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CENTER ON BUDGET
AND POLICY PRIORITIES
To:
From:
Date:
Carol Rasco
Bob Greenstein
Gt.e \ 9 1994
c..c...'.
December 16,1994
As discussed, I'm enclosing several sets of materials.
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The materials the Center has produced to date for Governors Romer and Dean on
the balanced budget amendment. There is a 2-page overview memo and then two
2-page attachments. We are now revising this material to make it suitable for
Republican governs as well. Governor Dean then plans to distribute it.
•
Some material I received from Governor Dean's office regarding Democratic
governors and the balanced budget amendment.
•
A piece I've prepared, based in part on Mark Greenberg's thinking, on how to
accord states much more flexibility in AFOC
and some added flexibility in food
stamps - without block-granting these programs and causing the problems that
flow from a block grant. In a sense, this proposal would let states "have their cake
and eat it too." The piece I wrote that the President gave you is an early version
of this paper.
Governor Dean's staff (Bob Rogan) has expressed interest in this, as has Gary
Stangler, who is Governor Carnahan's welfare commissioner (and also eIther the
chair of APW A or of the Council of State Human Services Administrators - I
forget which), Dean's staff plans to distribute this piece to welfare commissioners
of those Democratic governors who are coming to the welfare summit.
Incidentally, the concepts set forth in this paper have been discussed in the past
few days with Senator Chafee' s staff, who also .expressed significant interest in
them.
I hope this is useful.
777 North Capitol Street, NE, Suite 705, Washington, DC 20002
Tel: 202-408-1080
Fax: 202-408-1056
�CENTER ON BUDGET
AND POLICY PRIORITIES
STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND THE
BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT
Governors have expressed strong concerns that a constitutional balanced budget amendment
not l~ad to the federal government shifting massive. fiscal burdens to states. Some governors have.
asked that a "no unfunded mandates" provision be added to the baianced budget amendment to
ensure this does not occur.
An unfunded mandate provision, however, is limited in the protection it can'offer states
against massive cost-shifting. The major threat to states from the balanced budget amendment is the
unprecedented amount of cuts in grants-in-aid and other programs'affectirig state budgets that will be,
required to achieve a balanced federal budget by fiscal year 2002. This threat looms particularly large
because ofthe emerging fiscal strategy of the new Republican Congre~sionalleadership. That
strategy is both to impose a series of bmding expenditure caps that achieve budget balance by 2002-,
while taking Social Security, defense, and taxesoff-the-table through a series of statutory and '
procedural changes - and to cuttaxes deeply.! The more than $1 trillion in cumulative cuts required
to balance the b,udget over the next seven years would be squeezed out of the remaining types of
federal expenditures. Under these circumstances, an unfunded 'mandate provision fails to address the
problem of disproportionate cuts in feperal funding for state and local functions and leaves states
largely unprotected.
"
The arithmetic of achieving a balanced budget without cutting Social Security or defense or
raising any revenues- and while'cutti1)g taxes as called for in the Contract with America- assures a
heavy hit on states a,nd localities.
•
All federal expenditures other than social security and defense (and the required
interest on the national debt) would have to be cut by, more than one dollar out of every
four compared to spending projected.under current law for fiscal year 2002.
Congressional Budget Office data indicat~ that if there are no tax cuts, 20 percent to 25
, percent of non-defense, non-Social Security spending would have to be eliininated by
fiscal year2002 to balance the budget that year. With the Contract's tax cuts factored in,
the percentage rises to 25 percent to 30 percent.' ,
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Grants to state and local gov~rnments cqnstitute one:-,third of t~e total spending that'will
have to be 're9.uced by approximately one,dollar in four. In fiscal year 1994, federal
grants to st,ate and local governments absorbe'd 32 percent of the federal budget when
Social Security, defense, and interest paYIl1ents on the debt are excluded.
1 The potential chang~s to budget procedure~ ~~e described in Attachment L The impact of the tax cuts
proposed in the Contract with America on federal revenues is described in Attachment 2. [n addition,
Attachment 2 disctis~es ho~state revenues would,be reduced by the .tax cuts at the same time that the
federal government w6uld be sharply scaling back grants to states and localities.
777 North Capitol Street, NE, Suite 705, Washington, DC 20002 ~el: 202-408-1080
Iris J. Lavand Isaac Shapiro, Acting Co-Directors
fax: 202-408-1056
�Spending important to state and local governments is likely to bear a highly disproportionate
burden of the required cuts. Of the portion of the federal budget that would remain on the table,
significant portions of the two-thirds not devoted to grants to stat~ and local governments either
cannot or will not be cut very much.
.
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. Essential federal functions such as protecting the borders, maintaining embassies
overseas, fighting forest fires, constructing and opera'ting federal prisons, operating the
FBI and Social Security offices, and making pension and disability payments to veterans
are unlikely to suffer more than modest cuts.
•
In addition, there is virtually no chance that Medicare would be cut by as much as 20
percent to 30 percent
which would constitute a cut of $70 billion to $105 billion in
fiscal year 2002 alone. Cuts of that magnitude in Medicare would lead to massive cost
shifting to employers and almost certainly swell the ranks of the uninsured as a result.
In addition, doctors/hospitals, and elderly groups are too powerful for Medicare cuts of
this size to be secured.
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To the extent that large portions of the budget other than Social Security and defense
spending are reduced by significantly less than one dollar in four, the likelihood
increases that grants to states and localities will be cut by substantially more than one
fourth.
Accordingly, state and local officials may wish to withhold support for a balanced budget
constitutional amendment unless they are off~red more than protection from unfunded mandates.
They may wish to call for the deferral of consideration of the balanced biidget amendment, at least in
the Senate, until legislation laying the framework for getting to a balanced budget and potentially
taking large pieces of the budget off the table is taken up. State and local officials may wish to
establish a basic principle that their support for the balanced budget amendment is dependent not just
upon relief from unfunded mandates, but on assurances that spending caps will not result in costshifting and disproportionate reductions in state and local aid
in short, that the federal budget not
be balanced heavily at their expense.
Unfunded mandate protection would affect only those situations where the federal
government requires other levels ofgovernment to perform certain tasks without paying the cost of
the tasks. Unfunded mandate measures do not prevent highly disproportionate cuts in aid to states
and local governments resulting from large parts of the federal budget being placed off-limits. Nor
would an unfunded mandate measure forestall federal decisions to shed functions that some level of
government must perform and thereby leave other levels of government little incentive but to pick up
the pieces without any federal funds to Undertake the work. It would not, for example, protect
against increases in Medicare cost-sharing requirements that drive up state Medicaid costs under
"medically needy" programs. It would not protect against cuts in child care programs that would
increase the load on public schools that operate pre-school programs with' state or local funds. Nor
would unfunded mandate protection replace lost federal funding for primarily state-local functions,
such as mass transit, education, or economic development.
The potential problems for state and local government must be considered up~front, before the
constitutional amendment passes Congress and especially before governors consider endorsing the
amendment in return for unfunded mandate protection. If an amendment is sent to the states for
ratification in a form that is a dagger aimed at state and local government, governors may have
political difficulty in opposing state ratification if they have earlier endorsed the amendritent.
2
�State and Local Government and the
Balanced Budget Amendment
Attachment 1: Likely Changes in Federal Budget Procedures
The proposed balanced budget amendment would require the budget to be balanced
by fiscal year 2002. Congressional Budget Office data show that if taxes are neither cut nor
raised, federal spending would have to b~ reduced about $1 trillion over the next seven
years to achieve balance. (This excludes savings on interest payments on the national debt
and represents the level of programmatic cuts needed.)
.
This figure understates the magnitude of the spending reductions required. The
Republican Congressional leadership-is planning to move·aseries of substantial tax cuts.
The House Republican Conference estimates that the tax cuts in its "Contract with
America" will lose $190 billion in revenue over the next fiv~ years; the revenue losses from
these tax ctits would be much larger over the long term. Several of the Contract's principal
tax-cutting mea'suresare designed in such a way'that the measures produce orily modest
revenue losses or even revenue gains in the first five years but then lose much larger
amounts of money after that. 2 Based on past revenue estimates of tax provisions similar to
those in the Contract, the cost of the Contract's tax provisions appears to rise from $190
billion in lost revenue over the first five years to more than $400 billion over subsequent
five-year periods. If these proposed tax reductions pass, the level of spending cuts needed
to achieve budget balance rises to still higher levels. Including the Contract's tax provisions
would require spending cuts of about $1.3 trillion to $1.4 trIllion over the next seven years
to balance the budget by fiscal year 2002.
Squeezing Down the Federal Budget with Large portions of it Off the Table
After consideration of the balanced budget amendment, the Republican
Congressional leadership plans to pass a Congressional budget resolution and then a
"budget reconciliation" bill. The emerging strategy calls for the reconciliation bill to
contain provisions that effectively exempt Social Security and the Pentagon from budget
cuts. Other procedures would make it very difficult to raise new revenues. As a ,result, the
remainder of the federal budget would have to shoulder th~ massive cutting needed to
achieve balance by fiscal year 2002. Here's how this would occur.
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. The budget reconciliation bill would establish a binding cap on the total
amount that could be spent each year on entitlement programs other than
2 Federal budget rules require tax cuts to be "paid for" through offsetting entitlement cuts or tax
increases for their first five years. This has led Members of Congress from both parties to design provisions
whose true fiscal impacts do not emerge until after the five-year point passes. See Attachment 2 for
.
description of the growth in the cost of the proposed tax cuts.
3
�Social Security. In any year that the cap would, otherwise be breached,
entitlements other than Social Security would be cut across-the-board by a
sufficient amount to bring entitlement costs under the cap. Reducing Social
Security costs would serve no purpose, since Social Security expenditures
would not count under the cap. Social Security would effectively be off the
table.
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The existing spending caps on non-entitlement spending (or discretionary
spending"as it is called) would be extended through fiscal year 2002 and
lowered sharply. In addition, a protective wall, would be placed around the
defense budget so that all of the cuts needed to comply with the discretionary
caps would come from non-defense discretion~ry spending. Non-defense
discretionary spending is the category of the budget in which much federal
aid to state and local governments, including most, block grants, are found.
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These two caps - the entitlement cap and the discretionary spending cap
would be set at1e.vels so stringent that, by themselves, they reduced the
deficit to zero by fiscal year 2002. All of the required deficit reduction thus
would come from the part of the budget that remains when Social Security
and defense are taken off the table.
'
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Steps making it difficult to close any 9f the budget gap by raising taxes also
would be taken. The Contract calls for the balanced budget amendment to
include a provision r:equiring that any tax increase be approved by three-fifths
of the full membership of the House and Senate. The Senate may decline to
include such a provision in its version of the balanced budget amendment.
, But regardless of whether such ~ provision is i,ncluded in the balanced budget
amendment, the new House leadership plans -, and has the votes - to
establish a rule requiring a three-fifths vote for any tax measure to pass the
House floor. This rule will be established as soon as Congress convenes in
January. Under the new rule, three-fifths app!oval will be required on the.
House floor even-for a measure to extend,an expiring tax or to finance a tax
cut with an offsetting tax increase.
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�State and Local Government and the
Balanced Budget Amen~ment
Attachment 2: Impact of Proposed Tax Cuts on Federal and State Revenue
The Contract with America calls for federal tax changes that the House Budget
Committee minority staff estimate would reduce federal revenues by about $190 billion
over the next five years. The revenue proposals include a new tax credit for children, a
ne~ type of Individual Retirement Account, reductions in the rate of taxation of capital
gains income for individuals and corporations, a reduction in taxes for busine~ses that
invest in buildings, machinery, and equipment, and a reduction in the extent to which
Social Security income is taxable for higher-income taxpayers.
Many state tax systems would also experience revenue losses from these provisions,
as a result of conformity to federal definitions of adjusted gross income and corporate net
income.
The revenue loss from these tax proposals would rise dramatically after five years.
The IRA, capital gains, business depreciation, and Social Security provisions in the Contract
are designed so they lose smaller amounts or even raise revenue over the' next five years
but then lose much larger amounts of revenue after the five-year budget period ends. In
subsequent five year periods; the federal revenue loss is likely to exceed $400 billion.
•
The IRA prop'osal is said to raise $5 billion over the next five years. Short-term
revenue gains come from incentives for holders of current-law IRAs to pay
taxes on those holdings now, rather than at retirement, and roll over the funds
to the new, more generous, and more flexible IRAs. After the rollover window'
expires, however, the revenue losses mount. Past analyses of similar proposals
show they eventually lose as much as $50 billion over subsequent five-year
periods.
•
The Contract puts the cost of the capital gains proposal at $56 billion over its
first five years. The proposal includes both an adjustment of the gain for
infla tion and an exclusion from taxation of half the ,remaining gain. In the years
immediately after implementation, revenues are assumed to be boosted by an
increase in asset sales to take advantage of the new provisions. Over time, '
however, asset sales level off and the cost of inflation indexing increases. The
Joint Committee on Taxation has estimated that the cost of such a provision in
the second five-year period after enactment would exceed $160 billion.
•
The Contract lists the depreciation proposal as raising $20 billion over the first
five years. This costly proposal is turned into revenue gainer for this initial
five-year period by decreasing, in the first few years, depredation allowances
for equipment that turn over frequently, such as computers and vehicles. But
a
5
�depreciation for longer-lived assets is made much more generous, and the long
term costs of this proposal are large. Past analyses of similar proposals suggest
the revenue loss in subsequent five-year periods could reach $58 billion.
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The proposal to roll back the percentage of Social Security benefits subject to
taxation is shown as costing $17 billion over five years. The repeal would be
phased in gradually over the five-year period, however, so the cost in
subsequent five-year periods would be approxi~ately $25 billion.
State Revenue Loss Would Grow as Budget Cuts Hit
Most states conform the definition of individual adjusted gross income and corporate
net income used in their income tax codes to the federal defirutions of such income. Several
of the major tax cuts proposed by the Republican leadership - such as the cuts in capital
gains tax, the expansion of individual retirement accounts, and the more generous
depreciation schedules will be incorporated into many state tax codes if these measures
are enacted at the federal level. The result would be narrower state tax bases and some loss
of state revenue, and this would occur at the same time that the federal government was
sharply scaling back grants to states and localities.
November 281 1994
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DEC.14 '94 7:16PM OFFICE OF GOVERNOR
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DEMOC&ATIC GOVijJl.NOU' ASSOCIATION
CovcIuor EYaD Bayb
StiPe uI' IruIi.via
("J.ir
DEMOCllATlC GOVERNoas
, AND KEY STAn'
TOI
KatIe WheIu
6;(t(1.'TIV£ COMMrIT2~
DouIllIdIanIsoD
~G8!ItDtI Cap!~
Se_ of War;
.I
,·itaWa
CGnaaaiad_ SIa$,tCIY
. GOIYcmor HO'IIVd Dean
.SR~(lfV~1
)lecember 12. UN '
Cin'Hl1lDl' ..... trfiIkt&o
!lal:cc(~_
I.
GoY!lltOOt Add ~
s=ot,.~
..
11Ie pupoII of, tbia memo is
to oUtUn.e' a' ptopoecd commllDicatioDs
strate&Y for ~ Oovemors OIl die. ~ bud&« 1.JtJJCa't4uaeat.
'l1ai$ sttatcgy wooid be .i.m,p1c:aieaJed, subJeet CO DGA Bxec:utivo
Committee 8ppnwal, ill Ibt; case that Jlepublican ~ refuse to
join in a bi:partbm ettort on the baJ~ccd'bIIcI&U ~t.
~llof:aomer
Srllr~ of CQ/GtQ4Q
GoYaRoI' BraceSwtdhm
~Q(~IA.nd
GoYerno&' ,0118 Waihcc
~d'HQIaii
.
Gonmar David WIII.._
Sci= ofOklihoma
'
The straacIY would include Ihe
XadKrinc Whd:ua
-A Je.adcrsIdp
~ Coo&rcasiaDal1eadeA.
,
to11oWtna stepS:
medias betwcal ~
I!;rmuiaDWw
Govcmort _
"
'.
..-A .... COIlfenIlcz o"tJiNns ~ GoVanoII' posldoll
QII tbc b;t1ancid budpt ameadmtnt and
":vine mtbt naDm CH1 t:bc impact
of the amcndmaIt OIl various lilia, IWitiJ. an rmpbaail OIl tlIo ~ of
shiftiu& ClOStI aDto by states witb ~ ~
,
-me
-A D(jA poIiCyforumt pcdJaps 00
same day as me DeWS
the: isaua thl¢; ncod _ be addrc:.s.w.d c!urinS tba
to
~ over tbc balilllCCd bud&ct amendmcat. Tbis sbouId be doGe in me
poriod baween mi4-'Oeeedlb« aJ1CI mkHlIJlUUY.·
~~. cfdamng
-Possible oplnioDpap .~ by Govcmors Daa
Carnahaa.
and
-A 1cUcr fIom Dcrnac:radc, Oovam,ou to 111 ascmbea of
sw.omuizinc'the issues tbat c;tU&ht to be addmaed during the
~
-,
ba1ar1ccd b\KIpt' debato.
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430 Sour:b ClpitQJ Strci;t, So£. • W:wbington. D.C. lOOOS • '( 202) 479-5153· fAX (202) 479-5156
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�TallUllfG. ~
lbll of OK Sulas .
#4 l'=onb wpi.ta! ~I'II'CI
VICII~'
T~ IlQ:16:ZH~
'~~-ua
W"~~It. D.C.loao.I.141~
MEM01\ANDUM
Balanced BddS«
FM",: Bany Van
b:
~isionIlD
To:
0,/'
._IPIJ'
Attached are the ~ilCd wrsioos oftbe &4Sug:sre4 ~onaI ~'ad "7aJfdnI Po_ for
IN ~iAlwith CoDgrasicmat ~."
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T\lIIO c~ - tht inscni<ofi of tbc pbr.ue '"any ~ of federal ~
in point 6
or the
fanauaBc and . .addition otthe pMt,s.;, "ad _ have. d~ impIo& on rAe .
un" at the end t>f me first J*Iljrapb in daC ~ oft Budaet Cats _ PqraaD ledMip in the
talking palms - wwc agtII'Cd to by _ SAC. A tIriN cbanp .... InsertiOa or tho pbruc "in abe
. baJu\ced budpt ~c:nf' - was illMbld and shoWn at 'bracbts 011 pap 1 to serve at. focus £of It
~
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diSCIlSSionamoos the Govemors.
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_Il1'0
It was aa;rccd ~ tho SAC would l'fiicwtbcSe revised ~ with 1beir GOvernors tid
dleit
approval ot suqated qvjsion$. Ta flCiliw.: c:Josun: cap die 1fI~ it tNOU!d be helpfUl if yotI
would 8M: me that feedbadt as quHokly as.possi'b~.
