Bob Graham

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, this amendment speaks to fundamental fairness by providing that a poor child will be treated the same by their Federal Government wherever they happen to live and that each State will receive the same amount of money based on the number of poor children within that State. That is not only fairness; it also, in my opinion, is fundamentally required if this bill is to achieve its objective of providing States a reasonable amount of resources in which to provide for the transition from welfare to work. I yield the remainder of my time to my colleague, Senator Bumpers.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, as read, the purpose of this motion to strike is to strike section 409(a)(3)(C) which was added to this bill during its consideration before the Senate Finance Committee. The provision which I would offer to strike provides: Notwithstanding the limitation described in Subparagraph (A), the Secretary shall reduce the grant payable to the State . . . for a fiscal year, in addition to the reduction imposed under subsection (A), by an amount equal to 5 percent of the State family assistance grant, if the Secretary determines that the State failed to comply with section 407(a) for 2 or more consecutive preceding fiscal years. That language was added in the Senate Finance Committee to language that had been in the bill in its previous form, in its current reconciliation version, as well as in other versions of welfare reform. That previous version states that the Secretary can sanction a State which fails to meet its work requirements by an amount up to 5 percent of the State's family assistance grant. The amendment that was offered, first, removes the discretion from the Secretary; second, instead of saying up to 5 percent, it makes it an absolute 5 percent in addition to whatever sanction has been levied in the previous fiscal year against a State which failed to meet its work requirement. Why am I offering this amendment? I am offering it, first, because the language of the amendment is very obscure. In its claimed reading, it seems to say that there will be an additional amount, equal to 5 percent of the State's family assistance grant, as a sanction if the State had failed for 2 consecutive years to meet its work requirements. That, apparently, is not the way it is being interpreted by others, including one of the groups which is strongly opposed to this provision, which is the National Conference of State Legislatures. They are interpreting this to be a cumulative sanction. That it would be, if you failed to meet your work requirements for 2 consecutive years and had been subject to a penalty because of failure to do so, you would be subject to an additional mandatory 5-percent cut in the third year; an additional 5-percent cut, or a cumulative 15 percent in the next year; an additional 5 percent in the year after that, up to a maximum of a 25-percent reduction in your grant. So one of my concerns with this very important provision that was added--frankly, as a member of the Finance Committee, I can stipulate, without any consideration by the committee--is, just what does it mean? It could be very draconian in its impact. It could be only very serious. So that is one issue. A second issue is the fact that the States, through the organizations that we have looked to, to do much of the policy work for a bill which purports to grant increased authority to States, are opposed to this provision. I ask unanimous consent to have a series of letters from State-based organizations printed at the conclusion of my remarks.

Mr. GRAHAM. I rise for purposes of offering an amendment. I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. GRAHAM. I would like to use, illustrative of the letters I received, this letter dated today, July 22, from the National Conference of State Legislatures. This letter states, in part: State legislators want welfare reform to succeed. In order to succeed, we need adequate implementation time to craft comprehensive welfare reform that best fits the needs in our individual states. In S. 1956, both the work participation rate requirements and penalties begin the first year of the block grant. Therefore, we strongly support Senator Bob Graham's amendment to strike the language imposing a cumulative penalty of five percent of the block grant per year on states that fail to meet the mandated work requirements. Imposing harsh and excessive penalties will only make it more difficult for states to succeed. State legislators are committed to welfare reform and have proved it through passage of numerous laws reforming their welfare systems. We have asked the federal government for flexibility to change the current system and hope for legislation to empower the states. The Congress has challenged us to go even further, yet the current bill leaves no room for adjustment, even if a state experiences a recession, high unemployment or natural disaster. Despite our best effort, there may be states who cannot meet the work requirements. To add compounding financial penalties will severely restrict state efforts even further--just at the moment when they could use assistance from their federal partner. Mr. President, the letter from the National Conference of State Legislatures points out a fundamental difference between the sanction that we had previously proposed, and which stays in this bill, and that which was added in the Finance Committee. The previous sanction made it in the discretion of the Secretary of HHS as to whether to levy such a penalty, and at what level to do it up to 5 percent. So the Secretary could take into consideration--maybe the reason the State of Vermont failed to