February 19, 2003

You can see how your Member of the House voted on HR 4, Reauthorization of TANF, at http:/clerk.house.gov/evs/2003/index.asp

Click on Roll 30, which shows the vote on final passage. The votes on the Mink and Cardin alternatives are also shown.

II. Press Coverage of House Action

The Associated Press coverage of the House action is reprinted below. It includes a summary of the bill, comparison with the current law, and arguments used by opponents and proponents of HR 4.

III. Status of Legislation

As you will see from the AP story, advocates for low-income people have a lot of work ahead of them. The House bill does absolutely nothing to improve the status of people who receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, nor does it expand or extend eligibility. The Senate could choose to make some necessary changes, but that does not seem likely unless Senators are moved by the appeals of their constituents.

Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA), Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over TANF in the Senate, has announced that his Committee will hold a hearing in Iowa this week and one in Washington on March 12. Depending on whether or not he can develop a consensus among the majority on the Committee, a bill could be marked up and voted out anytime after that date. TANF is currently funded through June 30, 2003.

Grassley was originally reported to favor a simple extension of the current program, with increased funding for child care. Now he says he favors stricter work requirements. The current law requires parents of preschool children to work 20 hours a week and all others to work 30 hours, while the House-passed bill requires all TANF parents to work 40 hours a week. Current law requires states to have 50% of adults on TANF employed at any one time, while HR 4 would raise that amount to 70%. It is not known whether Grassley wants to move in the direction of 40 hours per week or whether he would settle for increasing the rate to 70%.

IV. Suggested Grassroots Actions

(a) Write letters to your Senators' state offices (since anti-terrorism precautions are making mail delivery to Congress in Washington exceedingly slow; you can find state addresses at http:/www.senate.gov). Here is a sample letter. Feel free to change it to fit your own situation.

Dear Senator,

I write to you as a person of faith who is deeply concerned about the plight of low-income people in our nation. In my work at ________ (or through my volunteer activities at _______), I have had the opportunity to learn about some of the issues these people face every day.

One means of addressing the difficulties of poor families with children is the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) Program. This program has always been more focused on reducing the welfare rolls than on reducing poverty, and the version of TANF reauthorization passed by the House will only make that situation worse. It diminishes education and training opportunities that would help recipients build toward self-support and increases work requirements without providing adequate child care assistance.

I urge you to reject HR 4 and to support instead legislation that would reauthorize TANF and do the following:

As providers of services and support to low-income families, we in the religious community are ready to do our part to relieve their suffering, but we cannot do it alone. We need the generous commitment of the state and federal governments to work together as partners.

Sincerely yours,

(b) Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper (or an op-ed piece). You might want to comment on how your House member voted on HR 4, say what is wrong with the bill (see letter above), list the goals of good legislation (from the letter), and call on your Senators to support progressive TANF reauthorization. It would be especially helpful to personalize the article by discussing a local anti-poverty program or by reacting to a story about the plight of a poor family that may have appeared in the local media recently.

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Welfare Debate Now Shifting to Senate

February 14, 2003

© THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Debate over how to improve the nation's program of aid to the poor moved to the Senate after the House approved welfare legislation requiring more people to work more hours. The House bill, approved Thursday on a near party line vote, also would provide hundreds of millions of dollars to promote marriage and sexual abstinence.

Nearly identical to a plan put forth by President Bush, the House bill would renew a 1996 welfare overhaul that allowed states to impose tough new rules and helped spark a massive reduction in welfare rolls.

The Senate failed to renew the program last year, and the 1996 law has been extended several times to keep the program operating. Even though Democrats no longer control the Senate, rules there give them more power than the House minority enjoys, and the Senate welfare bill is expected to differ in significant ways.

Democrats and Republicans in the Senate want substantial more money for child care. There is more support for restoring benefits to legal immigrants and for allowing more education and training for people getting assistance.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said Thursday the Senate bill should include stricter work requirements and more money for child care. ``Since the Senate is narrowly divided, we can't act as quickly and decisively as the House on welfare legislation, but I hope the Finance Committee will approve a bipartisan bill in the next few months,'' he said in a statement. Sen. Max Baucus, R-Mont., the top Democrat on the Finance Committee, also expressed hope for a bipartisan bill.

People in both parties acknowledge that the House bill has no chance of becoming law in its current form. ``It can't pass on the Senate floor,'' said Ron Haskins, a welfare expert who worked for the White House last year.

The House bill was approved by a 230-192 vote. It requires states to have 70 percent of people on welfare working 40 hours a week by 2007, with a strict definition of work. It continues to limit people to five years of benefits over their lifetimes and bans legal immigrants from aid programs. It provides $16.5 billion a year for states to run their programs. It offers a modest increase in child care spending.

Studies find that most people who have left welfare are working, earning more than they got from the government but not enough to escape poverty. Republicans said the key to success in welfare is putting people to work. ``A check in the mail every month won't teach responsibility. It won't build confidence,'' said Rep. Deborah Pryce, R-Ohio.

Democrats said simply getting someone off welfare is not good enough and argued that education, training and access to child care are key to helping people earn a decent wage. ``You don't care whether they have a livable wage,'' Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash. ``Just shove them off the rolls and leave them out there.''

The House bill includes up to $300 million per year for experiments promoting marriage. It also extends a $50 million program promoting abstinence from sex until marriage, which bans any discussion of contraception. Both programs have attracted strong opposition, with opponents saying neither has been proven effective. Some worry the marriage program could push people into bad marriages. But House Democrats voiced few complaints about them Thursday, focusing instead on the central issues of welfare.

Since peaking in 1994, the number of families receiving monthly welfare checks has fallen by nearly 60 percent, thanks in large part to the roaring economy. The Bush administration said Thursday that the national total continued to fall through September, albeit by a tiny amount.

At the same time, the rolls are rising in more than half the states. And data released this week found that after several years on the rise, the portion of poor children with working parents fell in 2001.