Paul Wellstone

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Carolyn Clark, who is a fellow, be admitted for the duration of the debate on welfare reform.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I say to my colleague from Nevada, I will be relatively brief. I wanted to analyze the Daschle bill and I wanted to talk about why I think the differences between the Daschle bill and the Dole bill make a difference. I also wanted to talk about some of the weaknesses in the minority leader's bill, or at least raise some questions. Again, I think there is hardly any comparison when I look at the two. I think--and it is hard when you ask a Senator to yield, and the Senator from Pennsylvania certainly did that--it is difficult to really get into the debate, so let me try and first try and respond to some of what was said. When I hear Senators come to the floor and talk about how optimistic they are and how they think this will be such a huge change, I sort of think to myself that part of the problem is they are not really passing legislation that is going to affect them or their children. I think part of the problem, and I will try and stay away from the harshness, I think the point can be made we would do better if we had less hate and more debate. I do not come here to the floor with malice. But, it does seem to me, Mr. President, that some of my colleagues just want to ignore some unpleasant facts, some unpleasant realities. My colleague from Pennsylvania talked about opportunities. Well, we will take the minority leader's bill. If there is an 8 percent officially defined unemployment, there are many more people who are working part-time who are not counted. There are many people who are discouraged workers who have dropped out. If you have that high of an unemployment rate--by the way, in some of our cities it is higher than that, than there is not really an opportunity for a single parent, usually a mother, to find a job, but she gets cut off welfare anyway, regardless of the employment conditions in the community. How can that be called an opportunity? That is not an opportunity. Of course, part of what is bogus about this reform effort is that if you look at the job opportunity structure and you look at some of the communities where we have large numbers of welfare mothers, the unemployment level is so high, the under-employed level is so high, that, as a matter of fact, there is no evidence whatever that the jobs are going to be there that these women can support their families on. So in the absence of that evidence, with those kind of high rates, it is hardly unreasonable to say if you cannot obtain the opportunities, the employment opportunities, because they are not there, then we are certainly not going to cut you off of assistance for yourself and your children. That is what this is about. That is really what this is about. Mr. President, as I look at the Daschle bill on the floor, I do think there are some very significant and positive features about this piece of legislation. I think the main feature, Mr. President, that I want to zero in on has to do with maintaining the commitment to children to make sure that there will be benefits for some of the most vulnerable citizens in this country. Today at caucus, and my colleague from New York, Senator Moynihan, is free if I say this and as he listens it seems that it was too personal and he did not mean for this to be public, I want him to cut me off. He said something that has stayed with me most of this afternoon. Senator Moynihan said the last piece of legislation that President Kennedy signed publicly, was a piece of legislation we all had high hopes for: This was deinstitutionalization. It made sense as a philosophy. We would take people in the mental hospitals and we would basically move them out and then there would be community-based care. But we never did that. What we wound up with in all too many communities in this country was an ever larger population of homeless people. We see that all over the country. Then the analysis was there that it was a lack of affordable housing. What Senator Moynihan said today during the caucus meeting was really the answer to the question: We did it. We passed that legislation. But, we did not follow through on the commitment, and that is what happened. He then went on to say, and this is exactly how I feel about this debate, that we should not pass a piece of legislation that ends the basic commitment that there will be support there for families, for single parents and children. The support has got to be there, it will not just be block granted to States who can pretty much do what they want to do. It does not matter whether there is a recession or not or what kind of resources are invested, if we end that kind of commitment, that is a commitment we made as a nation, then I will tell you exactly what is going to happen. It is easy for Senators to tell us this is an experiment. ``Gee, we think this is going to do a lot better.'' It is not them. It is not their families. I will tell you what is going to happen. I will predict it. We will have many more children among the ranks of the homeless. And then we are going to ask ourselves the question: How did that happen? We did it. That is exactly what the Dole bill does. I do not think it is the intention of the Senators, but that is exactly, that is precisely what the effect of this are going to be. To the credit of the minority leader, that commitment is maintained in his bill, at least for 5 years. And it is important. There is a second issue which is, I think, maybe one of the most important features of the Daschle bill, the Work First bill. The Daschle bill provides childcare. That is, if you are going to say to a single parent--almost always a woman; quite often men who should be there with support are not there--you work, and she has small children, what about the children? Where is the commitment of resources to child care? Actually, what we are doing here in the Congress, for those citizens who are watching this debate, is we are cutting investment in child care. So, we are saying to parents: You go to work. You have small children. That is it. And we do not provide any support for child care. By definition, please remember, in spite of all of the scapegoating and all of the stereotypes, there is not a welfare benefit in this country that is even up to the official definition of poverty, and now we are saying to single parents, almost always a woman: You go to work and we do not invest any resources in child care. The Daschle bill does make that investment. You cannot have welfare reform--all you have out here right now, at least with the Dole bill, is reverse reform. You are saying to a parent: You go to work. It does not matter if you have small children. We know you are poor. You work, and there are no resources [[Page S 12704]] for child care so you can afford decent child care for your children. That is antifamily. That is antifamily. I challenge any Senator in here, how would you like it if you were the single parent of low income, told you had to work--and you wanted to work. There is more dignity in work. And you hoped it would be a decent job. There is nothing you would like to do more, but there was no way--let us not kid ourselves. In a lot of these communities where we have large populations of welfare mothers, there are not an abundance of jobs that pay anything near what Senators make, or even middle-income salaries. So we are not going to be talking about, by and large, high-wage jobs. You are told, ``You take the job. It does not matter.'' And you say, ``OK, I want to work in that job, and it is $6.50 an hour and I will do it and I want to.'' And then you are told, ``By the way, but when it comes to your two children who are under 3, there are no resources for child care. You figure out what to do.'' And you cannot afford it. That is why many mothers get off welfare and then go right back on. The minority leader's bill makes a commitment to child care. I do not know how my colleagues on the other side, in all due respect, can deal with that contradiction. The third feature I think is important is that, in the minority leader's bill, there is the transition so people are not immediately cut off Medicaid. I do not remember the precise provision of the majority leader's bill. I ask the Senator from New York, is there a transition period of time for Medicaid in the Dole bill?

