Daniel Moynihan

Mr. MOYNIHAN

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. There is no objection on this side. To the contrary.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. It most assuredly is on our side.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I see the Senator from California has risen.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. It has been cleared on this side.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Madam President, may I simply endorse everything the Senator has said, and add a further point. We have a choice in this legislation. We can have child care or we can have orphanages. I think child care is the least expensive option, but you do not know how bad an orphanage might be. We are not just at the end of 60 years of social policy. A century ago, in response to the matter of sending half-orphans, as they were known, to orphanages that some 40 States, beginning in Wisconsin, began mothers' pensions. The States found it difficult to maintain them in the midst of the Depression, and they were incorporated into the Social Security Act as aid to dependent children. That is the issue before us, as best one can tell, although one can never tell the future. I thank the Senator from Connecticut. I see the distinguished Republican leader.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I believe Senator Graham was.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise to speak to the amendment of my friend from North Carolina and speak in opposition to a well-intended but, it seems to me, very badly conceived approach to a problem which we all acknowledge. Earlier today, I had the occasion to congratulate the Senators from Indiana and Missouri for their hugely insightful and able remarks. I refer particularly to those of the Senator from Indiana on the precedent of what do we do about civil society and about the breakup in those primal relationships that seem to be so essential to any society, and have always been assumed to be, but which seem to be disappearing in ours. And not only in ours, Mr. President. I remark that in the current issue of the Economist, the subject is ``The Disappearing Family.'' But simply to read a passage, it says: A father is not just a cash cow. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Democratic Senator who has taken these problems seriously for 30 years, says that a community without fathers asks for and gets chaos. As an American, he has been able to see that chaos for some time, but it is now visible elsewhere. There are neighborhoods in Britain where more than two-thirds of homes with children lack fathers. Some of Paris' wilder banlieues are not that different. The Economist article contains a bar chart which is entitled ``Fewer Golden Rings, Births to Unmarried Mothers as a Percentage of Total,'' which shows the extraordinary growth from 1960 in Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, France, Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia, Germany, Holland, Spain, and Switzerland. There was no growth at all in Japan. There is a descending order of the present ratios, from Iceland, at about 55 percent. Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, France, Britain, the United States--with Britain and France ahead of the United States--and Canada, just after the United States. Australia, Germany, Holland--smaller ratios in those areas. We are not alone in this, nor have we ignored the subject. It was perhaps not widely noticed, but a year ago in Public Law 103-322, signed by the President on September 13, 1994, an anticrime measure, the now majority leader Senator Dole and I sponsored a sense-of-the- Senate regarding a study of out-of-wedlock births. It said simply: It is the sense of the Senate that--(1) the Secretary of Health and Human Services, in consultation with the National Center for Health Statistics, should prepare an analysis of the causes of the increase in out-of-wedlock births, and determine whether there is any historical precedent for such increase, as well as any equivalent among foreign nations, and (2) the Secretary of Health and Human Services should report to Congress within 12 months after the date of the enactment of this Act on the Secretary's analysis of the out- of-wedlock problem and its causes, as well as possible remedial measures that could be taken. I can report, sir, that report is ready now and will be released shortly. It is a first effort, and I hope it will not be the last. At length, the U.S. Government--the U.S. Congress, this Senate, the Presidency--is finally beginning to acknowledge this problem. I have mentioned before President Bush's commencement address at Notre Dame in 1992, and President Clinton's 1994 State of the Union address, where the subject is raised. But it cannot be too emphatically stated that we know very little of the ideology, origins, the modes by which it takes place. I have here a draft of the new report by the Department of Health and Human Services. You can see, Mr. President, and I hope the Secretary of Health and Human Services might be listening, ``The sense of the Senate asks for a study of out-of-wedlock births.'' The report does, indeed, say ``out of wedlock.'' But when it gets into the text, it refers to ``nonmarital,'' thus defining down the problem; from the term ``illegitimacy'' to ``out of wedlock'' to ``nonmarital,'' to--I do not know what the next euphemism will be. But they do make the simple point that changes in behavior, some of these changes in reproductive biology, have led to an extraordinary number of out-of-wedlock births. In 1992, about 1,250,000--1\1/4\ million illegitimate births. About 1 in 10 unmarried women age 15 to 44 become pregnant each year--about 1 in 10. I have just offered to the Senate a datum which should shock anyone. One in ten unmarried women become pregnant each year. The vast majority of [[Page S 13511]] these pregnancies are unintended and, in 1991, nearly half ended in induced abortion--obviously a condition we should not ever desire nor should we allow to continue if we can change it. But again, I have to say that there does not now exist any understanding of how we might do this. I welcome the onset of inquiry. This is not