;,
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waS' funhet _pwd chat 1ft)' decision reprdi."g the aCed for short-term interim policy would be
defen-ed pcndina a discussion between GOYcrftOr Dean and Governor TlIomplOA.
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8102 828 3339
DEC.14 '94 7:17PM OFFICE OF GOVERNOR
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12,",*,94
DRAFT
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Nado.aI Gowrtaon' .AsaocldoD
Worldal CNap OD • Bah. . . B1ad1}K .A..aNnlllDlielit
Sqpstcd COIIMitutiOuJ LaaguJp
1.
"No obligation impoKd by or pnuaut to
aD
Mt of Coap::5s upon a SWc ihall be
~Io,- PCh,-.,untcss ~ F~ GO\'tnW~ pNYides fhc SWca the: ftmcls
needed to
PaY the Statets c:oIi of complying wkh 1be obtlpt:im.
"
,
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asAsatnQe by • StakI shall b6 Mfotccablc apinst the ~ wiess tb. QOI'ldltiaIl ia <llNCtly
II'JCI aublrMUIIy rolatld to me spccifio wbjeot mmet t4~ ~ ad iadudat III ...
Milial UI.borizin8ltsisildOll....
3.
4.
f'No Actor Con8fCS$
,
an imP'*' on _" s_ .. obUgatioft to eD8cl or admiai518t a
"for putpo&I:S of tQls amondmem, tb8 term
~,
includes an)' sOOdivision, or
~ity of. State."
6.
"Nodlins' in thia ~md shall be constnred as ~derin, compatible with, the
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�802 828 3339
DEC.14 '94 7:18PM OFFICE OF GOVERNOR
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P.7
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H__at Cowl'1lOn' AaodatIoa
A.IP"_.f
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WorkiDl Group .... Baluc:.cJ aa4pt
TalJdacrolllil for Meedlllwttll CoqreaIoa.II ~
Domocmu.ic .aad J.tepu.b1ioan GovCmon Dp'M OIl the aeed to baJlmce the redaal badpt. At the
same tUne they bcIiCw: thac otfons 1'0 ~ 1ho fcdond bud~ must incl~ the ftcxl"bi1ft)t to
CftsuIc tne s1a&a an: aDIe to manae~ fcdoral prosraa1I ..me_1f aDd . . the Coapess - . Poe
.smA Ibturc oosts to tho stares tbrouP ~ PI_litis.
..
While·_ ~ mponsibility for tadfieatloa 01 a ~ .lmeMmCllt rcats whb state
lcp'amm!J. GcMmors.will play 11 major role In sbapiag public attimdas
lbe amendment
aud their suppon will t.ikd>' be aid;at to 1Imdy n1tifiCItioD. 1beir abilily to suppoIt . . . . . .
and nttific::atkJ.n depeqds ultimately on the imP'« tbal: tho final ~. wiD ~ OIl
local caxpaym and the abUity of__ and loca1idMlO fulfill theit own ~litiea.
towanJ
SIale.
The Wortd!!s Group on a Balanced Buds« ~CIDdDNnt bas bCCIQ oItmpd witJI ideati.fYio8 die
that dw.Y bolicvo must be addrcssc:d in Older to ~ gubematoriaJ support far
adoption and rarifiaWOD of a bab:ncocd budget aJDcadment. ~ concerns fall _ lWO =Uor
c:BtegDrics: (1) pn:m:ction ~ fimIn:: unfuDdccllDllldalq; and (2) ~ Ibat __ will
bo fairly trcatod in the fedoraJ budgat process and &ivea additional tIer.ibUiIy in cmying our lite
JctpOasibilitia they am givea WIder federal legislation. 1lJose coocems tid: addrasscd in more
cfccail in tile ~ below.
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I(these conccms 1M'C addlelRd the Working Group expeQS to PfOpoGe aDd I'fleOIIlIDMd adopbOll
of jatmim N(;A pQlk:y in suppo&1 of a balanced budget arne.adm'enl As always. however. tho
final adopUon of an imerim poJicy position wUI n:qu1re torm~ adioa b)' two-tbirrJI. of the
E.xecudve Comml~ IPld apptovalby t'WOothirds of the Gowmo~ IE their noxt regular naeeting.
wi,.
Statea arid localities need IIIUJInCe that f~ respOnsibilities
bot be sbiW ro dte ...,. ill
of new grant ccmditions or unfunded man~ While 1hCy support lcplativCt actian to
adt:Ir1a tho issue otuatV.nded JI18.lI.datM. thay are ~ tbat such pmvdioni once CnaIdcd by
Con&n- oould cully be reldnclecl. ..u. ~ they believe: ih&t addi1loJ.lll coostitutioaal
. lanpase la ~ fin .. btdaaccd buds« amcadmeatJ to Idford tbenl IDOnI permanent IDd
asSURd protection. . . . oDinWal revRrwy the SQJff advisOry &roUP bellow . . sucm ~
could be provided duuugh inclusion ofdlc foUOWDs, provisions: :
the; fonn
I
Djm;t MImI_ - The federal govt:nUQCftt ShoUld no longer be able ta nwbWe $tIlW aacl
IO\'CIllmtnt acdoD wldlout providina adequate ftmdiDJ.
local
be:
Condb:jpnaJ Mlndates -
The federal govemmem shou.d ncx
allowed 10 force statts and.
localities to iilcur Dew ~ tbnxIp 'tho addition ofDCW COIIdicion$;to aisting pun programs. .
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AdmiOl$it.il:s: Obliptiou - lb. FedeoJ sovcmm- -shtJufd not be aJ)lt; tq campol
localities to act as it's ill- in ¢IV1Ym,
n::tpOQlibit~.
out'''''
*" aad
gI·L«aUsf. - Tho ~$ affordal to thu- saiiu **kl, .tao be 0I:i0adccl1O
looaHtioti ad otbor ~ities of srate aovemment.
loolwklD
Futurt ptfG • In ardor to avoid tb~ iztaHiv. dbruptiou ~:c=dsting fcdetaI pr~ the
prohl&kioaI ibany ~ should be: ~
,
Lim_ Etrc -. no omtli1drDeqt slloufd not ~ iowpt«cd as ~ increasmg the authority of ~
&dttal g.wCnJnlelOt to bn~ muM·res Fc&rol adioM eummtly pRJhi~by lbt Coa5ti1ution
shoUld remain ph)fu1J~
NodUns- in tht:se proposals ~ iaamded to alter dJ.6 ~ of C!W'I:CM ci'Vif rigbt$ legis1atino ot 10
modify OI! n:dnco in anyway the- audtoril,y of the ~ to protect abe right:t ~. to
Am~ ~-the COilsti1utioa.
~I'Y PnMI:cdo. fnI.as 'UIlf1uade4~.
~ ~-frvm fmnte lQl~ maacbd:eg wUl apt provide ~icn tbr . .
_ nd JocaJkie$ ~ abe mification. of a balanced budset amendmene. As a ~ -me
a
Goven.on seek AD ~ r~ the Consrcss(OMl ~p to support tbe idunedfate
~tnumt of strcmg. GlfOfCUblc lo.gislarlan tbat.wOQld prohibit DtW- UDftln<lM. ~ SUch
legislm:iOft shaakI • • ~ludt,2 prohitliUous against 1It.c ~eDt ofnew conditioDs on snajot
federal grw- aud: cnlitk:RHlnt prosrb;JM.
The Cungp:$s will likely. ~ a nUmbtr _ immC4iiate ~ to rdorm aDd: ~e
of
existing goVetYlDlCnW proglamS a$ it attempts 10 reduce fedetaJ expcnditun:s. These ch~&M
~ b.~ lipifrc.aat finaacial and ~Mic impacts on ~ states. It is vitil t!uU dt.c:
Congress ntc*= that fbt :ital.G$ .must ~ $I (4111 p!U'!iW' in me discu$siOM ·thaI dRape the!Ie
Jt~1!.tM! i~Ja~. The find legistation must iDCl'el:Se state ~ili[y to administer prQJt8IDS
tfficicnUy :m:d not shift additiOnat unavoidable C06fS to $'tal" In<! localities. As m· thi: Ctie or
unfUnded ~ the Gavcrnor$ Seek iI ~11Iiunent from 1M -Con~ ~ an
briac $wet; _l«anu~ IDlU tht: d~i()ft and ~i&11 of rro~ ~e~ t.o4lhcir ~noe
that- tteccs9U)' federal bl:J~et ~m.t wilt talr)y a"~t at! see~ and not. havc a d!spmpartionaM
impact .... ~
.
fiDal Sta1e Ktirm on miftcadnn of amendment ornse e~t1~ ""in ~nd bvUl OIl ~ WOnih¥i Qf
the am.endmeat ~lt ami on a ben~ that tile f~ctal goviirnment ~ (!Onuoiucd to a fAU
~wi:t.h.!Ulttg aw1 localities;. As a result. it isa~·crit:iad:tlmtCO.r~5~ movt'lniclcly 10
c:fkctivdy 3dd:es$ the ki8i~btive and hooget co~ idffiti'fied by the stdes4
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�ACHIEVING GREATER STATE FLEXIBILITY IN AFDC AND FOOD STAMPS
WHILE PROTECTING STATES AND POOR FAMILIES
Interest is growing in the idea of providing states greater flexibility in designing
welfare programs. One approach being pursued by some Republican Members of
Congress would be to turn AFDC and several smaller programs into a cash assistance
block grant and to turn food stamps and several smaller nutrition programs into a food
assistance block grant. .
.
Doing so, however, would cause serious problems.· The problems are of
sufficient gravity to make these undesirable policy options from the standpoint both of
state governments and low-income families. Fortunately, :there is an alternative way to .
give states substantially increased flexibility without using a block grant structure.
This memo discusses the problems with block-granting AfDC and food stamps and
describes an alternative that would retain the desirable features of a block grant
without its drawbacks.
:
Problems with Block-Granting AFDC and Food Stamps
Turning AFDC and food stamps into block grants would pose significant
problems.
•
Insufficient federal funds would likely be m~de available for the block
grant. These block grants would likely be structured by Congress as
discretionary - or non-entitlement - programs whose funding levels are
determined each year in Congressional appfopriations battles. While
some Republican Members of Congress and; governors have talked of a
block grant that would reduce the AFDC funds which states receive by 10
percent to 20 percent, the actual reductions would almost certainly be much
larger than that over time.
The block grant legislation might include an appropriations ceiling that
represents a 10 percent to 20 percent cut. But the actual amount
appropriated would likely be well below th~ ceiling. With Congress
about to tighten greatly the already-austere :spending caps that govern the
total amount that can be spent on discretionary programs (while raising
spending on defense at the same time), domestic discretionary programs
will be squeezed hard in the years ahead. Welfare block grants, which
have weak political constituencies, would likely fare poorly in the intense
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�competition for the shrinking pot of funds thflt will be available under the
spending caps. Over time, the federal funds provided to states for these
block grants are likely to decline substantially. In short, the potential
conversion of the federal funding structure for AFDC and food stamps
from one under which states and poor families have an entitlement to
funds to one in which the funding provided to states for these programs is
squeezed in each year's appropriations fight should be of profound
concern to states.
One additional concern on this front is that states frequently would not
know until October 1 (or even later) how much block grant funding they
would receive for the fiscal year starting October 1. Congressional
appropriations battles typically are not over I . and funding levels not
known - much before October 1. Often these issues are not settled until
November or December. This would make it difficult for states to plan
and operate their low-income programs efficiently.
•
Of equal concern is that a block grant would not respond to the ,increases
in need that states face during economic dovynturns. Under the current
financial structure for AFDC and food stamps, increased federal matching
funds for AFDC - and an increase in 100 percent federally funded food
stamp benefits - automatically flow into a state when recession hits and
more families apply for aid. For example, between June 1990 and June
1992, as the national unemployment rate jumped from 5.1 percent to 7.7
percent, the number of people receiving food stamps rose by more than
five million. Under a block grant, this provision of additional federal
resources during recessions would end. A fixed amount would be
, provided to a state at the start of a year. If unemployment subsequently
rose, the state would have to bear 100 percent a/any additional cash and food
assistance costs itself
I
This would pose serious problems for states. State revenues shrink
during economic downturns, and m'.lny state programs are cut. Under a
welfare block grant structure, states would be forced to choose between
raising taxes (or cutting other programs more deeply in recessions) to
address the mounting needs for low-income' assistance or instituting
across-the-board benefit cuts, making some categories of needy families
and children ineligible for the rest of the year, or placing poor families
that recently lost their jobs on waiting lists for aid.
If states instituted waiting lists, two-parent families could be significantly
affected. The subpopulation whose participation in AFDC rises most
sharply in recessions is two-parent families.'
2
�The loss of the automatic increase in federal ·funding during a recession
would have two other adverse effects as well. It could weaken the
national and state economies. The food stamp and AFDC programs
function as what economists call "automatic stabilizers" - federal
programs that moderate economic downturns by infusing more
purchasing power into state and local economies when recession sets in.
Under a block grant structure, the automatic stabilizer role played by
these programs would be lost. This is especially troublesome in the case
of the food stamp program, which is one of the most important automatic
stabilizer in the federal government's recession-fighting arsenaL
Converting these programs to block grants that fail to respond to .
recessions is likely to make recessions somewhat deeper and more
protracted.
•
These problems are aggravated by another shortcoming of a block grant
structure - it would badly misallocate funds among states. Any formula
that could be used to allocate block grant funds among states would be
based on data for a year in the past; the formula would not be able to
reflect economic and demographic changes since that time. States whose
economies had grown robustly since the year in which the data were
collected would receive more funds than warranted, while states where
economic conditions had deteriorated would receive too little.
Of particular concern is the fact that during a recession, the hardest-hit
states would likely be subject to a "triple whammy." First, there would
be insufficient federal funds nationally, since the federal funding level
would not automatically rise with a recession. Second, the allocation
formula would not recognize the depth of the downturn in states that had
been hit hard. Finally, the states hit hardest by the recession would
generally face large declines in state revenues and be among the states
least able to provide state funds to respond to the additional need the
downturn had created.
•
A block grant also could hinder welfare reform efforts in some states. A
number of states want to expand their JOBS programs, create work slots,
and impose work requirements more broadly. Some states may want to
expand child care for AFDC mothers seeking to work their way off
welfare and for mothers who have just done so. Since a block grant
approach would provide fewer federal AFDC funds - rather than
additional matching funds for states adopting such approaches - these
states could be forced to abandon reforms aimed at promoting self
sufficiency unless they were willing to cut AFDC benefits to pay for the
reforms.
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One final problem deserves mention as well. There would inevitably be a
major fight among states over the formula for allocating block grant funds
among them. If the formula reflected current expenditure patterns, it
would penalize states with low benefit levels and risk locking them into
that status permanently. Moreover, if the formula gave each state the
same percentage of federal AFDC matching funds that it currently
receives, this would fail to recognize the differences that will occur among
states in coming years in rates of population growth, demographic
changes, employment levels, or wages. If the formula attempted to adjust
for these factorsi it would be out-of-date (as noted above), always
reflecting economic and demographic conditions several years earlier.
And if the formula were based primarily on economic and demographic
data (such as the number of poor families in each state) rather than on
current expenditure patterns, the distribution of funds among states
would be substantially altered. Some states that pay above-average
benefits could suffer heavy losses of federal funds and be driven to cut
benefits significantly even though their current benefit levels leave
children below the poverty line.
It should be noted that once these programs lose their entitlement status and are
converted to block grants, there will be no turning back, despite whatever problems
may ensue. Given the federal government's fiscal problems - and the politics
surrounding these issues - it would be virtually i,mpossible to regain entitlement
status for programs such as these for years to come.
What About Administrative Savings?
A response sometimes offered to these funding problem issues is that states
would reap large savings in administrative costs if federal rules were loosened. This
response is weak. Even if significant administrative savings could be achieved, they
would constitute only a small fraction of the federal funds that states would lose under
the block grant proposals. Federal and state administrative costs combined make up
about 12 percent of AFDC and food stamp expenditures. Thus, if administrative costs
were cut a fifth, total program costs would be reduced just two to three percent. Under
the proposed cash and food block grants now being developed, the cuts in federal
funding would be far larger - at least 10 percent to 15 percent initially and probably
more in subsequent years.
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An Alternative of Greater Benefit to States and Families
The alternative is to give states extensive flexibility to design their own AFDC
programs, much as a block grant would do, while maintaining the federal-state
financial structure for AFDC. This would be done by identifying and eliminating every
provision of the Social Security Act that needlessly restricts state flexibility in shaping
their own AFDC programs and enabling states to largely fashion their own programs
without having to secure waivers. The federal government would continue to match
state AFDC expenditures on,an entitlement basis as it does now.
This avoids the drawbacks of block-granting described above, while providing
states great flexibility. States should prefer this approach to a block grant. It is in their
fisc'al interest to do so.
Under the alternative, each state would be free to develop its own rules
concerning such matters as:
•
what is income and how it should be treated (for example, how earnings
are treated, what income is deemed, etc.);
•
what resources would be permitted, and under what circumstances;
•
what requirements (JOBS, work, other) must be met to qualify for
assistance;
•
what time limits (if any) are to be imposed on assistance to adults and
what work or participation requirements would be imposed on adults
who reached the time limit;
•
circumstances where rules are varied in a part of the state, so that states
have broad freedom to attempt their own demonstration projects.
Under this approach states would also ha\(,e broad flexibility to design efforts to
boost self-sufficiency. For example:
•
States would have much greater freedom in deciding how to spend their
JOBS funds. Federal rules governing JOBS expenditures would be
minimal so states could determine how best to use their JOBS resources;
•
States could opt to convert AFDC dollars into wage subsidies to create
new employment opportunities for families;
6
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States could opt to extend child care assistance to working poor families
without requiring that the families first enter the welfare system.
This approach would allow much the same kind of flexibility as a block grant,
while retaining the principles that states have a duty to provide cash assistance to
families that qualify under their state plan and that the federal government has a duty
to join in the cost of assistance to eligible families. (In other words, families that meet
the state's eligibility criteria would continue to be entitled to benefits, and states would
retain their entitlement to federal matching funds for these benefits.) Federal rules
would be limited to those where there i~ a clear federal policy interest; in all other
areas, states would be free to establish their own rules. States would describe their
choices in their state plans. A federal role would be retained in gathering information
about state approaches, providing technical assistance to states, and providing for
research and evaluation efforts.
A question may be raised as to what the fiscal impact of this approach would be
on the federal budget. This approach should not entail significant new costs. States are
already free to set AFDC benefit levels wherever they wish, and these benefit levels are
the key determinant of program costs. Why should giving states more freedom on
what counts as income, what work requirements and time limits to impose, and similar
matters have a large impact on costs when states would continue to have to pay their
share of the costs created by the choices they make?