Mr. WELLSTONE. Because my understanding is the Daschle bill allows for the currently provided year of transitional Medicaid, plus an extra year of transitional care on a sliding scale basis to ease the transition. I do not think that in the Packwood-Dole bill, there is such an allowance for that second year of transition. It seems to me, now we have a situation where we are saying it does not matter what the unemployment level is in your community and, in addition, it does not matter from State to State, what States decide to do. It does not matter whether there is a recession. It does not matter how many children are born into poverty. It does not matter what the population growth is going to be. It does not matter whether or not there is going to be a commitment of resources to child care. By and large, we are ending our commitment to low-income children. And in addition, you have 6 months, that is it, that is the only guarantee you have of being able to keep your Medicaid. This is called reform? These women and their children are in a worse position than when they all started. The Daschle bill is a significant improvement over that. I say to my colleagues, we should not be so reckless with the lives of children. That is what I do not understand. I have colleagues, on both sides of the aisle, who are friends. I understand the political climate in the country. I understand some of the scapegoating. But I cannot understand how men and women of such good will can be so reckless with the lives of children. The minority, the Daschle bill, as I understand it, does not block grant food stamps. There is a reason for that. The Senator from New York knows this history well. What happened--and it was President Nixon, as I remember, who really took the final initiative in making sure there was a national standard. Although the Federal Government was going to pay that bill, States got to decide what would be the level of benefits and many States had the level of benefits pegged at an extremely low level. Much to the shame of the United States of America, we saw it on television with documentaries about Hunger USA. We saw children with distended bellies, and we learned about scurvy and rickets and malnutrition and hunger among children in America. Therefore, President Nixon led the way and we set national standards and we had a national food stamp program. We are a national community. We made a national commitment to children. Now we are going to back away from that? The minority leader's bill does not back away from that commitment, nor should it, Mr. President. Questions to raise. Maybe my colleague from New York, or colleague from Tennessee, can help me out on this. Again, I raise these questions more in a constructive way. This is just out of intellectual integrity that I want to raise these questions about the minority leader's bill. I cannot cheerlead on everything. There still is this feature in this legislation that, as I understand it--we can get technical--it is in the Dole bill, it is in the Daschle bill, that now counts LIHEAP benefits as income, low-income energy assistance. So what happens is, for the purpose of calculating food stamp benefits, LIHEAP benefits, low-income energy assistance, gets counted as income and this becomes this classic choice of eat or heat. I do not know why we are doing that. That is the question I raise. The second question somebody has to ask on the floor of the Senate, I talked about earlier the importance of making sure we do not back away. It is my understanding--and I quote from an Urban Institute study--of all families that have become dependent on welfare systems, about 43 percent receive benefits for less than 24 months. But at any point in time there are many more long-term recipients, for example, more than 75 percent of families on welfare, at any point in time, are on for more than 60 months. So if it is an aggregate 5-year period, I have some very serious concerns about what we are doing because I think quite often the pattern is that a mother--by the way, mothers do not need Senators to tell them that they ought to work. Most are--75 percent within 2 years--are off welfare and are working. Now, the problem is that all too often what happens is, think about this: You go to work, and you try to work out a child care arrangement. But you cannot afford it. Then you go back to welfare. By the way, for the low-income people, the monthly expenses of child care is not like 7 percent. It is 35 percent, or 40 percent of income. Or you go to work again. When Sheila and I were younger, we did not have much money at all. We had this experience. You find out. It is the most horrifying thing in the world when you leave your child, whom you dearly love, with a child care center and the conditions are awful. By the way, according to the national reports on the state of child care, we are not investing resources in child care--not just for low income, but for middle income. You get paid more money to work the zoos than you do to take care of children in the United States of America. Mr. President, so what happens? You are supposed to be there at 5 to pick up your child. You show up at 4, and you find the conditions are awful. So it did not work. Now you are back to welfare. Or, Mr. President, remember, you are a single parent. You get sick or your child gets sick, and your child is sick more than a week. You get laid off work. This happens all the time. So I will raise three questions and then get a response. I am really very worried about this 5-year period because it seems to me that if, in fact, the Urban Institute is right and more than 75 percent of families on welfare at any point in time will receive welfare for more than 60 months, we are cutting a lot of people off, who are mainly children, Aid to Families With Dependent Children, the children who do not give the big campaign contributions, the children who are not the big players, the children who are not the heavy hitters, the children who do not get on television with their ads. They are the ones that some of these proposals treat so harshly, though I must say again I believe that the minority leader's bill, thank God, is at least a significant improvement over Packwood-Dole.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I would be. I will yield for that.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I have more to say, more of a critique. But I think that what the Senator from New York just said was very powerful. I cannot add to that at this time. I would yield the floor to the Senator from Rhode Island. I ask the Senator from Nevada, will the Senator from Rhode Island then speak?

