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Congressional Testimony
April 11, 2002 Thursday
SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 5731 words
COMMITTEE:
HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS
SUBCOMMITTEE:
HUMAN RESOURCE
HEADLINE: WELFARE OVERHAUL PROPOSALS
TESTIMONY-BY: KATHLEEN A. CURRAN,, POLICY ADVISOR,
AFFILIATION: UNITED STATES CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC
BISHOPS
BODY: Statement of
Kathleen A.
Curran, Policy Advisor, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Human Resources of the House
Committee on Ways and Means
Hearing on Welfare Reform
Reauthorization Proposals
April 11, 2002
Chairman Herger and
Members of the Subcommittee, my name is Kathleen A. Curran and I am policy
advisor on health and welfare issues with the United States Conference of
Catholic Bishops' (USCCB). I welcome this opportunity to share with you the
views of the Bishops' Conference as you consider proposals for reauthorization
of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant program
(
TANF).
In the 1990s, we as a nation reexamined the
welfare structure that had evolved over several decades, and called for a reform
of the way in which we help those among us in need. Our Conference was among
those urging fundamental reform of a system that did not serve recipients,
taxpayers or our society as well as it should have. The debate over how to
change that system culminated in the 1996 passage of the Personal Responsibility
and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, replacing the Aid to Families with
Dependent Children entitlement program with
TANF block grants
to the states, a time-limited assistance program focusing heavily on reducing
welfare caseloads and moving people into work. While it is encouraging that
caseloads have fallen by over 50% through fiscal year 2001, it is clear that not
all recipients who leave
TANF do so to take a job of any sort,
let alone stable full-time work that allows them to support their families in
dignity. In considering whether and how to amend
TANF, facts
and figures, numbers and statistics can be necessary and important tools, both
in assessing the effects so far of the 1996 law and in developing new policies
and new ways to measure future effects. But I urge you to remember that is all
they are -- tools. Simply setting, meeting and assessing numerical goals B
whether for reducing caseloads, boosting work participation rates or increasing
the incidence of marriage B must not become the measure of our nations welfare
policy. We must not lose sight of the real families, real individuals, real
children whose lives will be deeply affected by the changes that will be made in
TANF. We must seize the need to reauthorize the
TANF program as an opportunity, and a challenge, to sharpen our
focus on the persistent problem of poverty in this, the most prosperous of
nations. We must do our best to make sure no one who works in this country will
see their family in need. We must give states the policy tools and resources
they need to help low-income Americans leave poverty and dependence and achieve
self-sufficiency.
Thus, as the nation turns to
TANF
reauthorization, we must make clear that reducing poverty, especially among
children, is a central goal of our national welfare policy. We can do this in
two ways. First, we should amend the law to include poverty reduction among the
stated goals and develop appropriate incentives for states to reduce the extent
and depth of poverty within their borders. Second, we should assess welfare
policies, both current and proposed, by whether they will be effective in
alleviating the poverty of our sisters and brothers and in helping them to
improve their own lives and the lives of their families.
The central
challenge we face is not just people in need of help, but the tragedy of so many
families living without dignity and hope in our nation. While some would focus
instead on child well- being, these goals are not contradictory. There ought to
be a way bring together both goals, measuring welfare reform by how it reduces
poverty in a land of plenty and how it improves the lives of its children.
Principles For Welfare Reform
The Administrative Board of the
Bishops' Conference articulated principles for welfare reform in 1995 which
retain their relevance today. I reiterate what the Bishops said then: the
Conference's intent in offering its reflection on welfare policy is not to align
itself with a particular partisan or ideological agenda. We draw our directions
from consistent Catholic moral principles, guided by traditional values: respect
for human life and dignity; the importance of family and the value of work; an
option for the poor and the call to participation; and the principles of
subsidiarity and solidarity.
We also draw upon the Church's experience
living with, serving, and being the poor among us. The poor are our neighbors
and our parishioners. The Catholic community, perhaps the largest
nongovernmental provider of human services to poor families, meets the poor in
our soup kitchens, shelters and Catholic Charities agencies. Our community has
lived with the realities of welfare reform, encouraging and helping people to
make the transition from welfare to work. But we also live with those who are
left behind, who turn to our parishes, eat in our soup kitchens, sleep in our
shelters and ask for our help. Some are moving ahead and we welcome and
celebrate their progress. But some are left behind and this is the unfinished
task for our nation, which seeks "liberty and justice for all."