If, however, analysis shows there is some cost, it could be offset through changes
such as those the Administration and various Members of Congress have developed to
pay for their welfare reform bills. Similarly, if a reduction in federal costs of a
particular percentage is insisted upon by federal policymakers, offsetting savings
provisions (or modifications in the federal matching formula) can be designed to yield
these savings. Such an approach ensures that the funding reductions will be limited to
the percentage amount by which federal officials tell states that funding will decline,
without that amount being ratcheted down further in each year's appropriations
catfight. And it would ensure that when need increased in a particular state, federal
funding would increase along with it.
Food Stamps
This approach would not extend to food stamps. Food stamp benefits are 100
percent federally funded, and there needs to be a federal benefit structure.
The national food stamp benefit structure serves important functions. It
. provides the dnly national benefit floor under poor children. The benefit levels are
indexed to food costs, and federal food stamp resources rise automatically when need
increases during recessions or when wages for low-paid jobs erode.
7
�Moreover, the food stamp program is the only major low-income benefit
program that serves all categories of the poor under a single benefit structure in which
the same benefit formula applies to low-income elderly people and to poor families
with children. The fact that reductions in food stamp benefits hit the low-income
elderly along with poor children has provided important protection to poor children
over the years and is one reason food stamp benefits have kept pace with inflation
during the past quarter century, rather than eroding as AFDC benefits have.
Still another of the food stamp program's attributes is that it moderates what
would otherwise be extremely large differences among states in the benefits they
provide to poor children. In states paying low AFDC benefits, food stamp benefits are
greater, since a family's food stamp allotment depends on its income leveL This is of
particular importance for poorer states with limited fiscal capacity and for the poor
children living in these states. For example, the AFDC benefit level in Mississippi is
one-sixth the level in Connecticut; when food stamps are taken to account, the ratio falls
from 6:1 to 2:1.
With food stamps being 100 percent federally funded, there also is another
reason why it would not make sense to authorize states to set their own food stamp
benefit levels and benefit structures. Doing so could lead to sizeable increases in
federal costs.
Thus, the question is how the federal food stamp benefit and financing structure
can be maintained while according states increased flexibility, especially in areas where
food stamp rules cause problems for states. We suggest states be given more flexibility
in certain key food stamp areas.
•
The limitation on food stamp cash-out projects written into the FY 1995
agriculture appropriations bill could be repealed. States could be given
more flexibility concerning the delivery of benefits through coupons,
Electronic Benefit Transfers or cash.
•
States could be given more flexibility in how to use their federal food
stamp employment and training funds. This would enable states to make
changes to increase coordination with JOBS. In addition, states could be
given more flexibility to use food stamps to provide wage subsidies to .
employers.
•
States could be allowed to modify the rules on what counts as income and
resources in the food stamp program so that one set of rules covers
families applying for both AFDC and food stamps. States could modify
these rules just for the portion of their food stamp caseload that receives
8
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AFDC if they chose. Federal review and approval would be needed, but
approval would be limited to assuring that federal costs would not rise.
j"'
This approach provides added flexibility without unraveling the national food
stamp benefit structure that serves as the only national floor under poor children and
the "gap filler" between high-payment AFDC states with strong fiscal capacity and
low-payment states with more limited fiscal capacity. The important role of the food
stamp program in responding to and cushioning the effects of recessions also would be
retained.
Conclusion
This alternative would represent a major departure from current practice. It
would enable states to design their own AFDC programs and to modify their food
stamp programs in certain ways without having the federal government shift costs to
them during recessions or through cuts to fit within a discretionary cap. This approach
would represent a new partnership between the federal government and the states.
This alternative reflects a basic judgment: states should not be forced to take a
block grant to get substantially enhanced flexibility. This approach seeks to provide
that flexibiiity without the major pitfalls involved in block-granting AFDC and food
stamps.
It should be noted that the issue of block granting food stamps arose once before
in the mid-1980s when the Reagan administration and Senator Jesse Helms, then
chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, proposed making food stamps a block
grant at state option. The National Governors Association opposed this proposal,
which was defeated. NGA recognized that even as a state option, this approach was
dangerous for states because it would begin to unravel the fiscal structure under which
the federal government funds 100 percent of state food stamp needs on an entitlement
basis.
.
December 16, 1994
�, Impact of GO~ WelfareRefonn~nd 1995 'Rescissions
,
,.- : , on Children '
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Executive Summary
,I. WELFWREF'oRM '
AFDC/JOBS Block Grant
• Caps and block grants AFDC, JOBS and Emergency Assistance~"
,e
Cuts Federal funds for the p~ograms 'by $S.7billion (in budget' authority)/S years
,(preliminary 'CBO.)
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Child Welfa~ Servi~es Block 'Grant
• ,3 Hou,se committees propose to reduCe chiid welfare spending: '
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" , :-- Ways &MeahS proposes to block grant and subs~tially' redu~ Federal
,.funding for, foster care, and adoption assistance, family preservation and to
consolidate discretionary chiid :welfare service programs; ,
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, -- Labor/HlIS appropriations proposes to rescind over $100 million in 1995;
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, -~, Economic & Educational Opportuniti,es proposes to repeal about $100 ,
, "million in discretionary child ab\1se prevention grants.
'
, • Together,man<bltoryfunding for child welfare,services drops about $2.6 Dillion/S
years (preliminary CBO).(The,bills assume that discretionary spending would,
,increase by $1.3 billion in budget authority.), ' ' . , ,
Child Care
• Education and Economic OpPortuniti~s Committee ~ouldconsOlidate the' four
major child 'care prog~ms and six small Pf9grains under a revised Child Care and
, Development Block Grant.,
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• Reduce funding by $2.1 billion, or 18 percent, in budget authority below the
President's budget over Syeari.
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• Over 300,000 children-could lose child care assistance in 2000.
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Child Nutrition '
• R~ the Nation3.I SchObl ~unch Act and the Child Nutrition Act.'
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• Combine 7 food assistance programs, including WIC, into two bloc.k grants.
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• Capped Federal Junding auth9rization level for both grants repre~nts $6.6 billion'
culovercurrent spending path proposed in the President's budget.
\
• School-Based Block Grant would no longer guaranteefree meal to needy children.
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• The block grants would eliminate the mandatory' national nutrition standards which
ensure. that chi1dr~n ha~eaccess' to healthy meals at school.,
Food Stamps ,
., House proposal calls for' $21 billion in cuts over 5 years -- and about $3 billion 'in
,increased spending due to AFDC cuts -'- for a net reduction of $18 billion over five
years. .
• Eliminates the Food stamp entitlement and replaces it with an annual spending cap.
• 14 million food stamp recipients are children.
,
Supplemental Security Iiicome (SSI)"
:"
.,:Ways & Meari~ Committee mark (starting poini)wo~ld remove estimated 165,000, '
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children from SSI due to tightened eligibility standards and 30,000 adults with ,
substance abuse.
• Total Federal funding ,for diS<lbl~ 'individuals reCeiving benefits would' drop by
over $11 billion ~}Ver five years (CBO preliminary).
• Changes in alien eligibility would reduce
.years."
benefit~by ariother $10 billion over five
.,
,II. 1995 REsCISSIONS
Foster .Care·
• Noted above, HouSe Labor/HHS appropriations proposes to rescind over $100
'.
'million in 1995 from Foster .~are,funding for States.
�Special Supplementat.Nutrltion Program, for Women,. ~ants and Children (WIC),
..
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.' $25 million rescission' from WIC would cut, 'by 600,000, the numb~r of benefit
,
, packages that could be' provided in 1995 and 1996;
• Equivalent to' not serving 50,000 monthly participants for a year, or 100,000 for
" six months.'
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Education Department,
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• Goals 2000 -- About 4,000 Jewer schools in 46 states will receive 'seed money to '
implement reforms based on challenging aeademicstandards. '
'
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.. ' Safe and Drug-Free, Schools and COIDDlUnities .;~ Eliminates pr~gram providing
counseling, instructional and other drug prevention services in 94 Percent of all school
'districts, 'serving 93 perCent of public school children and 82 percent of ail public and
, private' school students~
- '
• FSEA Title I -- $105 millioricut for Grants to Local Educational Agencies could
, depriv~ up to 100,000 educationally 'disadvantaged children of special services'
, . .designed to achieve to challenging academic standards:,
, Labor Department
JTPA Summer Jobs"-~ Eliminate funding for the Summer Y~uthEmployment
Program in summers of 1995 and 1996, wiping 'out job opportunitfes for 615,000
disadvantaged youth in ea\:h summer. "
' ,
Job Corps-- $10 million rescission eliminates DOL's ability to iriitiate four new
, ' residential training centers;': to serve 2,300 severely disadvantaged youth per year
when fully operationru. '
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HouSing and Urban Development Department' .
Assisted HoUsing -- $5~ 7 billion r~~ission will impact 630,000 families with
children.
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will
Homeless Familles-- Rental ass~stance
be reduced and 12,000 horheiess families
with children will be denied assistance.'
J
:National Service
• Cut 15,000 AmericorPs membersfrom the 33,000 Congressauthorize(hmdfund~'
begin service in the latter half of 1995.
to
�'.Examples of National Service activities at risk'of being cut:
, , -- providing thousands of low-income and migrant children with
immunizations; ,
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.:- working with children in eJ)vinmmental clean-up activities;' and
-- working in irtner-city recreation areas 'against drug trafficking.and violence. '
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FROM
TO
R~SCO
P. 1211/1219
OHiee of 1he Alsistant Sdcrstary
DEPAIITMENT OF HEALTH. HUMAN SERVICES
tor Legillation
WastllTl\jlon, D.O. 20201
TO:
MARY 10 BANE
DAVID ELLWOOD
401-4678
690-7383
456-7028
456-2878
BRUCE REED
CAROL RASCO
EMILY HkOMBERG
ANN ROSEWATER
WENDELL PRIMUS
SUSAN BROPHY
PAUL CAREY
401-4678
690-6562
456-6220
456-2604
JANET MURGUIA
456-6221
KEN APFEL
395-5730
456-7028
JEREMY BEN-AMI
AVIS LAVELLE
MEUSSA SKOLFIELD
JOHN MONAHAN
401-4678
,,'1
690·~673
690-5673
690-5672
FROM:
HHSI ASL STAFF (Jim Hickman 690-7627)
DATE:
March 2, 1995
PAGES:
9 (including cover)
Letters Stating the AdIllinistration's Viewpoint on the House 'WllYS and M
Committee Chainnan's Welfare Reform Mark
E: This was forwarded to the House Ways & Means Committee last ·night.
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MRR-02-1995
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10:52
FROM
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THE SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HWAN SERVICES
WAS"INGTOff. I)..C. ·20201
MAR'~
i
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The HonOrable Bill Archer
Cho.irman
Committee on Ways and Means
House of Representatives
Washington D.C. 2051S
Dear Mr. CbaiIman: .
This letter expresses the Admi.nisttation's views on the Chaitman's malk
for welfare tefOrm
legislation Wider oollSidcration by the House Committee aD Ways and Means.
The Administration shares the commitment of the Congress and ~e American people to real.
. welfare reform that emphasizes work, parental responsibility, smte tlexibility, and the .protection
children. Last year, the President submitted bold welfare reform bill, the Work and
, ~bility Aot of 1994, which embodied these values. It if:tcluded tough work requiremen~ .
while providing opportuDities for education,. trBining, child care and supports to working people.
It included a stringent set of child support enforcement provisions..It required ~ teen mother
to live at home, stay in school and identify her baby's. father. It increased state fiexJDility without '.
sacrificing accountability. And it maintained a' basic structure of protectionS for children.
of
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The ~on looks forward to working cooperatively with the Congress in a bipartisan way
to pass bold welfare reform. legislation this year. The Administn;Ltion bas, however, seriOus
concerns about a number of features uf Ihe Chairman's mark that appear tQ undermine the values .
to which we are all committed. The Admjnistration seeks to end welfare. as we' know it by
. promoting work. family and responsibility, not Dy punishing poqr cbil~en for their· parents'
mistakes. Welfare reform will succeed only if it successfully moves' people from welfw:c to
work.
Work
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For years, Republicans and Democrats alike have agreed that the central goal of 'Welfare reform' '
UlUb1 be w~ That is still our goal: People who can work ought to go to work and earn a
paycheck not a welfare check. The AdIDinistration believes that no adult.who is able to work
should receive welfare for an unlimited time without working. The Administration believes that
from the fIrst day someone comes onto welfare, he ot she shuuld be required·to participate injob
search, job placement, education, or training needed to move off welfare and into a job quickly_
It is government's responsihiJity to help ensure that the critical job placement, training, and child
care services are provided. Individuals. who are willing to work should have the opportunity to .
work and not be arbitrarily cut off assistanCe.
�M~R-02~1995
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10:53
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FROM
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Page 2
The Administration therefore has serious conCerns about the CbaUman's mark befon= YOIl:,
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While:: seemingly higher'tlum those in the bill reported out of subcomtilittee,' the,
work standards continue to be weak,and now contain perverse incentives for states
to cut people off, rather than put them to work. Far from requiring stata to,put
people to work, the bill allows states to C01.Ult as "workiug,", pc!SO!1S who were
simply'cut from the welfare rolls for any reason. Cutting people off' welfare is not
the same as putting people to work. In addition. because the bill authorizes the
block grant only through the year 2000, work requirements in the out·years seem
at this point unenforceable and thus more figurative than real. To the extent that
states try to meet the Work standan1s by putting people in jobs rather than cuttiDg
them off, proposed 'fWiding cuts in child care and other programs Would force a
considerable in,crease in state exPenditures' or cuts in benefits.
,0
The proposed legislation provides no assurance of child care to recipients who
work or are prepariIlg luwol'k-evca. if a state' requires them to participate. It
offers promise of child care for those who leave welfare for work or for those
who could avoid falling onto welfare if they had some help with child care. It.
repeals 'provisions of existing law that provide open-ended. funding for ~C8 '
that need child care in order to work or go to school, while the provisions passed
in the mark of the COmnUttee on 'Economic and F.ducational Opportunities
significantly reduce total existing funding for child care and the child care tood '
program. In addition, states may be forced to cut back c:hild care assistance to low
income working families just to meet the child care needs of welfare n:cipicnu..
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The proposed legislation effectively repeals the bipartisan Family SuPPort Act '
signed by President Ronald .Reagan in 1988. It removes any real responsibility of
state welfare systems to provide e4ucation, training and placement services to
move recipients ftQm welfare to work. Indeed, the bill imposes new rest:riQtions
on states which want to provide education or training to move people quickly off
welfare. States should have the flexibility to provide recipients the services they
.need to move from welfare to work as quickly as possible.
.
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The proposed legislation would deay all icdcra1 cash assistance to'most familieS
that ha~e received assistance for more than five years.' Even if the adult· in the
family is unable to find a job or is prevented from holding a job because of
disability or the need to care for a disabled faDilly member, states are prohibited
from exempting from the lifetime limit no more than ten percent of the aseload.
Children,wuuld be seriously jeopardized even if their parents cannot find any work
and are not included in the exemption.
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The .Administration supports an alternative approach that would genuinely tral:IsforDulie weli'are"
system into a transitional system focused OD work. It would have Strict requiIements, on'.
participation and ~lc:w: responsibilities for Slates to provide education, training and placement
assistance; it would have serioUs time limits.after which work would be required; it would ensure
tbat children would not be'left alone When parents were workiDg bj'proVicting assistance for child
care; it would pUt parents to work, not just cat them off; and it would ensure Ihat ~hil~ can
expect support from two patents.
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Pl.I'eDtal RespoQ,Sibility
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The Administration believes that welfare reform should recognize 1be.' respOn!lbility .'8nd .
enooumge the involvement of both parent! in their Children's lives. The AdminiStmtionconsiders
child support enforcement to be an integral part of welfare reform, particularly because..it sends
a strong message to ,young. peOple ·about the ,responsibility of both parents·to support ·their
children. The Administration was pleued when more than one month ago, Chairman Shaw
agreed to add child support enforcCinent to your welfare refonn bill.
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While the new child support proVisions have not been. released. by the Committee" we· do "have
concerns with the one child support provision which is included in the mark distributed thus far:
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,We are troubled by the provision that requires states to reduce payments to
children for the first 6 months if paternity has not been legally established. This
provision seems ineffectual 'and unfair. EveD if a mother fully cooperates by
giving detailed infOnnatioD identifying the father and bis.possible location, and'
even if the state is diligrmt in pursuing the firther. it can easily take 6 months·to
get paternity legally established.
is DO reason why the cbi1dshDulcl be '
punished during this period..
There
The Administration believestbat the welfare system sho'!lld encourage the fOImalion and support
of two-parent' families. The Administration is therefore concerned about an important omission
. in the proposed legislati(>:n:
o
The proposed legislation would encourage the lm:uk-up of families by rcpeoImg
the requirement that states provide cash assistance to two-parent families in which
R parenti~ unemployed or unable to work. It allows states to discriminate against
manied. twOo-parent families by treating single-parent families better than two
parent families.
The Administr~tion supports an approach that both encourageS the fonnation of two-parent
families and makes sure that both parents take responsibility for children in aU cases.
�M~R-02~1995
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Teen Pregnancy
The Administration and the American people agree that (he best reform of weJfare would he to
ensure that people do,.not need it in the first pIace~' Welfare reform must send a very strong
mesSage to young people that they Should not _ pregnant or mtber a child until they are ready
and able to care for that child, and that if they, do have children, 'they will not be able toeseape
the obligations and responsibilities of parenthood. We mUst be especially concerned about the
well-being of the children who are bam to yaUng mothers, since they are very likeJy to grow up
poor.
The Adminlstration ~ore has serious c:oncemsabout the bill before you:
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unmarried mother under 18 as well as to the' parent until the parent is 18 years
old. This provision p1l11ishes and abandons children rather than helping families
to get them on the right track.
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,The, proPu~ legislation would deny all federal eamto any child bom to an
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'The proposed legislation does not require that teen mothers below the age of 18
live at home and stay in school. It weakeos requirements in current law, ~d may
make the prospects for mother and child even, worse.
The Administr~OD supports an alternative 8pproach that would require minor mothers to live at
home, stay in school, make progre.~ towlrd self·sufticiency, and identify the father of the child.
,The Administration also supports a national campaign to prevent teen pregnaney. It is time to
enlist parents 8Jld ch.ie, religious, and business leaders in a coInmunity based' strategy to send a
clear message about abstinence and respuosible parenting. 1'he Administration also mJPPOrts a
state option not to increase benefits for children bam to mothers on welfare.
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State Fle:dbUity with Accountability
The Adminis1::[ation embraces the creativity and responsiveness of states, and' the: opportunities
,for real reform when states have the flexibility to design and administer welfare programs tailored
to their unique circumstances and needs. Already this Administration has granted WfUVCIS to half
the states for ~lfare reform demonstrations.. National weJiare refonn should embody the values
of work. and responsibility in a way that assures taxpayers that federal money is being spent'
prudently and appropriately. For refonn to succeed, the funding mechanisms for welfares~ould
not put children or. states at risk in times of recession,. population inereaseor unpredictable
growth in demand.
