Preserving Welfare for Needs Not Weed Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. REICHERT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on the subject of the bill under consideration.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Washington?

There was no objection.

Mr. REICHERT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge support of H.R. 4137, the Preserving Welfare for Needs Not Weed Act.

Federal welfare benefits are an important means for many individuals and families to get critical assistance for basic necessities until they get back on their feet.

Shockingly, as a result of recent State laws legalizing recreational marijuana in Colorado and also in my home State of Washington, we are seeing new abuses of these benefits. In these States, a person can walk into one of the newly opened pot shops and use their welfare benefit card to pay for pot.

These are Federal tax dollars meant for basic necessities and, instead, they are being used to purchase something that is illegal under Federal law. It is exactly this misuse of tax dollars that this bill is designed to stop.

This bill, which I introduced earlier this year as chairman of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources--the subcommittee with jurisdiction over the program that we are talking about tonight and that is being abused--will block access to welfare cash in stores selling marijuana.

Mr. Speaker, I know firsthand the struggles that families can go through during my hard times from my own childhood growing up, and from what I witnessed as a law enforcement professional for 33 years. From the time I was a cop on the street in King County Washington through my days as the sheriff there, I witnessed how too often a lack of a job, living in a crime-ridden neighborhood, and using drugs tore families apart.

In some ways, things have even gotten worse today. For instance, we had millions of long-term unemployed struggling to get back to work during the so-called Obama recovery.

To make ends meet, many turned to benefits like TANF, which is the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. The TANF program provides millions of low-income Americans temporary assistance to help adults transition to work and support their children while they are doing that. TANF is a flexible grant to States, but it also includes rules to ensure that our tax dollars are being spent appropriately.

Sadly, a disturbing number of people were spending welfare benefits in liquor stores, casinos, and even strip clubs. In 2012, Congress passed a law that required States to block welfare benefits from being accessed in those places, and President Obama, rightly, signed it into law.

Since then, both Washington State and Colorado have legalized marijuana, opening up a new loophole--the ``pot shop loophole,'' as I call it--which the bill before us would close, along with the other shops that I mentioned before that are already closed to the use of your welfare benefit card, like liquor stores, casinos, and strip clubs. This bill just adds ``pot shops'' to that list.

This isn't an idle concern. A report examining welfare transactions in Colorado revealed over $5,000 in welfare benefits were accessed in stores selling marijuana in the first month such stores were open. With other States considering legislation to legalize marijuana, it is important that we close this ``pot shop loophole'' now before it expands.

This bill simply says that when it comes to spending welfare benefits--money taxpayers provide to low-income parents to help support their children--we are drawing a line. Taxpayer-funded welfare benefits must be spent on children's and families' needs and not on weed.

I encourage all Members to support this simple commonsense fix so that welfare funds are used as they were intended, to support the needs of low-income families and children and not to support drug use.

This legislation builds on good policy this Chamber has already crafted and passed in the last Congress. It has no cost, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and, most importantly, Mr. Speaker, it is the right thing to do.

I reserve the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. REICHERT. Mr. Speaker, after listening to my colleague's comments, Mr. Doggett's a little earlier, there are a lot of things that Mr. Doggett said that I agree with, and I know he knows that.

We have known each other for a while. He is the ranking member on the Human Resources Subcommittee, and we have been working together on lots of legislation that help address foster care and families and welfare and food stamps and aid to needy families.

Those are things that he knows that I care about passionately. And I know that the Republican party, even though tonight you may not think so, cares about people passionately and wants to solve these issues to help our most needy find employment, find an opportunity and hope in this country to provide for their family. That is what both sides I think really want.

As my colleague knows, we spent hours earlier today debating the continuing resolution for 2015. That debate will continue tomorrow.

The reason we are not debating TANF reauthorization right now is because the CR includes a provision that will extend the TANF program at the Congressional Budget Office baseline level through December 11 of this year. So that bill, not the one before us, provides for the extension of the program that the gentleman had earlier talked about.

I would also like to point out a letter that is dated July 31, 2014, date stamped, to Senator Sessions from Secretary Burwell. And it says, in just the first paragraph, Mr. Speaker:

Thank you for your letter to former Secretary Kathleen Sebelius expressing concern that Temporary Assistance for Needy Families cash assistance is being used to create an increase in drug dependency. I am aware of the media reports related to individuals withdrawing cash at Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) located in establishments selling marijuana in Colorado, which has legalized the use of marijuana. I agree that any inappropriate expenditure of public funds is a cause for concern and should be addressed immediately.

This is a commonsense fix so welfare funds are used as intended to help needy families temporarily, to help them find jobs, get back on their feet, provide for their families.

Mr. Speaker, I urge support, and I yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source