of, who felt so strongly about what we were doing in the late 1950's and early 1960's, under President Eisenhower and President Kennedy, about national defense, they did not want their taxes being used for national defense. I am sure people feel strongly about a lot of different issues, and we make a decision as a country that we do not let people pick and choose what taxes they pay. We should not. My only point is this issue that we are talking about today is different. It is different because the country is so divided, and it is different because it is such an emotional issue and because people feel so very strongly about it. I see no compelling reason to take taxpayers' dollars to do this. Mr. President, the argument has been made on this floor that if the Senator from Oklahoma prevails on this issue, we will be taking a right away from people. I think he has addressed that very well. That simply is not true. Health care plans do not pay for everything. No health care plan pays for everything. There are choices that are made. No one argues that the Federal Government has the legal obligation or the moral obligation or the constitutional obligation to provide for every medical service that someone might want or might need. So it is a question of choice. It is a question of choosing what, with finite tax dollars, we as a Congress believe, the trustees of the American people, that we should spend the taxpayers' dollars on. And so I will be voting with my friend and colleague from Oklahoma. I will just close on this final note. In every poll that I have seen--better yet, in discussions I have had with people across the State of Ohio for the last 4 or 5 years--I have traveled Ohio, it seems like almost nonstop, for 5 years talking to thousands of people--it is clear to me that while people have various views about the big abortion issue, the overwhelming majority of the American people do not believe tax dollars should be used to fund abortion. So when some of my colleagues make statements that would indicate that this action today, if we take this action, will be against the majority view of the American people, my answer to that is that it is simply not true. Every survey would indicate otherwise. Our own surveys that we all do as we campaign, as we travel and meet with people that we try to represent, would indicate otherwise. It is a narrow issue. Let us keep our eye on the ball. Let us not allow this debate to get off into, as my friend and colleague a moment ago was talking about, a Republican agenda or Democrat agenda, platform. This is a very, very narrow issue, to use tax dollars to fund abortion. Do you turn to people who feel very strongly about this issue and say, ``We don't care what you think, we are still involuntarily taking money from your paycheck every week to do something that you find to be very offensive"? That is the issue. It is very narrow. It is very simple. Mr. President, I thank you for your courtesy, and I yield back my time.

Mr. DeWINE

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the Dole- Lieberman bill. Let me make very clear, however, at the outset, that I believe that this is a terrible way to have to make foreign policy. The facts are that no congressional action can substitute for Presidential leadership. No congressional action can substitute for Presidential vision. There is no substitute for a clear and coherent U.S. foreign policy defined, articulated, and pursued by the President. Congress cannot negotiate with our allies. Congress cannot open up a back channel. Congress cannot order airstrikes. Therefore, this is a resolution that I am not particularly happy to have to endorse. I am sure that many of my colleagues share my intense dislike for congressional micromanagement of foreign affairs and foreign policy. I do not think, Mr. President, we should make a practice of acting as pseudo-Secretaries of State. In fact, last week when the President called the majority leader and asked him to delay action on this resolution, I had hoped then that the President was going to lead. The events of last weekend and the last few days, as articulated by my colleague from Connecticut and my colleague from Virginia several hours ago, clearly shows this is not going to happen. Mr. President, Congress cannot force the President to lead, but maybe Congress can push him towards leading. Indeed, we must do this. The stakes in Bosnia are great. This conflict is more than just a civil war. It involves more than just the tragedies we see on TV, however horrible they are. It also involves the question of the future of NATO and ultimately the stability of Europe. We have to reassert U.S. leadership of NATO. We have to maintain NATO as a viable force. We have to prevent the spread of this conflict. The administration simply does not have a coherent policy to achieve these ends. Crossing your fingers is not a policy. To achieve these ends, you have to start changing the conditions on the ground. The bill before us outlines one way in which we could begin to do this. Clearly, though, lifting the arms embargo is a moral imperative. It is the right thing to do. The administration may not have a foreign policy yet, but until they do we should at least give the Bosnians a chance to defend themselves. The arms embargo is an unwise, outdated policy, enacted against a country that no longer exists. I am, however, troubled by the idea of a unilateral U.S. withdrawal from a collective engagement. That is why I intend to support the amendments of Senators Cohen and Nunn. We should go to the U.N. Security Council--and, if we fail there, the General Assembly--to make this an allied and not a purely American policy. Mr. President, the handwriting is on the wall for the U.N. policy in Bosnia. The UNPROFOR troops are coming out--they are probably coming out whether we pass this resolution or not. They are coming out for good reason. They simply have no constructive role to play under the rules of engagement. Are the UNPROFOR troops supposed to stay in Bosnia just to die? Are they supposed to stay there just to be captured--just to serve as a shield for the aggressors? No. The writing is on the wall, and they are coming out. We need the President to lead. The President needs to explain to the American people what America's goals are in Bosnia--how, specifically, he intends to achieve them-- what sacrifices the American people might have to make--and why. We cannot do that here on the Senate floor, but somebody has to. And that somebody is the President of the United States. On this issue, the administration is adrift. It is my hope that by passing this resolution, the Senate is recalling the President to his most important responsibility--to serve as Commander in Chief. Mr. President, this problem will not just disappear. The only hope for a more positive resolution of this tragedy will come with Presidential leadership.