Rick Santorum

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. No, I will not yield. The fact of the matter is that what the Senator from Connecticut is doing is trying to block an agreement from happening by insisting on an amendment on day care, which we are willing to sit--and have been for hours--and try to put together. I am hopeful that we can get through the partisanship on this and move forward in a bipartisan way. And I know there are many Members on the other side of the aisle that want to work in a bipartisan fashion to get this bill through, to get day care money funded, because it is a sincere interest, I know, of the leader and of other Members on our side to get this legislation through with additional day care funds.

Mr. SANTORUM. No, I will not yield. They work for it with their hard- earned dollars. What you are suggesting is to give money to people to go to work, to give them child care to go to work.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, September 13, 1995, at 10 a .m. to hold an open hearing on Intelligence matters.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet on Wednesday, September 13, 1995, beginning at 9 a.m., in room 485 of the Russell Senate Office Building on the nomination of Paul M. Homan to be special trustee for the Office of Special Trustee for American Indians in the Department of the Interior.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Immigration Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 13, 1995, at 2 p.m. to hold a hearing on ``Legal Immigration Reform.''

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 13, 1995, at 10 a.m. to hold a hearing on ``Ninth Circuit Split.''

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, September 13, 1995, to conduct a hearing on the status and effectiveness of the sanctions on Iran.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Madam President, I think the Senator from Illinois hit the nail right on the head in talking about the issue of unintended consequences. How can we risk to do this, to put a time limit on people on welfare? I wish we would have had that same discussion back when we instituted all these welfare programs in the sixties, because when we did that we had absolutely no idea what was going to happen. We had no idea of the unintended consequences. We had no idea that the harm that has been caused by all of these programs, the dependency that exists in this country because of these programs, had we thought about these unintended consequences, we may have not have done that, but we did it anyway, without any proof that what we were passing was going to be beneficial to the American citizens. We had no proof at all. In fact, in the thirties when these were initially realized they were replacements for private charity systems that were networks of charities that are all over the country. We said, no, the Government will take more responsibility. Franklin Roosevelt warned us about the subtle narcotic being delivered to the masses on welfare. We ignored a lot of the naysayers out there at the time, saying big Government programs and unlimited welfare were going to be a real problem for this country, were going to be a disintegration of community, family, and the support that we have seen in communities. We ignored all that and just plowed ahead. Now we are saying, ``Oh my goodness, we cannot change that because we do not know what will happen.'' Well, we changed it in the 1930's and the 1960's without knowing what would happen. We found out what has happened, and it is a big problem. To suggest now we cannot find some moderation, we are not talking about pulling the Government out of welfare, we are talking about putting a limit on the amount of assistance that we are going to give people, and changing the system from one of a maintenance and dependency system to one that is a dynamic transitional system. I think that is a good middle ground that we have established with this piece of legislation. What the amendment of the Senator from Illinois will do is perpetuate a system of dependency, of maintenance of poverty. I think it hopefully will be rejected by the Senate. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that debate time and the rollcall vote scheduled with respect to the Boxer amendment No. 2592 be postponed to occur at a time later today, before the cloture vote, to be determined by the majority leader after consultation with the Democratic leader.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I congratulate the Senator from Connecticut for his excellent comments and apologize to him for jumping ahead of him. I did not realize he was rising to speak on the Coats amendment. Had I known that, I would have let him go forward. I thought he was just standing for his amendment. So I apologize for that, and I appreciate very much his comments and his support of this concept. The Senator hit the nail on the head very, very well, and I appreciate his support. I congratulate, again, the Senator from Indiana for offering this amendment.

