pd07au95 Message to the Congress on Iraq...

	Web GovRecords.org

welfare to go to work. But now, almost nobody does. And as far as I 
know, every Democrat in both Houses of Congress has signed on to one 
version of a bill or another that would do exactly that.
    Not so long ago there were conservatives who thought the Government 
shouldn't spend money on child care to give welfare mothers a chance to 
go to work. But now nearly everybody recognizes that the single most 
significant failure of the Welfare Reform Act of '88, which I worked 
very hard on and which I missed, was that when we decided we couldn't 
fund it all, we should have put more money into child care even if it 
meant less money in job training, because there were States that had 
programs for that, and that you can't expect someone to leave their 
children and go to work if they have to worry about the safety of the 
children or if they'll actually fall behind economically for doing it 
because they don't have child care. We now have a broad consensus on 
that.
    When Governor Thompson and Governor Dean and others came to the 
White House to the Welfare Reform Conference in January, I was very 
moved at the broad consensus that while we needed more State 
flexibility, in one area we had to have more national action and that 
was on standards for child support enforcement, for the simple reason 
that over a third of all delinquent child support cases are multi-State 
cases and there is no practical way to resolve that in the absence of 
having some national standards. If everybody who could pay their child 
support and who is under an order to do it, did it, we could lift 
800,000 people off the welfare rolls tomorrow. That is still our 
greatest short-term opportunity, and we all need to do what we can to 
seize it.
    There's also a pretty good consensus on what we shouldn't do. I 
think most Ameri- 

[[Page 1345]]

cans believe that while we should promote work and we should fight 
premature and certainly fight out-of-wedlock pregnancy, it is a mistake 
to deny people benefits--children benefits--because their parents are 
under age and unmarried, just for example. And I think most Americans 
are concerned that the long-term trend in America, that's now about 10 
years long, toward dramatic decline in the abortion rate might turn 
around and go up again, at least among some classes of people, if we 
pass that kind of rule everywhere in the country.
    So I think there is a common ground to be had on welfare reform. I 
proposed a welfare reform bill in 1994 which I thought achieved the 
objectives we all needed. I thought it would do what the States need to 
do. I though it would set up time limits. It would have requirements for 
responsible behavior for young people, requiring them to stay at home 
and stay in school. It would have supported the efforts of States 
through greater investments in child care and would have given much 
greater flexibility. It didn't pass.
    In the State of the Union this year I asked the new Congress to join 
me in passing a welfare reform bill. It still hasn't passed because, 
unfortunately, in 1995 there have been ideological and political in-
fights that have stalled progress on welfare reform and have prevented 
the majority, particularly in the Senate, from taking a position on it.
    Some of the people on the extreme right wing of the Republican 
majority have held this issue hostage because they want to force the 
States to implement requirements that would deny benefits to young, 
unmarried mothers and their children. But I believe it's better to 
require young people to stay at home, stay in school, and turn their 
lives around, because the objective is to make good workers, good 
parents, good citizens, and successful children. That's what we're all 
trying to do.
    So I'm against giving the States more mandates and less money, 
whether the mandates come from the right or the left. I'm also opposed 
to the efforts in Congress now to cut child care because, I say again, 
the biggest mistake we made in the Welfare Reform Act of '88 was not 
doing more in child care. We would have had far greater success if we 
had invested more money then in child care for people on welfare.
    Now, I believe that it would be a mistake--if we cut child care and 
do all this other stuff, we could have more latchkey children, we could 
have more neglected children. And there are all kind of new studies 
coming out again saying that the worst thing in the world we can do is 
not to take the first 4 years of a child's life and make sure that those 
years are spent in personal contact with caring adults, where children 
can develop the kind of capacities they need. So this is a very big 
issue if your objective for welfare reform is independence, work, good 
parenting, and successful children.
    Now, you know I believe all this. That's why we worked so hard to 
grant all these waivers, more in 2\1/2\ years than in the past 12 years 
combined. But I also have to tell you that I'm opposed to welfare reform 
that is really just a mask for congressional budget cutting, which would 
send you a check with no incentives or requirements on States to 
maintain your own funding support for poor children and child care and 
work.
    And I do believe honestly that there is a danger that some States 
will get involved in a race to the bottom, but not, as some have 
implied, because I don't have confidence in you, not because I think you 
want to do that, not because I think you would do it in any way if you 
could avoid it, but because I have been a Governor for 12 years in all 
different kinds of times and I know what kinds of decisions you are 
about to face if the range of alternatives I see coming toward you 
develop.
    I know, with the big cuts now being talked about in Congress in 
Medicaid, in other health and human services areas, in education, in the 
environment, that you will have a lot of pressure in the first 
legislative session after this budget comes down. And I know that 
somewhere down the road, in the next few years, we'll have another 
recession again.
    And it's all right to have a fund set aside for the high-growth 
States. I like that; it's a good idea. But what happens when we're not 
all growing like we are now and we were last year? What happens the next 
time a recession comes down? How would you deal

