Daniel Moynihan

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I offer an amendment for Mr. Levin to the underlying amendment 2280.

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

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be set aside.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with and the pending amendment be laid aside.

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

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Perhaps when that does come we can have it recorded in our record for the day. I would appreciate that, sir. Stop the clock, Mr. President. Amendment No. 2677 to Amendment No. 2280 (Purpose: To provide for an extension of transitional medicaid benefits)

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, can we get a rough tally? I understand we are approaching 200, as the hour of 5 o'clock nears.

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

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

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I send to the desk this amendment with a group of other amendments and ask for their immediate consideration. I am told no one else would introduce the amendment and it falls to me to do so. I do so with a certain reluctance.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise to acknowledge what would be, not the first time, an error. I said recently just a moment ago that the Department of Health and Human Services has been silent on the subject of this atrocious legislation. I am wrong, sir. I have just been handed an amendment which asks us to see that no position, no full-time position in the Department of Health and Human Services be eliminated. So we will look after--I am beginning to believe what I hear about the bureaucracy. Amendments Nos. 2618 through 2672 to Amendment No. 2280

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, a parliamentary inquiry. The clock seems to be approaching 5 o'clock and I have what is approximately 8 minutes' worth of sending amendments to the desk. I ask unanimous consent that we extend our time to 5:05.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, as the Senate today winds to a close, we will have perhaps a few more amendments by the 5 o'clock deadline. My colleague and friend from Pennsylvania observes that there were about 120 when we last counted, which does not auger well for the conclusion of our business by Wednesday evening. But it does speak to the extraordinary transformation in the debate over welfare policy in the United States. I spoke earlier this week of the moment of February 8, 1971, when Time and Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report had as their cover stories the subject of welfare and the seeming intractable problem-- that at a time when the illegitimacy ratio in our country was one-third what it is today. The number of children born outside of marriage was one-third of what it is today. In 1992, it was 1.2 million. The ratio would be about 30 percent. It is about 33 percent today. That is the basic social condition that leads to this baffling problem. We are not alone, and it is important to know that. Just by happenstance, Mr. President, this week's issue of The Economist, a British ``newspaper,'' as they call it, has as its cover story, ``The Disappearing Family.'' They have a chart on page 26 called ``Fewer Gold Rings: Births to Unmarried Mothers as a Percentage of the Total.'' I find myself cited as the source. Indeed our office did do this work. Characteristically, the administration did nothing. Characteristically, the Department of Health and Human Services does nothing. Characteristically, they are absent from this debate. At times, there has been no one in the Vice President's office, as there is on any major issue affecting legislation. They are vanishing, defeated by the commitment to end welfare as they know it, and horrified at the prospect of what that will mean as they see it happen. The Economist has its ``lead article,'' as they say, on the subject, and then they have a long story. It begins: To European ears, America's family values debate can sound shrill, even surreal. It is taken as a sign that the citizens of the new world remain considerably less sophisticated and more moralistic than those of the old. But Europe would do well to listen. In many American neighborhoods, the family has collapsed. Among households with children and poor inner cities, fewer than one in ten have a father in residence. If there are lessons from this awful experience, they are worth learning. They go on to say that many of the same phenomenon are appearing in Britain. They differentiate between different parts of Europe that are adjacent but are very different in their approaches. Sweden is a country of individuals, and has a very high rate of birth outside of marriage, but they are not births outside of households. All their family structure, their social policy, is built around the individual. Germany, which is just across the Baltic, is a nation built around families. And all of their social policy is designed in that direction, and the consequences are easy to see. Our policies are hard to find. Years ago, we observed that there is no way a nation can avoid a family policy. It can only avoid acknowledging what the family policy is--or being aware. Whatever you do, one way or another, will have consequences. I rise in the remaining few moments of today's session to thank my colleagues on the Democratic side, the minority side, for their support in the bill I offered this morning, the Family Support Act of 1995. [[Page S 12944]] Mr. President, 41 Democrats voted for it; five did not. They have their reasons. They are understood and respected. Fifty-six altogether, 51 Members of the other side voted ``no.'' Several mentioned to me that one Senator on that side volunteered that it was the worst vote he ever cast, but that is understandable. The point I tried to make is that this legislation, the Family Support Act of 1988, passed the Senate 93-3 in its first form and then the conference report 96-1. We had consensus and we lost it. I have to think we began to lose it when President Clinton, campaigning for the Presidency, said he would end welfare as we know it, asked for a 2-year time limit, and no further details. Legislation finally came forward in the 103d Congress, but very late, with no expectation that it would be dealt with. I was chairman of the Finance Committee and was happy to do it but nobody wanted it. It was left for this. A curious--how to say--silence from organizations. You would have expected to hear something from the U.S. Conference of Mayors, which I have worked with for 35 years in one form or another, helping them get revenue sharing going directly to municipalities, and things like that. Silent on our bill. The welfare reform advocates, children's advocates, silent on our bill. Democratic Governors, silent. Well, the fact is, there has been an extraordinary change in expectations of what Congress will do and a passivity which perhaps accounts for events, a complacency, the assumption that a Democratic administration confirmed in these matters. Well, we see the results. I will put on the Record that the absence of any support for the legislation which we put forward in the Finance Committee last spring--the vote was 12-8, eight Democrats--has to be taken as an unprecedented surrender and unprecedented abandonment of principle. I say to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, they have abandoned every principle they have stood for in 35 years I have worked with them. The Governors are split on partisanship. The advocacy groups--what advocacy groups? Maybe their anxiety is that, if they say anything, their funding will be cut off. Well, then, we know where their priorities are. Mr. President, I can only regret that silence, even as I express my appreciation for the Senators who did support us today. The time will come when they will be proud of that vote. I yield the floor. Amendment No. 2476 to Amendment No. 2280 (Purpose: Sense of the Senate regarding Enterprise Zone legislation)

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

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

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I ask unanimous consent that the amendments be temporarily laid aside.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendments be dispensed with.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I send two amendments to the desk and ask for their immediate consideration.

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

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendments be laid aside.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendments be dispensed with.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I now send to the desk three amendments by Senator Boxer and ask unanimous consent that they be considered en bloc.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be laid aside.

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

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I send to the desk an amendment for myself, Ms. Snowe, Mr. Rockefeller, and Mr. Byrd.