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

Mr. SANTORUM. It was temporarily set aside.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Texas. I find it interesting that the Senator from Nebraska is standing up here arguing for this amendment. It is very magnanimous of him. I know originally his State gains. I am not too sure he is aware that after 5 years, the State of Nebraska goes from $100 million down to $23 million, which is actually less money than they are getting now under the current formula. They will get less money. The Senator from Nevada spoke on this amendment yesterday. They will get less money under this formula. There is no hold harmless here. You should look at the formula not just in the first year, but over 5 years. Your numbers come down. Nevada is one. Actually, your maintenance of effort in Nebraska and Nevada, under the 80 percent maintenance-of-effort provision, will be required to pay more than what the Federal share will be, because you will be required to maintain 80 percent, but your number is going to come down below that. Look at the numbers over the 5 years and you will see States like California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Washington all will have higher maintenance-of-effort requirements than Federal contributions under the Graham amendment. Throw away parochialism. This is bad public policy. We are going to say on the floor of the Senate that we are going to make you pay more than what the Federal share will be to your States. That is wrong. Hawaii is one of the big losers. I see the Senator from Hawaii here. They are going to have to pay more out of their own State coffers than will come from the Federal Government over a period of time. Some of these States get a little bump at the beginning, but what you do not see is they do not hold the small States harmless, and, over time, their number comes down and comes down dramatically. In fact, if you look at the States that lose over time--I will go through them quickly--other than the States I just mentioned, because all the States I mentioned lose over time. In addition to those States, you have Alaska, Delaware, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont. I mentioned Washington State before. You may think you are getting a boost under this, because if you look at it in the first year, you do, but with a lot of those States, over time their allocation, according to the formula, goes down. So do not look at the first year and be suckered into a vote in favor of this amendment because you get a little bump at the start. Over time, the big winners--and I give a lot of credit to the Senator from Texas for standing up--Florida and Texas are the two big States that are going to be the big, big winners under this and the rest of the other States, particularly the small States in the West, the Midwest, and Northeast, are going to get hammered over the next 5 years. Again, throw parochialism aside. To suggest that we are going to make 12 States maintain a higher effort of State dollars than we will give them [[Page S 13485]] Federal dollars is wrong. It is absolutely wrong, I do not care where you come from. That is what this amendment does. It is misguided, it is unfair, not just to the States involved, but I think unfair to children in general. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. SANTORUM. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 2565

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, we do not have any unanimous consent to work from at this point. We will take up, at this point, the Coats amendment. Mr. COATS addressed the Chair.

Mr. SANTORUM. I thank the Senator from Connecticut for his patience. I know the Senator has an amendment to follow this. My understanding is this is an amendment we can accept on this side of the aisle. I will not make him wait unduly. I wanted to speak on this issue because, like the Senator from Missouri and the Senator from Indiana, I, too, had a piece of legislation I introduced that provided a tax credit for charities that do work for the poor. It is a tax credit for people who give to charities, who do work for the poor. I, too, like the Senator from Indiana, see this as the next logical step in the devolution of welfare. We had an experiment in the 1960's that tried welfare as a grand social scheme that, in fact, should be a national problem solved on a national level by national bureaucrats and national policy. I think what we have seen is that has been a dangerous and, in fact, a very destructive way of approaching this problem. What is being offered here on the floor is, in my opinion, sort of a steppingstone to what the final solution should be to solving the welfare problem. What we are doing here is a block grant back to the States, saying we need States to have more flexibility. We need to get it back down to the local level. What Senator Coats, Senator Ashcroft, and I have put forward is really this next logical step, which is why do we have the Government directly involved in setting policy on poverty at all? Why do we not enable, empower the people who are most concerned about the people who are poor, and that is people in their community, family members, neighbors, and people living down the street? Those we have found over time are the most effective poverty-fighting tools that we have in our society--people who actually care about their neighbors and their friends and their family members. What we need to do is take all this money that gets channeled through Washington and instead of having it channeled through here, take that money and directly send it to the nonprofit churches, in many cases, or community organizations that are directly involved on the front line of solving the issue of poverty in the communities. I know the Senator from Indiana represents large cities like Indianapolis that have communities in them in those cities where there are no jobs, there is no nothing, there is no institution left. The only thing left is a church that holds the whole community together. Why would it not be proper for those people who are paying taxes in that community to be able to take a tax credit to help that church which has dedicated their mission to helping people in poverty, instead of sending their tax dollars here so we can pay a bunch of people to tell them how to run their lives? Get people who actually care about that next-door neighbor, who know the young girl who got pregnant and has to raise that child in a destructive home environment who lives next door. Get people who know their names, who care about them not because they are a number in the computer but because they are the next-door neighbor they have known for years. That is what this is all about. This is not a devolution in the sense we are throwing away a responsibility and giving it to somebody else. What we are suggesting is there are logical people to handle these problems and it is not us. It is people who truly care. What the Coats amendment, the Ashcroft, and my amendment would have done is just to take a small portion of the money that we spend on welfare and have that money be used to directly support communities. The question here is not whether or not we should address the issue of poverty. It is who is best able to deal with the issue of poverty. Go home and ask folks as I have, and talk to people who are in the welfare system or who are poor, who are working poor, and ask them where they have gotten the most help. Is it from the person who sits behind the computer who has a caseload of hundreds, who processes paper and checks, or is it the minister or the person at the local soup kitchen, or whatever the case, or neighborhood food banks? Are those the people who actually care, who actually work to make it work for the people who are poor? That is really the fundamental issue here. I was not on the floor at the time the Senator from Indiana gave his remarks, but I am looking forward to reading them in the Record because of the very high praise from the Senator from New York on his comments. I can only imagine the passion that I know the Senator from Indiana has on this issue, the care and concern he has for making sure that we develop a system here in Washington that truly is caring, not caretaking; that is truly people oriented, humane in the very [[Page S 13503]] sense of human involvement with other human beings whose problems are not just something that we pay to maintain, but work to solve. That is the fundamental, I think, logical next step and I am confident, when we address this welfare issue again, that we will see an increased support for this kind of amendment and for this approach to deal with the problem. I am hopeful, whether we do it in the tax bill this time or whether its day is a little into the future, we are laying the groundwork now for something that I think will be--I believe this amendment is the most significant amendment that has been offered on the floor. I know it will be withdrawn because it is a tax matter and subject to points of order and all the problems, but I think this amendment is the most significant amendment about getting people involved in the communities to help their neighbors. One of the great things about America is our relationships with our neighbors and our sense of community. The Federal Government has systematically, through welfare programs, said it is not our responsibility to care for our neighbor anymore; you pay taxes, you have Federal benefits, they will take care of them. Well, folks, that may be nice and compassionate on the surface, but what it does is separate you from the people you live next to, and you no longer feel you are responsible for your neighbor. You feel that it is not a community anymore, that we are a set of separate kingdoms who pay our tributes to the lords and the lords will take care of everybody. That does not work. That is not America. What we need to get back to is the whole concept that we are in this together, that we should be a community, that we do have a responsibility for our neighbors, and that we want you to be actively involved in participating, in making sure that your neighbors, as well as the other people in your communities are not in poverty and are living in dignity. That is what this amendment does. I congratulate the Senator from Indiana for his stewardship on this issue. I only wish I could be here to vote for it, but I understand the need to withdraw the amendment.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. The point that I am trying to make is that, in effect, when you consider the net amount of money spent by the State, it is not really saving any money because what they are doing is, when they reduce their dollar, they lose a Federal dollar. So they are at zero. So there is no incentive financially for them to go below the 90 percent. That is why I am saying this is sort of a bad way of supporting high expenditures of welfare dollars. What we are trying to do is say, if you want to innovate, we want you to innovate. We are willing to put up money so we will encourage you to innovate. We will encourage you to do what Michigan has done--as the Senator from New York is fond of saying--under the current law, under the 1988 Family Support Act, to reduce your caseload, get people to work. And by coming up with these innovative solutions and getting people back into the work force, you will in fact benefit financially. Under the Breaux amendment, they will not benefit financially because for every dollar where they go below 90 percent, they will lose a Federal dollar. So they are at a zero position as far as benefits. I think that is a real impediment to the kind of innovation that we want to see on the State level. Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. SANTORUM. Because we would like to see some innovation occur at the State level. We believe if you lock in the Federal contribution and give the States the opportunity to actually save dollars, that is the key. When you say, ``Well, the States can go ahead and reduce their dollars,'' but when they reduce their dollars, they lose Federal dollars. So in a sense they are a wash because, sure, they have spent $1 less of their money but they get $1 less. So they are pretty much held harmless. I think that is not a great incentive to save money if in fact for every dollar you save you lose a dollar.