[[Page 1346]]

with the interplay in your own legislature if you just get a block grant 
for welfare, with no requirement to do anything on your own, and the 
people representing the good folks in nursing homes show up and the 
people representing the teachers show up and the people representing the 
colleges and universities show up and the people representing the cities 
and counties who've lost money they used to get for environmental 
investments show up?
    I don't know what your experience is, but my experience is that the 
poor children's lobby is a poor match for most of those forces in most 
State legislatures in the country, not because anybody wants to do the 
wrong thing, but because those people are deserving, too, and they will 
have a very strong case to make. They will have a very strong case to 
make.
    So I believe we ought to have a continuing partnership, not for the 
Federal Government to tell you how to do welfare reform, but because any 
money we wind up saving through today's neglect will cost us a ton more 
in tomorrow's consequences. And this partnership permits you to say, at 
least as a first line of defense, we must do this for the poor children 
of our State.
    I also believe there is a better way to deal with this. And I'd like 
to say today, I come to you with essentially two messages, one I hope we 
will all do with Congress and one that we can do without regard to 
Congress.
    First, we do need to pass a welfare reform bill that demands work 
and responsibilities and gives you the tools you need to succeed: tough 
child support enforcement, time limits in work requirements, child care, 
requiring young mothers to live at home and stay in school, and greater 
State flexibility.
    The work plan proposed by Senators Daschle, Breaux, and Mikulski 
ends the current welfare system as we know it and replaces it with a 
work-based system. I will say again, the biggest shortcoming, I believe, 
of the bill that I helped write, the Family Support Act of 1988--on your 
behalf or your predecessors--was that we did not do enough in the child 
care area. The Work First bill gives States the resources to provide 
child care for people who go to work and stay there. It rewards States 
for moving people from welfare to work, not simply for cutting people 
off welfare rolls. It is in that sense real welfare reform.
    I know a lot of you think it has too many prescriptions, and I want 
to give you the maximum amount of flexibility, but it certainly is a 
good place to start to work on bipartisan efforts to solve this problem. 
And I will say again, to get the job done, we've got to have a 
bipartisan effort to do it.
    I want to compliment Senator Dole for what he said here today. I 
made a personal plea to Senator Dole not very long ago to try to find a 
way to make a break from those who were trying to hold the Republican 
conference in the Senate hostage on this welfare reform issue so that we 
could work together. And today, if I understand his remarks--and I've 
read the best account of them I can--he proposed getting rid of 
ideological strings in requirements on States and giving States more say 
in their programs. And that is a very good start for us to work 
together.
    Some of you may agree with him instead of me on that, but as I 
understand it, he also proposes a flat block grant with no requirement 
for States maintaining their present level of effort or no maintenance 
of effort requirement of any kind. As I said, maybe it's just because I 
have been a Governor, I think this is a very bad idea. I don't think we 
should do this, because this program, after all, is called Aid to 
Families with Dependent Children, not aid to States with terrible budget 
problems created by Congress. [Laughter]
    But while we have differences, Senator Dole's speech today, given 
what's been going on up there, offers real hope that the Congress can go 
beyond partisan and ideological bickering and pass a strong bipartisan 
welfare reform bill. The American people have waited for it long enough. 
We ought to do it. I am ready to go to work on it. And I consider this a 
very positive opening step.
    I hope, again I will say, that you will consider the great strengths 
of the Daschle-Breaux-Mikulski bill, which I also believe is a very 
positive opening step and shows you where the entire Democratic caucus 
in the Senate is. They presently all support that.
    My second message to you is, we don't have to wait for Congress to 
go a long way

[[Page 1347]]