meet its work requirement was because they had an unexpected natural disaster in Vermont, as we did in Florida with Hurricane Andrew, or maybe they had an unusual economic recession and more people were unable to find work, and therefore they could not meet the work requirements for those persons who are coming off welfare. The cumulative language gives no such discretion to the Secretary to take those kinds of real-world conditions into account. A third reason for offering this amendment is the reason that was the basis of discussion earlier today by my colleague, Senator Bumpers, and myself on Friday. That is, we start this process from a very inequitable allocation of funds among the 50 States. The reason it is so inequitable is because we are basically using the status quo which was based on a State's financial ability and political willingness to put up substantial amounts of money for welfare and then draw down an equivalent amount of Federal matching funds. That formula has resulted in disparities of in the range of 4 and 5 to 1 between high-benefit States and low-benefit States in the amount of funds that they have per poor person. For instance, in the State of Arkansas, for every person in their State who has an income below the poverty level, they would get $397 of Federal support. In the State of New York, under this legislation, in the year 2000 they would get $1,961 for every person below 100 percent of poverty level. When you compound that large inequity in the amount of Federal funds per State with a common requirement that all States have to meet in terms of getting a proportion of their welfare population off welfare and into work, you have enormous differences in the impact of this legislation. Mr. President, I am going to truncate my remarks because I know there are some amendments that have to be offered before 2 o'clock. But let me, just for my colleagues, point out that the State of Arkansas, in the year 2000, has estimated it will have to spend 49 percent of the funds which today go to provide economic support to pay for everything from school supplies to clothing to diapers to utilities, 49 percent of those funds will have to go to meet the work requirements, that is, to pay for the job training, to pay for the child care, to pay for the other support services such as job placement. That is in the State of Arkansas. In my State, which is a middle State in terms of benefits, 36 percent of our funds would have to go to meet those requirements, whereas in New York State, only 14 percent of their combined State-Federal funds would be required in order to pay for exactly the same work assistance that Arkansas and Florida would have to provide, thus leaving a very inequitable amount left over for the fundamental economic support that this program for 60 years has been providing to indigent families in America. So, for those three reasons--lack of clarity as to what this amendment is supposed to mean; second, the strong opposition of the States because of its lack of flexibility; and, third, the inequitable application of this cumulative sanction amendment--I offer this amendment. At the appropriate time, I will urge its support. Exhibit 1 National Conference of State Legislatures, Washington, DC, July 22, 1996. Dear Senator: The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) is committed to continuing our work with the Congress to enact comprehensive, bipartisan welfare reform legislation this year. As you consider amendments to S. 1956, state legislators offer the following positions for your consideration. We strongly believe that the final welfare reform bill must: (1) provide maximum flexibility to state and local governments; (2) preserve existing state authority and avoid preemption; (3) fund federally-mandated activities; (4) avoid cost-shifts to states; and (5) ensure that states have adequate implementation time for programs fully- or partially-devolved to the states. State legislators want welfare reform to succeed. In order to succeed, we need adequate implementation time to craft comprehensive welfare reform that best fits the needs in our individual states. In S. 1956, both the work participation rate requirements and penalties begin in the first year of the block grant. Therefore, we strongly support Senator Bob Graham's amendment to strike the language imposing a cumulative penalty of five percent of the block grant per year on states that fail to meet the mandated work requirements. Imposing harsh and excessive penalties will only make it more difficult for states to succeed. State legislators are committed to welfare reform and have proved it through passage of numerous laws reforming their welfare systems. We have asked the federal government for flexibility to change the current system and hope for legislation to empower the states. The Congress has challenged us to go even further, yet the current bill leaves no room for adjustment, even if a state experiences a recession, high employment or natural disaster. Despite our best effort, there may be states who cannot meet the work requirements. To add compounding financial penalties will severely restrict state efforts even further--just at the moment when they could use assistance from their federal partner. Senator Graham's amendment also allows the Secretary to reduce state penalties after assessing the individual experience of that state. We have always opposed cookie- cutter welfare reform. The current bill does not allow for the diversity of state experience in reforming the system and the timing of state legislative sessions to enact the laws necessary to change the system. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that there is a $13 billion shortfall in the cash assistance block grant to meet the work requirements. NCSL has always supported deficit reduction and we understand the limitation on available funds for work. However, the current bill as drafted penalizes us as we charter unknown waters to create a new system to retrain state workers, create employment slots, verify work slots and, of course, be successful at moving recipients to work. A distinction is not made for states who have made a good faith effort but fail to meet the requirements for reasons beyond their control. We are very concerned that this will hamper state creativity, innovation and excellence. State legislators urge you to support Senator Graham's amendment. Sincerely, Carl Tubbesing, Deputy Executive Director.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, it was a great privilege for me to introduce legislation to name the Federal Courthouse in Tampa, FL as the Sam M. Gibbons United States Courthouse. The Honorable Sam Gibbons has devoted his entire life to serving the United States of America. A veteran of World War II, Gibbons was awarded the Bronze Star after parachuting into Normandy on D-day as a part of the initial Allied assault force. He achieved the rank of captain in the 501st Parachute Infantry of the 101st Airborne Division before embarking on his long and distinguished career as a public servant. Gibbons' career in public service began with his election to the Florida House of Representatives in 1952. In the Florida House, he passed legislation creating the University of South Florida and is appropriately recognized as The father of the University of South Florida. In 1958, Gibbons' moved from the House to the Florida Senate where he enacted legislation to establish Florida's regional water management districts. These districts are vital to Florida's ability to allocate and preserve its precious water resources. Gibbons barnstormed into the U.S. Congress in 1962. President Johnson appointed Gibbons, then a junior Congressman, floor manager of his Great Society initiatives. Gibbons deftly steered this legislation, including Project Head Start, through the Congress. He also wrote the law that allows Americans over the age of 55 to protect, from taxation, capital gains from the sale of their primary homes. Despite his enormous achievements in social policy, Gibbons' experience as a legislator was not limited solely to domestic issues. As acting chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee in 1994 and chairman of the Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee from 1981 through May 1994, Gibbons has been a champion of open markets and free trade around the world. Under his direction, two of our Nation's most comprehensive trade agreements, the North American Free Trade Agreement [NAFTA] and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade [GATT] passed Congress, and were signed into law. Today, Congressman Gibbons sits as the Dean of the Florida congressional delegation. At the end of the 104th Congress, Gibbons will complete his 17th term representing the Tampa Bay area. The Gibbons family has lived in Tampa for more than a century. Congressman and Mrs. Gibbons, who will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary this year, have also served together tirelessly to improve the lives all Tampa residents. A graduate of the University of Florida College of Law and a member of Florida Blue Key, Gibbons has served the State of Florida and the United States of America with distinction. This courthouse should be named as a tribute to the lifetime works of Congressman Sam M. Gibbons.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent all time on this amendment be yielded back.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment which I offered.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, our colleague, Senator Leahy of Vermont, was unable to be here this afternoon. He has asked me to make a statement on his behalf in reference to the amendment that has just been offered by the Senator from North Carolina. Speaking on Senator Leahy's behalf: I oppose the Helms amendment. It would deny food stamps to millions of unemployed workers, including factory workers who have worked for 10 or 20 years and then are laid off when a plant closes. The Helms amendment would replace the tough work requirements already in the bill with a flat prohibition on the provision of food stamps to unemployed workers between the ages of 18 and 50 who are not disabled and do not have children under the age of 18. The Senate defeated a version of Senator Helms' amendment last year by a vote of 66 to 32. Under the Helms amendment, no unemployed worker without a minor child in the household, no such worker could receive food stamps unless he or she was working at least 20 hours per week in a workfare slot. If the worker was furloughed or laid off, he or she generally would be immediately removed from the Food Stamp Program. The amendment does not provide funding to create workfare positions to which these individuals could be referred. The amendment simply denies food stamps to laid-off workers who are looking for a new job but have not yet found one. Mr. President, I offer that statement in behalf of our colleague, Senator Leahy.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time. I would like to, however, submit for the Record a list of the penalties and rewards contained in this bill as a means of underscoring the discrepancy in the likelihood of States being subject to sanction or receiving incentives based on the amount of funds that they will receive under this bill per child in poverty. I ask unanimous consent that ``Use of Rewards and Penalties for the Welfare Work Requirements'' be printed in the Record.

