SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING TESTIMONY

LENGTH: 3122 words

COMMITTEE: HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS

SUBCOMMITTEE: HUMAN RESOURCE

HEADLINE: WELFARE OVERHAUL PROPOSALS

TESTIMONY-BY: RABBI DAVID SAPERSTEIN,, DIRECTOR,

AFFILIATION: RELIGIOUS ACTION OF REFORM JUDAISM

BODY:
Statement of

Rabbi David Saperstein, Director, Religious Action of Reform Judaism

Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Human Resources of the House

Committee on Ways and Means

Hearing on Implementation of Welfare Reform Work Requirements and Time Limits

April 11, 2002

Good morning Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the Committee. I am Rabbi David Saperstein, Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, which represents over 1700 rabbis and 900 synagogues with 1.5 million members. I am also an attorney and for many years have taught on the faculty of Georgetown University Law Center.

The 1996 welfare reform law ended the welfare system as we knew it, but it did not end poverty in America. Child poverty is still too high, too many families are strained, fragile, and broken, too many families still have not found work and the purpose it brings. Although the Administration's welfare proposal recognizes and attempts to remedy some of the programmatic limitations of the 1996 law - such as restoration of food stamp benefits to legal immigrants and direct provision of child support payments to mothers and children - of significant concern are the astonishingly low levels of funding allocated to both individual programs and the welfare system as a whole. Funding levels, of course, reflect not only policy but moral choices at work. That is why it has been said that the budget of the United States is the great moral document of our nation. It reflects the American government's values, priorities and vision for the American people. Through it, real lives are shaped, opportunities and rights are enhanced or diminished. The moral test of any society is what its economic and social policies do - or do not do - for the most vulnerable of God's children. These - the powerless and the voiceless, the elderly, the ill, the widow, the orphan, the child and the stranger - are the members of American society whom we, lawmakers and advocates alike, have been called to protect.

A powerful and pervasive theme in our tradition is the protections and benefits we accord to the ger - the Hebrew term we erroneously translate in the Bible as the "stranger." The ger was not a person just passing through (albeit they too we entitled to some social benefits). The ger was the person who came to live in Israel, who was willing to abide by the rules of our society, to work and pay taxes whenever possible, to observe the non-ritual laws of Israel - and to whom the Bible and the Talmud grant all the social benefits of the society accorded to the Jews. Is that not exactly the situation of the legal immigrant who comes to our nation?

The Census Bureau reports that there are over 30 million immigrants living in the United States. This represents 11 percent of the total population. Prior to 1996, legal immigrants were usually able to receive public benefits on the same basis as U.S. citizens. With the passage of TANF, eligibility is now based on citizenship status rather than legal status.

The changes in law came at the same time as the immigrant population reached near-record levels throughout the country. The largest immigrant group, immigrants admitted as lawful permanent residents - in most cases for family reunification purposes - is ineligible for benefits. Present policy has an extremely negative impact on the children of immigrants. According to the Center on Budget and Policy priorities, more than one in five low-income children in the United States live in noncitizen families. Nearly 40 percent of these families have difficulty affording food, compared with 27 percent of native-born families. Children of immigrants are twice as likely to live in families that pay more than 50 percent of their income for a place to live. They are more than four times as likely to live in crowded housing. The moral fiber of our nation, a nation that wishes to help not harm; to aid, not to assault; to develop not to destroy; depends on the recognition that moral public policy must create a zone of protection for all Americans.

Jewish tradition commands us, "You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." Just two weeks ago Jews around the world celebrated our exodus from slavery in Egypt. As Jews, we are commanded to retell the story of our exodus. At the Passover seder meal, we are commanded to invite all who are hungry and all who are in need to come to our table and to share in our celebration. We are commanded to invite Jew and non-Jew alike; we are commanded to invite both our neighbors and those we do not know.

The story of the immigrant is a shared story. Throughout our collective history Jews have been immigrants, strangers in strange lands. We have faced great hardship and persecution, but we have also flourished. The story of the immigrant is the story of America. And, with support from our elected officials, we can be confident that the best chapters are yet to be written.

