Rick Santorum

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. I thank the majority leader. Mr. President, I just want to say that this is welfare reform. This is the dramatic change in the system that the American public has been asking for for years and years and years. This is the real deal. This is the opportunity to change millions of people's lives. This is the opportunity that people who are poor in this country have been wanting and asking for for a long, long time--the opportunity to get education and training that is meaningful, the opportunity to go to work, and if you cannot find a job in the private sector, if you cannot get a job on your own, the State will assist you getting that job. If you cannot find a private-sector job, the State will assist you in getting a public-sector job. There are no more barriers because of labor unions to get that job in the public or private sector. This is the real deal when it comes to work, when it comes to education, training, and helping families get out of poverty. From now on, after this bill, we are no longer going to measure whether we are successful in poverty by how many people we have on the welfare rolls, but by how many we got off of the welfare rolls, because they have dynamic opportunities for education and training to make that happen. And, yes, they have requirements. We have had lots of welfare reform pass in the U.S. Senate for years and years. But there has never been the requirement to have to work. I know some people say that is mean and tough. I can tell you that it is the only way that you move people who are having struggling times in their lives off of those welfare rolls. It is tough love--but the operative word is love. It is there and it is to help people. I hear a lot of people say, ``Well, this is going to punish children, and we should not punish the children,'' as if the current system does not punish children, as if illegitimacy rates where over a third of all the children born in America are born to single moms does not punish children. That does not hurt kids not to have a father in the household? That does not hurt kids not to have the work values that are taught in the household where a mom gets up in the morning and a dad gets up in the morning and goes to work? That does not hurt kids? It does not hurt kids to have to go out and play in a playground and worry about stepping on a needle from a drug addict? Of course, it does. This system hurts kids. That is why we are here--because the system hurts kids. The issue before us is whether it is more important to have a Federal safety net system that is there to provide for every aspect--and the majority leader will talk about this--of the 50 or more programs that are there to take care of every possible need a child in America has. Is that what we want? Do we want the Federal Government guaranteeing every aspect of everybody's life? Or do we want solid families, safe neighborhoods, good schools, the values of work, and an opportunity to pursue the American dream? I will trade guarantees of Government protection of every aspect of someone's life for a solid home, a solid community, and loving parents. I yield the floor. Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.

Mr. SANTORUM. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 4952

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, the Senate is not in order.

Mr. SANTORUM. That is our understanding. The amendment has been cleared on this side. We are willing to accept the amendment.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. I yield the floor to the Senator from Mississippi, so we can all go home. Amendments Nos. 4979 and 4980, Withdrawn

Mr. SANTORUM. I call up amendment No. 4995 and ask for the yeas and nays on that amendment.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on this amendment.

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

Mr. SANTORUM. I can't hear the Senator.