Mr. GRAHAM. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, I am going to be offering an amendment prior to that. I also ask unanimous consent that the amendment which I am going to offer be subject to modification prior to the time of the vote on Tuesday.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Exon, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment offered and withdrawn by the Senator from Washington, Senator Murray, remain on the list of amendments that are in order to offer today or Monday.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, this is certainly an issue of dollars. It is certainly an issue of impact on local institutions required to provide services. But it is also fundamentally an issue of fairness, fairness in many dimensions. Let me just mention two. One of those is the fact that very few of these local communities requested the circumstance in which they find themselves. Immigrants, legal and illegal, come into this country for a variety of reasons but virtually none of them come in because they receive an invitation from a particular community. It is Federal policy that determines who can come legally. It is Federal willingness to allocate resources that will determine whether we can enforce the immigration laws that we have enacted or will we be faced with floodtides of illegal immigration. Unfortunately, my State, as does California, peculiarly has to deal with this issue. We have had hundreds of thousands of immigrants in all categories, from refugees to parolees to asylees to special categories of entrants, come into our State, as well as those who have come through the normal immigration process. All those decisions are made by those of us who are privileged to be Federal officials. The consequences of those decisions almost always fall at a local level: At a hospital attempting to cope with overwhelming numbers of persons seeking medical assistance; at an educational institution, a school that is overcrowded because of the large surge of immigrant children--the social institutions. My State was so overwhelmed that we went to Federal court with a request, under litigation, that we be compensated for the expenses the State had paid on behalf of those persons who came to the United States as a result of Federal action. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on that case just a few weeks ago. Unfortunately for the State of Florida, the ruling was: You may have a good case. You may have a strong moral basis for your litigation. But it is not a justiciable case before the Federal courts. You have to find your relief through the political processes, not through the judicial processes. That is what we are about today. Fundamental fairness in terms of the Federal Government assuming its appropriate responsibility for the financial cost of the immigration decisions that it has made. There is a second issue of fairness and that is as it relates to the individual affected. These people who came here under the current immigration law did so under a set of standards and expectations that did not include that they were going to have their benefits peremptorily terminated. If this is a good idea to have in effect today, we should have done it 10 or 20 years ago. I think it is fundamentally unfair to have these people in the country under the rules that have applied--we are dealing, here, with legal aliens, people who pay the same taxes we do and are subject to the same responsibilities; but now, at the last moment, we are going to say you are not going to get the same benefits. I think that is unfair. The amendment that has been offered by the Senators from California would relieve us from that unfairness. I hope it will be adopted.

Mr. GRAHAM. I thank the Chair. Mr. CRAIG addressed the Chair.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask the amendment be laid aside.

