On September 10, the Senate Finance Committee voted, 9-8, to approve H.R. 4, which would reauthorize programs under the 1996 welfare law (P.L. 104-193).
H.R. 4 would provide level funding of $16.5 billion annually from FY2004 through FY2008 for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, which gives block grants to states to design welfare programs that focus on moving recipients away from government dependence and into the job market.
“This bill strengthens work, gives states more flexibility, and promotes marriage and family,” said Finance Committee Chair Charles Grassley (R-IA). “It builds on earlier goals to help people out of poverty and into rewarding activities.”
“The 1996 welfare reform law was a landmark,” said Finance Committee Ranking Member Max Baucus (D-MT). “The old system had failed. We were spending billions but had little to show for it. So we tried something new.” He noted his opposition to the revised legislation, but added that he was “hopeful that when the full Senate considers the bill, we’ll be able to resolve those concerns.” While states would be given the flexibility to design programs that fit their needs, states also would be required to meet certain federal standards. As in current law, states would be required to impose a five-year time limit on federally funded benefits to welfare recipients; states would be able to exempt up to 20 percent of their caseload from this time limit.
The legislation would require welfare recipients to work a 34-hour week, up from 30 hours under current law, and states would be required to put at least 70 percent of their welfare clients to work by 2008, up from the current 50 percent in 2002. Recipients would be required to spend 24 hours of their 34-hour week in direct work, up from 20 hours in current law, and states would have the flexibility to decide which activities, such as education or substance abuse treatment, should be included in the remaining 10 hours.
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) offered an amendment that would have restored the 20-hour work week for welfare recipients with children under 6. Saying she was “extremely alarmed at the direction the committee is moving,” Sen. Lincoln argued that forcing welfare recipients to work more hours, without providing extra funds for child care was “not going to help” families out of poverty. She urged the panel to consider the unique needs of very young children.
“We’re talking about taking care of children at an age when they are in a very critical stage of learning and development,” Sen. Lincoln said. “We’re doing a great disservice to our children, to our families, to our country. … I don’t believe that [this legislation] is going to help a young family get out of poverty any quicker. We should not adopt unrealistic work requirements for these parents.”
Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) objected to further funding for child care programs, and pointed to his own experiences, including those of nine members of his staff. “We have enough resources out there to help people who are in clear need. But sometimes pushing the edge a little bit is not necessarily a bad thing. Making people struggle a little bit is not the worst thing,” he said. Sen. Lincoln’s amendment was defeated by voice vote.
Sen. Lincoln also offered an amendment that would have removed the work requirements in the bill and instead would have allowed parents to receive partial credit for part-time work. The amendment was defeated by voice vote.
An amendment offered by Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) would have increased child care funding by $11.2 billion over five years. The amendment was defeated 9-11, with Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) citing deficit concerns voting with Republicans in opposition.
The Committee approved, by voice vote, an amendment offered by Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) that would allow states to count postsecondary and vocational education as approved work activity. The panel also approved, by voice vote, an amendment offered by Sen. Baucus on behalf of Sen. James Jeffords (I-VT) that would allocate $25 million to states to provide cars to low-income families to improve their access to job training and employment programs. Sen. Baucus also offered an amendment on behalf of Sen. John Breaux (D-LA) that would reauthorize the Transitional Medicaid Assistance (TMA) program. The amendment also would allow states to provide one year of TMA to former welfare recipients and eliminate current law requiring the individuals to submit documentation of their income and child care costs every three months to remain eligible. The panel accepted the amendment by voice vote.
Sen. Baucus also proposed scrapping a program that would promote marriage for welfare mothers, and instead suggested spending the money on child care needs. He cited statistics that show that 38 percent of fathers of children born out of wedlock have criminal records and that encouraging young, single mothers to marry these men may, in fact, be counterproductive. He went on to note that 90 percent of American women marry by age 45, which would seem to indicate, Sen. Baucus said, that marriage is still the accepted norm and ideal, and that in tight economic circumstances, these funds might be better spent providing child care. The amendment was defeated by voice vote.
“I don’t know of any institution better for taking care of children than marriage,” Sen. Santorum said, urging defeat of the amendment. “The evidence is overwhelming that children who are raised in married households do better across the board.”
The panel also defeated, on a 10-10 tie vote, a proposal by Sen. Baucus that would have substituted last year’s version of the welfare bill, which he said was better and more generous than the legislation approved by the committee.