beyond the reach of social science, anthropology, biology. But it is only just beginning to be recognized in our country as in other countries. The Economist reports the neighborhoods in Britain are not unlike those in, say Washington, DC, and in Paris. It is a new social condition, a new social issue. But earlier I cited James Q. Wilson, in a splendid essay, a lecture which he gave, the Walter Wriston Lecture, at the Manhattan Institute in New York City, November 17, 1994, entitled, ``From Welfare Reform To Character Development.'' I think that is what the Senator from North Carolina is talking about, from welfare reform to character development. And he should be. He is to be congratulated for doing it. But Wilson says, about the subject--how do you break the cycle of dependency? Nobody knows how to do this on a large scale. The debate that has begun about welfare reform is in large measure based on untested assumptions, ideological posturing, and perverse priorities. We are told by some that worker training and job placement will reduce the welfare rolls, but we know that worker training and job placement have so far had at best very modest effects on welfare rolls. I say that standing here with a button from the JOBS program in Riverside, CA, that says, ``Life Works If You Work.'' But we know the effects of these programs are modest. Wilson goes on: And few advocates of worker training tell us what happens to children of mothers who are induced or compelled to work other than to assure us that somebody will supply day care. We are told by others that a mandatory work requirement, whether or not it leads to more mothers working, will end the cycle of dependency. We don't know that it will. That is James Q. Wilson. ``We don't know that.'' I continue: Moreover, it is fathers whose behavior we most want to change, and nobody has explained how cutting off welfare to mothers will make biological fathers act like real fathers. We are told that ending AFDC will reduce illegitimacy, but we don't know that; * * * I repeat James Q. Wilson, ``We are told that ending AFDC will reduce illegitimacy but we don't know that.'' * * * it is, at best, an informed guess. Some people produced illegitimate children in large numbers long before welfare existed and others in similar circumstances now produce none even though welfare has become quite generous. I plead to the Senate, first, do no harm. Catholic Charities addressed this plea to us earlier this day, asking that there not be a family cap. The first principle in welfare reform must be do no harm, the ancient adage of Hippocrates in his essay ``Epidemics.'' It is not the Hippocratic oath, and we are dealing with an epidemic here. We must heed that ancient Greek: First, do no harm. I can say that there is one major research project in operation right now--has been for more than 4 years--it involves very intensive counseling and education offered to teens to prevent teen pregnancy. I would prefer not to give the actual name of the operation because you do not want to interfere with it by stating ahead of time what its findings are, what is happening. But I can tell you that after 4 years the control group, there is no difference in outcome between the experimental group which was given the intensive counseling and training and the control group which received no such special services. This still baffles us. It is still beyond our reach. Not beyond our grasp. I will use that image. It is beyond our reach, not beyond our grasp. We are trying. We are beginning to learn. But at this point, to deny benefits to children who have no means of controlling the way they come into the world or the circumstances in which they find themselves, would be an act of--irresponsible policy? I hesitate to use that word. It would be an act of--cruelty? I hesitate to use that word as well. Not intended; the unintended consequences of social policy are almost invariably the larger and more important ones. So I hope, with expression of great appreciation to the Senator who has raised the subject, thanking him for raising it, I hope we will not take this radical step into the unknown at just the moment when we are beginning to engage the Nation's analytic and social capacities with the issue. I yield the floor.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. We are prepared to accept the amendment.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I would like to add Senator Exon.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. And Senator Exon.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. That is quite agreeable, Madam President.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I thank the Chair.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, as we prepare to vote, may I just hold the Senate for just a moment to read a passage from the message to the legislature by Gov. William H. Seward in New York State in 1840. Governor Seward went on to a distinguished career here in Washington, and we have Alaska, among other things, to thank him for. He said: The children of foreigners, found in great numbers in our populous cities and towns, and in the vicinity of our public works, are too often deprived of the advantages of our system of public education, in consequence of prejudices arising from difference of language or religion. It ought never to be forgotten that the public welfare is as deeply concerned in their education as in that of our own children. I do not hesitate, therefore, to recommend the establishment of schools in which they may be instructed by teachers speaking the same language with themselves and professing the same faith. Governor Seward was from Auburn, NY, far away from those foreigners, and, as a matter of fact, if you would like to know the fact, those were Irish. And they did not speak English. They spoke Gaelic. But the idea that they had a right to public school was very clear to people, and very close to the Constitution. Just for purposes of innocent merriment and the possible instruction of the Honorable Justices of the Court, I would like to ask unanimous consent that, and a few succeeding paragraphs, be printed in the Record.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. To the list for tonight?