In light
of our principles and our everyday experiences, our Conference will apply six
principles in evaluating proposals for changes during
TANF
reauthorization. We urge lawmakers to enact polices that:
Protect human
life and human dignity: A fundamental criterion for all public policy, including
welfare policy, is respect for human life and human dignity. In particular, we
must protect the lives and dignity of vulnerable children, whether born or
unborn, and develop policies that safeguard children and discourage
inappropriate or morally destructive behavior
Strengthen family life:
Our welfare policy should affirm the importance of marriage, strong intact
families, personal responsibility, self-discipline, sacrifice and basic
morality. It should help mothers and fathers meet the social, economic,
educational and moral needs of their children. We should strive to keep
marriages strong and families together, and, when that is not possible, to keep
fathers involved in the lives of their children in a healthy and constructive
manner.
Encourage and reward work: Those who can work, should work. Work
is the means by which individuals support themselves and their families,
participate in Gods creation, express their dignity, and contribute to the
common good of society. The challenge is to ensure that our nations policies
support productive work with wages and benefits that permit a family to live in
dignity.
Preserve a safety net for the vulnerable: Society has a
responsibility to help meet the needs of those who cannot care for themselves,
who through no fault of their own cannot work or whose work is caring for young
children or disabled family members. Our policies should help and sustain the
most vulnerable among us, enhancing the ability of all children, including
immigrant children, to grow into productive adults. Legal immigrants should be
eligible for benefits on the same terms as citizens, and the children of
undocumented persons should not be left without help.
Build
public/private partnerships to overcome poverty: Overcoming poverty and
dependency requires creative, responsive and effective actions in both the
public and private sectors. Under the
TANF block grants, states
have been given a high degree of flexibility in shaping programs to meet the
needs of their populations and to draw more upon the skill and responsiveness of
community institutions. We must strive to achieve and preserve the appropriate
balance between the roles of the federal and state governments and private
entities in fighting poverty. This is why we support the Presidents faith-based
and community initiatives proposal. While we support the active role of states
and of faith?based and community groups, their efforts cannot replace the
important responsibility of the federal government, on behalf of our entire
society, to establish just public policy and to commit sufficient national
resources to meet the basic needs of the American people.
Invest in
human dignity: To continue and complete the work of welfare reform begun in
1996, we will continue to need significant public investment in
TANF. We cannot let declining caseloads deceive us into
thinking we can reduce
TANF block grants. The commitment and
effort of individuals seeking to leave welfare for work, poverty for
self-sufficiency, must be met by a public commitment to provide the jobs,
training, education, child care, health care, transportation and other supports
necessary to make that transition successfully.
In pursuing these
principles, we urge the Congress to avoid casting
TANF
reauthorization in terms of false choices that will diminish public debate and
peoples' lives. Refuse to pose welfare reform as a choice between encouraging
greater responsibility or accepting greater social responsibility B both are
necessary to help families overcome poverty. Refuse to pose welfare reform as a
choice between investing in decent work, child care, and education and training,
or recognizing the importance of healthy marriages and responsible parenthood B
both are necessary to improve children's lives. Children's lives and their hope
for the future are enhanced or diminished by the choices of their parents and
the polices of their government. Reauthorization is an opportunity to improve
TANF to encourage wise choices by their families and wise
investments by our nation in decent work, child care, and education and
training.
Do not draw our circle of concern too tightly. Single parents
and two parent couples struggle to raise their families in dignity. The children
of parents who were born here and of those who came here to escape poverty and
conflict are equally deserving of our help. Help not only those who can move
from welfare to work with a little push and minimal assistance, but also those
trapped without skills or education or facing addiction or
disability. Do not be afraid to insist on performance and
commitment from states as well as families in need, holding states accountable
for programs that help people not only leave dependency, but also to leave
poverty behind.
Lastly, avoid an overly ideological, polarized and
partisan debate over
TANF reauthorization that will only
undermine the steps our nation must take to overcome poverty and restore human
dignity for our families and children.
