Daniel Moynihan

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. May I record, Mr. President, the Senator from Oregon does not wish to speak at this moment. So if the speakers are all on our side, it is because we are talking, I suppose, about our bill.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Twenty, it is.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I am happy to yield to my friend. Is 15 minutes sufficient for his purposes?

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I yield myself 5 minutes, if I need that much, to thank the Senator from Florida, the former Governor of Florida, who knows precisely of what he speaks when Federal formulas are involved. You heard the striking differences between the jurisdictions of Florida, Mississippi, the District of Columbia, and Virginia. I hope you also heard the Senator's comment about the city of Philadelphia, the number of jobs in the city, the numbers created in recent years. I have been trying to make a point, as I said yesterday--I do not know that I can persuade anyone, but I can try to make it and I can argue-- which is the point that 30 years ago, we might have considered turning this subject back to the States, giving them [[Page S 12763]] block grants of some kind, saying, ``You handle it. Cities, you handle it. It makes some sense since local governments are closer to the problem. It is not that big a problem.'' It is today, in one after another jurisdiction, a problem that has overwhelmed the capacity of the city and the State. The Senator mentioned Philadelphia. In 1993, 57 percent of the children living in the city of Philadelphia were on AFDC, welfare, at one point in the course of the year. At any given moment, 44 percent-- these are numbers never contemplated. Nothing like that happened in the Great Depression. And these children are paupers. They are not from unemployed families, where there is a house, an automobile, some insurance. One of the few regulations the Federal Government does have--the rest are all intended you have to waiver for--if you have less than $1,000 in assets, you are a pauper. The cities cannot handle it. And they will not. Just as when we began the deinstitutionalization of our mental institutions in the early 1960's--at the last public bill-signing ceremony President Kennedy had, on October 31, 1963, he signed the Community Mental Health Construction Act of 1963. I was present. He gave me a pen. I had been involved with this in New York, where it began. Transfer license. We were going to build 2,000 community mental health centers by the year 1980, and one per 100,000 thereafter. We built about 400. We kind of overlapped and folded the program in and forgot about the program. We emptied out the mental institutions. And we have been hearing about homeless shelters all day. I said yesterday, and I will repeat again, in 10 years' time, with this legislation in place, with these time limits in place, children will be in the streets. Seventy-six percent of the children on welfare are on welfare for more than 5 years. The Senator from Connecticut, I hope, will keep that in mind--76 percent. About 40 percent--the remainder come and go quickly and are never a problem. But if we do this, we will have in my city of New York half a million people on the streets in New York. We wonder about homeless people. They used to be in mental institutions. Now these children are in houses. They are in households. We will wonder where they came from. We say, ``Why are these children sleeping on grates? Why are they being picked up in the morning frozen? Why are they horrible to each other, a menace to all, and more importantly to themselves? Whatever happened?'' When the homeless appeared in New York, we right away diagnosed it as a lack of affordable housing. That is not what it was. It was Federal policy in its most perverse mode. Make a great change and do not follow through. Make changes you do not fully understand. Those tranquilizers were not as good as we thought. Here are some other cities. In Detroit, 67 percent of children were on welfare at one point or another in the year of 1993; in Baltimore, 56 percent. My time has expired. But I will return to this subject. Now I am going to suggest the absence of a quorum for 1 minute to see whether the Senator from Oregon wishes to speak--I do not see him on the floor--after which it is the turn of the Senator from Connecticut.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I would be happy to do it. I am listening to what he has to say.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Can the Senator use another 5 minutes? We want to be fair to all Senators.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I yield to the distinguished Senator from Florida 15 minutes.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. If I may observe, the Senator from Florida is here.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, may I thank the Senator from North Dakota, Senator Dorgan, for beginning today's debate, today's critical debate, in an open, thoughtful, fair-minded manner. Could I comment on just one particular point? The Senator raised the question of the children born out of wedlock, and he is quite right. In 1992, 1,224,876 children were born out of wedlock--in some census tracts, 80 percent of all children born. Happily, North Dakota has been spared--or spared itself. This is something altogether new to our experience. And 30 years ago, you could not have discussed it on the Senate floor. There is a maturity coming to our debates. This was a subject-- the ratio, in 1992, reached 30.1 percent. It is probably almost 33 now. It has gone up every year since 1970. In 1970, it was 10.6 percent. So it has tripled, the ratio, and the number of children have tripled. We could not talk about this. We were not sure it was happening. Was it [[Page S 12761]] an aberration, just the weather, something like that? There used to be theories that when there would be blackouts there would be more children conceived. That turned out not to be so. We have a social crisis of a new order--not a recession, not a drought, not a collapse of farm prices, nor an increase in mortgages, the things that have come with some periodicity and consequence to us, and which we have learned to understand pretty much and manage. We have never had this before, and we have never talked about it before; not in the calm, thoughtful way the Senator from North Dakota has done. I want to thank him most sincerely for setting a tone which I think and I hope will continue throughout this debate. Mr. President, I look to my friend on the Republican side. Does he wish to speak?

