Personal Responsibility and Individual Development for Everyone Act

PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY AND INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT FOR EVERYONE ACT-CONTINUED

Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about an amendment that I know has already been offered to the Senate on the pending legislation, the Personal Responsibility and Individual Development for Everyone Act, known as the PRIDE Act.

I am proud to have authored this amendment along with my friend and colleague, Senator Dodd. Without question, Senator Dodd has been a fearless and unyielding champion in increasing both the quality of and funding for child care in America. He has been a tremendous friend to families and children. I appreciate his dedication and advocacy to these causes.

It is regrettable that Senator Dodd could not be here today in person to offer this amendment. As our colleagues know too well, disasters do occur from time to time in our States, and they understandably take precedent. He is in Connecticut today addressing issues related to a major highway accident that closed Interstate 95 last Thursday. This accident had an enormous impact on the people of Connecticut but also other States that rely on the interstate for travel or commerce. It is a loss of billions of dollars. Senator Dodd is working with State and Federal officials to restore travel in this vital transportation artery, and today he is where he should be-working on behalf of the people in his State. I look forward to hearing from him tomorrow on this amendment.

I also want to recognize and thank Senators HATCH, ALEXANDER, and CARPER, who approached me sometime ago on this vital issue regarding child care in the welfare reauthorization and a strong desire to work together to ensure that this issue would be addressed and be given priority consideration in the Senate. I appreciate their efforts as well as the commitment and dedication of other cosponsors: Senators BINGAMAN, ROCKEFELLER, COLLINS, LANDRIEU, MURRAY, JEFFORDS, BOXER, CHAFEE, LINCOLN, CLINTON, and MIKULSKI. I appreciate the fact that they have made it a broad bipartisan amendment.

Before I explain the amendment before us and why it is such a critical component of this debate, I, too, want to recognize the work of the chairman of the Finance Committee, Senator Grassley, who has been tireless in his perseverance, patience, and commitment to ensuring that the reauthorization of this legislation would be completed in this Congress. The fact that we have been able to report this legislation out of the Finance Committee is in no small part due to his efforts to make sure it became a reality. I thank the majority leader, as well, for his commitment to this issue so that we were able to bring up this bill, finally, for consideration.

Also, I want to recognize the Democratic leader, Senator Daschle, and the ranking member, Senator Baucus, for their work, along with the majority leader and Chairman Grassley, who scheduled this debate so that, hopefully, we can complete the work on this reauthorization.

It goes without saying that this day is long overdue regarding our actions for this reauthorization. We have had six extensions in 18 months after the original expiration of this law.

As we well recall, in 2002, the Finance Committee did pass this legislation, but, regrettably, it was not brought up on the floor for Senate consideration. So we have had to repeatedly extend this legislation, and the States and the caseloads were left without any kind of specific blueprint for action in the future.

Today, hopefully, we begin the last leg of this journey toward giving the States their plan of action for the next 5 years with respect to welfare reform and build upon the successes of the past, as well as addressing some of the remaining issues that certainly have manifest itself in the last 5 years with respect to what my amendment will be addressing.

The bill before us today is predicated on the administration's proposal which not only strengthens work requirements, but also allows States to concentrate on removing barriers to employment, giving TANF recipients up to 6 months during which time they can focus, without interruption, on becoming more employable, to remove those barriers that prevent them from being able to seek employment. So that means they can have the opportunities for adult literacy, substance abuse treatment, or taking advantage of other educational opportunities, such as vocational education or technical training.

Moreover, the bill rightly recognizes that some families have longer term barriers that they must also face and overcome. For example, this legislation includes provisions which ensure that under certain circumstances, caretakers for disabled dependents meet the requirements for obtaining support as well. I thank Senator Grassley for working with me to include these provisions.

Another example of how this bill will improve the employability and likelihood of successful transition from welfare to work, the bill before us today includes provisions based on a widely praised program that happens to be located in my State of Maine, known as the Parents as Scholars Program.

We should be able to agree that increased education is another critical factor in whether a person will transition off welfare, be able to not only maintain a job, but to secure one that provides a decent income. That is why I have championed these provisions repeatedly which will allow a number of qualified, motivated welfare parents to take part in longer duration and postsecondary education while on the caseload.

Parents as Scholars has been extraordinarily successful in my State, with graduates averaging a 50-percent increase in salaries, and with 90 percent of working graduates leaving welfare behind permanently. It is because of this record of success that I am very pleased that during the Finance Committee markup, my amendment giving all TANF parents across the Nation the benefit of accessing this education program was accepted.