In this context, the Administration h8:.~ serious concerns about the proposed l~gislation:
o
While states' now have an option to choose among allocation formulas, the
spending cap in the proposed legisiatioI11l1akes no allowances for potential growth
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in" the need for cash assistance' because of economic do.wnf:l.U:n. or unpredictable
emergencies. There is only a tiny fund to help" adjust for population changes and
a small loan fund from which states can·borrow. These provisions could result in
"states running out of money before· the end of the year, and thus having to tum "
" away working'falnilies who· hit a "bump in the road'· and apply for short·teim "
assistance. It could prec1u4e states from investing in job placernent; in work
. programs, in education &tid training, and in supports for working ~amilies.
o
The proposed legislation removes the requirement that states match federal funds
with their own state funds. With none oftheii- own money at risk, states will have
fewer incentives to spend the funds efficiently and efl:eetively to Improve
performance and iDc~" self-sufficiency.
The Admi~on supports proposals that sigDificant1yincrease state flexibility hut also ensure
accoUIUability for achieving ilational goals. The Administration supports a funding ID.CQhamsm
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that will not put children and states at risk down the road, and that enables states to succeed in
moving people frolD welfare to work ami in. supporting working families. The Administration
has significant doubts about the abilitY of a pure block grant funding mechanism to adequately
"protect both children and states.
Pro_dOlI of Children
The Administtation recognizes that the protection of children is the primary goal both of cash
assistance programs and ofchild welfare and child protective services. Cash assistance programs
assist families to care for children in their own homes. Child prOtection services help those
children who are abused or neglected or at risk of abuse by their parents and who need special
" n-home services or oUt of home placements to assure their safety. Strengthening families, and
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where appropriate; preventing removal of children from their homes also are, key goals of child
protection services. We believe then: are problems in a. number of areas.
Denial of Benefits to Children on AEDC
The legislative proposals that would reform cash assistance have a number of provisions that
would put vulnerable ~hiId.rcn £1t grea.wr risk.
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The legislation would deny cash assistance to teen mothers and their children. to
children born while the parent was on welfare, and to children whose parent bed
received welfare for more than five years, whether or not a job was available or
the parent·was unable to work. The funding caps eould have the effect of denying
cash assistance to children when states used up their allocated funds> for whatever
reasons. Children in low income workingJamilies, who may be forced onto cash
assistance in times of economic c1owntum, could be most affected.
�MAR-02~1995
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Child frotection...Seryices,
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Some of these children could well come into a system of child protection services that is already
seriously overburdened and that is failing tQ proride the most essential services. Reported child
maltreatment and out-of~home placements have bOth been increasing sharply. Many state systems,
are in such distress thnt they 'have been pl~ under judicial oversight. The proposed legislation
responds to these increasingly serious problems by consolidating existing programs that protect
, children into a block grant with nominal federal oversight.' The Administration bas' serious
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conceins about this approach.
o The proposed legislation caps spending for child protection programs at a level
amsiderably lower than baseline projections. This, could lead to uninvestigated
to children being left in unsafe homes.
maltreatment reports,
and
o The proposed legislation etimiDates many important protections now guaranteed to
children in foster care. These protections were put in place to correct situations in which
children were being lost in the foster care system.
o The propoSed lcgilSlaLiun e1tminates the adoption assistance pro~ and leaves
it up to states, whether they will significantly sustain' the subsidies that enable
many special needs children to find permanent homes.
o The proposed legislation virtually elimimites federal monitoring 'and accountability
mechanisms. It mnkes it impossible for the federal govcmmcnt to ensure the
protection of children.
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o The proposed legislation allocates funds to the states under current claiming
patterns. Because of serious imbalances among'the states in spending on child
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protection, it is hard to imagine an allocation that would not disadvantage either
states that have been heavy spenders, or states that are only beginning to .improve
their systemS.
Substantial improvements need to be made in.the child protection system and in the federal role.
in overseeing that system. ('riven the dramatic changes in which other aspects of the Committee's.
mark may have on other support systems for children; the Administration urges caution before
actions are taken that will disrupt the child protection system and, as a result, might seriously
balm millions of children.
DJmial of Benefits to Disabled Children on SSI
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Although modifications have been made to the Subcommittee report, the AdmInistration is still
deeply troubled by the changes proposed in the program designed to help disabled child!en-~SSI.
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SSr. bencfilS for cbildren. Within G
mo~ over one hundred thousand disabled children wOuld fail to gain eligibility
for S8I benefits as well as medical protection. And' in the future, no child, no
The propOsed legislation dnunu.f.k:W,ly
matter how disabled, will be eligibl~ for any cash benefits for 881, except if cash
benefits prevent them from having to be institutionalized. These proposals appear
to pcno1izc parents who arc dotc:rmiued. to care for,their cbild·no matter what·the
economic corisequences for the family, S81 recipients are among the neediest and
most vUlnerable children, in the poorest families.
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Some of the money saved is put into a new block grant for services to disabled
children; This change would shift choice of services frOm families to a new state
bureaucracy that uiay lack sufficient resources to serve children affected. The idea
is untested, and no one knowS what impact it will have on the most vuhlerablc of
children and the parents who· care for, them. The 5-year CUt off in AFDC for all
perSons along .with the elimination of SSI cash· for, disabled children may leave
these children extremely wlnerable.
The Administration sees ,the need for careful reform in this area,. with its potential fOf'serio:us
hunn lIJ CAln:mely vulnerable children. Last year the Co~tt wtablUdlcd
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Comruisxlon un
Childhood Disability to look into these issues in consultation with experts from ,the National
Academy of Sciences. The CommisSion will prOvide its report to the Congress later this
:The Administration believes prudence dictates waiting for this short time until this bipartisan
commission, follo~ a thorough review of 'all aspects of this important program, has· an
oppOrtunity to make recommendations.
year.
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, Benefits to Legal Immigrants
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The Administrau()n strongly. believes that illegal aliens should not be eligible for government
welfare support. But the prohibition of all benefits 'to legal immigrants who are not yet citizens
is too broad, and. would shift substantial burdeDS to state and local taxpayers. These legal
immigrants are required to pay taxes.. Many serve in the armed forces, and contribute to their
communities. The Administration strongly favors a more focused approach of holding sponsors
accountable for th()~e they bring into this oountTy and making the sponsors' commitment of
support a legally binding contract. .
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In summary, the Chairman's mark espouses goals for the reform of welfare-work, parental
responsibility, prevention of teen pregnancy and state flexibility--that the Administration and the·
, American people share. But the translation.of general goals into specific legislation. misses ~e .
mark in fundamental ways. The proposed··legislation does not represent serious work-based
reform. It doea nothing to move people from welfare to woik, and it does Dot n:;qu.ire eVC1'yon.e
whO can work to go to work. It neither holds state bureaucracies accountable nor cushions state
taxpayers against recession. It puts millions of children at risk of serious harm. There are
alternative approaches to refonn that achieve our mutual goals in far more constructive and
. accountable ways.
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The Administration reiterates its commitment to real welfare .reform and its desire. to work
cooperatively with Congress to achieve it. .
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The office of Management and Budget advises that there is no objection to the lrimSmirial ofthis
~to~~
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A similar letter was sent to Representative Sam M. Gibbons and memberS. of the Ways and
Means Committee.
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Sincerely,
Donna· E. Shalala
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March 3, 1995
Honorable Carol Rasco
Assistant to the President
Domestic Policy Council
Old Executive Office Building
The White House
Washington, DC 20500
~(~R
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Dear Carol:
Enclosed you'll find a copy of Work First: A Proposal to Replace Welfare With an
Employment System. This PPI policy briefing presents a radical alternative to cash
entitlements and education and training programs. Our proposal calls for converting the
welfare system into an employment system, using a flexible, state-based system that
relies on performance grants and vouchers. We hope you find it useful.
If you any further questions, or need additional copies, please call Jay Sumner at
(202)547-0001.
Sincerely,
Chuck Alston
Communications Director
518 C Street, NE, Washington, D.C. 20002 202/547-0001
""">5
Fax 202/544-5014
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POLICY BRIEFING
March 2, 1995
WORK FIRST:
A Proposal to Replace Welfare With an Employment System
By Will Marshall, Ed Kilgore, and Lyn A· Hogan
With each passing day, it becomes clearer that welfare reform cannot be
achieved by the old Democratic prescriptions or the new Republican nostrums. Thus
far, neither side has produced a plan that meets the goal overwhelmingly supported
by the American public: helping welfare recipients achieve self-sufficiency through
work. This conceptual paper is intended to fill that crucial gap.
President Clinton's 1994 welfare reform proposal set the right goal but did not
chart a clear path to reach .it. By imposing a two-year limit on unconditional cash
assistance, the plan ended welfare's status as a permanent entitlement and created a
powerful incentive for its recipients to work. But the White House blueprint did not
include a practical means for moving welfare recipients into jobs: Instead, it
maintained and even expanded the existing welfare bureaucracy, pumping more
money into education and training programs that have largely failed to connect
welfare recipients to the world of work and responsibility. While the Clinton plan
offered states significant new latitude to pursue previously tested reforms without
going through the cumbersome waiver process, it did not go far enough in
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empowering the states, the private sector, and welfare recipients themselves to find
imaginative new soh,ltions to welfare dependence.
Though GOP leaders dismiss the President's proposal as insufficiently bold,
they cannot even achieve agreement on the objective of welfare reform. Republican
efforts to craft legislation will either succumb to internal divisions-or achieve unity
at the expense of genuine reform. In either event, Congress needs a clearly focused
alternative that builds on public support for work-based welfare reform and supplies
the resources and incentives to make it happen.
A ltepublican Retreat From Work-Based Reform
Some Republicans support work-based welfare reform in principle; others
accept the more controversial premise that discouraging illegitimate births by cutting
off benefits to unwed teen mothers will break the cycle of welfar,e dependence. Still
The Progressive Policy Institute
518 C Street, NE, Washington, D.C. 20002
202/547-0001
�other GOP leaders, especially among governors, oppose any national reform of the
welfare system, contending that states should take the lead with a minimum of
federal guidance. Meanwhile, all three Republican perspectives on welfare reform are.
cramped by short-range federal budgetary concerns, including the need to generate
savings to pay for promised tax cuts and defense spending increases.
The welfare block grant proposal announced in early January by House and
Senate GOP leaders appeared to endorse the Republican governors' strategy for
reform, explicitly abandoning any national goal for welfare reform other than
reduced federal spending and total latitude for states. Moreover, the proposal
repudiated national work-based reform by freezing federal funding for welfare
related services such as food and nutrition, child care,and employment and
training-'all key building blocks for any strategy to "make work pay" for welfare
recipients.
But the various House committees charged with implementing the overall
block grant plan are steadily subverting the promised state flexibility by inserting a
mixed bag of negative prescriptions, including the Contract With America's ban on
aid to legal immigrants and unwed teen mothers, and weak and ill-defined work
requirements. Still missing in the GOP proposal is any clear and positive national
blueprint for reform.
Thus, even in the supposedly focused and disciplined House, Republicans
cannot produce a logically compelling or internally consistent welfare reform
package. The amorphous legislative product will likely be "block grants" without
flexibility, and an assault on benefits for'immigrants and illegitimate children that
may not survive the Senate-with only a rhetorical nod toward work without any of
the resources or mechanisms needed to make work available.
The one. '~lement of the Republican package that will undoubtedly emerge'
unscathed is tHe block grant funding principle: converting welfare-related programs
from entitlements to discretionary progra~s with funding levels arbitrarily frozen. In
the absence nf any national commitment to fundamental change in the welfare
system, this. step represents little more than a shift of power from federal
bureaucrats to state bureaucrats, done on the cheap. The dismaI result is likely to be
phony welfare reform, achieved through phony devolution.
Refocusing Welfare Reform on Wark
Welfare reform is too critical a task to be sacrificed to Republican disunity on
goals, or Republican expediency on cost. But the President's 1994 proposal, welcome
as it was as a step toward work-based reform, is an inadequate alternative that
supplies too few bridges between welfare recipients and private labor markets, and
too many detours into income maintenance or ineffective education and training
programs.
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The Progressive Policy Institute (PPD Work First plan aims to convert welfare
into an employment system through three main steps:
(1) Abolish both Job Opportunities and Basic Skills (JOBS):-the primary
federal education and training program for welfare recipients, created by the 1988
Family Support Act-'-and Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), and
substitute a Work First employment system that would establish as national policy
that: (a) unsubsidized private sector work is the goal for public assistance recipients;
(b) immediate work experience, not participation in education and trainirig programs,
is the best preparation for permanent employment for the vast majority of welfare
recipients; and (c) all recipients of public assistance should perform some work, with
community service as a fallback. In effect, the time limit for income maintenance
would be zero.
(2) Pool AFDC and JOBS funding, calculated by the current formula but with
a single match rate, to create a performance-based grant that offers financial
rewards to states that succeed in placing and keeping welfare recipients in full-time,
unsubsidized private sector jobs .
. (3) Give states financial incentives to convert a portion of their employment
system dollars into job placement vouchers that welfare recipients-as well as
fathers of children on welfare who might contribute to family support through
work-may use to purchase welfare-to-work services. Such services would comprise
job placement and support, rather than education and training. By putting·
purchasing power directly in the hands of welfare recipients, vouchers would help
stimulate a competitive market for job placement and draw private as well as public
investment.
. The PPI proposal promotes real devolution of decision-making on welfare
reform, not phony devolution by block grants. Our more radical alternative
transforms income maintenance and education and training programs.i!lto a single
flexible, performance~basedgrant that allows states to design individual benefit
packages targeted to what each recipient naeds to quickly enter the workforce. It
also strongly encourages the use of job placei'nent vouchers to bypass federal and
state bureaucracies and place resources directly in the hands of welfare recipients.
This approach supplies unprecedented flexibility to respond to local econoinic
conditions and program characteristics; moreover, it also gives the federal
government a potent lever for reinventing social policy in ways consistent with the
broad public consensus for programs based on work and reciprocal responsibility.
By abolishing the existing AFDC and JOBS programs, this proposal also
simplifies the task of work-based welfare reform. Able-bodied recipients would no
longer be entitled to cash assistance or sp,ecific education and training services for
any length of time. By requiring recipients to pursue private sector job
opportunities-and where necessary, community service work-as soon as possible,
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the new system renders such action-forcing devices as time limits less significant,
arid perhaps even redundant. The presumption would be that the proper time limit
for income maintenance or education and training prior to job placement is not two
years .or five years but zero. In addition, the proposal would allow' states to begin
addressing the "missing link" in welfare reform-absent fathers-by offering job
placement services to noncustodial parents as part of an overall effort to create non'
welfare streams of family income.
The "Work First" Architecture'
/
The first step in work-based welfare reform is to put work first, changing the
current system's incentives to make permanent employment in private sector jobs
the paramount and immediate goal for every able-bodied recipient of public
assistance, with serious COInmunity service work as a fallback option when
necessary. '
Many existing reform plans would f3xpand education and training by
increasing funding for JOBS. Yet careful, intensive studies conducted by the
Manpower Demonstration Research Corp. and other reputable research groups have
concluded that education and training programs produce only marginal results, at
best modestly increasing earnings and de,creasing welfare costs. A recent General
Accounting Office report on JOBS also concluded that it is not well focused on
employment instead concentrating more on participation requirements than on
getting recipients jobs. The research also shows that programs that stress work and
maintain strong ties with the private .sector produce better results. For example,
Riverside, California's work-focused Greater Avenues For Independence (GAIN)
program accounts for 19 percent of all job placements while serving only 4 percent of
the state's caseload.
Private organizations are reinforcing the case for emphasizing job placement
over education and training. Examples include nonprofit orr.;anizationssuch as
Project Match in Chicago, as well :::ts America Works, a for-profit company that has
placed more than 5~OOO welfare' recipients in private jobs at various sites around the
country. The Work First system envisions a healthy competition in welfare-to-work
services among public as well as private entities. Other options might include
temporarily subsidizing private and public sector jobs with cash and food stamp
benefits paid out as a wage as Oregon has done in its JOBS Plus program, and
converting job training funds to loans for microbusinesses.
The Work First Employment System is based on the premise that the vast
majority of those receiving welfare are capable of working if given the opportunity.
Too many welfare recipients are shunted through ineffective education and training
programs, or, worse, given nothing but a check and the option to sit at home. The
system must change. The' Work First system' requires that everyone who can work,
will work.
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The Work First philosophy assumes that labor markets can absorb welfare
recipients if the right supports and links to employers are in place. According to
Gary Burtless, a prominent labor market economist with the Brookings Institution:
With roughly 7 million jobless workers; even at full employment, is it plausible
to expect employers could offer an additional 2-3 million jobs for AFDC
recipients forced to leave the welfare rolls? Surprisingly, most labor
economists probably believe the answer to this question is t'Yes."
Employers can accommodate a new supply of low~skill, low-cost labor. But we
need an employment system that builds a bridge between this potential demand and
the welfare recipients that can supply it. '
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The following elements make up a Work First Employment System:
•
The new employment system would replace the AFDC and JOBS programs,
converting funding for those programs-with additional federal money
allocated by Congress-"into a single flexible, performance~based grant that
allows states to design individual benefit packages targeted to what each
recipient needs to quickly enter the workforce.
•
The new system would give states flexibility to design systems that put
maximum pressure on welfare recipients to seek employment, but it would bar
them from preemptively disqualifying any category of recipients currently
"
eligible for aid, including teen mothers and immigrants. However, states
would have the latitude to make receipt of assistance conditioned on
compliance with its rules (e.g. sanctions for nonwork, time limits, etc.).
•
The pool of money to be used for the employment system would be allocated to
states using anew, single match rate set at 60 percent or the Medicaid match
rate, whichever is higher. The federal match rate for implementing job
placement voucher programs would be set at a higher level to encourage states
to pursue vouchers over other strategies, thus increasing the match rate for
dollars put into vouchers. States would receive" a cash bonus equivalent to six
months of federal funding (i.e., savings) for each welfare recipient placed in an
unsubsidized full-time, private sector job for six months. They could reinvest
this pool of savings in job placement vouchers or other incentives such as cash
bonuses to recipients who find and stay in private jobs and to caseworkers who
excel in job placement.
•'
Applicants for aid would apply at a government office and be evaluated by a
caseworker or case team to determine individual needs. A screening process
would divert those deemed immediately employable from the Work First
system. No unconditional aid would be granted. At any point, a recipient who
turns down a private sector or community service job would be denied access
5
�to further employment services. Severely disabled applicants deemed
unemployable would be moved to the Supplemental Security Income· program.
(1)
(2)
Those not diverted would enter the employment system. States could
require those entering the Work First system to engage in intensive job
search before taking advantage of placement and support services.