A Strategy For Addressing Poverty
Through
TANF Reauthorization
With these principles in
mind, we urge that a central goal for
TANF reauthorization
should be to address the moral scandal of so much poverty in the richest nation
on earth. To accomplish this,
TANF should seek to reduce
poverty through a three-pronged strategy of supporting meaningful work,
strengthening family life and marriage, and sustaining the needy and vulnerable
among us, especially our children; and to ensure adequate resources to
accomplish these goals by committing to
TANF funding levels at
least equal to current levels adjusted for inflation. I would like to suggest
some policy directions in each of these three areas, touching on only some of
the many issues that
TANF reauthorization will encompass. I am
pleased to note that several of these ideas are reflected in various of the
reauthorization proposals that have already been put forward.
Supporting
Meaningful Work
1. Expand the definition of work to include education
and substance abuse treatment:
TANF recipients need more than
just any job B they need a pathway out of poverty, and for many that means
access to education and job training, and in some cases, substance abuse
treatment, as well as a job. Under current law, individuals may count only
vocational education training towards work participation, for a maximum of 12
months, and states may allow no more than 30% of their caseload to do so. But
serious efforts to get a college degree or overcome an addiction is hard work
and should be recognized as such. States should have greater flexibility to
count job training, vocational and post-secondary education and substance abuse
treatment towards work requirements, alone or in conjunction with an employment
requirement. For instance, states could be given the option to allow
participants to count education towards work after a one or two year period of
employment.
Several of the current reauthorization proposals include
ideas in this area which deserve support. For example, most of them include some
provision for allowing states to count as work activities, for limited periods
of time, substance abuse or other programs to address work obstacles. We hope
the final legislation will include similar provisions, and in the case of
substance abuse, will give states the flexibility to include longer treatment
programs of up to nine months. With respect to educational activities, allowing
states to count 24 months of vocational and educational training as work, or
allowing states to have a percentage of
TANF recipients in
so-called "Parents as Scholars" programs, combining work and post-secondary
education, are promising ideas found in current proposals.
2. Ensure
that those leaving welfare have access to transitional benefits: Food and basic
health care are essential building blocks for life. As welfare recipients make
the transition from cash assistance to relying on work income alone, access to
noncash benefits such as food stamps and Medicaid can mean the difference
between success or failure, hunger and illness or progress. The law should
ensure that welfare leavers have automatic and meaningful access to Medicaid and
food stamps for a full year after they leave
TANF. TANF leavers
are eligible for one-year transitional Medicaid coverage; they should be
automatically eligible for food stamps for one year as well.
In addition
to granting automatic eligibility, states should be required to make sure those
leaving
TANF understand that they are eligible for these
benefits and that they are able to access them. Studies have indicated that
former welfare recipients who are eligible for but do not receive food stamps
and Medicaid often do not realize they are eligible, or are unable to navigate
complicated administrative requirements, including midday appointments at state
offices forcing them to miss work. States must streamline their processes so new
workers do not have to choose between obtaining needed benefits and keeping
their jobs, between work and feeding their families, between employment and
health care.
3. Child care assistance: Finding and paying for adequate
child care can be one of the biggest challenges facing parents trying to move
from welfare to work. The problem is exacerbated for parents who must work
weekend or night shift jobs, times when child care is particularly hard to find.
As with food stamps and Medicaid, many families leaving
TANF do
not receive child care assistance even though they are eligible. We must make
sure all working parents have access to safe, affordable child care at the times
they need it by increasing funding for federal child care assistance programs
such as the Child Care and Development Block Grant (which must also be
reauthorized next year) and the Social Services Block Grant, by making sure
low-income parents know they are eligible, and by increasing the availability of
adequate child care facilities. Several reauthorization proposals call for
additional CCDBG funding, and we urge the Subcommittee to incorporate additional
resources for child care in its
TANF legislation.
4.
Flexibility in time limits: A five-year time limit on federally-funded cash
assistance was one of the hallmarks of the 1996 law, and for many time limits
appear to have provided the motivation needed to get into, or back into, the
workforce. But for others, especially those who must overcome many obstacles to
work, time limits can be arbitrary and punitive. I urge you to look seriously at
ways to give states more flexibility in how they apply time limits while
continuing to use federal
TANF funds, so they can make time
limits work for all recipients. For example, states could have the option to
"stop the clock" B to continue providing cash assistance to recipients complying
with work requirements and not count those months towards the five- year time
limit. Or states could experiment with allowing working
TANF
participants to "earn back" time against the time limit. States could be given
the option of granting extensions to the five-year time limit, for example when
a downturn in the economy means working former participants face layoffs and the
inability to find work despite their best efforts.
