Rick Santorum

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, this amendment has been agreed to by both sides, and I ask unanimous consent it be agreed to and that the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, on behalf of the Senator from South Dakota, Mr. Pressler, I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, this is a debate that is virtually identical to the debate we engaged in last night at a rather late hour with the Senator from Florida on his amendment. His amendment removes all the provisions dealing with legal immigrants from the bill, for current participants in the welfare system and future participants in the welfare system. What the Feinstein amendment does is simply makes the provisions in the bill prospective but grandfathers in everybody who is in the system. The Graham amendment, to my understanding, was going to reduce the savings in the budget by somewhere from $16 to $18 billion. My understanding is the Feinstein amendment reduces the savings in the reconciliation bill from $10 to $12 billion. It is still a dramatic revenue loss. As was in the case of the Graham bill, in the Feinstein bill there are no offsets. This is just a reduction in savings, going to pay for legal immigrants to continue to receive welfare benefits. Let me, for the benefit of those who were not up at 11:30 last night listening to this debate, go through how the underlying bill works and, in fact, a little bit of the history of the underlying provisions in this act, the underlying bill. What is in this legislation before us are provisions that were passed in H.R. 4 last year and passed both the House and Senate. They were in the Senate bill that passed the Senate last year 87 to 12. They are in the Democratic substitute, which I believe--I might be wrong--the Members who are debating this amendment and advocating this amendment voted for. The Daschle substitute has this identical provision in the bill, the same provision as the Republican bill. What the Senators from California and Florida are attempting to do is to remove what has passed the Congress once, what has passed this Senate twice, what has been included in both Democratic and Republican bills. I suggest this has been a fairly well-tested provision. It is clear the vast majority of the Members of this Senate believe that we have been too generous with legal immigrants coming into this country, and I will explain why they feel that way. In fact, the Graham amendment today was tabled; in other words, defeated, on a motion of 62 to 34. So this is not, frankly, even a partisan issue, as you see. It has very strong bipartisan support. Let me explain what the underlying bill does, what the Feinstein amendment is attempting to change. What we do in this bill is recognize that there are various classes of immigrants. For purposes of simplification, we will talk about three major classes of immigrants. One is what are called refugees. These are people who come to this country who are seeking refuge from political persecution or other kinds of persecution in a foreign country, and they come to our shores seeking help and refuge in the United States. What we say to those people, as the Senator from California referred to earlier, just like the Statue of Liberty says, we are open and we allow those people in, and we do even more. The Statue of Liberty did not say, ``Give us your poor, your hungry,'' and all the other things it says, ``and the Government will feed them.'' It says, come on in here and have a chance at American life, come on in and have a chance at the opportunity of America. Nowhere that I see on the Statue of Liberty does it say anything about the Government having welfare programs for everybody for as long as they are in this country. I do not think that is on there. I can check, but I am pretty sure it is not on there. What is on there is an opportunity that America presents to the people in this country, and we continue that, certainly. Second, we, in this bill, provide for welfare benefits for refugees for 5 years. They are eligible for every benefit that a citizen of this country is eligible for. Now, why 5 years? Because after 5 years, they are eligible for citizenship, and if they apply for citizenship and go through the program to get their citizenship and are successful, they are citizens and are eligible for every right with respect to social services as any other American. So that is why we limit it to 5 years. Some would say, ``What you're doing here is sort of coercing people to become citizens.'' I think that is, frankly, not true. I do not think most refugees come here because they are looking for welfare benefits. I think most people come here because they are looking for the things that are on the Statue of Liberty; they are looking for the opportunity that is America. In fact, the vast majority of those people do not end up on welfare, for the long term, anyway. So what we do is we say, ``Look, we have an expectation in this country that people are not coming here for social services,'' and all we are doing is patterning a law to reflect that expectation. What I just described with respect to refugees also applies to asylees. Asylees are people like the two players from the Cuban baseball team last week, or the week before, who were in this country and escaped from their hotel and claimed political asylum and were granted that asylum. Those two players are probably not going to be needing any welfare benefits, given their talent level. But there are people who do claim asylum here and end up on welfare, and they are treated the same as refugees: 5 years until they are eligible for citizenship, and then the expectation is you can either decide to be a citizen of this country and avail yourselves of all the benefits and responsibilities of citizenship, or you take the option you are not going to be a citizen and no longer be eligible for these programs. That is a decision you make. It is not a decision we are forcing on anybody. You make that decision. I think that is a reasonable time. It is 5 years. It is a very generous offer. So that is the one side of the immigrant calculation. The other side is what is called ``sponsored immigrants.'' Those are the majority of immigrants who come to this country. They are people who come here under what is called a sponsorship agreement wherein most--I would not say all--but in the vast majority of cases, these are family members under the family reunification provisions of the immigration law. They are mothers and fathers of people who live in this country; they are sisters and brothers or children of the people who live in this country. They come into this country under this sponsorship agreement. What does the sponsorship agreement say? If you are the sponsor, if you are the citizen of the country who is bringing in your mother, then you sign a piece of paper that says, ``I will take responsibility for providing for the needs of the person I want to bring to this country. I will provide for them. My income, my assets will be deemed available to them for purposes of determining whether they are eligible for benefits.'' That is under current law. What does the immigrant who comes to this country sign? They sign a piece of paper that says, ``I am willing and capable, able to work, and I will not be a public charge.'' They sign a legal document saying they will not be a public charge. You say, ``That should take care of it. That is pretty solid. They are contracts.'' One would think they are legally binding when they sign them. The fact is, they are not legally binding.