Recipients would sign an "employability contract" charting their
individual paths to self-sufficiency through private sector work. A
relatively small percentage of recipients will not be job-ready: people
who can't read, those with serious drug or alcohol problems or a
temporary disability, and mothers with children aged 16 weeks or
younger. All but the last category may be referred to programs that
offer counseling, training, or other services. But everyone, even if they
are not ready for private job' placement, should perform some
community service work.
(3)
•
Those with short-term, one-time emergencies and immediate
employment prospects would receive Temporary Emergency Aid (also
called IIgrant diversion"). Applicants would receive a one-time cash grant
to cope with an emergency such as car trouble or overdue rent. If these
recipients are determined to be in need of further assistance, they will
enter the Work First Employment System at a reduced or zero benefit
rate for a number of months determined by the state as adequate to
repay the emergency grant. Modeled after Utah's grant diversion
program, this approach aims to prevent people from unnecessarily
entering the new employment system.
The Work First employment system would offer job placement services,
but not cash assistance, to the fathers of AFDC children (on the
condition that, once employed, the fathers meet their child support
obligations). In addition, mothers could agree to give their place in the
system to fathers, in a step that may encour2,~e families to stay together
or reunite.
.,
A state could choose to refer recipients to either private intermediaries
offering job placement and support services or to state employment offices
offering similar services ..
•
Private nonprofit and for-profit intermediaries and state offices would offer
subsidized private sector work experience, job placement, and support services
as needed, always with the goal of moving a recipient into full,.time private
sector work. Placement and support organizations would receive payment in
full for performance only; for example, once a recipient has been placed and
retained in a full-time, unsubsidized job for six months, one-third'might be
paid to the intermediary upon three months of job retention, with the
6
�remaining two-thirds paid upon six months of job retention. State employment
agencies could provide job placement and support services in competition with
private intermediaries. Job placement organizations, whether private or
public, would have a strong job development component as well as follow-up
support services to help people stay in their jobs.
Job Placement Vouchers
By giving job placement vouchers directly to recipients, states could tap into
and build a growing market for public and private agencies providing placement and
support services.
Job placement vouchers can reduce costs, improve service delivery, shrink
bureaucracy, and most importantly, empower low-income and unemployed Americans
by giving them the resources to choose their own providers where and when they
need a particular service: The job placement voucher proposal is aimed at
significantly cutting long-term public costs by moving those on public a/iSsistance into
productive private sector jobs. A strong federal cOIl\Illitment to a feasible job
placement strategy is much more cost-effective than any short-term block-and-cut
approach that abandons federal responsibility for welfare reform without supplying
incentives to work.
States would individually set their voucher rates and develop a list of service
providers eligible to redeem the vouchers-including placement agencies and private
employers. The list would be made available to welfare recipients who enter the
employment system and have. completed intensive job search. Recipients would use
the lists to make their service choices. A voucher would offer recipients quick access
to placement and support agencies such as: America Works in New York; the Good
Will Job Connection in Sarasota, Florida; high performance, state-run job placement
programs such as the GAIN initiative in Riverside, California; temporary private
sector work experience supplied by employers and subsidized with income assistance
and a cashed-out food stamp benefit; microenterprise training programs; and other
, employment-based services.
In a full-:fledged application of the voucher approach, state welfare
bureaucracies could be transformed into agents for job placement in two ways: by
performance incentives accompanying federal funds, and by direct competition' with
private providers for voucher benefits.
Additional Elements of a Work First Strategy for Welfare Reform
Aside from changing the incentives of the system from income maintenance
and education and training to job placement, several other steps are necessary to an
overall Work First strategy. First, we must make work pay more than welfare, and
7
�recognize that any work-based reform of welfare is inconsistent with "on the cheap"
approaches that make public assistance more attractive than private sector jobs.
The current system offers most recipients a package of welfare benefits worth
thousands of dollars more than a full-time minimum wage job. Asset limits and
welfare reductions for earned income penalize work and savings. To ensure that
work, not welfare, is the rational choice for men and women alike, even entry level
jobs must always pay more than the package of available welfare benefits. Raising
the minimum wage, however, is the wrong answer, since most minimum wage
earners do not live in poor families. The Clinton Administration in 1993 adopted the
right approach: a $21 billion expansion of the earned incometax credit, a direct
subsidy to low-wage workers. Other changes necessary to make work pay include
toughening child support enforcement, expanding child care support for the working
poor, and providing health care subsidi~s to low-wage workers.
Second, we must develop an empowerment strategy to encourage the poor to
build personal capacities and assets, replacing the paternalistic welfare bureaucracy
as the primary source of income in impoverished communities. To encourage asset
based policies, we must promote saving and remove barriers to asset building, such
as welfare's limits on how much people can earn or save, and housing rules that
raise rents as incomes rise. Individual D~velopment Accounts (lDAs) for low-income
families are a particularly promising device. Like Individual Retirement Accounts for
the .middle class, IDAs would be tax-favored, annual contributions used only for
college, home ownership, retirement,and small business start-up. Individual
contributions could be matched by government, churches,. community groups,
businesses, and unions .
. With adequate asset levels in place, we can pursue policies such as
microenterprise that promote self-employment by making loans for small business.
Based on successful lending projects in developing countries, U.S. microenterprise
ventures tap the latent entrepreneurial talents of poor people, especially women, who
face limited options in formal labor markets.
Third, we must improve child support enforcement, both to supply non
welfare streams of income to children on public assistance and to reinforce the
responsibilities and benefits of parenthood, especially among fathers of children on
welfare.
America's poor children deserve the support of both parents. Yet government
estimates show that families actually collect less than one-third of the court-ordered
payments to which they are entitled. Toughening child support enforcement and
allowing mothers to keep a larger share of child support payments should
dramatically increase collections. This will reduce public welfare costs and give
mothers another source of income, so that even part-time work may be enough to lift
them out of poverty. PPI's Work First strategywould require mothers to establish
8
�•
t
paternity at birth as a condition for receiving public assistance, improve collection
and enforcement of child support orders, and offer access to the employment system
(but not cash benefits) for those non-working fathers who are delinquent in their
,child support payments.
Fourth, we must adopt a comprehensive strategy to prevent teen
pregnancy-combining unambiguous condemnation of irresponsible child-bearing
with community-based solutions that strengthen and support families and reinforce
community values.
PPI urges leaders in public and civic life, as well as in the media, to launch a
national campaign to spread the message that it is morally wrong for teenagers to
have children they cannot support financially or emotionally. We would reinforce
that message with policy changes that end unconditional public assistance for
unmarried teen mothers, hold fathers accountable to their children, and ensure more
swift and certain punishment for sexual predators. At the same time, we should
replace welfare's perverse rewards with a new set of positive incentives for young
men and women to avoid premature parenting and finish high school.
Most importantly, PPI envisions a shift in the primary responsibility for
reducing teen pregnancy from government to community institutions. For example,
we propose creating a network of community-based second chance homes that would
allow teen welfare mothers and their children to live in safe and supportive
environments and provide the structure and discipline they need to finish school and
raise their children. This would provide an alternative to teen mothers~ setting up
separate households or remaining in their parents' homes if those homes are unsafe
or unstable. But it would stop short of punishing teen mothers by denying them
public supports altogether, as House Republicans have proposed.
Conclusion
Genuine welfare reform can occur in this Congress, but only if the debate is
refocused on work-based reform and practical ways to link welfare recipients with
real-life work options. The Work First Employment System is designe'd to tum the
incentives of the current system inside out. It would make private sector work the
primary objective for both recipients and states, giving states accountable
performance standards but great flexibility in achieving them. If implemented in the
context of an overall Work First strategy, .the new system could help deconstruct
welfare and build a new empowerment strategy for poor communities and their
citizens.
Will Marshall is President, Ed Kilgore is Senior Fellow, and Lyn A. Hogan is the
Social Policy Analyst, of the Progressive Policy Institute.
9
�Changes in Federal Law Needed fora Work First Employment
System
.
•
Existing AFDC and JOBS programs would be abolished
and replaced by a single performance-based grant offering
financial rewards to states that succeed in placing and
keeping recipients in private sector jobs.
•
All who would be eligible for the AFDC system under
current rules would remain eligible, including teen
mothers and legal immigrailts; states could offer
noncustodial fathers job placement and support services
but not cash benefits.
•
States would receive funds previously available through
AFDC and JOBS under a new match rate of 60 percent or
the state Medicaiq match rate, whichever is higher, as long
as a Work First system is designed.
•
ThoSe deemed eligible for help would enter and remain in
the employlnent system until they are placed in a privat~
sector job; states would ~e given an option to adopt a
"grant diversion" program of a one-time emergency
payment to those With immediate employment
opportunities needing only temporary assistance to see
them through their emergency. States could require a job
, search before offering placement opportunities to
recipients who are not "diverted" from the system.
•
Any funds used by states to endow job placement vouchers
would be matched at a higher rate, plus states would
receive six months worth of foregone federal payments
(i.e., savings) for each full-time unsubsidized job
placement, as long as each recipient is placed and retained
in the job for six months.
•
States coulq at any point require community service work
from recipients enrolled in the Work First Employment
System.
10
�03/02/95
12:52
. Welfare Reform, Daily Talking Points
Thursday March 2. 1995
f
A FAILING GRADE
Today, the House Ways and Means Committee continues to mark up its new
welfare reform bill. This proposal, weak on work and cruel to kids, is 'not real
reform ~~ and we've given them a midterm report card that proves it. On the
welfare reform front, the House Republicans are light.years away from the honor
roll. In a speech to the Child Welfare League today, Secretary Sha,lala gives them
the following grades:
,
o
. An "F" on work. To move people from welfare to work, you nee,d both
tough expectations ~ clear pathways of 'opportunity. The House
Republicans claim that they require 17 percent of recipients to be invorved in
"work-related" activities by the.year 2000. But, they count people who are
dumped off the welfare rolls as "working." Since when is getting cut off the
same as working? Not since the Reag'an Administration called ketchup a
vegetable have we seen such fundamental distortions.
o
An "Ati for cruelty to kids. WefflJre reform must be about strengthening
families - not tearing them apart or writing them off. Our goa'( must be to
lift people up, not'punish them because they happen to be poor or young .
... We need to be tough - !lSl.t cruel. Crue' Is the only way to describe
proposals to abolish nutrition programs for children. Cruel is the only way to
describe plans to reduce assistance to thousands of abused, neglected, and
abandoned children. And, cruel. is the only way to describe denying benefits
to children of teen mothers.
',
'.
,
o
A "C" on responsibility. You can't reform welfare without tough child
support provj~ions -- and, we were, surprised that the initial House
.
Republican bill was silent on the issue. They keep promising the language
will be there _. but it still has not been introduced. Unfortunately, what little
we have seen suggests that they still have a long way to go~
,
o
·An "Incomplete" on ending·welfare as we know it. Incomplete because they
have shown no clearvision. fncomplete because they have shown no true
commitment. And, incomplete because ,they have shown some - but not
enough -- willingness to work together for common-sense solutions. We
believe that meaningful reform must be about moving people from welfare to .
w()rk. It must be about a paycheck -- not a welfare check. And, it must
reinforce the core values of work, responsibility, and reachihgthe next
generation.
".
�~UUI/UV.L
03/03/95
03/03/95
12:19
11:37
ft
~202
e90 5673
HHS-PUBLIC AFFAI
Welfare Reform Daily Ta,lking Points
Friday, March 3, 19~5 '
'fiTOUGH ON KIDS AND EASY ON GUYS"·
Today, the House Ways and Means Committee will finish its markup of a bill that
manages to give "welfare ,reform" a bad name. In drafting a plan that is tough on
kids and weak on work, Committee Republicans have, in the words of
Representative Barbara Kennelly of Connecticut; been "easY,on guys," adding as
an afterthought 'J\!hat should be a centerpiece of welfare reform: aggressive child
support enforcement. In a letter to theChalrrnan of the Ways and Means
Committee yesterday, President Clinton urged Republicans to make good on their
commitment to pass tough child support.
Here's why:
o
O.
Not enough enforcement. While the Republicans have now picked up many.
of the President's suggestions, they have forgotten one essential means of : .
collecting support, suspending driver's and professional licenses. President
. Clinton has a different message for struggling families owed child support:
"If absent parents ar,en't paying child support, we will g~rnish their wages,
suspend their licenses, track them across state lines, and if necessary, make
them work off what they owe."
o'
\
,Not enough commitment. Critical elements to comprehensive child support ..
include· qenying welfare benefits to any unwed ·mother who does not
cooperate fullyin identifying the father, supporting powerful measures for
tracking interstate cases, and enforcing serious penalties for parents who
refuse to pay what they owe. As Secretary Shalala said in her speech
yesterday, "'t is simply not acceptable for parents to walk away from the.
children they helped bring into this world."
o"
\
Governments don't ~aise children, people do. As Presiden,t -Clinton wrote to
Chairman Bill Archer of Texas, "When absent parents don't provide support,
the inevitable result is more welfare, more poverty, and more difficult times
for our children. It is ,essential that all Americans understand that if they
parent a child, they will pe held responsible for· nurturing and providing for
that child."
Still barely a "C. n "You can't reform welfare without tough child support
provisions," Secretary Shalala told the Child Welfare League yesterday, "and
frankly, we were surprised that the initial House Republican bill was silent on
the issue." Republicans have learned a little in the past week, but the time
is now to crack down on absent parents. As Secretary Shala'a said.
yesterday, Republicans barely get a "C~' on this issue.
�.'
REPUBLICAN FOOD AND NUTRITION CUTS
Facts and Figures - as of March 3, 1995
L
Food Stamp Proposal
Status: House Agriculture Committee will mark up on Tuesday March 7.
Information on exact proposal still sketchy. Following information drawn from USDA, AP,
FRAC, CBPP, OMB and other indirect sources.
Elements of Republican Proposal
Some of the elements of the plan seem to be:
Cut Food Stamp spending by approximately $16 billion over 2 years
May limit indexation for inflation of benefits, asset limits, other aspects of. program
Will limit benefits to able bodied single adults (without kids) between 18 and 50
requiring work as a condition of benefits after 90 days. Could cut off people willing
to work and play by the rules
o Will further restrict legal immigrants' access to food stamps
o. Will allow block grant of food stamps to states that move to eleCtronic benefits
systems (EBT) -- removing federal. safety. net in those states.
o Could restore the annual cap on expenditures that was repealed in 1990.
o
o
o
o Will include $500 million increase in funds for soup kitchens, other food programs
II.
Other Food and Nutrition Block Grants in Welfare Reform
Status: The House EEO Committee last week marked up its pieces of welfare reform
including combining school lunch, WIC and other nutrition programs into two block grants.
Impacts:
T~e
Republican proposal:
Reduces funding for child nutrition by $7 billion over 5 years -- $1.3 billion from
school based programs, and $5.3 billion in the family nutrition block grant.
o . Block grants would allow up to 20 percent offunding to be .used for other purposes,
posing further potential cut in child nutrition programs.
o Latest CBPP estimate: WIC would be able to serve 168,000 less ~omen, infants and
children in FY96 than this year.
o
�o
o
Major WIC impact could be elimination of the Infant Formula Rebate which. could
cost $1 billion annually, impacting as many as 1.6 million mothers and children every
month.
Eliminates national standards, increases state exposure to economic downturn,
penalizes states that provide more subsidized meals since funding based on total meals
~~
. 0
o·
III.
.
Ends entitlement to school lunch and breakfast, Child and Adult Care Food Programs
and Summ~r Food Programs.
,
Child and adult care and summer food programs would be hardest hit. Block grant
reduces non-WIC programs by 45 percent from our proposed FY96 funding.
House Rescission Package
Status: The House Appropriations Committee has approved a rescission package for
FY95 that would cut WIC by $25 million. In a six month period, $25 million would fund
service~ to 100,000 mothers and children.
Important Note: The WIC program generally ends the year with unspent funds.
These get rolled over to the next year. The rescission would not directly cut off funds to
mothers and children this year, but will have the impact of reduced availability of funds
overall in future years.
I .
�~4~b'(4)]
HUM USUA-F
f'UUUUU~
TALKING POINTS
REPUBLICAN FOOD STAMP BWCK GRANT PROPOSAL
MARCH 3, 1995
The Food Stamp Block Grant proposal unveiled yesterday by House Committee on Agriculture will eliminate
the national nutrition safety net for children and families. The bill would cut $16 billion out of nutrition benefits
for people who need them, render the Food Stamp Program unrecognizable, and make program administratioD
unmanageable. Based on our initial analysis, this proposal will:
Eliminate the national nutritional safety· net
o
,The bill is a double· hit on children; last week, the House Ways and Means Committee reduced
nutrition benefits to children at school; this week the House Agriculture Committee takes aim
on children at home.
'
,
o
The bill will dramatically reduce nutrition b~mefits to people who need them immediately. and
then cap expenditures in future years, eliminating the automatic adjustor in hard times. It will
erode the nutritiOD support for needy families by failing to keep pace with inflation.
Eliminate national eligibility and benent standards
The proposal allows individual sti\tes to design Iheir own eligibility and henefit 5tandards. This
bad idea could result in needy families being treated in ftfty different ways. under ftfty different
state programs, using fifty different eligibility standards, and receiving fifty different levels of
benefits, depending on where tbey live. Basic nutrition needs 'are the same no matter where
a family Lives; benefits should reflect that. le~dership.
o
Elhnlnate economic responsiveness
o
By placing a hard cap of program expenditures in future years and creating an optional block
grant. this bill eliminates the ability of nutrition programs to respond to changing economic
circumstances.
o'
In the next recession, the Food Stamp Program will not be there to 'cushion hard times in
affected communilies and States. And benefits won't keep pace with inflation .
. Undermines a national, unlronn EBTsystem
o
This proposal allows every State to pursue their own independent path to EBT. It even
requires the Secretary to waive any provision of the act that a State claims hinders their ability
to implement EST.
.
Proposes unworkable work requirements
o
The Republican bill proposes a work requirement program that holds nutrition programs
hostage to jobs that may not exist
Is weak on fraud
o
This proposal is not as tough oil eriminals who defraud the Food Stamp Program as the
Administration's proposals unveiled two days ago.
Ignores the distinction between nutrition programs and income security programs
o
Nutrition programs are different from income security programs; they produce different results,
and should be measured on different standards.
o
Sixty years ago, FDR's aide responsible for designing a relief program to help victims of the
Depression, understood that difference. Harry Hopkins was testifying before a Congressional
committee chairman who didn't believe food assistance was as important as strategies to help
the economy "in the long run." "That's the difference. Senator," he said. "People don't eat in
the long run. They eat every day."
�~31a2/95
09:03
.rll 001
HHS OS ASPE 415F
U202 690 7383
-r-o~~~~(
f " 0 r'V\ ~'Y\.AJ~c; \ -
Dear Chairwan Archer.