Mr. SANTORUM. I think it creates a lot of inequity in the system. I am happy to yield.

Mr. SANTORUM. The Senator from New York----

Mr. SANTORUM. I yield to the Senator from Missouri.

Mr. SANTORUM. Yes. And the reason we lock in--reclaiming my time--the reason we lock in the number is because, as the Senator from Louisiana knows, if we did not block grant this program and did not reform this system and allowed what happened, for example, under the Daschle amendment, to occur, AFDC would continue to grow. In fact, the Federal commitment would be even greater in 5 to 7 years. So the fact we lock it in now, many would say, because of inflation, is ``a cut.'' We are in fact locking in. In fact, I think one of the biggest criticisms I have heard from the other side of the aisle is that what we are in fact locking in, that is not generous enough. We need to give more. In fact, we had an amendment there today to put in $7 billion more. We had an amendment from the Senator from Connecticut to put in $6 billion more for children. There is a barrage, and I assume it will continue, of amendments from your side of the aisle to say we should be spending more. We are going to try to strike a balance. We do not want this program to continue to increase. We do not want to cut back the Federal share because we, too, believe in a partnership. But we will say, we will tell you, States, we will commit you to flat funding over the next 5 years. And what we want you to do is to be innovative. We will keep the dollars there to allow you to innovate and allow you to move forward. And the incentive, then, is for you to get more people off the program, to get more people into work, and, yes, save some State dollars. We think those are powerful incentives, if we keep there the steady hand from the Federal level. So I think it is a fair compromise, in a sense, not to increase funding but to hold the level funding.