This program, as I said, has been not only successful, but I think it also ultimately will be widely available across the country because access to education should not be a question of geography.

This legislation also reflects our desire to afford the States flexibility by providing partial credit toward a State's work participation rate when there is partial compliance with hourly requirements by recipients. I believe this is a commonsense addition to current law that will fuel this program's success for years to come, while laying the groundwork for States to help clients become employed and stay employed, which, after all, was the original goal of the landmark 1996 reform act.

I thank Senator Lincoln for offering this provision because I do think it goes a long way to addressing some of the issues that were raised in the last welfare reform act.

I am very pleased this legislation before us also builds upon the tripartisan legislation on which many of us on the Finance Committee worked in 2002. Senator Hatch, Senator Breaux, Senator Jeffords, Senator Lincoln, Senator Rockefeller, and I included provisions that now have also been incorporated in this legislation concerning child support distribution, the employment credit, education and training requirements, and much of our universal engagement provisions and adjustments to the contingency fund.

At the same time, this bill also reflects a considerable good-faith effort to close some of the political and policy gaps that existed within the committee at the time of the markup. I know many of my Republican colleagues would have preferred additional workups similar to what the President had proposed-40 hours instead of the 34-but we were willing to compromise in order to advance this benchmark legislation.

It was in the spirit of that compromise that I supported the legislation in the Finance Committee, recognizing that, yes, I would have preferred a significantly greater funding for child care, but at the same time I know there has been some disagreement on this side of the aisle as to how much we can even afford or should do with respect to child care funding in the welfare reauthorization. I refrained from offering that amendment in the committee so that we could have the opportunity to bridge these gaps on the floor of the Senate and to move this legislation forward.

The amendment I am offering today will provide $6 billion in new mandatory child care funding which I think represents an attempt to guarantee that there will be no structural weaknesses in the PRIDE Act that may undermine its ultimate effectiveness or success.

I am very pleased that Chairman Grassley gave me the opportunity to have priority recognition to offer this amendment today that was part of the agreement we reached in the Finance Committee because I hope it will set a bipartisan tone for the debate to come.

This reauthorization is critical to almost 5 million people who are on welfare today. I am convinced it is our duty and our obligation to do all that we can to clear the political barriers, the policy barriers, overcome all the obstacles that we ultimately engage in on the floor of the Senate, but, in the final analysis, we ought to be in a position to vote on the welfare reauthorization and extend this law.

This $6 billion increase in new mandatory child care certainly should move us in that direction. I am adding this today because I think this amount is commensurate with the real and current needs. To understand how these needs developed and why this amount of funding is essential is important to understand because as we set out to reauthorize the 1996 law, we have to reexamine some of the decisions and some of the choices that were made at the time that now has led us to this point that I think compels us to offer more money in terms of child care.

One of the decisions that Congress made back in 1996 was to ensure that we would have the necessary support systems to allow welfare recipients, as they transition into the workplace and access full-time employment, to have all of the support that is going to be absolutely vital to make that employment a success, as well as accessible.

These types of assistance to working parents who generally are employed at minimum-wage jobs allow them to make ends meet and to make a permanent transition from welfare to work. One of the most critical types of work support we can offer these families is quality child care. Without good child care, a parent is left with only two choices: to leave a child in an unsafe and often unsupervised situation, or not to work, both of which are lose-lose situations.

If the aim of welfare reform is to move people off the welfare rolls and on to the payrolls, providing support in the form of quality affordable child care is a prerequisite to realizing that goal. Of course, as with anything else, child care comes with a price. In some States, it can cost as much as a year's tuition in a public college. Factor in additional costs of infant care or odd-hour care, such as nights or weekends or care for children with special needs, and the challenge increases significantly. So for a parent working toward financial independence, typically earning minimum wage, it is not hard to see how child care can be the budget buster that compels a family to retreat back into welfare.

This battle was also fought by families who are employed in full-time, lower wage jobs, families not receiving cash welfare assistance, but who only earn $15,000 to $20,000 per year.

Almost 2 years ago, a constituent of mine came to Washington to testify before Senator Dodd's Subcommittee on Children and Families. Sheila Merkinson, a resident of Maine, testified her childcare costs absorbed almost 48 percent of her weekly income. Even though she is eligible for aid, she receives no childcare assistance because the need exceeds the income eligibility requirements in our State.