·1 am.writing to reiterate my strong position that comprehensive child support enforcement·
legislation be ulcluded as an iotegral pari of welfare reform. It is essential that all Am~Iicans
W1dcrstand that if they parent u child, they
be held responsibile for fJ.urturing and providing for
their off,>pring. Ids patticularly disrurhing that so many noncustodial parents simply avoid their
, responsibilitY to provide support. The inevitable result is more welfare, more poverty, and 'more
llifficu1t timC;.:s for ourchildcen. I know :we both. agree that we are sending the worst possible
message to our children if we say that parental responsibility ends if a parent does not live with
the child. At the Working Session on welfare Refonn at Blair House. there was near unan:imlty
that clear national standards were essential for effective child slIpport enforcement.
""ill
I wns (Illite disappointed that child SUppOI1 eufol'cemetlt Wi!; not included in the original welfare
reform proposal. So I was pleased \,,/hen Chainnan Shaw indicated his intention to .include
enforcement in the bill produced in Subcommittee. Unfortunately~' there w~s no language
included in the Subcommittee mark~ and language was. promised for full coJlllIlittee. I lml'ierSland
you arc trying to complete wo'rk on language soon to indudeserious child support enforcement in
the full committee bill. I W'ge you to complete:work as q\uckly as possible_ We very much want
to work in a bipartisall, way VVitll the Committee 00 this central issue, but time is running short.
111crc are already a number of bills including the one offered by Nancy Johnson and Barabara
KeMelIy which are very similar to the meamres I -introduced with the Administration welfare
reform bill last year. These bills can and should serve as the toundation for any effort to reform
child support. Critical eleulenis include cltmying welfare benefits to nny unwed mother who docs
.
!lot cooperate fblly in identifYjn.g tile father, powerfu1 ~~r trackin.g interstate cases,
sClioU5 pcnalties--including immediate wage withholding;w,q.Hsence··~spensions-.for paTents ~o .
refuse to pay what they owe. And we must indude both the p'eiTl"Inl'l-ance: incentives and
resources states oeed to do the job right.
I believe this is' the time to finally getting serious about child support in this country. Tlook
. forward to working with the Committee to ensure the job is done right.
\
�NATIONAL .
GOVERNORS'
;;
..
Howard Dean. M.D.
Governor of Vermont
Chair
ASS<D:IATION
Tomm,' G. Thompson
Go"ernor ofW'isconsin
Vice Chair
,
.
R.a\·mond C. Scneppacl;
execuu\'e Dire~((lr
( ~
Hall of the State,
444 l'orth Capitol Street
Washinglon, D,C, 2000 ).) 'i 1~
Telephone (201) 624·5.'00
. ..:..
",,'
,
,-~
,
February 23. 1995
The Honorable Bill Arch,er
Chainnan
Committee on Ways and Means
United States House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear Mr: Cbainnan:
o
We are writing to expressour views on the Personal 'Responsibility Act, as amended by the
Subcommittee on Human Resources." The Governors appreciate the willingness of the
subcommittee to grant states new flexibility in designing cash assistance and child welfare
programs. We are concerned about a number of the bill's provisions. how~ver, that limit state
fl~xibility or shift federal costs to states.
The Governors believe Congress has at this moment an enormous opportunity to restructure the
federal-state relationship. The Governors urge Congress to take advantage of this opportunity
both to examine the .allocation of responsibilities among the levels of government and to
maximize state flexibility in areas of shared responsibility. We believe. however, that children
must be protected throu~out the restructuring process. 'In addition, although federal budget
cuts are needed, the Governors are concerned about the cumulative impact on the states of
federal budgetary deCisions. The Governors view any block grant proposal as an opportunity
for Congress and the president to provide needed flexibility for states, not as a primary means
to reduce the federal budget deficit.
The Governors have not yet reached consensus on whether' cash and other entitlement
assistance should remain available, as federal entitlements to needy families or whether it
should be converted,to state entitlement block grants. We do agree, however, that in either case
states should have the flexibility to enact welfare' reforms without having to request federal
waivers.
Federal Standards for Block Grants
If Congress chooses to pursue the block grant approach proposed by the Human Resources
, Subcommittee, the block grants should include a clear statement of purpose, including mutually .
agreed-upon goals for the block graJ?t and the' measures that: will be used .to judge the
effectiveness of the block grant.
�Page 2
Cash Assistance Block Grant
The Governors believe that a cash assistance block. grant for families must recognize the
,
.
nation's interest in:
"
.
•
•
•
,~"'
...
.. '.
"
services to children;
moving recipients from welfare to work; and
reducing out-of-wedlock births.
Although the Governors recognize the legitimate interest of the federal government in setting
broad program goals in cooperation with states and territories, they also believe that states
should be free from prescriptive federal standards.
We appreciate the flexibility given to states in the bill to design programs, to carry forward
program savings, and to transfer funding between block grants. We must oppose, however,
Title I's prohibitions on transitional. cash assistance to particular families now eligible for help
·and ask instead that states be given the authority to make these eligibility decisions themselves.
Some states may want· to be more restrictiv~ than the bill-by conditioning aid on work, for
example, sooner than two years-while other states· may decide it· is appropriate to be less
restrictive.
The federal interest should be limited to ensuring the block grant is used to aid low-income
children and families. In the past fedei"al restrictions on eligibility have served to con~ .
federal costs given the open-ended entitlement nature of the Aid to Families with Dependent
Children program. Such restrictions have no place, however, in a capped entitlement block
grant where the federal government's costs are fixed, regardless of the eligibility and benefit
choices made by each ·state.
Similarly, while Governors agree that there is a national interest in. refocusing the welfare
system on the transition to work, we will object strongly to any efforts to prescribe narrow
federal work stan~s· for the block grant. The Governors believe that all Americans should be
productive members of their community. There are various ways to ac~ieve this goal. The
preferred means is through private, unsubsidized work in the business or nonprofit sectors. If
the federal government imposes rigid work standards on state programs, such standards could
prove self-defeating by foreclosing some possibilities~ such as volunteering in the community,.
that can be stepping stones to full-time, private sector jobs. A rigid federal work standard
would also inevitably raise difficult issues about the cost and feasibility of creating a large
number of public jobs, and the cost of providing child care for parents required to work a set
number of hours a week in a particular type of job.
. Child Protection Block Grant
Governors view the child protection block grant as overly prescriptive and urge Congress to
refocus it on achieving broad goais, such as preserving families, encouraging adoption and
protecting the health and safety of children. We also oppose the mandated creation of local
�Page 3
citizen review panels. We believe that it is inappropriate for the federal government to dictate
the mechanism by which' Governors consult the citizens of their state on state policies.
Block Grant Funding ).
We appreciate the subcommittee's willingness to create ,block grants whose funding level is'
guarant~ over five years rather than being subject to annual appropriations. It is essential.
however, that block grants include appropriate budget adjustments that recognize agreed-upon
. national priorities, inflation, and demand for services. The cash assistance block grant does not
include any such adjustments for structural growth in the target populations. , While some
growth is built into funding for the child protection block grant, it is not clear whether it will be
adequate especially given that states are likely to be required by the courts to honor existing
adoption assistance contracts. Governors will continue to protect abused and neglected
children by intervening on their behalf and we believe that federal funding must continue to be
available for these services.
Governors also ask that any blOCk grants include funding adjustments to provide for significant
changes in the cyclical economy and for major natural disasters. An additional amount should
be set aside each year for automatic and timely distribution to states that experience a major
disaster, higher-than-average unemployment, or other indicators of distress. While the bill does
prove to be an
include a federal rainy day loan' fund, we are concerned that this loan fund
inadequate means of addressing sudden changes in the need for assistance. States experiencing
fiscal problems will not be able to risk taking out' federal loans that they may not be able to
repay. Furthermore•. one billion dollars over five years may not be sufficient if many states
experience economic downturns or natural disasters at the same time. as was the case with the
last recession or with the midwestern floods. rmally. an unemployment rate in excess of 6.5%
~y not be a sufficient proxy for identifying increases in need and should not be the sole
trigger for increased aid.
will
We also urge the committee to change the funding base year and formula for the two block
grants. We ,believe that initial allotments to states for the cash assistance and child protection
block grants should be the higher of a state's actual funding under the consolidated programs in
fiscal 1994 or,a state's average funding during fiscal years 1992 through 1994. This change
would help protect states with recent caseload growth from receiving initial allotments far
below actual need.
Accountability in Block Grant Pr9grams
We believe that block grants should include a clear statement of purpose, including mutually
agreed-upon goals for the block grant and the measures that, will be used to judge the
effectiveness of the block grant. We are concerned. however, that the reporting requirements in
both the cash assistance and child protection block grant go far beyond what is necessary to
monitor whether program goals are being achieved. We encourage the committee to restrict
reporting requirements to outcome and pe,rformance data strictly related to the goals of the
program. and hope that those reporting requirements can be mutually agreed upon by Congress.
the administration. and ourselves.
�Page 4
.,
We agree that states should be required louse the block grant funding to provide services for
children and their families. We do have questions, though, about how broadly the bill's audit
provisions would be applied. Would the audit process be used, for example, to determine
whether the block grant goal of assisting needy children and families was being achieved? We
.would also suggest that rati)er than the federal government reclaiming audit exception fu~ds,
that these funds remain available to a state for allowable services to families and childrer;t.
Implementation
Governors also ask Congress to recognize that moving to a block grant structure raises many
implementation issues. Almost every state is operating at least one welfare waiver project. We
believe that states with waivers currently in c;;ffect should have express permission either to
continue their waiver-based reforms, or to withdraw from the waivers, and be held harmless for
any costs 'measured by waivers' cost neutrality provisions. Savings from individual state's
waivers should be included in the state's base. Some states have negotiated a settlement to
retain access, subject to state match, to an agreed upon dollar amount of waiver savings.
Legislative. language converting AFDC to a block grant should not terminate these agreements
and thereby preclude states from drawing down the balance of these previously negotiated
amounts.
Implementation of block grants would also pose enormous difficulties for state information
systems, and we are concerned that there may not be sufficient funding or lead time to allow
states to update these systems as necessary to implement the legislation. While states that are
ready should be able to implement any new block grants as soon as possible, other states should
be allowed at least one year after enactment to implement the new programs. We also believe
.that a consultative process. between Governors, Congre'ss and the administration would be
necessary to ensure that the transition to a block grant system is made in an orderly way and
that children's needs continue to be met during the transition.
Federal Aid to Legal Noncitizens and Federal Disability Benefits
The Governors oppose the bill's elimination of most federal services to legal noncitizens. The
elimination of federal benefits does not change any state's legal responsibilities to make
services available to all legal immigrants. Policy adopted by the Governors clearly states
that since the federal government has ~xclusive jurisdiction over our nation's immigration
policy, all costs resulting from immigration policy should be paid by the federal'
government. This bill w9u1d move the federal government in the opposite direction, and
would shift subs~tial'costs to states.
The Governors also oppose the bill's changes to the Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
program. We recognize that the program is growing at an unacceptable rate, and that serious
problems exist regarding the definition and diagnosis of disabilities. The changes in the bill go
far beyond admessing those problems and represent a substantial and unacceptable cost shift to
states. The Governors believe that Congress should wait for the report of the Commission on
Childhood Disability before acting to change eligibility for disability benefits to children: We
�•
•
PageS
also ask that Congress allow last year's amendments regarding the substance abuse population
to be implemented before enacting new changes in that area. If changes inSSI are enacted that
deny benefits to hundreds of thousands of families imd children. the result may be a sharp
'increase in the need for aid from the new cash assistance block grant at a time when those funds
would be capped.
Thank you for your consideration of our views on the first four titles of Chairman Shaw's bill.
We are also reviewing the child support provisions and will be forwarding our comments on
them to you separately. '
. Sincerely.
}I~4-
'"'
Governor Howard Dean, M.D.
Chair
')
ahc~
,ov=orJO~!
Gov~:
Co-Lead
Co-Lead Governor on Welfare
Z/&l' '
Governor Mel Carnahan
Chaif
Human Resources Committee
Welfare
\\ \.,,~~
~r
.
Arne H. Carlson
Vice Chair
Human Resources Committee
�Talking Points
_USDA's Food Stamp Program Anti-Fraud Initiative
March I, 1995
<
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For over 20 years USDA's Food Stamp Program has been the cornerstone of our nation's fight
against hunger" and malnutrition. It gets food to people who need it, especially children and
needy families. Unfortunately, retailers and individuals who abuse the program by illegally
trafficking food stamp benefits have Wldermined the program, and hu:i:tthe people it serves.
I
Over the past two years the Clinton Administration has made restoring public trust in government
a top priority. As part of the Administration's comprehensive strategy to reinvent the Food
Stamp Program, the A~inistration is today asking Congress for broad new powers to counter
attack those who have exploited the program.
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The measures we are taking, involving both legislative and administrative changes, represent a
three-tiered attack on trafficking. involving: 1) pre-authorization screening; 2) post-authorization
controls, and 3) stiffer penalties. Details follow:
'
Pre-Authorization Screenin&: Participation of retailers in the program is a privilege, not a
right.
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We will cut fraud and abuse off at the source. Any form of trafficking-~the exchanging
of food stamp benefits for cash--must, sooner or later, involve a corrupt retailer who is
authorized to -reo.eem food stamp benefits. USDA is going to tighten retailer requirements
to keep fake or illegitimate stores from becoming authorized.' Retailers will have to
. provide better documentation of their legitimacy up-front. And they may be subj~ct to
provisional authorizations of short periods to give USDA time to make sure they clearly
meet requirements.
<
Post-Authorization' Controls: If a retailer abuses the privilege of participating in the Food
Stamp Program, that privilege will be revoked.
We will enhance our monitoring ofauthorized retailers by moving quicker on suspensions,
accessing more ~nformation from more sources. about business and tax integrity, and
tracking' stores using better technology.
!
Stiffer Penalties: Violations of the public trust should be punished.
I
We will impose tougher penalties on r~tailers and reCipients convicted of ripping off the
program. Property over $5,000 used in, or derived from, felony food stamp transactions
will be forfeited to the government. Evidence such !itS food stamp. redemptions that
-exceed reported food sales or highly suspicious account records avail~ble on electronic
benefit transfer systems ~ll be used to suspend or debar retailers. Ret~ilers and all those
in cahoots with them on trafficking schemes will be punished more severely. Food ,stamp
clients who sell their benefits will face tougher penalties as well.
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Fact Sheet
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USDA's Food Stamp Program Anti-Fraud Initiative
March 1, 1995
The Department of Agriculture today outlined a major initiative that will continue its push to
eliminate fraud in the Food Stamp Program.
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In letters to House Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts and ranking house
Agriculture Committee Minority member E (Kika) de la Garza, Acting Secr~tary of
Agriculture Richard Rominger proposed changes giving the Department authority to impose
tighter controls to ensure that retailers do no cheat the program, and tougher penalties if they
do so.
'
The $27 billion Food Stamp Program, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture ,
through its Food and Consumer Service, helpsput food on the table for more than 27 million
American in 11 million households every day. It provides low-income hous~holds with
coupons that can be redeemed at most food stores to ensure that people have: access to a
healthy. nutritious diet.
'
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,
Under program rules, only people who hav~ been determined to be in need o:f food help
because of low income and limited resources can use food stamps. Only those. businesses that
have been authorized by USDA can accept them.
The initiative announced today, which involves both legislative' and administiative changes,
constitutes a comprehensive strategy developed in cooperation between USDA's Food,
,Nutrition and Consumer Services, the office of the Inspector General, state partners, members
ofCongress, and industry groups that speak for thousands of honest retailers :who share the
Department's commitment to program integrity.
The powers USDA is set:king represent a three-tiered attack on trafficking, involving 1) pre
authorization ,screening, 2) post-authorization controls, and 3) stiffer penaltie~. ,Details follow:
Pre-Authorization Sc~eening: Participation of retailers 'in the program is: a privilege, not
a right. The Department's proposal wiil cut fraud and abuse off at the sourqe. Any form of
trafficking--the exchanging of food stamp benefits for cash-.:.must, sooner or later, involve a
corrupt retailer who is authorized to' rede~m food stamp benefits. USDA is going to tighten
retailer requirements to keep fake or illegitimate stores from becoming authorized by -
• Requiring applicant retailers to provide sales and income tax filing documents and written
'
permission for all tax filings to be verified with other agencies.
• Requiring retailers to permit USDA to obtain corroborating documentation from
'
.independent sources to verify store legitimacy.
• Establishing a six~month waiting period before stores that initially failed to meet'
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�authorization criteria can reapply.: This will reduce the participation of retailers who
temporarily stock a store to meet minimum requirements solely to be authorized.
,
..
.
.. Setting time limits for retailer authorizations, including shorter periods (e.g.,' six months)
to permit provisional authorizations during which time USDA could determine with
greater certainty whether a firm meets all requirements.
Post-Authorization Controls: If a retailer abuses the privilege of participating in the
Food Stamp Program, that privilege will be revoked. The Department's proposal will
enhance monitoring of authorized retailers by -
•
Suspending violating retailers from the program while their cases are pending.
administrative and judicial review. This will eliminate the ability of stores to continue to
abuse the program during the appeals process.
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• Allowing USDA to determine the length of time the store ?,ould be barred or removed
from the program when stores are found to have business integrity problems, such as
convictions for embezzlement, insurance fraud, etc. ,
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• Allowing USDA to share social security and employer identification numbers of retailers
with appropriate state investigation .and law enforcement agencies. This will enhance
USDA's ability to cross check .data and helps detect illegal activity.
Stiffer Penalties: Violations of the pubUc trust should be punished. The Department's
proposal will impose tougher penalties on retailers and recipients convicted of ripping off the
.
program' by - - '
.. Subjecting to forfeiture any property used in, or derived from, felony foo4 stamp
transactions which involve violations of $5,000 or more.
..
Allowing USDA to suspend or debar stores based on evidence such a. food stamp
redemptions that exceed reported food sales or highly suspicious account records available
on el~ctronic benefit transfer systems.
• Disqualifying retailers that have ,been disqualified from the
"
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!
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• Requiring states to collect outstanding claims against households arising from fraud and
inadvertent household errors by offsetting federal income tax refunds..
• Doubling the penalties against clients who engage in fraud.
2
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.. . Permanently disqualifying retailers who intentionally submit a falsified application.
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For 30 years,the Food Stamp Program has been the comerstone of our nation's fight
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against hunger and malnutrition. It gets food to people who need it, especially children' and
/
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needy' families. 80 percent of the 27 million Americans receiving food stamps in 11 million
households are children. USDA is justly proud of the nutrition and health gains made
because of the program.
I
But, the positive health outcomes achieved by Fooq Stamp recipients are not the only
.
:
reality of the program.