Mr. SANTORUM. Sure, I will be happy to.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I want to thank the Senator from Missouri and add to that the Senator from Vermont said that there would be a sharing of the savings on the Federal Government side with the 90 percent maintenance of effort, and I remind the Senator in the Dole modified amendment that if you fall below 75 percent, every dollar you fall below is shared dollar for dollar from the Federal Government. In other words, if the State drops below 75 percent, every dollar they spend less, the Federal Government has to give $1 less. So there is the same identical provision already in the Dole modified bill as in the Breaux amendment. There are several points I could make on the Breaux amendment and they go beyond the philosophy that we are discussing here as to whether we should be requiring States to maintain effort. I think one of the most important things is the drop in caseload that we have experienced in the last year. If you look at the numbers from the Department of Health and Human Services, what they show is that since May 1994 we have seen a drop from 14 million recipients on AFDC, to May 1995 a little under 13.5 million--a drop of over 525,000 recipients in the program. The principal reason for the reduction is not based on the economy or anything; it is because we have seen States like Michigan and Wisconsin and others institute these work programs and change the welfare laws to reduce caseloads. Michigan has reduced their caseload by 30 percent in the past couple of years. What we are seeing is States that are doing exactly what this bill will facilitate other States to do, are reducing their caseloads. By reducing their caseloads, they are obviously saving money and they are putting more people to work. However, if we stick those States with a 90-percent maintenance of effort, what you say to Michigan is, ``OK, Michigan,'' or someone like Michigan, who after this bill passes enacts a program similar to Michigan's, ``You can reduce your caseload by 30 percent but you cannot reduce your welfare expenditures by 30 percent; you still have to spend 90 percent of what you were spending now, based on 1994, not 1995,'' where, as I said, we have already seen a reduction. So you are basing it on last year's figure, which was a historically high figure, saying you have to maintain 90 percent of that even though you may drop your caseload under programs that are, today, as much as 30 or more percent reduced. So you are holding States, as the Senator from Missouri said, to spend money on people on welfare even though there may not be those people to spend it on. I think that is unwise. As the Senator from Missouri said, it is an incentive not to reform. It is an incentive not to reform if you cannot save any money by reforming. One of the reasons you see welfare reform is, obviously, you want to get people to work and off welfare. But also you want to save taxpayers' dollars in the process. So this is a real disincentive. [[Page S 13325]] If we were going to have a figure, 90 is much too high. It does not allow for innovation. It does not take into account innovations that we have seen in States today and the dramatic reductions in caseloads that we have seen in programs that I think are going to be more common after this legislation is passed. I think it is a step very damaging to reform. This is a back-door way of trying to keep the status quo in place, and I think it is a very dangerous addition to this bill. I also would say, you have an interesting question about what is fair. You say maintain effort at 90 percent. That sounds fair to all States. Every State has to maintain their effort at 90 percent. That would be fair if every State had the same effort in the first place. But they do not. In fact, there are wide disparities as to what States' efforts are today. For example, I pulled this out of the Wall Street Journal of August 21. It is from the House Ways and Means Committee. It says that if you have a State like Mississippi, that their average monthly AFDC payment per family is $120 per family. A State like Alaska's is $762 per family. What we are saying in the Breaux amendment is, ``Mississippi, you have to maintain 90 percent of $120; Alaska, you have to maintain 90 percent of $762.'' Is that fair? Is that fair to States like Alaska, which are now being given a block grant and, under the Dole formula, are not going to be growing as much? Why? Because the Hutchison growth formula targets low-benefit States. They will grow. Their maintenance of effort is 90 percent of the low number, but they will grow. States like California, which has a $568 per family contribution and Hawaii which has $653, Vermont, $548, those States with high-dollar contributions now will not participate in the growth fund. So you are locking them in at a high-participation rate and not giving them any more money. I do not think that is a fair way to do it, and, in fact, it could even get worse because there are many people who are going to vote for the Breaux amendment who are also going to vote for the Graham amendment, the amendment of Senator Graham from Florida, who will be offering his fair share amendment. That will completely eliminate all past relationship of how AFDC was distributed and make it purely on a per-person-in-poverty allocation. So the State match will be irrelevant under the Graham amendment. So, what would happen, in fact, will happen if we adopt the Breaux amendment, and then, as again many who will vote for the Breaux amendment will vote for the Graham amendment, what will happen is there will be States like New York and Alaska and Hawaii and California that will be required to spend more money than the Federal Government will give them under the new formula. So their maintenance of effort will actually be higher than what they get on the Federal level. How is that fair? We are saying you have to keep your contribution high and, oh, by the way, we are going to take ours and cut yours substantially from your current level. Those are kinds of games that you get into when you have a block grant and try to keep a maintenance-of-effort provision in a block grant proposal. It does not work.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?