5. Caution in
modifying work requirements: Under current law, states must have 50% of families
that receive
TANF engaged in specified "work activities" for a
total of 30 hours per week, with a shorter list of activities countable for the
first 20 hours. (Single parents of children under six need work only a total of
20 hours per week to be counted, and higher standards apply to two-parent
families.) States are eligible for a credit that reduces the 50% work
participation requirement B a percentage reduction in total caseloads earns an
equal reduction in the participation rate requirement. Caseloads have fallen so
significantly that most states were subject to minimal or even no work
participation requirement. Nonetheless, on average states had 34% of their
caseloads meeting the work requirements in 2000.
Among the proposals for
TANF reauthorization that have been put forward, two would
increase both the work participation rates that states must meet (from 50% to
70%) and the hours of activities individuals must engage in to be counted
towards the work participation rates (from 30 hours to 40 hours per week). In
one proposal, the first 24 hours would be limited to employment, work experience
or community service activities, with no flexibility to include job search or
vocational education activities (which are now allowed to count toward the first
20 hours of the 30 hour requirement.) Both proposals would end the caseload
reduction credit. (In one proposal, the caseload reduction credit would be
replaced by a new employment credit, a promising idea we urge you to pursue.)
While we support continuing
TANFs emphasis on work, we
share the serious concerns that have been raised about whether current proposals
that combine these three elements B increasing state participation rates,
increasing hours per week, and ending the caseload reduction credit B are
achievable and whether they would limit the flexibility of the states to
continue the programs they have developed to implement welfare reform in a way
that meet the needs of their people. Given the potential impact of such changes
in the work requirements, we urge Congress not to adopt an approach that
combines these elements as currently proposed.
For the most part, states
appear to have preferred to focus on getting recipients into employment, over
establishing large work experience or community service programs. Two-thirds of
the recipients who counted towards work participation rates in FY 2000 were
pursuing unsubsidized employment, while 10.6% were in work experience and 6.4%
were doing community service. Studies of welfare-to-work programs in the 1990s
indicate that programs combining a range of strategies and services, including
mandatory work, job search, life skills, and work-focused education and
training, were more successful at moving recipients off of welfare and into work
than more rigid programs that used only one strategy.
The combined
impact of the proposed changes in the work requirements would almost certainly
force states to divert more resources to developing large-scale work-experience
or community service programs to ensure that the new work targets would be met.
States would also have to find ways to increase spending on child care B more
single parents would have to spend more hours each week engaged in activities
and away from their children. Unless such changes were accompanied by
significant increases in the
TANF block grants and for child
care programs, states would face the prospect of having to turn programs
designed to get people into employment, into programs that simply keep people
busy for the required number of hours, and to focus their child care spending on
TANF recipients, at the expense of other low- income workers.
Press reports of a recent survey of states by the National Governors
Association and the American Public Health Services Association indicate that
states are concerned about the impact of such proposals. According to the
reports, 39 of the 44 states participating in the survey fear these increased
work requirements would be counterproductive, undermining their efforts to end
welfare dependency by moving recipients into the workforce. They are also
worried that meeting such requirements would limit their ability to dedicate
resources to work supports such as training, child care and transportation
services.
The intent of such proposals appears to be to ensure that
TANF retains a strong "work-first" emphasis, by seeing to it
that recipients are engaged in a full workweek of activity. The assumption is
that 40 hours of activities per week constitutes a full workweek. But for many
American workers, especially those in the kinds of jobs
TANF
recipients are likely to have, the average workweek is 35 hours or less. The
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) considers 35 hours per week to constitutes
full-time work, and reports that in 2001 service sector workers averaged under
33 hours per week, while retail-sector workers on average worked just under 29
hours per week. BLS data also indicates that 24.1% of American workers Band
one-third of unmarried women B work fewer than 35 hours per week. When gathering
these data, BLS counts as hours worked paid-leave time, such as sick leave or
vacation. It does not appear that holiday, sick time or other forms of necessary
time-off would count towards the proposed higher 40 hour
TANF
requirement. This would be a particular hardship for
TANF
recipients, who tend to face more of the kinds of obstacles that require time
away from work, such as child care crises, care giving for sick or disabled
relatives, and the need to interact with the benefits system during office
hours. Thus, requiring
TANF recipients to engage in 40 hours of
activities per week actually holds them to a higher standard than many other
parents who work.