The American public
j
is legitimately concerned by fraud "and abuse in
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the Food Stamp Pro~am. Those pr~fiting by this crime steal more than mo~ey and
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. undermine public trust. They steal food out of the mouths of child~en and needy families.
President Clinton and USDA wiIlnot tolerate the criminal diversion of food stamps.
I
For two years, USDA has explored every aspect of the program, designing refonns to. make it .
more accountable to taxpayers. This Administration is
oppose~
to block-granting nutrition
.
i
programs because they are' in the national interest. Recent reports that Congrrss will retain
,
.
the Food Stamp Program is an important step forward. What is needed now is
a concerted
effoCt to prevent fraud and defend program integrity as we reform the entire program.
Together with the Inspector General, we identified the problems. We; consulted with
'
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retailers, recipients and local program operators. We worked with state and local law
enforcement officials. We met with and listened to Congress.
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Today, we are taking to Congress to support a bold legislative proposal that is a key
part of the redesign and refoml of the Food Stamp Program. Our plan will prevent fraud
. and abuse by cutting it off at the source..
This initiative is a practical, comprehensive three~tiered attack on trafficking.
First, pre-authorization screening. Retailer participation in the program is a
privilege not a right. We will prevent fake stores from being certified. Retailers will have
to document their legitimacy up-front and may have to wait 6 months while
.
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out.
We
check the~
.
.
We will limit auth.orization periods and frequently check to make sure'retailers meet,
ptogram requirements.
.
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Second, post-authorization controls. We improve cooper:ation, coJrtmunication and
sharing of documen~s with our State and Federal law enforcement partners. Retailers
violating the rules will be. immediately suspended. Retailers with' tax fraud, insurance fraud,
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or embezzlement problems will be excluded from the Food Stamp Program. ' .
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Finally, stiffer penalties., Property valued at over $5,000 obtained tIP-ough food
stamp fraud wiilbe forfeit to the government. We will suspend and debar re~ailers.with
excessive redemption records and suspicious account activities identified thrc)~gh Electronic
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Benefit Transfer systems. .Retailers disqualified by other USDA programs wiil be kicked- out,
and we will permanently disqualify those who submit false applications. We will double the
pena'lties for recipients who traffic. in food stamps.
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·. This initiative· is more than an incremental change or a slap on the wrist. It'is a tough,
1
serious package of reforms necessary to stem food stamp fraud and strengthen public trust.
We look forward to working with Congress and passing legislation giving USDA the tools
neede~ to confront food stamp traffickers and criminals,and punish them for their crimes.
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03/01/95.......
16:41
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1.1995
Welfare Reform DallV Talking Paints
Wednesday, March 1, 1995
--DUMB AND DUMBER" ,
Today,the House Ways and Means Committee begins marking up its new we'lfare
reform proposal. Although the bill has been slightly modified, its basic structure
'remains the same. The bill still punishes innocent children and does nothing to .
move their teen mothers towards serf-sufficiency•. WiII the Republicans ever learn?
o
Still ~'xtreme •. Although they've slightly changed the provision, the bill still
bans cash assistance to teen mothers and their children. Even Republicans
acknowledge that their proposal Is off the mark: "Just bocause a woman .
made a mistake when she v.-8S, young." Representative Nancy Johnson said
yesterday, "doesn't mean that she ,and the child should be penalized for
life." And now Republicans have added an "illegitimacy bonus" that. as
Representative Stark pointed out, would give states a bounty for reducing
access to abortion
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Stili stupid. Denying assistance to a 'teenage mother won't do anyU"ling 'to
move her toward self-sufficiency. Our approach would .. It conditions aid on
staying in school, Jiving at home. and ide,ntlfying her child's father.
o
. Still a sham. Under their fourth version of "work, requirements," caseload
reductions count as ·particlpatlon In work. But cutting people off is not the
same as getting people to work, and it's a sham to pretend it is. The bill
also contains an easywav for states to avoid the participation requirements
altogether. For somo.states,taking a five percent reduction il,lheir federal
grant would be cheaper and easier than running on-the-job training and work
programs. Even Representative Johnson agreed that the work requirements
are "very easy to circumvent." '
H
()
Still dishonest. Requiring work is more expensive than just sending a check
.. as Republicans admitted in last year's bill. Now they're just passing the
costs 0' their political cover on to the states. Gov~rnors who are serious
about work want resources for child care, training# and job placement .- not
new unfunded mandates'•. As Representative Harold Ford said, "This bill is
nothing but a fraud...'
,
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I)
To sum up, the Republican proposal is stiU, as Secretary Shalala described,
"weak on work and tough on kids. It reminds me of the hit movie, 'Dumb
and Dumber.'"
�•
02/24/95
20:24
e~02
890 5673
HHS-Pt:BLle .\FFAI
141 002/ 003
ClDLD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT:
THE CLINTON"RECORD
Backaround .
The goal of the Child Support Enforcement (CSE) program, established in 1975 under Title IV-D "
of the Social Security Act, is to ensure that children are supported financially by both of their
parents.
Designed as a joint federal, state, and local partnership, the muiti-Iayered program involves 50'
sepaJate state systems, each with its own unique laws and procedures. ,Some local child support
offices are run by courts, others by counties, and others by state agencies. At the federal level,
the Department of Health and Human Services provides technical assistance and funding to states
through the Office of Child Support Enforcement and also operates the Federal Parent Locator
System, a computer matching system that uses federal information. to locate non-custodial parents
who owe child support. .
.
Today ~ despite recent improvements in paternity establishment and collections, this child support
. system fails many families. Paternity is not establisheQ for most children born out of wedlock,
. child support awards are us"ually low and rarely modified, and ineffective collection enforcement
allows many non-custodial parents--especiallyin interstate cases--to avoid payment without penalty.
As a result, non-custodial parents paid only $14 billion in child support i-:t 1990. But if child
support ord~rs reflecting current ability to pay were established and enforced in all cases, single
mothers would have received $48 billion: money for clothing, food, utilities, and child care.
Closing that $34 billion gap is a top priority for this Administration.
Clinton Administration Increases and Innovations
o
Federal employe8S. Because of a complicated maze of overlapping federal laws and court .
decisions, it is sometimes difficult for the partners of federal employees to serve legal
papers attempting to establish paternity and to collect child support payments. These
problems ate especially acute as they relate to the Armed Forces.
Today I the President signed an executive order to make the federal. government a model
employer in the area of child support enforcement. It requires all federal agencies,
including the Armed Forces, to cooperate fully in efforts to establish paternity, and t6
ensure that children of federal· employees are provided the support to which they are legally
entitled.
.
The order would take a number of important steps, including: reducing by half the time
agencies take to garnish federal paychecks and provide the support the employees'
children; requiring the Office of Personnel Management to publish a current listing of
officials designated to handle child support cases so that parents can seek help; researching
ways to improve the computer matching system that helps states find federal employees
"who owe child support payments; and cross-matching all cases referred by states to the IRS
(for garnishment of income tax refunds) with federal persoMel files.
to
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HHS-PUBLIC AFFAI
[4)003/003
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Increasing fundina. President Clinton has proposed yearly expansions in federal spending
, Qn child support, increasing' fedcrat. spending by more than 25 percent since taking office.
In 1993, the federal-state child support enforcement system' collected a, record $9 bUlion
from non-custodial parents.
o
Seizin& tax refunds. On February 21, 1995, HHS announced the collection of a record
$703 milllon in delinquent child support for 1993 by garnishing income tax refunds of non
paying parents. Benefiting neariy one million families, the amount was 13 percent more
than collections for 1992.
o
Improving paternity establishment. Alre8dy, the,Clinton Administration has proposed,
and Congress has adopted, a requirement for states to establish hospital-based paternity
programs, as a proactive way to establish paternities early in a child's life.
o
Prosecuting non-payers. Billions of dollars more in support is owed to nine million
children whose parents have crossed' state lines and failed to pay. The JustiCe Department
is aggressively investigating and prosecuting these cases under the Child Support Recovery
Act.
Chan&es Under Welfare Reform
Building on the best state and federal initiatives, President Clinton'S child support plan, introduced
as part of last year's welfare reform legislation, would create an aggressive, coordina~ system
with, automated collection and tougher enforcement. While the federal-state <?hild support .
~nforcement system collected $9 billion from non-custodial parents in 1993, the reformed system
under our plan would collect $20 billion in the year 2000. The plan focuses on:
Universal paternity establishment. Performance incentives will encourage states to establish
paternity for all births, and hospitals will expand efforts to get parents to voluntarily acknowledge
paternity. Streamlined legal procedures and greater use of scientific testing will facilitate
identification for those who do not voluntarily acknowledge their responsibilities. And we also'
will require each welfare applicant to supply the name and location of the child's father in order to
receive benefits.
Fair award guidelines and periodic updating. A commission will study whether national awards
guidelines should be adopted. States will automatica11yupdate awards for familiesasnon-custodial
parents' incomes change..
Automatec:t monitoring and tracking. States will centralize and modernize their· child support
structures through the use of central registries that monitor payments automatically. A new
national child support clearinghouse \\ill catch parents who try to evade their responsibilities even
if they flee across state lines.
,New penalties' for those who refuse to pay. Expanded wage':'withhoidingand data-base matching
will be used to enforce compliance.' As a last resort, states will withhold the drivers' and
professiona1licenses of parents who refuse to pay support. Even the threat of license suspension is
a proven enforcement tool, and suspension also reaches self-employed people unaffected by wagewithholding.
.
�Date: 02/22/95
Time: 08:43
Government Employs Thousands Who Refuse to Pay Child Support
~c-.
. ,\(»-'
Ct
WASHINGTON (AP)
More than 100,000 federal workers and Postal
\ _~~~.
Service employees are wanted by states for failing to pay child
~~'
support or refusing to' acknowledge paternity, says the agency that
found the deadbeat parents on the payroll.
~
About .three-fourths of the non-paying parents work for the
~~~
Defense Department
as either military or civilian employees
and e '
the rest work for an assortment of federal agencies,' the judiciary 1c~\~-'
or the Postal Service, according to figures provided by the
~
Department of Health and Human Services ..
The number of deadbeat federal workers could be embarrassing for
President Clinton, who promised tougher child sup~ort ~nforcement
during his campaign, ·made it a central part of his welfare reform
plan and brought it up during his State of the Union address in
January.
.
. .
Paula Roberts, a child support specialist with the Center for
Law and Social Policy, a libeial research and advocacy
organization, said the federal government has known about the
problem for years but has done little to fix it.
"It's really a disgrace. It's a little hard for them to get on
the moral high ground about all the deadbeats out there, when they
can't" even clean their own house,"
Roberts said."' 'The governm~nt
does have the ability to go after its qwn, and reinforce the moral
and financial me~sage, and it has chosen not to do that."
States are responsible for collecting child support and
establishing paternity .. the fi~st'step in getting court-ordered
support
but they need .help from Washington if the parent is a
federal employee.
When. a state requests help, the federal Office of Child Support
Enforcement, a part of HHS, searcties federal and military personnel
records for the addresses and employers of non-paying parents.
With that information, states can try to get the parents into
court and deduct child support from their paychecks. But Roberts
,and federal officials' say the process is cumbersome and in need of
reform.
Melissa Skolfield, a spokeswoman for HHS, said the ipsue
involves
"maze of laws and court decisio"ns.' , .
"The issues are particularly complicated as they affect the
armed forces, and we are actively.reviewing a number of strategies
for making improvements,' 'she said.
According to HHS, its locator service last year found 74,880
non-paying parents employed by the Defense Department, either
military or civilian, and,30,831 deadbeat parents working in other
parts of the government.
.
HHS did not break down the number of parents by agency or
mil,i tary service branch .
. The dep~rtment. does not track how much mone~ is owed, but an
investigation six years ago documented the cost of the problem. In
1989, theHHS inspector general found 64,310 federal ~mployees who
owed as much as $284 million in child support. In two-thirds of the
cases, the children were on welfare.
Nationwide; deadbeat parents owe an estimated $34 billion'in
suppo'rt payments to 14 million children, federal figures show.
According to current HHS estimates, non-paying parents represent
3.2 percent of the Defense Department's work force and 1.3 percent
of the overall feder.al work force, including the Postal Service.
a:
�David Gray Ross, who oversees the federal child support off
said the gover:r;tment is sending the wrong message by failing to
tough with its own employees.
But legislation be
drafted in Congress as part of wel
reform will help address the problem by establishing cent
registries that track child support orders and all new hires,
said~
Rep. Clay Shaw, R
a., who is overseeing the Republican effort
to rewrite the, nation's wel
laws, said it is the' 'height of
hypocrisy"
for the White House to cl'aim to be tough on deadbeat
parents wheti
has f
to make federal workers pay.
Shaw said Clinton should use the power of his office to
federal employees to
,and that the government should set'the
siandard for the rest
nation.
Roberts of the Center
Law and Social Policy said
president could
s at l~ast part of th~ problem by
order, starting with a requirement that the military cooperate with
state agencies.
'
Some base commanders refuse to allow employees to be
court orders requiring them to payor appear in court,
to
let parents attend
until they are on leave
service, she said.
APNP-02-22-95 0846EST
"
�___ ·c1,-,,-02/23/95
-,
10:24
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WHITE HOUSE
raJ 0021006
l)p~~~
EXECtlT1Y.E OlUlER '
PROPOSED A.CTIONS REQ'UJRED OJ! ALL :nl)~ AGENCIES
, TO' FACILlTATIrPAiMENT OF CHILD StlPP:ORT "
Mol 111'. dUld.ma lUed (,'IJfI./. dauve the emDtiDMlIWl /fntIndtJl SUPPfJ" 0/ bDth wir
pan!A:.;
~"IZS', 1M Flll:enzl Go1161'M1J!W 1'Iiqr,dru SlDIa w. Ihrollgh them.. pUblic IWI. priWlle
cmplD I'm ttl ~ IlCIit1Iu 'lll!.Cl!Zf1J1'1 ttJ IMIJ1'ethDl monlu In ptrj1NllV 0/chlld SIlppD1f
obi" IUms in witMe1d t1II4l1Tl11Sj&rre.d to , . t:hi1!1!s ~r In QlJ eJlfdrN fl1IIl
1%pf'Jl11tRls llf1l11l11tl': G1Itl
W1rNa ,1f. t1ut F6IimJl Oo\lUn1tlllll. thmugh its civllltm tWl UnJjb11lll4 Semcu :MOrt /D1t%, is
1M. ,:fDII',ltvgur :i1Ig~ tmployu 41Id as such lhDuIIl UI tZ1J taIl1IIrJ." o/ludushlp twl
..",U 1'Il,tme1Il bll1Url1'i1Ig tluJI dB t:hIIdren tn pftJ1lU/:y supptJned; .
NIIW, !'llltnjQre, by the t/1I.IhtJrily W!SUil ill 1M. lIS P1t!SiJJvu by thl! CDnstiluJiD1I tlNl 1M 1Ilws
fJ/tIM U1Illtil SlIIlu 0/A.mI:riCIJ. bu:lIiIJiJrg sa::tIDJi 301 of tIt~ J. it· ii Jl4nd1y D'IdI:rtJl tzi
/olli'n ,I:
. ..
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Part 1 • PUR.POSB
Sa::.. .01' 'This Eucutive Older:
0
(I) ! :.cablishes the Em:utive B~cb of ~e Pcderal Govemment, tbiough its·dviIiazl an~
: tTDifc lmed SetVia:s went: force; a !Uad~ employer in promoling ad facilitating the
establ isbment of· patemity aDd the at2bUshment and cnfon::ement of'ehUd support.
:'u
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r,
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0 ' 0
the
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(b) ·l.eqaUea aU Fcdemlageacles, including
uDironned selviceI, tq ~ fully in·
effort ~: to establish pau:mity and fa estab1&h ad' enforce the collectiOn of child and lIledicll
IUPJ.X :tt in all"liluatimlS that mch. actions may be requind. '
ee) . J .=q,u1res eidl Pederal agency; inclO4ins the Uniformed SeMces, to pmvidc information
CO its work force about actions Chat employees should 1ake md' ~ that are available to
easur:: that thcirchUdral ce pro'fi.ded d1e.upport to which they U'crleplly entitled.
Part:! • DBFlNITIONS
For l'urposcs Of'l'11is Onicr:
Sec. :~1. ·Pederal Agency· means any department, agency, Uniformed SetYic:e or other
instrI.mentality of the Eucudvc Bmnch as defined under S U.S.C. 551(1) :and 552(f).
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Sec. : ,lYl. ·UDifonned Serviccs- 'meaiaa the Army, Navy. Marino
CcNps, Air Porce; Caul
GGIft-,-and the Co~ned Corps of the NmonalOccanic anc1"ACinoaphc:ric: Administm·--
lion I:Ld the Public Health Serrice.
Sec. : ~CJ3. -Child Suppcxt Enforccmcnt- manllllY ~ve
or judicial. mion
"
neca:uy fa establish patemitY" establish a child sUpport order. incl~1 a ma1ical SUpport
Older and any act:lcm8 Decesmry to enfoa a child support or medicilsupport order. Child
, IuppC It actions may be bmught undIt the dvil or crim:inaJ. laws of die State and are aot
UmitI:1 fa actions 1m:KJghtOD bebalf of the Stale or iDdMdWll by state lleaciCi prcwidillg
servk I!S under litle IV-D of tbe Social Security Act..
Put; ..'IMMl!DIATB AC'l'IONS TO ENSURB CHILDREN ARB SUPPORTED BY
TBlilll PARENTS
",
Sec. :101. !lUI WitbboldjnK
(a) ",'itbin 60 days,fmm the date of'this Exa=ive 0*. ffNrrry Peda'alagency. sbal1
, imp1c Inen.t wap withholdin, fa the fUllest c:m=.nt possible in acc:mdabce with tl;le time 'fQun=s
, and Clher n:quirCmeDtI ill witbhol_ notices issued in I&:cmdance With 42 U.S.C. ~(b) ,
aDd i l1plemmdnl nfc'daflaDi.. "
'
, (b) 1:eginnfnl DO Ider tbaI11uly .1, 1995, the Office otP~ MmqemenC (OPM) sba1l "
publ1 ill al1'lianmJally, in the N¢ml Regjpr tha list of acems (and tbeJr addtesses)
dcsiB 'md fa receive servic:e of withholdins notices for PcdCra1 employees.
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Sec. ;,02. Sejyjee of Prpcgs
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sernce
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'~' PederalapllC:Y shaD. assiIt. in the
of procca iii ,CiviJ..acti,!nl to establish' .
pater :,ity and e&Ulblish or c:nforce a IUppc:ut oblipJiOn by makin, F~eralemplayees or
·mCzii:cs of the 'UlL\formed Sarvices -.1ioncd outside the U.S. a'Yl.il8b1c for the senic:c of '
procc:& Each apncy sbalJ ~ IJl offidal who Ihall be respoDsib1c for cmurlDg a
Pede 'II emp1oyc:e's availability fot scrtiP= of ptOCCU. ngardle:ss o,'tho locatiOll of the ernp
, lo~ I s ~k place.. OPM shall publish a list of these ofiicials semiannually in the Federal
~ :••
bc:ginD.iDg 110 later than luly 1, 1995.