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I see my distinguished friend, the Senator from North Dakota, on the floor, and I am happy to yield him 20 minutes if that will be sufficient for his purposes.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I thank my friend. Mr. President, in auspicious timing, the Washington Post has a splendid editorial this morning entitled ``Welfare: Two Kinds of Compromise.'' It speaks of the compromise that was notably on display when Congress, the Nation's Governors, and President Reagan worked out some of the better provisions of the Family Support Act in 1988, aimed at reforming welfare. The parties all agreed on the sensible principles that the Federal Government should help the poor and that the existing welfare program was not doing enough to move people into jobs. The resulting bill was far from perfect and was not adequately financed--that's why welfare reform is still very much a live issue--but it did result in some successes that could be built upon with a new round of reform. Mr. President, some time later in our debate, I will offer the Family Support Act of 1995, which builds on the 1988 legislation, which passed out of this Chamber 96 to 1. I recall that there was great bipartisan harmony in the Rose Garden when President Reagan signed it. In the Committee on Finance, I offered the Family Support Act of 1995, and it failed to pass, by 12 votes to 8, which is scarcely an overwhelming rejection. It was a party-line vote, I am sorry to say. Seven years ago it was very different. But we will have an opportunity to discuss it. I ask unanimous consent, as we begin this morning, to have this editorial printed in the Record.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

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

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Because he is making an important point. Does he recall the occasion on which the Committee on Finance--of course he recalls-- held a retreat in Maryland, and the Senator from North Dakota learned about the proposal to deny welfare benefits to mothers of children who themselves were under 18. He returned to his State and checked that out to see just how much of a problem it was in North Dakota. Mr. President, you would be interested to know that there are four such families, two of whom had just arrived from West Virginia.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. State and local.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Will my friend yield for a question?

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. It happens that we presented this data in the debate that was a truncated debate in August. The Senator is exactly right in what he has said. But there is more to say. This was the work of Donna Pavetti at the Urban Institute--the Urban Institute was established under the auspices of President Johnson in the 1960's--of ``distribution of total time on welfare.'' The Senator is absolutely right. About 27 percent of welfare recipients are on for less than 1 year. About 40 percent are on for less than 2 years. We do not know as much as we should. We have been very poor about gathering data. We, in the last Congress, enacted a Welfare Indicators Act, which I spent 14 years trying to get passed, that will start giving us an annual report on the subject. So this is data from the Urban Institute. A number of people who go on AFDC are two groups. There is this group that is on for 2 years or less, 40 percent, 41 percent. We know who they are. They are married women whose marriages breakup. They need some time to get their affairs together. And they do. A very refreshing counsel of the Manpower Demonstration Research Corp., when we were drafting the Family Support Act, was to say, do not bother with these good people. The Senator is absolutely correct--at any given time 76 percent, three-quarters, of the persons on welfare have been there more than 5 years. The Urban Institute also went on to estimate the number of families affected by a 60-month time limit, a 5-year time limit. Between the year 2001 and the year 2005--2001 you can reach out and touch that--1.4 million families will have exceeded the 5 years. By 2005, 10 years from now, 2 million families will have exceeded the 5 years. This assumes the caseload does not grow. That is half the caseload. You were kind enough to mention what I had said in our caucus today. I said it earlier on the floor. In 10 years time we will wonder where these ragged children came from. Why are they sleeping on grates? Why are they making life miserable for themselves and others? What happened? We will have a city swarming with pauper children, penniless and without residence. You said it could not happen. It happened to the mentally ill. And half the families in 10 years will have been dropped by a 5-year time limit. Mr. President, I thank the Senator so hugely. And this is the point. Mr. President, I would ask these tables be printed in the Record.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Does the Senator from Pennsylvania yield the floor?

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, may I just express the appreciation of all Members on this side, and I think on both sides, for the thoughtful comments of the Senator from Louisiana. He has worked so very hard on the bill now before us as a second-degree amendment that Senator Daschle and he and Senator Mikulski have put together. It is an effort to meet concerns that are shared on both sides of the aisle. He is right. We have succeeded in moving this subject forward when we have been together. The Family Support Act passed out of this Chamber 97 votes to 1. We had a clear consensus, a clear set of agreements. And we have been hearing repeatedly on the floor of programs that State governments have put in place which seem to be taking hold. The Senator from Iowa was speaking just a few minutes ago about the proposal of Iowa, which passed, as he said, 98 to 2 in their legislature. That is the program under that Family Support Act with bipartisan support that came from this Chamber out to the States. We have something to show. It would seem such a loss to give all of that up at this point. I thank the Senator. I yield the floor. Mr. CHAFEE addressed the Chair.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I am happy to. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I may address the Senator directly. [[Page S 12705]]

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I thank the President for allowing me to ask the Senator to yield.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. May I just once again say it is a great pleasure to have the opportunity twice in one week to express my great appreciation to the Senator from Rhode Island, who has very cogent remarks on education and carries weight in this Chamber. None has done so much as he in a generation of legislating. He is revered, respected. I hope and trust he will be listened to. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I believe the Senator from Rhode Island was told he would be in sequence after Senator Wellstone, and that our good friend from Nevada knows that. We look forward to our most distinguished, revered colleague.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, may I first thank the Senator from Nevada for a careful and a thoughtful and, to this Senator, a wholly persuasive argument.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Massachusetts.