Date: 1996-07-17
Speaker: DE LA GARZA (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman. House Democrats and Republicans. Senate Democrats and Republicans. and President Clinton share a common goalall agree that welfare reform is urgently needed. Reform is needed not only for the recipients of welfare. who many times are trapped in a cycle of poverty from which they cannot escape. but also for the American taxpayers who deserve a better return on their investment in our future. Over the last vear. the food stamp rnviF.zrs in tr:e vacu5 welfa:e reform prccusaes :.ave come to look very much alike. We .vS renached ag:eement cr. dozens of provxiicns. Ye. there cc:.njes to be Zerious poi:zy dit.erences on several key issues. We rru.t r3solve these diffeeences so that we vdii ave reel welfare velorm that works for both iow inzome families and American taxpayers. We want congressional passage of a b.ll that the President will sign. Determining food stamp reform in the context of budget reconciliation causes us to loose sight of the people the Food Stamp Program is intendea to serve. We must remember that our goal is to reform welfare in order to move people toward selfsufficiency. Reform by itself is ahollow word. Reform for reforms sake is meaningless. We arent OMB. CBO. or GAO. We cant work in the vacuum of numbers only. We cannot let the bureaucrats with the green eye shades determine what path reform will take. We are Members of Congress. It is our responsibility to put faces with these numbers. We must interject the human element into the process in order to ensure that real need is addressed in welfare reform. We must ensure that our children and the aged and disabled are not left unprotected. We must remember that a dollar spent now can actually result in saving thousands of dollars later. if we help produce a future taxpaying citizen. We must determine the policy that will move people toward selfsufficiency. This must be a policydriven bill. not one that is driven by empty. faceless numbers that are wrong as many times as they are right. Our constituents dont want a handout. They want jobs. They want economic development. They want the American dream. These are the people we must help. These are the people for whom we must redesign these programs to help them achieve their desire of becoming successful citizens. We are particularly concerned that this bill will jeopardize the nutritional status of millions of poor families because of a basic misunderstanding of how the program works. The perception is that this program is out of control. that hundreds of thousands of families are added to the food stamp rolls every month. The reality is something very different. Over the last year and a half. as the economy has improved. food stamp participation has actually dropped by over 1 million people. This vital program is clearly filling a very real need. If the need isnt there. the program doesnt continue to expand. but if the need is there. the program is there to meet it. The block grant provisions in H.R. 3734 sets funding at levels well below that necessary to feed hungry families in times of recessions or if food prices increase. The total loss of food stamp funding to States that choose the block grant will be over $2.5 billion. If block grants had been chosen by all States in 1990. the Food Stamp Program would have served 8.3 million fewer children. CastleTanner does not include the block grant authority. To assure adequate nutrition and the good health of our poor families. the calculation of food stamp benefits must take into account extremely high housing expenses. H.R. 3734 limits this calculation. leaving poor families with children who pay more than half of their income for housing with less money to buy food. This provision alone will reduce benefits to these families by over $4 billion over 6 years. resulting in more hungry children. CastieTanner does not include this harsh limitation. We all want people on welfare to. be selfsufficientthey want to be selfsufficient. But. the way to help people become selfsufficient is not to deny them food stamps after 4 months. Eighty percent of the ablebodied recipients between the ages of 18 and 50 receive food stamps on a temporary basis already. they leave the program within a year. H.R. 3734 will simply kick 700.000 people off the program each month. without a helping hand to find a job. What these people need most is the opportunity to workjob training. or a job slot. CastleTanner will give them that helping hand if they are unable to find work on their own after 6 months. The CastleTanner alternative achieves significant deficit reduction. The food stamp provisions save $20 billion over a 6year period. The majoritys bill last year was intended to achieve $16 billion over 7 years. CastleTanner goes well beyond that level of savings. and yet we have been accused of not supporting welfare reform. The American people are not meanspirited. They do not want children to be poor and hungry. We must remember that we are reforming the programs that impact the most vulnerable of our constituents. We must remember the faces of the poor and hungry of our Nation. Let the record show that the minority strongly supports welfare reform. but not at the cost the Nations poor families and children. not at the cost of the Nations future.