At that time, Sheila stated she had been on the waiting list for childcare subsidies 6 months, four of them while she was working, and sleeping on a couch during that entire time period because she could not afford to pay the rent on her $18,000 yearly income.

I also remember reading several years ago about a mother in Maine whose only choice for a steady job was working the night shift at the local mill. Because she lived in a rural area with no family nearby, she was forced to choose between losing her job or tucking her elementary schoolage children into bed at night, locking the doors behind her, and going to work. Affordable childcare was not a reality for her and so she did what she deemed was best, to go to work and earn the money she required to support her children. In the end, the courts made a third choice for this mother. They took her children away from her.

We have no rhyme or reason to put people who care about their own children in untenable situations where they are compelled to make these unpalatable choices. This amendment will help ensure we can prevent these types of circumstances so many families face in the real world today.

These are but two of the life stories that bring me to the point of offering this amendment and providing the mandatory childcare funds of more than $6 billion for the next 5 years. These are families who really are the essence of what this debate is all about.

Back in 1996, as this chart would illustrate, Congress recognized when we created the TANF program, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, formed the childcare and development block grant, because we had a myriad of programs that provided various funding streams for childcare, we had a commitment to serve the families on welfare. That is why we consolidated more than four programs into the childcare and development block grant, so that we had a commitment to serve not only those who are on welfare, those who are transitioning off welfare, those who were not on welfare but were at the risk of falling onto welfare caseloads.

Finally we decided we should coordinate and consolidate these programs to create this block grant with the intent of serving those low-income families that may be employed but still require some kind of assistance because of the high cost of childcare. We have this coordinated development block grant on childcare that is aimed at serving the needs of each of these populations.

While the Federal law sets the ceiling, the States are able to determine their own eligibility requirements. Yet according to most estimates, only one in seven eligible children receives this kind of assistance. It is not surprising when one considers that in 2003 alone, nearly every State reduced childcare spending and 16 States reduced eligibility levels so fewer children would qualify.

Even when our eligibility guidelines are high, most States are unable to attain them. In fact, according to the 2004-2005 State plans in at least five States, a family is not eligible for the childcare development block grant if the family earns more than $20,000 per year. So clearly there remains a pressing need.

While the focus of this debate is the TANF population, as well it should be, it cannot be to the exclusion of all of those lower income families who are not on welfare. I am convinced that access to this critical work support makes all the difference in a successful transition from welfare to work, and to help ensure these families do not retreat back into welfare, and at the same time that we allow them to achieve self-sufficiency. That is the goal of any welfare reform act and that is what it should be. According to a 2002 study, single mothers with young children who receive childcare assistance are 40 percent more likely to be employed after 2 years than mothers who did not receive such assistance.

The study goes on to say former welfare recipients who receive childcare are 82 percent more likely to be employed after 2 years than those who do not receive such support. These findings make sense, as far too often, for many single parents, unaffordable, unavailable, or unreliable childcare is the chief barrier to steady employment.

Over the past few years, States have been experiencing unprecedented fiscal crises which are resulting in cutbacks to crucial services for low-income families and children. Severely limited resources are driving States to make some difficult tradeoffs, when it comes to policies, among equally deserving groups of eligible families. It is not unreasonable for a State to conclude that TANF families subject to work requirements in a maximum 5-year time limit or families transitioning off TANF should get priority over families who have not received welfare.

However, as a result of these decisions many vulnerable low-income working families who require childcare assistance will not be able to support their families and remain off welfare. That is a reality.

The worst-case scenario would be one in which limits on childcare subsidies for lower income working families begin to act as a disincentive. Families transitioning off welfare or low-income families struggling to stay off welfare rolls could easily deduce the effort simply was not worth it.

In May of 2003, GAO issued a report that suggests this possibility may exist. It states that a change in priority status can result in families losing benefits.

For example, in two States, families who leave TANF lose all of their benefits. In seven States, when a family comes to the end of a State's transition period, this can result in their losing assistance altogether.

Considering that childcare for a single child can easily cost between $4,000 and $10,000 yearly, it is not difficult to understand why a family affected in this way might have no other choice but to remain on welfare.

Providing a firm foundation and the tools necessary to make a successful transition to independence was the promise we made and one we must honor. So the amendment we are offering to this pending legislation would fulfill our commitment to the States by increasing the amount of mandatory childcare funding that is authorized under this legislation. We can do that today by passing this bipartisan amendment.

