Preserving Welfare for Needs Not Weeds Act

Floor Speech

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I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, the Needs not Weeds Act is a pretty catchy title. I think it could fit on a bumper sticker. In fact, perhaps it already has.

Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, this proposal has only a little to do with weeds and nothing whatsoever to do with the needs of our neighbors who are trying to move out of poverty and into the middle class of America, the people that are down there on the bottom economic rung that are trying to climb up another rung or two. This Congress is indifferent to their needs. You might say their hopes have just gone up in smoke.

On the very day that we are considering this proposal, we are being called upon by the same folks to approve a companion Republican resolution that once again cuts resources for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, indeed, not one, but two cuts, a cut of $14 million each year from the TANF contingency fund on which about a third of the States have relied on for assistance in this recession to help people find jobs and provide other services and an additional $15 billion cut annually from TANF research funding.

Those are the dollars that permit us to determine whether our tax dollars are being spent effectively in developing new approaches for job training and other services.

You have got to wonder what these Republicans are smoking. How can they tout their supposed commitment to preventing waste and, at the same time, insist on eliminating the very dollars that are designed to prevent waste and help us determine whether our tax dollars are being spent efficiently and effectively?

From my experience in this Congress, I understand that facts will be ignored by Republicans when they conflict with Republican ideology, but, in this case, abandoning any research concerning how our tax dollars are being spent makes no sense; indeed, it makes no dollars and cents.

Mr. Speaker, these nearly $30 million in cuts continue the Republican effort to reduce the real purchasing power and dollars available for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. They follow a prior cut of over $300 million in employment assistance and cash benefits through the TANF program.

This is all amidst the growing inequality in this Nation. We have the lowest level of poor families receiving direct cash assistance from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families in almost 50 years. In my own State of Texas, only about one in every 24 children receive TANF assistance directly, and, when they get it, they don't get very much.

This is the 50th anniversary of Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty. Isn't it time that we renew that effort in a meaningful, reformed way, instead of waging war on those who are in poverty?

Time and time again, my Republican colleagues have refused to enact a long-term reauthorization of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program; instead, they favor these short-term extensions like this 3-month extension that we are considering in the continuing resolution.

Each of those short-term extensions offers them an opportunity to stereotype the poor, the old welfare Cadillac image. Just blame the poor for being poor.

I support every reasonable effort to reduce fraud and abuse. I don't oppose this bill. What I oppose is dealing with the peripheral instead of tackling the substantive problem of helping folks climb out of poverty into the middle class.

As was mentioned, on one of these short-term TANF extensions, we previously focused on prohibiting poor people from the evil of withdrawing their funds from a strip club or casino. I supported that.

This one will prevent them from using their TANF cards at a place that sells marijuana. Well, perhaps in December, when we are back on the next extension, we can prohibit them from using their funds and withdrawing them at a massage parlor or a Cadillac dealer or maybe with the space aliens out in Area 51 in New Mexico.

I meet with these families. I have met with them in San Antonio, Lockhart, San Marcos, and Austin. For the most part, they are hardworking families. In many cases, they have hit a bad bump in the road. Today's bill does nothing to address the tattered safety net that we have in this country which is increasingly more hole than net.

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Each year, we do less and less for those who struggle while the gap continues to widen between those who have little or nothing and those who are incredibly wealthy.

I believe that poverty should be viewed as a major national problem that needs resolution by us working together, not a weapon to just score more political points at election time.

I think the real poverty that is at stake this week is the poverty of cooperation, the poverty of seeking a bipartisan answer to the struggles of so many American families.

As long as this Congress ignores the hard work of developing solutions to help those in our communities that are most disadvantaged, we will have less as a Nation to celebrate.

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