Strengthening Family Life and Marriage
1.
Affirm the value of marriage, but do not abandon single parent families: For
decades, our welfare policy actively discouraged the formation and maintenance
of two-parent married families. One valuable aspect of the 1996 welfare reform
law was the recognition that our national policies must support families, not
undermine them, and help parents in meeting their responsibilities to their
children. The Catholic community has consistently affirmed the vital importance
of marriage for raising children. Children do better economically, emotionally,
and spiritually when raised by both parents in the context of a stable, healthy
marriage. Out-of-wedlock birth and divorce significantly diminish the well-being
of our children. We must make appropriate efforts to encourage abstinence before
marriage, to assist single parents considering marriage and to help married
parents to stay together.
Yet we also recognize that many factors in our
society, such as the widespread tragedy of divorce and the realities of domestic
violence and destructive behavior, leave many single parents struggling to
support children on their own. Single parents deserve our help, too, without
feeling coerced into entering into inappropriate marriages or staying in
dangerous relationships. It is essential that we both provide the resources
necessary to enable all parents, married or single, to meet the needs of their
families, and develop appropriate policies to support and strengthen marriage.
2. Remove barriers and disincentives to two-parent families. We should
all be able to agree that the first step in a pro-marriage policy should be to
end penalties against two-parent families struggling to meet their
responsibilities. Many states continue to implement pre-
TANF
policies that make it harder for two-parent families to qualify for and receive
TANF assistance. For example, two-parent families may be forced
to wait longer for benefits to begin than single-parent families, or be
disqualified because of the parents' recent work history, even if the family's
income is below the poverty level. Congress should require states to discontinue
policies, such as these, that act as a disincentive to marriage. Congress should
also end the separate, more stringent work participation rate requirements for
two-parent families in
TANF itself.
3. Help States Do
More to Support Effective Marriage Programs: States currently have the authority
to spend
TANF funds on marriage support programs, and should be
encouraged to assist low- income married couples who would benefit from marital
counseling or marriage-skills programs. For example, our colleagues at Catholic
Charities USA have developed a promising proposal to create a
$
100 million grant program through which states could help
low-income parents who are married, or who seek to marry, gain access to
services they other wise might not be able to afford, such as marriage
counseling, relationship skills classes, premarital counseling and marriage
preparation, marriage-skills classes.
While many groups and faith-based
organizations, including our Church, sponsor a range of marriage-support
programs, we have much to learn about what strategies are most effective in
addressing specific problems. Investing modest amounts of funding for
demonstration and pilot programs to identify "best practices" and for a
clearinghouse on effective programs would help states get information they need
to assess and implement effective and appropriate marriage and family formation
programs. We are pleased that several of the reauthorization proposals would
create funding for these purposes.
While we believe it is appropriate to
take measured steps to encourage and help states to do more to support marriage,
lawmakers need to evaluate every proposal to be sure it would not have the
unintended effect of forcing or pressuring couples into marriage. Congress
should be wary, for example, of measuring state progress in this area in a
manner that relies too much on simply counting the number of marriages or the
numbers of children living with married parents.
In sum, we urge you to
seek out policies that encourage and assist states to support marriage and to
work with unwed parents who wish to marry, but efforts to promote marriage
should not come at the expense of single parents or their children, either
directly or indirectly, by diverting essential resources or inadvertently
pressuring people into inappropriate marriages. We support efforts to reward all
parents for making wise choices, but must not punish children for the choices of
their parents.
4. Involve non-custodial fathers in their children's
lives. When parents are not married, we must find ways to encourage the active
presence of both parents in the lives of their children. Most often, that means
keeping non-custodial fathers involved with their children. As with
marriage-support programs,
TANF should assist states to
identify and support effective fatherhood programs that help fathers develop the
economic and emotional capacity to support their children. The law should be
amended so that child support paid by non-custodial fathers actually goes to
support their children on
TANF. Under current law, a mother
receiving
TANF must assign her child support rights to the
state, which retains and shares with the federal government most or all of any
amounts it collects from the father. Allowing more of the fathers child support
payment to reach his children will be both an economic boost for the children
and an incentive for the father to remain engaged in his children's lives, and
we are pleased that several reauthorization proposals would make progress on
this front.