Mr. SANTORUM. Yes, I will yield.

Mr. SANTORUM. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SANTORUM. For the Senator to suggest the Feinstein amendment does not touch it is not accurate. You say it does not apply to anybody here, so you would remove all the provisions of this act with respect to people in this country.

Mr. SANTORUM. They are not touched prospectively. Again, all these provisions I am explaining do apply and will apply to people who are in this country. So, for example, if you have a sponsored immigrant who is in this country receiving welfare benefits, maybe has been receiving them for 20 years, we suggest after 20 years, if you are not a citizen, if you are here receiving welfare benefits, which in many cases--and I was getting to the point with respect to sponsored immigrants, because what has been happening is that we have seen a chronic trend, and the Senator from New Mexico was on the floor yesterday with a chart that illustrates this, what happens with a lot of the sponsored immigrants-- and these people are in this country now--is that son and daughter are bringing over mom and dad, and mom and dad come into this country, they sign these documents, they have signed them already, but they are not legally enforceable, No. 1. No. 2, the welfare departments in the States do not know what the Immigration and Naturalization Service is doing. They do not talk to each other. There is no communication. So mom comes into the country. She is 70 years old. She goes down to the SSI office, and guess what? She is on SSI. By the way, when she qualifies for SSI, she qualifies for Medicaid. When she qualifies for SSI, she qualifies for food stamps, and she qualifies for a whole variety of other programs, all paid for by the taxpayer. So what we have become in this country, not prospectively, but now, is a retirement home for millions of people all over the world to come here and have you, the taxpayer, pay for their retirement. Now, I do not think that is right. What the amendment of the Senator from California says is, ``Well, they are here, let them stay, and we'll continue to pay for them.'' If it is wrong, it is wrong. And whether it is prospective or not, it is wrong.

Mr. SANTORUM. I will be happy to yield.

Mr. SANTORUM. With respect to this list, I know in this bill--and I have not read every page of all of this--my belief is veterans are exempted, also. I say to the Senator from California, having worked on this issue for quite some time, I think you may have a legitimate point with respect to a refugee who is 90 years old who is in this country and has been here for a long time as to whether we want to knock them off this system. I suggest to the Senator that, while I will not be a conferee, I would be sympathetic and would communicate my sympathy with respect to some very difficult, isolated cases for the very old or the severely disabled who may be on these programs today. But yours goes well beyond that. I mean, I think we can look at the hard cases, but I think what your bill does is basically let people who signed a document--it is true that it is not a legally binding document, but I can guarantee you when they set that in front of them, and it is fairly legal looking, when they signed that--I mean, I do not know about you, but when I sign a document, put my name on something saying I am going to do something, I want to live up to that end of the bargain. We want them to live up to their end of the bargain. What your bill does is let them off the hook. We do not want to let them off the hook. We want people who come to this country who say they are not going be a public charge and people who bring their relatives into this country who say they are going to take care of them to live up to the deal. What your bill does is say there is no deal, you do whatever you want, and we will pay the charge. I do not think that is what we want to say in this country. I do not think that is what we want to do. While I understand what your concern is--and the Senator from California is a thoughtful person, and I find myself in agreement with her many times. I think the point you have made with the impact on California, I cannot argue the fact that the impact on California will be disproportionate with respect to this particular provision. The fact of immigration has, as you know, its pluses and its minuses. You can make the decision, not me, as to whether it is a plus or a minus in California. But what I say is the Congressional Budget Office has said--and I will read from their report that they sent to the Senator from Delaware with respect to unfunded mandates. Both Senators from California talked extensively about the impact of unfunded mandates as a result of this legislation. Unfunded mandates was a bill that we passed last year that said that we are tired of the Government, the Federal Government, passing bills, imposing mandates on State and local Governments without coming up with the money for these State and local governments to fulfill the mandate, requiring them to do something but not paying them the money to do it. According to the Congressional Budget Office, this bill does not have unfunded mandates. I will read the section. ``On balance''--obviously in every bill there are pluses and minuses. I accept that: On balance, spending by State and local governments on federally mandated activities could be reduced by billions of dollars over the next 5 years as a result of the enactment of this bill. I, again, have some sympathy for the Senator from California because you have a disproportionate impact with respect to legal immigrants. You may be one of those States that is on the minus side while another State is on the plus side. But on balance, in this country, this is not an unfunded mandate. That is the way I think we have to look at things.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Friday, July 19, at 11:30 a.m. in S-116.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. I have section 2402 before me.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf of the Senator from Missouri, Senator Ashcroft.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. I thank the Senator from New Mexico. Mr. President, I want to respond to the speeches about the Work First Act. This is, from what I can tell, an 800-page amendment that has been submitted without giving anyone on the other side a preview of that amendment, or any kind of opportunity to review an 800-page document. We were handed a background brief which is on one side of the paper. I think it is five or six pages of one-sided paper with fairly big type. It is not much information. There are, in fact, a lot of questions about the exemptions that are provided for to the rules that sound very good but like previous bills that I have seen come from the Democratic leader, while the appearance, the facade, looks nice, there are a lot of holes in the floor for the people to drop through and stay in the current system, and, in fact, in the end the current system is alive and well after we have gone through great effort to pass something. This bill does, from what I have seen--at least what they admit to in this background brief; I think ``brief'' is probably the applicable word here--there are essentially no time limits left. Under the Republican bill, under the bill that passed the U.S. Senate last year 87 to 12, there is a time limit on welfare. After 5 years, you are off AFDC; you had your time to, in a sense, get an education, get training, do job search, work, get that experience, and after 5 years the social contract was, in a sense, at an end. That is important for the reason that we have to--just like all programs where you are dealing with people who are troubled and need to turn their lives around, it is important to set a time limit, some sort of goal, and some sort of time where people have to hit the wall. We provide in this bill, and we provide in the bill that we passed last year, a hardship exemption for those who were having a tough time still and realize, ``Hey, look, you are trying. You are still working.'' We allow a percentage of up to 20 percent of the people in the system to continue to receive benefits. Will they do that in this bill, in the Democratic substitute? In addition, people who hit the 5-year limit-- everybody continues to receive vouchers which is, in a sense, a cash payment. They say, ``Well, it is vouchers for the children.''