toward ending welfare as we know it; we can build on what we've already 
done. Already you are and we are collecting child support at record 
levels. Earlier this year, I signed an Executive order to crack down on 
Federal employee delinquency in child support, and it is beginning to be 
felt. Already in the last 2\1/2\ years, our administration has approved 
waivers for 29 States to reform welfare your way. The first experiment 
we approved was for Governor Dean to make it clear that welfare in 
Vermont would become a second chance, not a way of life. Governor 
Thompson's aggressive efforts in Wisconsin, which have been widely 
noted, send the same strong message.
    Now, we can and we should do more, and we shouldn't just wait around 
for the congressional process to work its way through. We can do more 
based on what States already know will work to promote work and to 
protect children. Therefore today I am directing the Secretary of Health 
and Human Services to approve reforms for any State on a fast track that 
incorporate one or more of the following five strategies.
    First, requiring people on welfare to work and providing adequate 
child care to permit them to do it. Delaware recently got an approval to 
do this, so have several other States. Why not all 50?
    Second, limiting welfare to a set number of years and cutting people 
off if they turn down jobs. Florida got approval to limit welfare, 
provide a job for those who can't find one, and cut off those who refuse 
to work; so did 14 other States. Why not all 50?
    Third, requiring fathers to pay child support or go to work to pay 
off what they owe. Michigan got approval to do this, so did 13 other 
States. Taxpayers should not pay what fathers owe and can pay. Why not 
all 50 States?
    Fourth, requiring underage mothers to live at home and stay in 
school. Teen motherhood should not lead to premature independence unless 
the home is a destructive and dangerous environment. The baby should not 
bring the right and the money to leave school, stop working, set up a 
new household, and lengthen the period of dependence, instead of 
shortening it. Vermont got approval to stop doing this, so did five 
other States. Why not all 50?
    And finally, permitting States to pay the cash value of welfare and 
food stamps to private employers as wage subsidies when they hire people 
to leave welfare and go to work. Oregon just got approval to do this, so 
did Ohio and Mississippi. Arizona and Virginia can do it as well. Why 
not all 50 States? This so-called privatizing of welfare reform helps 
businesses to create jobs, saves taxpayers money, moves people from 
welfare to work, and recognizes that in the real world of this deficit 
we're not going to be able to have a lot of public service jobs to 
people who can't go to work when their time limits run out. I think this 
has real promise.
    So I say to you today, if you pass laws like these or come up with 
plans like these that require people on welfare to work, that cut off 
benefits after a time certain for those who won't work, that make teen 
mothers stay at home and stay in school, that make parents pay child 
support or go to work to earn the money to do it, or that use welfare 
benefits as a wage supplement for private employers who give jobs to 
people on welfare, if you do that, you sign them, you send them to me, 
and we will approve them within 30 days. Then we will have real welfare 
reform even as Congress considers it.
    To further support your actions, I am directing the Office of 
Management and Budget to approve a change in Federal regulations so that 
States can impose tougher sanctions on people who refuse to work. Right 
now, when a State reduces someone's welfare check for failing to hold up 
their end of the bargain, the person's food stamp benefit goes up. So it 
turns out not to be much of a sanction. We're going to change that. If 
your welfare check goes down for refusal to work, your food stamp 
payment won't go up anymore.
    Finally, as another downpayment on our commitment to our partnership 
with you on welfare reform, today our administration has reached 
agreement on welfare reform experiments for West Virginia, Utah, Texas, 
and California. Massachusetts has a sweeping proposal on which agreement 
has been reached on every issue but one--as I understand it, we're 
getting much closer there. The

[[Page 1348]]

West Virginia proposal helps two-parent families go to work. Utah 
provides greater work incentives but tougher sanctions for those who 
turn down work. California has adopted the New Jersey system of the 
family cap. Texas has a very interesting proposal to require parents on 
welfare to prove that their children have been immunized to continue to 
draw the benefits.
    And I would say, just in response to this, this will now, obviously, 
bring us to 32 States, and I think soon to be 33 States, with these 
kinds of experiments. We also are announcing food stamps experiments 
today as applied for by Delaware and Virginia.
    All of these are designed to promote work and responsibility without 
being stifled by Washington's one-size-fits-all rule. But I think we 
need to accelerate this process. I don't like the so-called Mother-may-I 
aspect of the waiver system, either. That's why I say, if you act in 
these five areas, under the law you have to file an application for an 
experiment, but it will be approved within 30 days.
    And I want to identify other areas like this. This Texas 
immunization idea is very important. We have lower immunization rates 
than any advanced country in the world. We are moving hard at the 
national level to make sure that the vaccines are affordable. Texas was 
the first State to use national service workers, AmeriCorps volunteers, 
in the summer of '93 to immunize over 100,000 children. And since then 
they've immunized another 50,000. But if you were to require it of 
people on public assistance, it would have a big impact on getting those 
numbers up, I believe. So, as we begin to get more information about 
this and other things, we will be issuing other reforms that if you just 
ask for them, we'll say yes within 30 days. This is very important.
    Now, let me be clear. Congress still does need to pass national 
legislation. Why? Because I don't think you ought to have to file for 
permission every time you do something that we already know has worked 
and that other States are doing. Because we do need national child 
support standards, time limits, work requirements, and protections for 
children. And we do need more national support for child care.
    I hope these efforts that I'm announcing today will spur the 
Congress to act. But we don't have to wait for them, and we shouldn't. 
We can do much more. If every State did the five things that I mentioned 
here today, every State, we would change welfare fundamentally and for 
the better. And we ought to begin it, and we shouldn't wait for Congress 
to pass a law.
    There is common ground on welfare. We want something that's good for 
children, that's good for the welfare recipients, that's good for the 
taxpayers, and that's good for America. We have got to grow the middle 
class and shrink the under class in this country. We cannot permit this 
country to split apart. We cannot permit these income trends which are 
developing to continue. We have to change it. You will not recognize 
this country in another generation if we have 50 years, instead of 20 
years, in which half of the middle class never gets a raise and most of 
the poor people are young folks and their little kids. We have to change 
it. And we can do it.
    But we have to remember what we're trying to do. We're trying to 
make the people on welfare really successful as workers and parents. And 
most important, we're trying to make sure this new generation of 

Other Popular 1995 Presidential Documents Documents:

Other Documents:

1995 Presidential Documents Records and Documents