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program outlines America's public policy priorities in the fight against poverty. If we are to truly combat poverty, TANF's budget must reflect the economic realities of our day. The Administration's proposal purports to maintain the same overall funding since the 1996 welfare reform law by freezing the TANF block grant at $16.5 billion. The value of the block grant fell by 13.5 percent between Fiscal Year 1997 and Fiscal Year 2002. If it is not adjusted for inflation, the real value of the block grant in 2007 will be 22 percent below its 1997 value - in effect, a significant cut for working families. According to the Treasury Department, TANF spending by states totaled $18.5 billion in Fiscal Year 2001 - about $2 billion more than the annual block grant provided. Between March and September 2001, cash assistance caseloads rose in 33 states. States have had to dip into their unspent reserves in order to meet growing need. Some states, such as Montana, have shifted TANF funds from work support programs to cash assistance because of caseload increases. States will have to scale back program funding as they exhaust their reserves unless additional resources are made available through reauthorization. If the funding levels in the block grant continue to decrease in inflation-adjusted terms while states continue to deplete their TANF reserves, these states will have to make even deeper cuts over time. Freezing the block grant will significantly jeopardize the ability of individual states to provide adequate job training and other crucial programs to help those experiencing poverty rise to a level of self-sufficiency. At a minimum, the TANF block grant should be indexed to inflation in order to avoid under-funding its essential programs. In fact, TANF reauthorization must provide increased long-term funding so that states can not only continue their existing programs, but also develop new poverty-reduction strategies and initiatives. In order to reduce the disparity in funding allocations among states relative to the number of people who are poor, Supplemental Grants must be reinstated to states that have low levels of funding per poor person or high rates of growth. States must be allowed to carry over funds for cash grants or for any other service or activity funded under TANF. Instead of reducing the credit states receive for moving recipients from welfare to work, states that make progress in decreasing the poverty level of families moving from welfare to self-sufficiency or in increasing child well-being should be rewarded with performance bonuses.

The Administration's proposal would increase the number of hours welfare recipients must work in order to receive cash assistance from 30 to 40 hours per week. The proposal creates a number of problems for states administering welfare programs. The Administration's proposal to increase the number of hours recipients must work to receive cash assistance from 30 hours per week to 40 hours per week means that only five states (Alaska, Hawaii, New Hampshire, New York, and Wisconsin) would be able to meet the Federal Labor Standards Act provisions that require that a welfare recipient work no more hours than those calculated by taking the amount of the combined cash assistance and food stamp benefit and dividing it by the minimum wage.

In addition, we are concerned that the increased work requirement will result in welfare recipients being forced to take low- paying, dead-end jobs rather than jobs that hold the promise of future economic stability and sustainability. In a recent National Governors' Association survey, 38 states reported that the new work requirements would force them to create costly "make-work" jobs. Instead of focusing simply on caseload reduction, TANF should provide quality education and job training instead of unpaid public works programs that would consume significant resources now dedicated to effective job training and meaningful employment.

The TANF block grant at its current level would not cover the cost of cash assistance under the Administration's proposal, much less the increased demand in child care and transportation that would result from increasing the overall state work participation rate from 50 percent to 70 percent in 5 years. Essentially, the Administration's proposal costs states more money, but does not include any increase in the TANF block grant.

President Bush's proposal also cuts funding for children. The President's pledge to "continue to maintain historically high levels of support for child care" will actually limit the availability of child care funding. TANF funding is a vital component of state child care assistance programs, and states are increasingly dependent upon this funding to address their child care needs. States can transfer up to 30 percent of their TANF funds to the Child Care and Development Block Grant, or directly spend TANF dollars on child care without transferring the funds to the CCDBG. TANF is already a greater source of child care funding than the CCDBG: In 2000, states redirected $3.9 billion in TANF funds to child care, compared to $3.5 billion spent through the CCDBG. The CCDBG itself requires increased investment, as well. According to the Children's Defense Fund, although only one in seven children eligible for CCDBG assistance currently receives help from the program, a child care budget that does not include increases for inflation means that 30,000 fewer children will be able to be helped. Freezing the child care budget for the next five years will require cutting 114,000 children from child care programs by Fiscal Year 2007. A significant portion of the increasing need for child care funds is due to salary costs. The salaries of child care workers cannot be frozen over the next five years, and the already rising costs of providing these services will necessarily continue to rise. Child care is vital to the efforts of low-income parents to get and keep jobs. The Administration's proposed child care budget would be a devastating blow to the welfare system's ability to ensure that all children are fully prepared to enter school and would jeopardize its efforts to help families become truly self- sufficient. A nation that neglects its children is a nation that short-changes its future. Unconscionably, the proposals before us now would condemn the most vulnerable of God's children to suffering and deprivation.