Sustaining the Needy and Vulnerable
1. End state
family cap laws: Twenty-three states restrict or deny additional cash benefits
when a
TANF family's size increases because of the birth of a
baby. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has long opposed such policies
because of deep concern about their impact on the well-being of children, both
born and unborn. Evidence from a study of New Jerseys experience with a family
cap indicates that the policy was accompanied by more abortions in that state. A
recent GAO study notes that in an average month in 2000, about 108,000 families
received less in cash benefits due to family cap policies. We urge Congress to
amend
TANF to ban state family cap policies on pro-life and
pro- family principles. States should not be allowed to tell women they will pay
for their abortions, but will not help them support new children. A policy that
effectively penalizes certain families for having a new child cannot be seen as
pro-family.
2. Restore benefit eligibility to legal immigrants: A major
reason our Conference opposed the 1996 law was its harsh treatment of legal
immigrants. In 1996, legal immigrants were categorically barred from pubic
benefits programs. We have worked to achieve changes in the law, which restored
eligibility for some legal immigrants who entered the United States before 1996,
but did not cover the majority of legal immigrants, especially those who entered
the United States after August, 1996. The Bishops' Conference has long advocated
for the availability of basic necessities to all those in need, regardless of
their race, creed, ethnic origin, or nationality. Furthermore, legal immigrants
pay taxes and make significant contributions to our economy with their labor. As
a matter of justice, when people are in need, especially children, they should
have access to the public programs supported by their families' taxes.
3. Allow
TANF recipients to care for young children and
disabled family members: Young children, the sick and the disabled are among our
society's most vulnerable members. Their well-being often depends upon the
ability of parents and family members to take care of them on a full-time basis.
Yet under current law those same parents and family members may be forced to
work outside the home or face the loss of the cash assistance their family needs
to survive. Congress should amend the law so states have the option of using
federal funds to continue cash assistance to full-time care givers for children
under six or seriously ill or disabled family members. This could be done by
allowing such activities to count toward work participation requirements or
allowing states to exempt such care givers from time limits.
4.
Ameliorate harsh sanction policies: It is no easy matter to develop welfare
policy that ensures assistance for the needy without enabling the dependency of
those who can and should support themselves. But we cannot abandon those among
us who cannot help themselves, or who, with a little more time, patience and
assistance, would be able to help themselves and their families. Our goal must
be to ensure that no one falls through the cracks of federal or state
bureaucracies. To that end, we urge Congress to take a careful look at
TANF sanction polices.
There are strong indications
that many sanctioned families have multiple barriers to work B little or no
education, and more incidence of substance abuse, family violence, and mental
and physical health problems, and child care and transportation difficulties.
States currently have great latitude in implementing sanction policies, with
little accountability. Thirty-seven states use "full-family" sanctions, cutting
benefits to the entire family when one member violates the
TANF
rules. Nineteen states will impose a full-family sanction for a first violation,
and eight of those states apply a minimum penalty period, so the entire family
may continue to be denied benefits even after the violation has been remedied.
There is also evidence that many states do a poor job of communicating to
participants what is expected of them, the consequences of failing to meet those
expectations, and how to get help in coming back into compliance.
Congress should consider changes to the law to ameliorate arbitrary and
counterproductive sanction policies, such as requiring states to provide clear,
understandable information to all recipients on what is required of them and the
sanctions they face if they violate those requirements; to identify and work
with families at risk of sanctions; to end full-family sanctions for a first
violation; and to restore benefits immediately when a violation has been
remedied. We also must require more accountability from states, particularly
because
TANF incentives to decrease caseloads can also be an
incentive for a state to ignore high sanction rates. But high sanction rates in
a state should be a warning sign, not a rewarded behavior. States, as well as
families, should be held to meet their responsibilities.
Thank you for
the opportunity to share the Bishops' Conferences principles and policies on
TANF reauthorization. Together our nation must all strive to
create a truly flexible system of incentives and accountability for both
individuals and states, a system which empowers a partnership of government
agencies, community groups and recipients to meet the needs of individual
families and to give them the tools they need to leave poverty and government
assistance. The moral measure of our society is how we treat "the least among
us." (Matt. 25). The reauthorization of
TANF represents a major
opportunity to make overcoming poverty and restoring human dignity central
national priorities. The Bishops' Conference looks forward to working with this
Subcommittee and Congress on these and other important aspects of welfare policy
in the coming months.
LOAD-DATE: May 1, 2002