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I reserve the remainder of my time. Mr. STEVENS addressed the Chair.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I might ask the Senator from Alaska, I thought we would have 2 minutes. Is that correct?

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I say to my colleagues that back in May we had a vote that was an amendment to raise the DOD appropriations above the administration's request. That amendment was voted down 60 to 40, a bipartisan vote. Then, a week ago we had a Kohl-Grassley amendment on the authorization bill which essentially eliminated the $7 billion, which was over the administration's request. That was the amendment. That amendment was defeated. So there were effectively 48 votes for the Kohl-Grassley amendment. What I have done is pegged the $6.4 billion in this appropriations bill over the administration's request, over the Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, over the Pentagon's request, and I have just simply cut this in half. So this amendment just says the Senators who have voted for this before, really a reduction, $3.2 billion from the $6.4 billion over what the administration requested, and this $3.2 billion would be used solely for deficit reduction. Mr. President, as my colleague from North Dakota said, we do not need to spend money we do not have for things we do not need. And if we are going to be serious about deficit reduction, $3.2 billion of the $6.4 billion over budget request is not too much to ask. This is on behalf of myself, Senators Feingold, Harkin, Simon, Bumpers, and Dorgan.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I talked with the Senator from Texas, the Senator from Arkansas, and the Senator from Iowa, and I am pleased to let them offer their amendments. I understand we will set them aside and go to my amendment.

Mr. WELLSTONE. My only question is, is there a reason you have to vote after 9 o'clock? Could the amendments be offered, debated, and stack the votes tomorrow? That is the question, why votes after 9?

Mr. WELLSTONE. I am pleased to yield to the Senator from Arkansas. Amendment No. 2397 (Purpose: To prohibit the financing of risk fees as part of the Defense Export Loan Guarantee Program)

Mr. WELLSTONE. My second question was, having the vote after 9 o'clock as opposed to debate and having the amendments offered and having the votes tomorrow morning, stacked votes, is there a particular reason?

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, if I could ask the manager, is there a particular reason why--the Senator from New Mexico was quite correct; we could have a vote. And I have an amendment which will take some time. I do not know if there would be enough time for them to offer them. But they can file them. Is there a particular reason why, at 9 o'clock, you want to get more votes as opposed to stacking them and having the votes tomorrow? I am trying to figure out why.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Alaska for his graciousness. I think that we have had the debate and I do not need any more time.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my time to the Senator from North Dakota and ask unanimous consent that he be included as an original cosponsor.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. WELLSTONE. I am sorry. I was going to say we will be done in 1\1/ 2\ minutes.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, if my colleague will yield for a moment----