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

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk for Mr. Simon and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I may offer an amendment on behalf of the Senator from Illinois, Senator Simon.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, let me just make a few points. The Senator from Pennsylvania has made a very good argument, if we were going to leave the welfare program as we have known it for the last three-plus decades. The whole premise of us being here today until this job is done is that we want to change that welfare system as we have known it. So, to say that we are going to change the whole chassis drivetrain and other aspects of this vehicle, but keep the engine of how we distribute the money to pay to make the vehicle mobile, exactly the same as we had in the past, is, I think, an intellectual disconnect. If we are going to change the program, we have to look at what is going to be required on a nationwide basis and on a State-by-State basis in order to accomplish the objectives of the new--not the old--welfare system. The fact is that the change that is going to be most fundamental to the States is that they are now going to take on the requirement subject to both carrots and sticks in sanctions to move people from welfare to work. We have had some experience with this, Mr. President. Two of the longest term pilot programs in welfare reform are in the cities of Gainesville and Pensacola, FL. They have been working for several years to try to determine, not in theory, but in practice, with real people. What does it take to get folks off welfare? What does it take to get them that first job and then get them in the position that they can hold the job in the future? The fact is it takes, for many of those people, a significant investment. We have to invest in job training for people who do not have any job skills. You have to invest in job placement for people who have never gone out to get a job before. You have to invest in child care so that there is somebody there to look after the kids while the mother is in training and in the first months of employment. Those all have significant costs. Those costs are within ranges fairly consistent from State to State across the country. Yet, we are going to start some States with four, or five, or six times more money than others with poor children in order to be able to pay for those common transitional expenses. I am afraid that we are about to build into the architecture of welfare reform failure for many States, and then after we have built in failure, we are going to impose heavy sanctions on those States that fail, which will make it even less likely that they will be able to achieve success. I fear that the result of all of that is going to be that we will waste several years in accomplishing the objectives that we all see, which is to move people from dependence to independence and self- sufficiency and pride that comes with the ability to support oneself, that we are going to lose that opportunity over the next period as we start this process with a fundamentally, structurally failed architecture. Mr. President, if I thought that we were starting this from a suspect place but that was just a necessary political accommodation in order to get off the blocks, and then we would soon be moving towards a greater level of equity, I could accept that as a pragmatic means of moving from the old to the new. Are we going to be making that transition? Let us just look at two of the States that I cited: the State of Mississippi and the State of New York. How long under the Hutchison amendment will it take for the State of Mississippi to reach the State of New York in its funds available for poor children? Will the Senator from Pennsylvania think that maybe when we celebrate the 300th anniversary of the country in the year 2076, would we have done it by then? Sadly not. Will we have done it when we celebrate the 400th anniversary of the country in the year 2176? Mr. President, sadly not. It will, in fact, not be until the year 2202, exactly 206 years from today, 2202, before Mississippi will finally close the gap and be the equivalent of New York. That means that it will be some six to seven generations before that gap is closed. My colleague and friend from Pennsylvania is a patient man. He is prepared to wait until the year 2202 to achieve equity. I am more impatient. I do not believe that my life expectancy is going to extend to that year. I would like to see some more reasonable date at which we will begin to achieve parity among the States so we can then expect the States to be subject to a parity of sanctions and incentives in terms of whether they have, in fact, achieved the goal of moving people from welfare to work. We have suggested a 5-year transitional plan to achieve that result. The Senator from Pennsylvania was very gracious in recognizing that this is a legitimate concern, and I recognize that it is not easy to do. You have people who have been operating under the old system with certain sets of expectations. But, frankly, we are asking lots of people to change their whole pattern. We are asking people who have been essentially waiting to receive a check once a month now to get up every day and go to work. That is a change. We are asking communities that have previously closed the door to employment opportunities for many of these people to open the door and create