Mr. SANTORUM. I can tell you while there are vouchers for the children, the parents get the vouchers. The parents spend the money for the children. I am happy to yield.

Mr. SANTORUM. This is an optional voucher program.

Mr. SANTORUM. I would say one thing. No. 1, under the Republican bill that family still is eligible for food stamps. That family is still eligible for food stamps; still eligible for other medical benefits and other kinds of welfare services. What they are not eligible for--and what your vouchers are replacing--is cash. So what you are doing is taking a cash program and turning it into a services program that does not have to be used for food, and can be used--again, I have to apologize. There is not much detail in this thing. So I am groping a little bit for my own information. I appreciate the Senator's responding and filling it in. But what you are filling in for--you already have people qualifying for food stamps, you already have people who are continuing to qualify for Medicaid, you already have people who continue, if they are eligible today, to qualify for housing. None of that changes. What we eliminate is cash, and what you replace it with is pseudocash, which is in a sense the same thing.

Mr. SANTORUM. Yes.

Mr. SANTORUM. We did in the bill, as we did in the bill that passed 87 to 12 on this floor, allow States the option to take a block grant for food stamps, the option which was again approved by 87 votes on this floor.

Mr. SANTORUM. If they take the option for the block grant, they can design this program, which has to be approved by the Secretary, of course. I am sure there are going to be some limitations on that.

Mr. SANTORUM. If it is less than 5 years, and the people are not working, this is a difficult----

Mr. SANTORUM. No. There is mandate. But I would suspect, knowing the Governors I have talked to on this issue, if they are going to come to the point where they are going to end cash assistance, they are not going to take food stamp benefits away. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office, when they scored our bill, in fact, provided for an increase in food stamp expenditures because of the reduction in the AFDC payment. Therefore, you have less income in the family and, therefore, they are eligible for more food stamps. So food stamps have actually a counterbalancing influence on the reduction of cash. That is provided for in our bill. But I think the point is here what you are doing is continuing the entitlement which is continued in this bill, No. 1. No. 2, what you are doing is allowing families to legitimately make an economic decision which they make today, which is not to work, to stay on welfare, and to be able to survive doing so. What we want to do, except for those cases that are hardship, except for those cases where people are really trying in high-unemployment areas, have problems one way or another with their family and holding down a job--we are not talking about people who are disabled. People who are disabled are not even in the program. We are taking about able- bodied people who are capable of working. We are saying to 20 percent of those people, we are going to allow you to stay after 5 years because we know there might be situations where it is tough. But the rest of you, yes, we will have an expectation that after 5 years you can get a job. You should be able to hold that job.

Mr. SANTORUM. Yes.

Mr. SANTORUM. Sure. I can respond. Again, it is very hard to respond because you may be looking at the bill. I just got it.

Mr. SANTORUM. That bill came through the Finance Committee. You are on that committee. You saw it when it came through that committee. You had the markup when this came through the committee. You have the markup document before you, No. 1. No. 2, let me just say that what you say here again in your description is to provide non cash aid; maintain a minimal safety net for the children. Who determines that in your bill?

Mr. SANTORUM. The State determines the minimal safety and the Federal Government has no oversight?