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, for my colleagues I would like to read from a letter from the administration. The administration does not support the committee 202(b) allocation, or the level of funding provided by the committee bill, which is nearly $6.5 billion above the President's request. By providing an increases for defense programs that are neither wanted nor justified, the bill would seriously undermine the President's goal of achieving a balanced budget while increasing investment programs essential to a higher standard of living for all Americans. As reflected in his budget, the President firmly believes that it is possible to maintain a strong defense without sacrificing critical investments. The committee's allocation raises serious concerns about the overall priorities reflected in the appropriation process. For this reason and other concerns discussed below, the President's senior advisers would recommend the President veto the bill if it were presented to him in the current form. I have a tremendous respect for my colleague from Hawaii, and he is not on the floor now, but just in response, I do not think the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is a millenniest. I do not think that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff does not make very rigorous decisions about national security. Again, one more time, we are talking about deficit reduction. We are talking about cuts in education, child nutrition, low-income housing, low-income energy assistance programs, health care programs, you name it. And at the same time we are going $6.4 billion above budget, and this amendment just says can we not cut $3.2 billion in budget authority and use that for deficit reduction? Mr. President, it just seems to me that people in Minnesota and people around the country are saying, sort out your priorities. We are spending billions of dollars renewing cold war relics like star wars, the antimissile defense system, the B-2 bomber, new generations now of attack helicopters and airplanes, more destroyers, more carriers, more expensive weaponry. It is like the sky is the limit. All of my colleagues who talk so much about deficit reduction over and over and over again, they seem to be great when it comes to reducing an investment in children and in health care and in job training and in reducing violence in our communities, but when it comes to the military contractors, it goes on and on and on and on. In all due respect, I do not think the Pentagon, I do not think the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I do not think these are the kinds of people who do not make rigorous analysis about what is in our national defense. But enough is enough. Enough is enough. It seems to me we can communicate a message to people in this country that there is going to be some little deficit reduction here in this Pentagon budget. Forty- nine Senators voted for this proposition. That was $7 billion. I cut this in half. I am hoping to have the support of my colleagues. Finally, I would say to my colleagues on the other side--not all of my colleagues on the other side--I think there comes a point in time we are going to have to redefine national security. And part of national security is surely the security of our local communities--that is what the Senator from Massachusetts was trying to say, I say to my colleague from New Mexico--the security of local communities, where there is less violence, where there are opportunities for children, where there is affordable child care, where there is decent housing, when people are trained for jobs, when there are jobs available. This is all part of national security, too. This amendment just says cut $3.2 billion--that is it--of the $6.4 billion over budget and use that for deficit reduction. I yield the floor. Mr. President, how much time did I have remaining?

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I would like to summarize, and I will get a chance to summarize for my colleagues again. Here we have a situation--and I want to be clear about what this amendment does--here we have a situation where we have in this appropriations bill $6.4 billion more than requested by the administration, by the Pentagon, by the Joint Chiefs of Staff--over budget. This amendment says, can we not at least cut half of that, $3.2 billion, and all of that goes for deficit reduction? Mr. President, I do not designate what weapon system to be cut, though I raised questions about many of those weapon systems and the value of them, as has the Senator from Massachusetts. What I do know, Mr. President, is that it seems to me in a time when we say we are for deficit reduction and we are calling for sacrifice among people in the country and we are putting into effect some really serious cuts--not just in programs but in programs that have a critical impact on the quality or lack of quality of the lives of people-- educational opportunities for children, food, nutrition programs, Head Start, early childhood development programs, Women, Infants, and Children, low-income energy assistance program, job training program, making sure that young people can afford higher education--I just say to my colleagues, why in God's name when we are making cuts in all of those programs, and now what we are doing is we have $6 billion more over budget, $6 billion more than requested by the administration--I do not think there is any standard of fairness to this. Surely we can make some cuts here as well, Mr. President. That is what this amendment calls for. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to vote aye on this amendment to reduce, by $3.2 billion, the total spending in this bill. That will still leave about $240 billion in this bill to be spent on defense next year and over $260 billion in total, when you add in Energy Department weapons programs and military construction projects provided for in the DOD authorization bill. Vote to at least bring the defense budget more closely in line with what the President and the Secretary of Defense have requested, I say to my colleagues, a figure that is already too high, in my view. And especially to those Senators, 60 in all, who voted for lower defense spending numbers on the budget resolution, I appeal to you, vote to restore some sanity to defense budgets that have gone dangerously awry. Vote aye on this amendment. Mr. President, I, for the moment, yield the floor and I retain the remainder of my time. Might I ask how much time I have remaining, Mr. President?

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for his amendment and also for his words here on the floor of the Senate. Amendment No. 2404

Mr. WELLSTONE. So, not that many months ago, a short period of time ago, Senators went on record saying certainly in this time of tight budgets, when we are talking about deficit reduction and lots of people are being asked to tighten their belt, and we are making cuts in education, and as the Senator said, in substance abuse programs, treatment programs and in job training and low-income energy assistance, the Senate went on record. Now all of a sudden we see contrary to the advice of the administration, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Pentagon itself--I cannot remember a time where we are now talking about an appropriations bill that is $6 billion above the request. [[Page S 12173]]

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Senator. I would have outlined some of the same weapon systems the Senator enumerated. Is the Senator aware of the fact that in May during consideration of the budget resolution, a bipartisan majority of 60 Senators voted against an amendment which would have increased defense spending above the level requested by the Clinton administration?

Mr. WELLSTONE. I understand the Senator to say 40 minutes equally divided?

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?