the chance for them to become self-sufficient. I think that we ought to, as politicians, challenge ourselves, be willing to make some of the same kinds of adjustments in this new system. And certainly one of those adjustments ought to be fundamental fairness in the way we treat American children wherever those children happen to live in this great Nation. That is the purpose of the Graham-Bumpers amendment. Mr. President, as I indicated earlier, by unanimous consent I have reserved the right to modify this amendment up to the time of the vote on Tuesday. We would be receptive to further ideas as to how to better achieve this objective. I also indicated that my friend and cosponsor, Senator Bumpers, will utilize some time on Monday to speak further on this matter. I hope that over the next few days my colleagues will study this issue of fundamental fairness--the fact that some 35 States would be benefited as we move, over time, toward fairness--and ask themselves, is it not time as we change welfare as we have known it to also change a pattern of expenditure of Federal funds which has seriously disadvantaged many of the poorest children in America? Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, if there is one phrase that has characterized the debate on welfare reform, it is the phrase that ``we are going to end welfare as we have known it.'' What we have known welfare as has a number of dimensions. We have focused a great deal of attention, for instance, on the issue of what will it take to cause welfare to be seen as a temporary program, not as a permanent lifestyle. There is another dimension to welfare as we have known it. And that is how the Federal Government has participated financially with the States in financing the cost of welfare. And I speak specifically to the cash payments under the Aid to Families with Dependent Children. The current law is essentially a matching formula in which the States indicate what they are prepared to commit to this program and then the Federal Government matches that amount. There are nuances to that statement but that is fundamentally the status quo. This bill, with a minor modification, intends to retain that aspect of welfare as we have known it. That is, we would continue to maintain the State by State Federal allocations as they have developed under the current system. And those State by State allocations, as you would imagine, are extremely divergent. As an example, to use the State of the Presiding Officer, Idaho, in 1996, per child in poverty--that is of all the children in Idaho who live at or below the poverty level--if you divide the number of dollars that are coming from the Federal Government to the State of Idaho by that number of children, the result is $495. That is what Idaho receives per poor child. Just to move across the line into your adjoining State of Washington, the State of Washington, with the same mathematical formula, in 1996 will receive $1,948 or approximately four to five times, per child in poverty, what Idaho receives. That result is now going to be cast into the stone of block grants. That is the basis upon which Idaho will be receiving its money between now and the year 2001 so that essentially those same discrepancies will be maintained. What has not been retained, however, Mr. President, is what is the purpose of the allocation of funds. Under the current system, the purpose of the allocation of funds from the Federal Government to the States and into the eligible families is essentially economic support. It pays for the rent, the lights, the food, the school supplies, the diapers, all the things that a family needs. What we are now about to do is shift to a different goal. And that different goal is to, yes, continue to provide some economic support, but with a heavy emphasis on funding those activities which will facilitate people getting off of welfare and into work. What are those kinds of activities that are now going to be funded? Well, they include job training. They include child care. They include some of the support services such as transportation for people to get to the job training or to get to the job. Those types of expenditures, within a range, tend to be fairly consistent from State to State. It does not cost a great deal less or more to provide that set of services in Moscow, ID, as in Spokane, WA. Yet Washington is going to have four to five times as many dollars per child in poverty to pay for those services as is Idaho. Therefore, Idaho is going to have a much more difficult time financially in terms of being able to pay for those kinds of transitional services and have anything left over to cover the economic needs of families who are in poverty than will States that commence this process at a much higher level. That, Mr. President, is the preface for the amendment that is offered today by Senator Bumpers and myself entitled ``Children's Fair Share.'' And our premise is that we ought to, over time, have as a national goal to treat each child in poverty in America as being of equal worth, and equal dignity and equal importance to their opportunities for the future of our Nation. Our approach is a simple one. Rather than take the status quo, which is predicated on the old welfare system and the old objectives, we should focus on a needs-based formula. As a result, over time, States would receive funding based on the number of poor children in their State. Why are Senator Bumpers and I offering this