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

Mr. SANTORUM. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I am offering an amendment here that I think remedies a huge inequity in the peanut program that makes the peanut program, frankly, different than any of the other traditional commodity programs in existence. The other commodity programs in existence have a limitation on payments for a particular entity that farms that product, that produces that product. Under the freedom to farm act, the limitation per commodity, per entity--entity can be either a single person or a partnership, corporation or whatever--the limitation of a commodity payment--and for the purposes of making it easier on me--per person is $40,000. Prior to the freedom to farm act the limitation was $50,000 per payment to an entity, to a person. We reduced it to $40,000 in the freedom to farm bill. Now, unlike all of these other commodity programs, there is no limitation on how much Government support a peanut quota holder can receive. And in fact there are quota holders who receive in Government subsidized quota payments $6 million a year --$6 million in guaranteed income from the Federal Government as a result of the peanut program. We made some reforms in the freedom to farm bill. This is one area that slipped through the noose. What this amendment does--it is a very simple amendment. It says we are going to limit the benefits of the peanut program to small- and medium-size farmers. I hear my friends on the other side of the aisle and, frankly, on this side of the aisle who support the peanut program say: You know, Rick, if you go after this program, there are thousands of small farmers in my State you will destroy, the small- and medium-size farmers in my State, if you change the peanut program. I have been sensitive to that. I understand the rural economy. In many areas where peanuts are grown, there is a limited number of crops that can be grown. Many areas are impoverished. I understand that, and I sympathize with the Members who represent those areas. But what we are talking about here are not small farmers. Let me review. I have talked about this many, many times, and I have talked about the peanut program. But just let me report to you what a GAO study reported: That 22 percent of the peanut growers in this country receive 85 percent of the quota benefits. What does that mean? You have a bunch of big farmers who get almost all the benefits of this program. What I am doing here is actually a very modest change, one I would think, if Members want to target these funds, target the benefits of the program to the farmers who need it, then they should be supportive of this. This is one I am hoping we can get some support for. It is an amendment that says that every entity, person, can get up to--are you ready for this?--$125,000 of loan payments from the Federal Government--$125,000. That means every entity can get that much. If you have $6 million of peanuts to sell, you still get $125,000 at the guaranteed quota price, but the rest you have to sell on your own. If you are producing $6 million worth of peanuts, I would think you have a pretty good slice of the market and you can probably get a pretty good price for your peanuts. What we have done here is focus the program in on the folks who need it the most. I want to step back and give a little bit of the origin of the peanut program, to show how it has evolved over the years to concentrate more and more of these quotas in the hands of bigger and bigger quota holders. I mentioned before who holds 68 percent of these quotas. A quota is the right to grow peanuts and sell them in this country. You get a quota from the Federal Government. It is passed on from generation to generation. They are sold like stocks. It is a right. It is worth something. It is worth a lot. It is worth $200 to $300 a ton, if you are growing peanuts. Mr. President, 68 percent of the quota production in this country is held by people who do not touch one speck of dirt. They do not farm a lick. They rent it to somebody else to do it for them. These are people who sit in--I am from Pennsylvania. We have quota holders in Pennsylvania. We do not grow a whole lot of peanuts in Pennsylvania. There are quota holders in New Hampshire, and I am sure they do not grow any peanuts in New Hampshire. What we are trying to do here is deal with those folks who have sat back and said, ``This looks like a pretty good investment. Let's buy some quota shares and make a little money on the Federal Government program.'' They have done that. They have done very well for many years. Now we are going to say, ``Look, you folks, start selling those quotas back to the small farmers.'' If anything, what this will accomplish, in my mind, is not to really affect the overall amount of quota peanuts grown. What it will do is make some of these big barons, quota barons, sell their quotas to folks who are out there leasing land right now to grow their additional peanuts, which are peanuts that do not get these big, high prices. Imagine. This is the United States of America. If you do not have a quota to grow peanuts, if you do not have a license from the Federal Government to grow peanuts, you cannot sell your peanuts in this country. This is America. If you do not have a license from the Federal Government to grow peanuts, you cannot sell your peanuts here. I know some may have just tuned in and thought, ``Am I looking at the Russian Duma?'' No. This is the U.S. Senate, not the Russian Duma. You are not getting a translation from an interpreter. My lips actually match the words that I am saying. But, in America this goes on every day. This is a program that started during the Depression. They handed out these quotas during the Depression, prior to World War II. You can imagine who got these quotas. It is no surprise that most of the quotas are held by wealthy landowners. You had to own your land to qualify for a quota. There were a lot of sharecroppers back then, many of them minorities, who did not own their land. Who were these quotas given to? They were given to these local associations to distribute around to their buddies and themselves. It is no shock that a lot of the unwashed never ended up with any quotas. This is a system that, from its origin, is rife with injustice, injustice to the people who grow peanuts, injustice to the consumers who have to pay higher prices as a result. What we are trying to do here is put one little--little--restriction in, to say $125,000 of guaranteed income from the Federal Government of 50 percent more than what your peanuts are really worth is a pretty good deal. Take it. Be happy. And sell some of those quotas to other people who can