Sec. :&03.f'edml Parent I.pcatpr
shall cooperate 'with the Peden1 Parent L.oc:ati:lr Service, estabtilbed
UILC!e' 42 U.S.C. 653, b:,.pmYidina camp1et&, timely and ,accurate information that wiD. help
in lo:adng IlOIlCUStod.ial parcrltS and their employers.
Bvcr " Fa!era1 agency
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Pap ~ .. Bxecutive Older
Sec. ~ 1M'.
C)pqmatch fgr DetiDi1WnI Qbticom
~,_
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:"'M~
_
<a) T:~ mas. file of ddinqucnt oblicon which each S1ate eNid support enfDrcCmatt ',-", ,."..
IPftC: t submitl to the Intemal Revenue Service for Federal income tal mundoffset PU!:pC:lSe$
Ihalll ," mafCked' at last annually with the payroll or ~ files of Fedem qencies in
order 10 cIcrI::tmbHI it there am InY Pedeal employees with child suppon delinquencies. The
,list of ma.tcha Ibal1 be foIWarded to the appropriate St:ate chikt suppon euforcem=t agency
to del!nnirIe, in each inltanc:e, whedler wage witbboldiD& or odu:r eafonzment actions
sboub be CIOIIUnCIlC:ed. AU matdJ. will be performed in accordance with S u.s.c. SS2a{o).
CU).
(b) .A!1 Pedal
acendet sbaU iDform CU1'I'eQt and prospective employees that c:mssmatchcs
ue rc: litiDely made between Pede:ral peno.nne1 nco:ds aACI Stare records OD individuals who
'
ow cidld support wi. inform empIoyee.t how to inida1c wl~tary wage withhold.ing ~~
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Sec. ~ 35. Axlilability of Services
,
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All It !denJ. acmcic:a abal1 advise c:m=t and pmspeCd.v. employees of .wz:s' authorized
UDder title IV..D ofth8 Social Secudty AI:t that am aYli1ab1c through'the Stares. At a '
,JDimm IOID:, iACarmati.oA abaJl 'be pmyided unuaUy CD cumm ~ tlmJaah the'
!mpII !y. AISi'ta.Jla: ProFIID~ o~ slaiiJa:r: pzogramJ, and to aew,ernp'h)yce.s duzing JOutiDe
odaal :&doD.
.
Sec. : iD&. Rprt·OO Adiqna Takeji
...
/:
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W'ltIU :1 90 days of the elate of thii'BucutiveJ~' all Pedenli agenCiea shall report 10 the '
Offic: of J4alIigement ancl'Budget (OMB) OIl, the actioas they, hav~ takeA to comply, with the'
Elect ,live Older aDd of any atatnfbry. recuJa.tcry, lD4/or ~ve 'barriets that prevent
them :mm c:ompl~1 with the RquireD;LeDW 'of Part 3 of !his :&ccutive Order.
Part .' .. ADDmONAL ACl"IONS·
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Sec.. ·101.· Addjdgnat BeYjew fgr the Unifgrmed Servjem
.
(a) I', addition to Che RqUUements outlined above, DOD in cotlSullatlon with. HBS (ami with
parde Lpation, as aec:apryJ by other apprapriaro agenc:ia) lball conduct a full review of
CIJIft :t policies and practices withiD the Uniformed. ScMca to e:&1.S'Um that cbildreD of
Unit'c rmed Senicca personnel am provided financial ad, medic:a1 support in the same manner
and t ,ithIn the same timeframes U is maadah:d lor all other dIil4reD due such· support. 'Ibis
levie II sha1l1Dclude~ but DOt be limited to issues related to wirhholdina o.on-custodial pue.ots'
wage, icrvic:e of process. a=viCiea to locate parents and their income and assets. release
rime 0 atrend civil patcmity and. support ptee'"ftiings, and bealth insurance COYerBgO under
. the C :vilian Health and Medical Program of the Uniformed Servicc:.s (CHAMPUS). All
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Page. .. Eul::utive Order
re1M :It emting .tutes, h'lc1udiDg the Soldiers and Sailon Ci'Vil Rdfef Act of 1940, the
, Unito 'mat Services' Pormer- Spouses, Pmtcctioll Act. and the Tax EqUity and Fi.Jcal Responsi
billty :\" of 1982, shall be reviewed and appropriate Iepslative mbdifications shall be
i~ti'~.
.
(0) 'Y'ithin 180 daY' of the dare of tlUs Bxcculive Onter, DOD shall IUbmit 10 OMB a report ,
based ;,)11 this RNiew. The report Iball R!COmmencl additional policy.. rqulatDry and Jqisla
dYe c :anles tJlat.wauld improve and enhance the P'ederal Govcaur&eate.commitmcnt to
ensuri III parcntallUpport for all cbi1dren..'
Sec. ; -12~
Additional
FedmJ Aaeng Actions
(I) C?M and BHS shall jointly ptepaIC ra:omm&Ddations far additiow admini.s'In.tive.
tegtW ''«1 or Jqi.aIative improvements in the pnJidellDd procedures of Pederal agencias
affect:3I chlld ,Iupport Cnf'OICIIDeAt. Other agencies will be l.nc1ucled in the: development of
n:coJt :nendalions for specific itaDI u appropriate. "l'be recommendations sha1l include:
"
("I) p:gcedures to CDSUEe !bat P'cdezal apaciu nquire employees to cm.oU th~ .
c:Iaildtea ill health iDsulmcc plans wheal an employee n:quired by a child suppolt.ozdet
fa pnMde sach auppott baI f.ailc:d ID do 10 aDd· pEOCedutu tG.eaame tba1 Pedc:al '
Employees ReaJlh BesJefia Pm&nm iDsura1 do not me po1id9 or pacriCCl which
lIS\Ilt III refiJsaI taearoll a child based on'dle resmeace of the child or the .marital
. . . of the employee.. .'
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("d) pIOCCdurea to ensure;QW m~ aCRIl1ItJ! aDd up-to-date ~ about civilian. and
UIIiformed peaonnd. who' . beUir sought in conjunction ~ a Slate paternity or
child aUpport ac:tioD ,em i* obtaiDcd. f,ro~edeta1 agencies 'and lheir payroll aDd. "
penonnd RilXllcIs w1ah which to im~e' efforts to ~ J2Ql\-castodiaJ parents 8Dd.
their income aDCl a.uets; "
. ,
, (Ui) procedures for sc:1cding,Pefde:al agencies to pilot test ~eva1uam new
appraac:hel 11) die c::stab11sbment ~ caforcem.eat of child s~ obligatioua;
..
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(Iv) addiIional pioposals to improve serric= of process for civillaa employees and,
members of the military stationed outside the UDited States, iDduding the pouibiIity
of .wag prace:ss' by certified mail In e.stablishment, and ea.forcement cases or of
desipaling an agent fot sezvicc of procas which would have the samo effect and
bind employcc.s to the same cxtent as actual, service upon the·em.ploYI1II!i
(~) stzatecia
fiu:ilitare the compliance With P'edem1 and sia.te child support .
mquiftmentl by qvasi~mc:l1ta1 agencies, advisory grD1liJS' and commissions.
to
(vi) ·whedler a single agency should be designated to receive and effectuaf4 wage
wichholdinc orders (or all' Feder.al employees; and
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Pace! - Executive Order
(vii) whether compliance with support obliptions should be a condition of Pederal
employment or a factor used in defUliitg suitability for Pe.dcral employmcaL
(12) 1,": e na;rmlllClldalions for item (I) are due within 90 days of dle dati: of this Execudve
Order. The recommc:udalions for iIems (ii) - (vii) are dUe wit.hiD 180 day. of thcclab: of this
Execu .lYe Order. no ra:::ommendations are to be submiued to OMB.
I
Sec. !
u.
Int;maI ¥mll'menl
This I recutive Order is intelldad only to improve die intemal manacemeat of the Bzecutive
Bcmd with n:prd to child support enforcement and.1baI1 DOt be itdapr=d Ia·cmate any'
light ( r benefit, IUbsranti_ or pxacedural. enfozceab1o at law by a party' againIt the 'UnlCl:d'
SU:I ill officera, or any other person. .
See. S:l2.. Soyerejcow of the UnUed S*, Goyemrnont
.
1bb J ,-ave: Olda' is int&ncled only. to pmvic!e tha1 the PedeI:al Govemment bas e1ecta1 to
NquIr " PeeleD1 'IImdcs to adhere to the'same stmdazds u am applicabla to ~ otba: ...•
empIc ... mthe NatioD ami abaU ftOt be intelpretl:d as IUbjectiq tho Pcdcza100YallDilllt to
lAy II a Jaw or u:qui.n:meDt. This Order mould DOt be CD.D.StnIed u a waiver'of die'
Sova i&DtY of lbe l1aiteCl S1:at.es Government or of any aisdDl statutcry or re:uIatoIY
pow iau. ildudiDg, the following: 42 U.S.C~ 6S9 and 662; 5 CPR. Part 581; 42 C!F.R Part
ZI. S1 bpalt C; 32 a:B. Pm 54; ·eel 32 en Part 8 1 . '
~
sec. ! >3.
IWm. ud Secm1\Y ,:.. '.,:
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,f-
"~
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:!'f'iuU:eAmerica.. wJU~ wou1c! compromise
any acQ.OD,
. the de =- or security intaat of the Unita4 S o f
.
I
Punh« r, tbls Executive Order u.iWt imen~
.
.
.
. Sec..! ;)4. Bffectiye pat;
..
Un1~ ; odIerwi&
Slated the pravUiOl1I ~.this Order shall be effective immediately~
_It
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•
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�President Clinton begins the week by
moving forward on his pledge to end
welfare as we know it.
REFORMING WELFARE
TODA Y. THE PRESIDENT SIGNS AN EXECUTIVE ORDER MAKING IT EASIER TO FIND.
PARENTS WHO OWE CHILD SUPPORT AND,TO·MAKE THEl\f PAY WHAT THEY OWE.
•
DEMANDING PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. The President's action is another
important step in the effort to bring the federal government in line with the values of our
people. Parents have a responsibility to take care of their children -- and any parent who isn't
paying child support should be forced to pay. Too many children in this country suffer
because of a parent's irresponsible behavior. Responsible welfare reform must include
measures to enforce child support obligations.
•
MAKING PARENTS PAY WHAT THEY OWE. The President has made child support
enforcement one of his top priorities, and this executive order will make it easier to ftild'
federal employees who don't meet their obligations to their children. It will also improve our
ability garnish theirparchecks and force them to pay the·support they owe.
•
BUILDING ON A RECORD YEAR FOR ENFORCEMENT. The President's action today
builds on the work he has done the past two years to step up child enforcement. . Last week,
the Department of Health and Human Services reported that we had collected a record $703
million in delinquent child support for 1993 by garnishing income tax refunds of parents
who. failed to pay. This 13% increase in. collections helped almost one million families.
MORE DEMOCRATIC ACTION ON WELFARE REFORM
•
Another Welfare Waiver. On Monday, Secretary Shalala grants another federal waiver for
state welfare reform, bringing to 24 the number of states that President Clinton has given
flexibility to improve their system.
• .
Opposing Efforts to Cut School Lunches. Also on Monday, Governor Howard Dean (VT),
the Chairman of the National Governors' Association, and other Democratic' Governors release
a study showing the harm GOP cuts in school lunches would do to children in their states .
. A WIN FOR AMERICAN
WORKERS.. This weekend, the Clinton
Administration won another battle in the
fight to create high paying jobs for
Americans.
ELIMINATING UNFAIR TRADE PRACTICES
This weekend's intellectual property agreement with China will eliminate practices that have
cost Americans over $1 billion a year in high value expor~s. It will mean thousands of jobs
for Americans in key industries, including computer software, pharm~ceuticals, agricultural
and chemical products, books, and audio visual products.
�HOUSE REPUBLICAN RESCISSIONS
L REPUBliCAN RESCISSIONS REFLECT A STRATEGY TO CUT INVESTMENTS
FOR THE MIDDLE CLASS AND POOR CHIWREN TO FUND LUCRATIVE TAX .
CUTS FOR THOSE.MAKING OVER $200,000.
REPUBLICAN SAVINGS ARE GOING TO PAY FOR UNJUSTIFIED TAX
CUTS FOR THE WEALTHY.
• The Republican "Contract with America" includes a 5700 billion tax cut
over 10 years --with half the benefits going to families making over
5100,000.
• A capital gains tax break that will cost $18'3 billion over 10 years--with
nearly half the benefits going to families making over $200,000. The cost of
one year of the capital gains cut would be larger than all rescissions
approved through Friday, February 24.
'. A boondoggle "neutral cost recovery" tax break that the Wall Street
Journal says· "is a ';"ery sweet deal. for the nation's capital intensive companies...
[and] could allow some big and profitable companies to escape taxes
altogether." ·(12/5/95) Cost: $120 billion over 10 years.
THE REPUBLICAN BUDGET MAKES DRAMATIC CUTS IN PROGRAMS FOR
CHILDREN SIMPLY TO PAY FOR THE PORTION OF THE TAX CUTS GOING
TO HOUSEHOLDS MAKING OVER 5200,000.
.
Indeed, the· following cuts' all go to paving for only a portion of the capital gains tax cut
going to households making over $200.000.
• 15,000 young people will be denied opportunities to engage in national service;
($210 million, or 2% of the one-year average price of neutral-cost recovery)
.. 100,000 women, infants, and children will.be denied proper nutrition by , WIC
,
cuts;
• 615,000 disadvantaged youths will be denied summer jobs this summer because
of the elimination of funding for the summer jobs.programs. ($1.7 billion)
• 4,000 school will be denied funds for higher standards and better teaching
through cuts in GOALS 2000 ($164 million) ,
• 3.{,000 youth in 17 communities around the country will lose training
opportunities through elimination of Youth Fair Chance.
. • 94% o f all school districts will lose funding for keeping drugs out of their
schools through elimination of funding for the Safe and Drug Free Schools and .
Communities Program.
All of the above cuts would pay for only a portion of the average capital gains tax cut that
goes to households making over $200,000.
.
,
�IL POUTICS ~USUAL OVER POLITICAL REFORM: THE REPUBLICANS tALK
ABOUT CHANGE, BUT IT'S JUST MORE PORK AND POLITICS AS USUAL -
. WHILE THE MIDDLE CLASS AND POOR GET CUT.
.
.
~
'
600,000 Summer Jobs vs. $600,000 Increase for the Speaker's Office: Behind the
rhetoric about revolution, you'll find the same, old porkbarrel politics: While the
Republican leadership is calling for eliminating over 600,000 summer jobs for young
people, Newt Gingrich is giving his own office $600,000 more for its own needs.
Paying for a Pork Visitor Center for a Republican Official Is More Important than·
Weatherizing Homes for Low-:-Income Families: _As the New York Times stated: !lOne
trade-off speatcs volumes about Republicans priorities;· they decided it was more important
to pay for a visitor's center in Oregon, the home state of a GOP Committee member. than
to help weatherize homes of low income families. (2/24/95)
II
.
.
.
.
In. EXTREME CUTS VS BOLD, SENSIBLE REFORM: PRESIDENT CLINTON IS
CREATING A LEANER, SMARTER GOVERNMENT THAT HELPS MIDDLE.
CLASS AMERICANS HELP THEMSELVES. THE REPUBLICANS ARE TAKING
AN EXTREME "CUT-AND-GUT" APPROACH THAT HURTS WORKING
FAMILIES.
Through the National Performance Review, President Clinton has already cut more than
100,000 federal jobs and saved $63 billion and is making bold. but sensible reforms that make
government work better for working families. By contrast, the Republicans have an extreme
ideological agenda, and they are cu~ng programs whether they work or not. .
Example: The Administration is making a bold, sensible reform of the Agriculture
Department while RepUblicans are calling for slashing successful nutrition programs
for children. The Administration has closed 1,100 unneeded agriculture field offices while
expanding WIC. That makes sense. GAO says WIC saves $3.50 for every $1 spent while
improving birthweighis and reducing infant mortality and child anemia. Republicans are
drastically slashing this and other successful programs. Indeed. in addition to their
rescission package they are also calling for cuts in WIC and school lunches totaling $860
million in 1996 and $7 billion over five years.
Example: The Administration has called for dramatic reform of the Department of
Housing and Urban Development -- consolidating 60 programs and eliminating 4,400
positions, while Republican rescissions 'threaten housing for the neediest. Republicans
are simply calling for slashing housing assistance for 63,000 families, most with poor
children, including 12,000 homeless families, 2,000 disabled individuals and 3,000 people
. with HIV-AIDS who are homeless or in danger of becoming so. ($2.7 billion)
Example: This President signed the inter-state banking legislation -- an historic
reform, while the House Republicans are calling for eliminating funding for
Community Development Banks: After 20 years of effort, this Administration passed the
Interstate Banking Efficiency Act -- a major deregulatory accomplishment. The House
Republicans would deny hundreds .,- even thousands -- of community banks funding by
eliminating funding for the Community Development Bank and Financial Institution bill.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Carol Rasco - Issues Series
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Domestic Policy Council
Carol Rasco
Issues Series
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
<a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/36305" target="_blank">Collection Finding Aid</a>
<a href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7763322" target="_blank">National Archives Catalog Description</a>
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
2010-0198-S Segment 2
Description
An account of the resource
Carol Rasco's Issues Series collection consists of records relating to affirmative action, health care and reform, Medicare/Medicaid, immigration, disability, children, families and seniors, education, welfare reform, Middle Class Bill of Rights, and state and local economic issues. This collection consists of memos, letters, reports, schedules, itineraries, talking points, copies of legislation, and organizational material such as flyers and pamphlets.
Provenance
A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource.
Clinton Presidential Records: White House Staff and Office Files
Publisher
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Clinton Presidential Library & Museum
Extent
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92 folders in 7 boxes
Text
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Original Format
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Paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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[Welfare - NGA]
Creator
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Domestic Policy Council
Carol Rasco
Issues Series
Identifier
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2010-0198-S Segment 2
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
Box 127
<a href="http://clintonlibrary.gov/assets/Documents/Finding-Aids/2010/2010-0198-S-IssuePapers.pdf" target="_blank">Collection Finding Aid</a>
<a href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7763322" target="_blank">National Archives Catalog Description</a>
Provenance
A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource.
Clinton Presidential Records: White House Staff and Office Files
Format
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Adobe Acrobat Document
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Clinton Presidential Library & Museum
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Reproduction-Reference
Date Created
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12/4/2013
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2010-0198-Sb-welfare-nga