WASHINGTON, D.C. – The United States House of Representatives passed the Personal Responsibility, Work and Family Promotion Act of 2003 (H.R. 4) today by a vote of 230-192.
Representative Xavier Becerra (CA – 31), the only congressional member from Southern California who is on the House Ways and Means Committee, voted against the bill.
If signed into law, H.R. 4 would reauthorize the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program through fiscal year 2008. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 effectively put an end to the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program and replaced it with TANF, a block grant program aimed at moving the nation's impoverished away from welfare and into work. Whether or not TANF has been a success continues to be debated on Capitol Hill.
“Congress should be concerned with lowering poverty, not just lowering caseloads,” Rep. Becerra said. “This inadequate bill bleeds with hypocrisy – it calls for more stringent work requirements, but doesn’t offer enough money to properly fund child care.”
H.R. 4 provides $1 billion over the current appropriated level of $2.7 billion in child care funding over the next five years. Congressional Democrats offered two substitute bills that increased child care funding to more appropriate levels. The first alternative allocated $11 billion over the current level, and the second allocated $20 billion over the current appropriated level. At current, only one out of every seven American children who qualifies for day care gets it. In California, close to 300,000 children are currently on day care waiting lists. The cost to adequately provide child care to California’s children alone would cost $1 billion over five years.
“The president is currently pushing a 10-year, $695 billion tax cut,” Rep. Becerra said. “If he trimmed that by just two percent, there would be more than enough money to provide the proper child care American children and their mothers deserve – not to mention, there would still be plenty of money left over to make the beneficiaries of that wanton tax cut more than pleased.”
Both Democratic substitute bills were voted down.
Prior to the legislation reaching the House Floor, Rep. Becerra introduced an amendment that would give states the flexibility to use the TANF bloc grant to serve legal permanent residents. “We should not be tying the states’ hands on this issue,” Rep. Becerra said. “We must give states the discretion they need to find and combat poverty where it exists – and we should not force them to do this on their own dime. Since we implemented this bar five years ago, 23 states have used their own funds to assist the immigrant population. Now, times are tough, and the economic downturn has forced states to implement massive budget cuts. If we continue to uphold the bar, countless legal permanent residents, who work hard and honorably and provide a great service to this country, will be forced further into poverty.”
Unfortunately, the Rules Committee did not include Rep. Becerra’s amendment in H.R. 4.
There is no word as to when the Senate plans on taking up its version of the welfare bill.