use them and maybe benefit from them a little bit more. If I was a Senator from the peanut States, I would say this is a good amendment because what this will do is divest a lot of these peanut quotas and give more people a stake in this program. That means more people who want to see this program survive. There are a lot of people in peanut-growing States who do not have quotas who would very much like to see this program go away. We are giving you an opportunity to say let us get some of these benefits, if they are going to continue. I know the powerful Senator from Alabama--and I will miss him, I will miss him as a person, I will not miss him as an adversary on this issue because he whips me every time we come to the floor--but I will tell the Senator from Alabama that he has an opportunity here to broaden his coalition, to get more folks to participate in the quota system because of the limitation on what people can benefit from the program. I would think, if you are truly concerned about small- and medium- size farms, farms of 100 or 200 acres, if you really are concerned about those folks, then give them a chance here. They will be fine under this amendment. They will not be hurt at all under this amendment. They will not be hurt one bit by this amendment. I am hopeful that maybe we can get this amendment accepted. It is a change to the peanut program. I know nobody likes to change programs. I heard the Senator from Idaho come down here and say: You know we have 7-year farm bills and 5-year farm bills for a reason. We do not like to change and monkey with these programs year by year, and we want to keep the farm communities stable. I do not think this will have a major impact on the farm communities. I think what it will do, it will have a major impact on small farmers, on farmers who do not have quotas right now, who will be able now to go out and have quotas available to them because a lot of these wealthy quota barons will have to divest themselves of all these quotas they hold. Who are they going to sell them to? They are going to sell them to folks who right now have to sweat, toil as hard as the folks who get $650 a ton for their peanuts, and they sweat and toil for $350 a ton for their peanuts. Now we are going to give them a chance at the pot at the end of the rainbow that Washington has created in this program. We are going to get the small and medium-size farmers in Alabama, in Georgia, in Mississippi, in Oklahoma, in Texas, in New Mexico, all over the United States where they grow, now we are going to have people who have heretofore never had the opportunity to enjoy the fruits and benefits of this very generous program, to participate in it. I am hopeful that we can get this amendment accepted. I think this is an amendment that probably, contrary to my own good, will broaden the base of support of this program by including a lot of small farmers who have heretofore been boxed out by folks who have gobbled up, used their masses of wealth to gobble up these quotas and make money out of this Federal program. Now we are going to get this money out of the boardrooms in Pittsburgh and in Concord and Boston and Paris and all the other places they own these quotas, and get them back into the hands of the folks who go out everyday and till that soil and make sure those crops are healthy and produce a good yield. That is the way it should be. If we are going to have a program--and I am resigned to the fact that the Senator from Alabama, the Senators from Georgia and the others, have whopped me fair and square--but I am saying, if we are going to continue this program, let's continue this program to where it benefits everyone--all of the small farmers, all of the medium-size farmers. If you folks really believe that is who you are representing and you are not representing the big peanut interests, the big guys who come down here in force and lobby and the big guys who are very influential lobbyists, very influential in the political process in these States, if that is not who you are representing, then you will be for this amendment. You will be for an amendment that says ``get the big guys out of the big money of big Government and put it back to the little guy who really needs the help.'' Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. HEFLIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 4995 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I understand that the majority leader is working on an agreement of some sort. So I will not begin any kind of formal amendment proceedings. But I do have an amendment at the desk, which I would like to talk about. I am not going to offer this amendment. I want to talk about it because I think it is important to realize the cost of the peanut program. Not only do I refer to the cost of the peanut program to the American peanut farmers, to the millions of processing jobs, and to the consumers, but the cost to the Federal Government of the peanut program. As a result of the past farm bill, we now have a no-cost peanut program. Well, that may be true within the confines of the peanut program, but the program does two things. It limits the amount of peanuts grown for domestic consumption. It is a program that says here is how much will be grown in this country for use in this country. The Department of Agriculture sets that amount. In addition, it doesn't just limit the amount of the peanuts that are grown, it also sets the price. You might think that I am talking about the former Soviet Union here. No, this is America. We set how much farmers can grow, and we set what we are going to pay for that--all done by the Federal Government--which is an amazing thing, but that is how the peanut program works. Well, the fact is that the Federal Government is a consumer of peanuts. We have a variety of nutrition programs in the Federal Government. We have TEFAP and the school lunch programs, and all down the list. You would not be surprised that a lot of these programs are focused on kids, and you probably wouldn't be further surprised that one of the major staples of young kids is peanuts and peanut butter. I have a 5-year-old who loves peanut butter. Guess where we have to buy our peanuts for domestic consumption with the Federal programs; we have to buy quota peanuts. Quota peanuts sell between $600 and $700 a ton. The world market price for peanuts--the price for additional peanuts not grown under the blessings of the Federal Government, which can be sold here but have to be exported--is about $350 to $400 a ton. So the Federal Government has to pay roughly twice what the world pays for peanuts. All these nutrition programs have to pay twice what the world pays for peanuts to go ahead and feed our