amendment? Any formula allocation should be guided by some underlying principles and policy justifications. One fundamental principle is fairness--fairness to America's children, fairness to the States, fairness to the Nation. If we are going to block grant welfare, we must be very careful that we are block granting with fairness. The General Accounting Office issued a report in February 1995 entitled, ``Block Grants: Characteristics, Experience, and Lessons Learned.'' What are the lessons that have been learned from our previous history with block grants that we should take into account as we start on the block grant for welfare? The General Accounting Office report stated, ``Because initial funding allocations used in current block grants were based on prior categorical grants, they were not necessarily equitable.'' That, Mr. President, describes the circumstance that we face this afternoon with this legislation--inequitable allocations of block grant funds because they were based on prior categorical grants. Senator Bumpers and I propose a funding formula that would clearly meet the following principles. First, block grant funding should reflect need or the number of persons in the individual States that would need assistance. Think about that principle, that one that seems rational. Second, a State's access to Federal funding should increase if the number of people in need of assistance increases; conversely, a State's access to Federal funding should decrease if the number of people in need of that assistance decrease. Does that sound logical and reasonable? Third, States should not be permanently disadvantaged because of the old categorical policies. In this case, the policies and circumstances surrounding welfare as we have known it, which we are attempting to discard. Fourth, if requirements and penalties are to be imposed upon the States, as envisaged by this bill, then fairness dictates that all States have an equitable and reasonable chance of reaching those goals. Mr. President, I suggest these principles sound rather simple. In sharp contrast, the legislation which is before the Senate fails to meet these tests of fairness. In fact, the formula used in this bill would perpetuate inequities into the future. Those inequities would, in fact, grow. Let me give an example. I cited the example of two neighboring States, Idaho and Washington. Let me cite two neighboring jurisdictions, the District of Columbia and the State of Virginia. Today, the District of Columbia per child in poverty receives $1,611; in the State of Virginia, $728. That is what the situation is today. Now, what is the proposal of the underlying bill for the year 2001? Are we going to bring these together? Are we going to move toward eliminating the $680 difference between the District of Columbia and the State of Virginia? Unfortunately, it is just the opposite, Mr. President. In the year 2001, under the plan that is before the Senate, the District of Columbia will receive $1,752 per child in poverty; the State of Virginia will receive $748. Rather than closing toward fairness, we will see a widening in which, in the year 2001, the District of Columbia will have approximately $1,000 more per child in poverty than does the State of Virginia. I find it hard to think of a policy rationale that would justify such a result. Mr. President, ironically, in the name of reform, in the name of change, we are locking in past inequities, repackaging them as block grants and failing to take into account future populations or economic changes among the States, failing to take into account the very obligations we are about to give to the States to perform and the necessity that if all States are going to achieve those objectives and if all States are going to be held to both sanctions and rewards for their success or failure in achieving those objectives, that all States should commence this new adventure of welfare reform from an essentially equitable position. By allocating future spending on the basis of 1995 allocations, this bill fails to distribute money based on any measure of need. It fails to take into account population growth or economic changes. It would permanently disadvantage States well into the future based upon choices and circumstances of 1995. It would unfairly impose penalties on States. The formula in this welfare bill would result in extreme disparities between States in Federal funding for poor children. I have given four examples to date. I might say all of these examples and all of the statistics I am using are the product of a report done by the Congressional Research Service dated July 18, 1996. In this report, it points out that under the underlying bill the State of our leader, the State of Mississippi, would receive $355 per child in poverty, while the State of New York would receive $1,998, or almost six times more than the poor child in Mississippi. In fact, if we combine the amount per poor child in the States of Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Texas, the total of funds per poor child in those five States would not equal what a poor child, for instance, in the State of Massachusetts would receive. To put it another way, the Federal Government effectively values some poor children five times more than it does children in the State of Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Texas. That is not the end of it, Mr. President, because under this bill, States that fail to meet the work requirements, States