In addition to our misgivings about inadequate funding for TANF, we are concerned about significant funding allocations for misguided programs within the Administration's welfare reform proposal. Of particular concern is a proposal to spend $135 million on abstinence-only sexuality education programs. Contrary to the argument made by abstinence-only advocates, studies have overwhelmingly shown that abstinence-only programs do not deter or delay sexual activity. No credible scientific evidence exists to show the effectiveness of sexuality education programs that exclude information about contraception. In fact, a 1997 report by the United Nations examined 22 HIV/AIDS and comprehensive sexuality education programs indicates that it is these comprehensive programs that are demonstrably effective in delaying the onset of sexual activity, reducing the number of sexual partners, and decreasing the incidences of sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancies. In addition, the President's proposal allocates $500 million for programs to promote marriage. While we agree that healthy marriages are a critical cornerstone of our nation, we hesitate when the government attempts to narrowly define what constitutes a healthy family. We are troubled by the proposal's exclusion of plans to strengthen overall family life at America's increasingly diverse contemporary family table. While we support initiatives to provide accurate and effective sexuality education and programs to strengthen families, we cannot afford to pour these desperately needed funds into such highly flawed programs.

As debate over TANF reauthorization intensifies, Congress has both the opportunity and the obligation to remedy the program's failings. The overarching goals set out for TANF in 1996 were admirable, but the specific policies and regulations used to achieve these goals often fell far short of the mark. TANF's "success" has often been quantified by the decreasing size of the welfare rolls. Although the total number of people on welfare has certainly been reduced, TANF has not alleviated the depth or breadth of poverty in the United States. We must measure TANF's success in terms of quality of life, not quantity of welfare recipients. Poverty reduction, not caseload reduction, must be the principal goal of our national welfare policy.

Just prior to the passage of the 1996 welfare reform legislation, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the lay body of the Reform Jewish Movement, passed a comprehensive resolution on "Our Economic Commitment to America's Poor." The resolution recognized the importance of prudent fiscal reforms and of welfare reform, but asserted that reform must not result in undue burdens to the most needy. The resolution further asserted that "the United States government [must]. . . ensure an adequate, federally guaranteed safety net to protect our nation's most vulnerable populations." Any legislation that does not meet this standard should not be passed by Congress or signed into law by the President.

Judaism has long recognized the need to promote the health and well-being of all members of society and the responsibility of working to realize the Biblical vision that "there shall be no needy among you." The great scholar Maimonides taught that the highest degree of tzedakah - charity - is to enable a person to earn his or her own livelihood. All faith communities are united by commandments to share our bread with the hungry, to protect the stranger in our midst, and to care for the poor and vulnerable children in our communities.

In the rulings of Jewish texts and in the implementation of those rulings during the 1500 years of the self-governing Jewish community, the government and the public sector played a central role in achieving social justice. By Talmudic times, at least four communal funds (food, clothing, burial, and money funds), plus communal schools for all children, were required in every sizeable community. By the Middle Ages, these had grown into a veritable bureaucracy of social welfare institutions, rivaling our own today, with extensive communal regulation of the environment, consumer rights, and worker's rights. Tzedakah functioned as a system of taxation, not a voluntary philanthropic enterprise. Since members of the Jewish community were compelled to support these institutions, there are analogous in our own time to government institutions, not to voluntary private charities.

In fact, we are deeply concerned with the Administration's interest in using faith as a tool with which to fight poverty and substance abuse. President Bush has made clear his support for ending "discrimination against faith-based organizations that compete for contracts to provide social services to people who need help," and he has also said that "one sure way" to treat those with substance abuse problems is to "introduce them to faith." Faith-based organizations certainly deserve support and encouragement for the important work they do and the valuable services they provide. However, if we are to protect the First Amendment and the religious liberty of all Americans, we must ensure that pervasively religious organizations do not receive direct funding from the government, preferential treatment, or exemptions from civil rights regulations. We must also ensure that the beneficiaries of social services provided by faith-based organizations are not subjected to proselytization or religious indoctrination when they go to obtain their government benefits. Finally, we must ensure that religious organizations do not become the sole providers of social services in America, absolving the government of its responsibility to assist those in need. We must continue to look for ways to improve much-needed social services and support the good works of faith-based organizations, but we must do it without threatening America's "first freedom."

Since the Great Depression, America's policy makers have sought to provide for vulnerable populations and have woven a safety net for America's poor, unfortunate and disadvantaged. Our government has a moral responsibility to ensure that welfare programs provide real jobs, real job training, and a real safety net to Americans in need. That responsibility inherently includes providing the necessary dollars to make these vital programs work. Breaking the chains of poverty cannot morally be accomplished by underfunding these vital programs which provide the most basic needs to the hungry and the strangers and the child. We must ensure that TANF is funded at a level which guarantees child care, job training, health care, and nutrition assistance to help move people out of poverty and into long-term self-sufficiency. Only then will the cries of the poor be silenced; only then will we be free of our moral obligation to share the bounties of our nation with those of God's children who are less fortunate than we and who are depending on this Congress to provide effective, fully-funded programs to allow them and their families to move from welfare to work, from poverty to self- sufficiency, and from desperation to dignity.



LOAD-DATE: May 1, 2002