kids. The GAO--this was some 6 years ago, and the quota price has jumped around a bit, but it is relatively the same as 6 years ago--said that over $14 million a year the Federal Government spends. Where? Out of the mouths of people who could be fed through Federal nutritious meals. To where? To wealthy quota farmers. That is where that money goes, instead of feeding more kids. We heard Member after Member, frankly, on both sides of the aisle, say, ``What about the kids? Don't you care about the kids? We should have more money to feed these children. We should have more money to take care of these kids.'' So what do we do with the peanut program? We suck money out of these nutrition programs to go to help kids, and it goes where? To a bunch of wealthy quota owners, many of whom don't even farm the land. They sit all over the world with their little quota that they got passed down from their granddaddies. They take money right out of the mouths of kids in our Federal Government programs. I had an amendment at the desk that would say that USDA, who purchases peanuts and peanut products for the variety of the nutrition programs that they operate, would not have to buy quota peanuts, would not have to pay twice the world price to feed our poor kids in America. The problem with that amendment, as I find out, is that the quota has already been set for this year. Thereby, if we took those quota peanuts that--the way they calculate the market and the production--would have ordinarily come to the USDA, we would, in a sense, have more peanuts go on loan, which means the price of the peanut program would go up about $5 million. So we score it as a $5 million loss this year. Unfortunately, because this is an appropriations bill, I cannot change the law in the future. As a result, the savings in the future are tens of millions of dollars. But because of the quirk in the way this bill is structured, and the way the amendment had to be structured to comply with the bill, the amendment that I have to offer, in fact, would not be a cost-effective amendment. Therefore, I am not going to offer it. But the principle is a solid one. We just finished welfare reform. We just finished saying that we need to make sure that those resources that we do have dedicated to helping the poor should be used as efficiently and effectively as possible. A lot of the reform we saw in the nutrition programs out of the Department of Agriculture, particularly the Food Stamp Program, were focused in on making this system a more effective and efficient system in delivering services to people who need them in this country. Yet, we have this dinosaur of a program that looks more like something that came out of Communist Russia than out of the United States, which is costing children food. Let us just lay it on the line. We are taking food out of the mouths of children and putting money in the pockets of wealthy quota holders. Now, that is wrong. That is wrong by anybody's standard. We should fix that. Unfortunately, again, because of the legislative vehicle we have before us, we cannot fix that. But I will tell you that I will be back. We will talk about this issue. I am anxious to hear how those who defend the peanut program can defend money being taken away from these necessary feeding programs for children to put money in the pockets of wealthy quota holders, most of whom don't even farm their own land to grow peanuts. At this point, because I understand the majority leader is working on something, I will yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. SANTORUM. This is an amendment that gets, again, to what I see as a group of very influential, wealthy, graced quota holders who have been put in a position to profit extraordinarily by this program, and have put themselves in a position that is, I think, virtually unique in the agriculture industry. Most of the commodity programs, all but a couple, have been run historically by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That would make sense. USDA has the authority to oversee these programs, and, as a result, the USDA has taken the responsibility of running the program, of operating their loan programs or deficiency programs, of carrying out the price of programs, of penalizing wrongdoers, of promulgating regulations--all of that has been done within the Department of Agriculture, with the soybean program, the cotton program, and a whole lot of other programs. All of them have been run and operated by a bureaucrat out of USDA, but not the peanut grower. Not the peanut grower. The Government, USDA, contracts with what are called marketing associations or cooperatives to administer the program. What does that mean? These are associations--get this--these are the people who operate the program, who oversee it, penalize wrongdoers, help promulgate regulations for the program. And who are the people who compose the marketing associations? I will give three guesses--you are right, the quota growers. The people who participate in the program run the program. Now, some of the skeptics among us might consider that to be a conflict of interest, that people who own the quotas are responsible for overseeing the program of which they benefit, of administering the program of which they benefit, of promulgating regulations of which they benefit, of punishing the wrongdoers among them, of which they benefit. My amendment is a very simple amendment dealing with conflicts of interest. My amendment is very straightforward. It says you have to comply with the Government standards for conflict of interest. Since you are in a sense an agency of the Federal Government carrying out this program, we will hold you to the same standards as someone who would, in fact, be a member of the Government in administering this program, and that is, you cannot have a conflict of interest. Now, if they are, in fact, vested, as they are, with the authority to carry out this program and have, in fact, the ministerial duties and other policymaking duties and other programs reserved to USDA, they should be held to the conflict-of-interest standard of a USDA employee administering the program. I know that sounds like a very radical idea. What that will cause is a much more arm's-length regulation of this industry than the folks who are running it now, for their benefit. Maybe you need to look back historically how these associations--and they have run them for a long time, and maybe this anomaly that has occurred with a small percentage of the farmers owning a big percentage of the quotas is a result of who runs the program. I suggest if we look at these marketing associations that run the programs locally, they probably are not a lot of the folks who have just a ton or