I know some would say there is an abundance of funding and that the estimates of unmet needs are baseless. My response to those critics is this: Ask the more than 605,000 eligible children on waiting lists in 24 States and the District of Columbia if there is sufficient funding. Many have argued since there are waiting lists in only less than half the States, then the rest of the States do not have unmet needs. Well, this is patently untrue.

The truth of the matter is not every State keeps a waiting list. Again, they feel it is a fruitless endeavor, because they are elevating expectations knowing that those expectations simply cannot be fulfilled because they do not have the funding for childcare. Many States cap the number of names allowed to appear on the waiting list, again because they know they will not be able to fulfill their requirements. They do not want to create the kind of hope among people that they will get the support ultimately when they know it simply will not be possible.

Consider that if one is a mother residing in California and she went to the State's welfare office and they told her get in line, she is No. 280,001. How likely is it she will bother to put her name on the waiting list? If a counselor in New York City told a mother her child would be No. 46,001, would she take the time to sign up? And even if she did, would she ultimately get the childcare support she needed? Not likely.

Another question is: How many childcare slots would be generated by the $6 billion included in our amendment? We cannot say for certain, but if we do not provide this funding there will be hundreds of thousands of children without any support under this welfare reauthorization.

We currently have 2 million children receiving child care subsidies. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated it would cost $4.5 billion to ensure that all 2 million children currently-I emphasize currently-receiving subsidies will be able to continue receiving that level of support over the next 5 years, during the course of this reauthorization. The underlying legislation that is before the Senate includes $1 billion in mandatory childcare funding which, according to CBO, may well cover the estimated cost for the new work requirements and the State participation rates of somewhere between $1 billion to $1.5 billion of increased child care as they relate to these expanded requirements under this legislation.

Just to maintain exactly what is in current law for the 2 million children costs $4.5 billion, and the increase, the new increase under this legislation, would require another $1 billion to $1.5 billion.

What we are saying is, just given where we are today, we could have 400,000 children removed from the caseload without this kind of money-400,000 if we do not support the pending amendment.

It is imperative that we pass this amendment to ensure the States will be in a position to provide the level of support they are currently providing to these families-just to maintain the status quo.

The legislation of the chairman provides a strong start by adding the $1 billion to pay for these increased work requirements, but I believe, Senator Dodd believes, and all the cosponsors of this amendment believe we should and must do more. The PRIDE Act seeks to build upon our very successful effort in 1996. We transformed the welfare system as we know it. It is landmark legislation that was an unprecedented success. We were able to convert an old entitlement system into a temporary program that helps our most fragile population take those critical first steps toward economic self-sufficiency. I believe our amendment strengthens this effort by ensuring that mothers struggling to move themselves off the welfare rolls will have the kind of assistance they need in order to succeed.

The good news is we will be able to do this with the kind of support that is essential. We have an offset in this amendment that includes the Customs user fees on merchandise that is processed through Customs. It is obviously important so we don't have a budget point of order. Some have said we have used this in the past and most specifically it is on the legislation that is also being currently considered by the Senate on the Foreign Sales Corporation Act for international tax relief for manufacturers. However, that legislation includes up to $130 billion in revenue offsets. We are using $6 billion of the $17 billion that has been incorporated in that legislation regarding Customs fees.

I believe there will be sufficient offsets to address both that legislation and this one as well. The amendment we are offering today builds on the work that has been incorporated in the underlying legislation that was reported out of the Finance Committee. Like many of my colleagues on that committee, Chairman Grassley, Senator Dodd, and all of those who support this effort here today, we are trying to build upon the major steps that were taken in the 1996 Act, which I think has made great strides toward helping lower-income families achieving the American dream and ultimately achieving self-determination and self-sufficiency.

There is an important difference between giving someone a handout and offering them a hand up. I believe this amendment to the PRIDE Act builds upon that distinction. That is why I am so pleased to have the kind of bipartisan support that has been given to this amendment. I do believe it is a strong step in the right direction. Granted, it is not going to address all the demands and needs across America, but certainly it will go a long way toward understanding and recognizing the reality that if we don't do this, we leave families and children in an untenable situation.

I happen to believe this amendment will strengthen our ability to pass this welfare reauthorization, that the States need to give guidance and direction for the future. We cannot allow States to live in statutory limbo and we can't allow families to live in limbo as well.

I hope this amendment will receive strong support here in the Senate, reflecting the strong bipartisan cosponsorship of this amendment. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

I yield the floor.