that are not able to put the money into effective job training, job search, job placement, child care, transportation, the other activities that have been found as necessary in order to get people from welfare to work, they are going to be subject to a penalty. Now, in a previous version of this bill, that penalty was 5 percent of the State's grant. So if the State was going to receive $1 million, it would be penalized 5 percent if it failed to meet the work requirement. This bill, Mr. President, if we believe it, makes that 5 percent cumulative, so that in the first year, you are penalized a percent; if you fail in the second year, you get penalized 10 percent; in the third year, you get penalized 15 percent, and so forth, up until you are penalized one quarter, or 25 percent of your State grant. That is not the only penalty in this bill, Mr. President. The language goes so far as to say a State can be penalized up to 25 percent per quarter in terms of the allocation of grant funds. Mr. President, today is a historic day. It is the opening of the centennial Olympics in Atlanta. Much of the world's focus for the next few days will be on Atlanta and on the Olympic events. I would liken this funding formula dilemma to a variation of one of the most celebrated contests in the Olympics. Let us say you have Dennis Mitchell and Gail Devers lined up at the start of the 100-meter dash. Then you have a less talented runner lined up 30 yards behind these two Olympic superstars. Then you have Senator Bumpers--who, unfortunately could not join us this afternoon, but will make some remarks on Monday--and I, who have been assigned a position 200 yards behind these superstars. The gun goes off. Now, we are all going to be judged on whether we can reach the finish line in the 100-meter dash in under 11 seconds. If you do, you get the acclaim of the crowd and you may even get a medal. If not, you are subject to penalty. Well, not surprisingly, Dennis and Gail reach that goal easily. The runner that started 30 meters further behind makes it in about 13 or 14 seconds, failing to meet the goal despite a valiant attempt. Now, Senator Bumpers and I, I hate to admit, we do not even come close to making the goal. Even Michael Johnson, the world-record holder, can only run the 200-meter dash in 19.66 seconds. However, even he would be penalized in this scenario. That would be a travesty of the Olympic spirit. That would be a sad race to observe. But, Mr. President, it gets worse. Since Senator Bumpers and I lost the race, and the runner at 130 yards also failed to meet the standard, we would have to move further back for the next race. Since they had reached the goal, Dennis and Gail would move 10 meters closer for the next race. That is essentially the structure of this bill. Those who start out in an advantaged position are placed in the prospect that they will get rewards because they have achieved the goals. Those who start--as Senator Bumpers and I are going to have to do--200 yards behind the regular starting line and therefore have relatively little expectation of reaching the goal, we are going to be further penalized, now having to be 300 yards behind the starting line. That, Mr. President, is an absurd result. However, it is exactly the situation that our States must deal with if this bill passes with its combination of funding formulas, incentives, and penalties. Mr. President, as we change welfare as we know it, we should recommit ourselves to the value that we place upon all of America's children. We should want to see that all of those children have the same opportunity to succeed and that they start from the same place in life's starting line. There is no justification for poor children to be treated with less or more value by the Federal Government depending upon in which State they happen to live. Mr. President, I urge the adoption of the Graham-Bumpers amendment.

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

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. GRAHAM. Thank you, Mr. President. Amendment No. 4936 (Purpose: To modify the formula for determining a State family assistance grant to include the number of children in poverty residing in a State)

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, the issue presented by this motion to strike is a simple one. We have already spent weeks debating the issue of the benefits for legal aliens--legal aliens. On May 2, we passed a comprehensive immigration bill which outlined the restraints that we felt were appropriate. We are now coming, today, to essentially trash all of that work that we have done by developing an entirely new set of principles as it relates to the eligibility of legal aliens, a new set of principles that have gone unstudied and unexamined, but represent some very significant policy shifts. It moves away from the principle of restraining benefits by looking to the sponsor to pay for the benefits of the legal alien, and it represents outright bars to legal aliens, from political refugees and asylees, as well as those who came in with a sponsor. It substantially increases the shift of responsibility to local governments. Mr. President, we have already dealt with this issue. We should let the immigration conference come to closure and not impose a new set of unexamined, duplicative, and I consider inappropriate policies. It should now be rejected.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the motion to strike.