two of quota. They are folks who have the big quotas, who have the big interest in this program, and run the program to benefit themselves. That clearly is a conflict of interest. This has nothing to do with denying anybody a quota. This has nothing to do with, really, reforming the program per se. What this is, again, these are two amendments that I am offering today on peanuts, where I have accepted the fact this program is going to continue. We are going to have a peanut program. I will not mess around with it. Like the Senator from Idaho, Senator Craig said, ``Do not mess around with these programs; keep them in place so we have some certainty.'' Well, I am for that. If that is what happens, that is the way it has to be, then that is the way it has to be, but at least have a program that does not benefit the wealthy, which is what my first amendment deals with, and, No. 2, does not have what appears to be a blatant, bald-faced conflict of interest between the people who benefit from the program who also happen to be the very same people who operate and regulate the program. What I am offering here is an amendment that, again, I hope, given the nature of the amendment, we can get an agreement on this and maybe adopt it tonight with little discussion after mine. I yield the floor. Mr. HEFLIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. SANTORUM. The Senator from Alabama is a clever man. And he focuses in on a number of farmers. I have never said that there are not a lot of farmers who have a little quota. The point I have tried to make is 22 percent of the farmers own 80 percent of the quota. Sure there are people who have, you know, a little quota here, a little quota there. But it does not amount to much. This program is stacked with the big farmers. So he makes these arguments that, you know, well, you look at peanuts and cotton and soybeans and that, you know, peanut farmers are a disproportionate number of them, more of them own the farms that they grow peanuts on than cotton, soybeans, and the like. What he does not say in the chart--maybe it is true--he does not say whether those peanut farmers are quota holders or nonquota holders. Probably a lot of these peanut farmers do own their land but they did not own a quota. He said, well, you know, there are some restrictions. I know it was an euphemism, but he said there are some restrictions on the domestic sale of additional peanuts. I will tell you what those ``some restrictions'' are. You cannot sell them for eatable use. That is some restriction. I think maybe he meant to say that is sum restriction instead of saying that is some restriction. Maybe it was the emphasis. But that is a complete restriction. You cannot sell them here. You have to sell them overseas. And you have to sell them at a heck of a lot less than what the quota price is. He said there are, you know, there are no restrictions. Everybody wants to go out and plant peanuts. That is right. No restrictions. Go out and plant peanuts and sell them at $300 a ton, if you own quota, at $400 a ton or $700 a ton, but there is no restriction to sell your peanuts for half the price to the guy next door that has a quota. You are absolutely right. It is a good deal. But I would just suggest that this amendment, which says that every person who owns a quota of peanuts can put on loan up to $125,000 worth of peanuts, and get a price double the world market, that that is a pretty good deal. I mean, that is a pretty generous offer. How many peanut growers are we talking about? How many would be covered by this amendment? Oh, about 1,900. So 1,900 farmers would be limited as to how much they could put on loan, a very select few of the tens of thousands, and maybe hundreds of thousands of peanut growers in this country. Talking about 1,900 of the wealthiest farms. I have made this sound like this is a dramatic change for those folks who are the 1,900 select few. The point of fact is, and the Senator from Alabama knows this, this is not. This is not a substantial amendment. The Senator from Alabama, and folks who know this issue, realize that the only reason you would put your peanuts on loan is if you could not sell your peanuts for more than the quota price. As we know, as a result of the farm bill, the Secretary of Agriculture has an interest in keeping demand above supply, in other words, shorting the market, keeping the price well above the quota price. Why? Because in the farm bill we say we want peanuts to be a no- cost program. We do not want peanuts to be put on loan and have the Federal Government buy this crop. That is what ``put on loan'' means. That means the quota holder will sell the peanuts to the Government for that quota price. We do not want that to happen. The only way you can stop that from happening is to control the amount of peanuts that are open. If you short the market, prices go up. So the only time that this might--this amendment, as minor as it is, as limited as it is to the number of farmers that we are talking about--the only time that this could even have an impact is if there is a huge crop of peanuts in excess of what the Secretary thought could be grown by the number of quota holders. In that case you are talking about a lot of farmers who have a lot of product, who will sell a goodly amount at the quota price. And they have to sell the rest out on the market and make, I suggest, well above what additional farmers are making. So this is an amendment that is fair. This is an amendment that has limited scope with respect to the number of people involved and is limited to an occurrence that is not likely to happen, given the controls of the Secretary of Agriculture over the amount of peanuts grown in this country. This truly is an amendment that is more principle than it is of tremendous substance. That is why I was hoping the Senator from Alabama, who made a lot of arguments about the difference between loans and deficiency payments-- and I understand the difference--that is why deficiency payments were limited to $50,000 and I put $125,000 as a loan payment. It is substantially more. There is a reason: Because there is a difference. I recognize that difference. I set a limit that was a very small percentage of the people who farm peanuts. I wanted to get at the hoi polloi of the peanut growers. We have done that. I think this is a fair amendment. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside amendment 4995. Amendment No. 4967 (Purpose: To prohibit the use of funds to carry out a peanut program that is operated by a marketing association if the Secretary of Agriculture determines that a member of the Board of Directors of the association has a conflict of interest with respect to the program)

Mr. SANTORUM. I send to the desk an amendment No. 4967.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, first off, this amendment would cost about a quarter of the savings in the bill. It is about a $15 billion additional cost added to this bill. But on substantive ground, this is similar to the vote we took last week on the Graham amendment. What this underlying bill did, what the Democratic substitute did, what the bill that passed here in the Senate last time did was say that sponsors have to live up to their contractual obligations. They signed a document saying they would provide for people that come to this country. People come to this country and sign a document saying they would not become wards of the State. What is happening is that millions of people are coming to this country, bringing moms and dads over. They are coming into this country and going down to the SSI office and qualifying for SSI benefits and you and the taxpayers of this country are picking up and being the retirement home for the rest of the world. That is not what this program should be about. What we do is take care of refugees. If they come, they have a 5-year period where they qualify for all of the benefits. That is more than fair. Sponsors should pay what they say they are going to pay.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, we oppose this amendment for a couple of reasons. First, the Conrad amendment requires a $1 billion cut in food stamps. This is a $1 billion reduction in food stamps to pay for this provision. Second, we set very high standards for States to qualify to get into these block grants. They have to have a low error rate of 6 percent. There are only seven States that can qualify with that error rate. Third, they have to have electronic benefits. Only four States qualify. The Senator from North Dakota would lead Members to believe all these Governors and State legislatures do not know what they are getting into by opting for a block grant, that they do not see economic recessions and disasters. In fact, they understand the risks they are taking when they offer a block grant. We want to give them the option to do it, but set a very high standard for them to get in in the first place. They have to have a good program to get in. They have an option, if things are bad, to get out--it is a one-time option--but an option to get out if things get bad. There are adequate safeguards, and if there are problems, people are able to use a one-time option to get out.

Mr. SANTORUM. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. I will be happy to.

Mr. SANTORUM. I suggest a couple things to the Senator from California. No. 1, this is a policy that I think needs to be changed, and, No. 2, the fact of the matter is that there are a lot of people on these programs who can and should be working, as a result of their coming into this country and signing this document, should be working under the law. What your bill does is take those people off the hook. You can say, well, there is going to be a tremendous impact to these counties. Yeah, well, that may be true. But I guess the point I am making is, we should stand up for what people sign their names on, which is that they were going to not be a public charge and the people who are going to take care of them--I go back to the sponsorship agreement.

Mr. SANTORUM. After the fifth year they are no longer eligible. As the Senator from California knows they are eligible, after a 5-year period, to apply for citizenship. Once they apply for citizenship and are accepted, they would again be eligible if, in fact, they need be. As the Senator from California knows, the hurdle for getting their citizenship in this country is not extraordinary. So if people are, in fact, in such desperate condition as the Senator suggests, I think the answer would be, in fact, to get these people into citizenship programs. I suggest that is a positive thing. As we all know, those who are noncitizens who do not know the language or cannot, in many cases, successfully interact into the economic mainstream of our country, obviously have a much more difficult time succeeding. So, in fact, forcing or encouraging citizenship would be a positive thing for many of the people that we are talking about here. I think that has to be looked at. No. 2, we are talking about a 1-year transition. In some cases we will have people who have exhausted their 5 years who now say wait, I will not be eligible for benefits, and I will be brought in for some sort of redetermination here. It will be basically a year process. I suggest during that year process, if they still are concerned or they still are, in fact, disabled or believe they would not be able to work, they can begin to go through the process during that transition year to get their citizenship. I think we provide plenty of avenues for the truly disabled refugees and asylees to be able to stay on these benefits if, in fact, they are truly disabled. It takes some initiative on their part, but my goodness, should we not expect some initiative on the people's part, to create some link between themselves and this country in order to receive benefits? I remind the Senators from California, I believe, and I can be corrected, but I believe we are the only country in the world who actually provides welfare benefits for their immigrants as soon as they come into this country. We are, in a sense, already very generous. I am not saying we should not be generous to those who are in need. But, at some point, like we are saying to moms who are having children and are on AFDC, there is a contract here. If we are going to limit moms with children on AFDC to 5 years, I think we have every right to limit refugees in this country who come here for 5 years. What we are saying to the refugees, unlike what we are saying to the moms, you get your citizenship in the fifth year, you can get back on the rolls. We do not let moms back on the rolls. We are being painted as being cruel and knocking all these people off, when in fact what we are being is somewhat principled. I believe it will actually work to the benefit of the refugees who will seek citizenship, which will make them more likely to be successful in their economic life in America. I think there are a lot of positive things we can say. This is not, as I am sure will be noted in some publications, any kind of immigrant- bashing--nothing like that. We think people who are sponsored immigrants should live up to their contract, and people who are refugees, and immigrants, and asylees should have a period of time in which we will help them, and then at some point they have to help themselves, just like a lot of other people who are going to be dealing with the welfare system with AFDC.

Mr. SANTORUM. Let me finish my point. I go back to the sponsorship agreement. What you are ignoring here is, you say, well, it is going to fall on the counties. Under what I described, under the system I described of SSI, for example, who should the burden fall on? Clearly, it should fall on the sponsor--not the county. Sponsors, when they bring people into this country--there is a certain economic criteria to be able to bring someone in with a sponsor. These people have in fact taken a walk. They have said, well, you know, let the Government pick up this cost. I do not want to pick up mom's cost. I want to buy my other Mercedes. Well, let us not buy another Mercedes. Let us pay for mom. What you are suggesting is that all these people who have three cars in their garage are going to let mom starve or put them on LA County's welfare rolls, which may not exist as you so eloquently state. I am saying that a lot of these people who sponsor people into this country are going to have to start footing the bill. That is what we are pushing here. You make the assumption that everybody who is on SSI is going to fall on to the county or the State. I do not make that assumption. I make the assumption that people who sign legal documents saying they were going to take care of people are going to now have to belly up. They are going to have to pay the bill.

Mr. SANTORUM. Reclaiming my time to make a couple of points. All the refugees you talk about have a 5-year exemption from the ineligibility for benefits. Anyone that is in this country is eligible for benefits up to the first 5 years they are in this country.