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March 3, 2005

 

      BIPARTISAN ACTIVITY ON SENATE BILL

     BACKGROUND: Senate Finance Committee staff from both parties are working hard to fashion a bipartisan bill to reauthorize the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) welfare program. They are using as their starting point the bill that came out of Committee last year, the “Personal Responsibility and Individual Development for Everyone Act” (PRIDE Act). The House of Representatives has not yet begun work on a TANF reauthorization bill.
     Both the majority and minority staff want to make sure TANF reauthorization does not become part of the budget process, where the program would be very vulnerable to budget cuts. The goal is to develop a bill that both Chairman Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Ranking Member Max Baucus (D-MT) agree will win the bipartisan support of the Committee so that Committee action can occur quickly, as early as the week of March 7. That is also the week the Senate Budget Committee will start work on the budget resolution.
     Attached is our list of priorities for TANF, noting which priorities are already reflected in last year’s PRIDE Act. Among the key items still being negotiated are other USCCB priorities, including child care funding, allowing education and training to count as work activities for a longer period, and giving states more flexibility to provide TANF recipients with rehabilitation and treatment for disabilities and substance abuse problems. The PRIDE Act includes $1 billion in new child care dollars over five year. There is support for adding more child care funding, but to pay for it the Committee will have to look for savings in other programs it oversees, many of which serve the same people as TANF does. We are concerned that any new child care funding not come at the expense of cutting other services for low-income and vulnerable families.


ACTION REQUESTED: Contact Your Senators immediately, especially if they are on the Senate Finance Committee (listed below)


     With bipartisan commitment to make progress, this is a crucial moment in the process. Please contact your Senators – if they are not on the Senate Finance Committee, ask them to weigh in with their colleagues who are. Urge them to support efforts to reach a bipartisan bill and to ask that the PRIDE Act also include:

  • Restoring benefits eligibility for legal immigrants
  • Providing additional mandatory child care funding (without using funds that go to serve the poor in other programs)
  • Giving states more flexibility to provide education and training, by allowing vocational education to count as work for two years
  • Expanding the length of time states can allow welfare recipients to participate in rehabilitation and treatment for disabilities and substance abuse problems

Find your Senators’ local phone numbers in the blue pages of your phone directory, or call their Washington offices through the Capitol Switchboard, (202) 224-3121

SENATE FINANCE COMMITTEE MEMBERS:

USCCB POSITION: The Catholic Bishops' Conference has consistently called for welfare reform policies that: Protect human life and dignity; strengthen family life; encourage and reward work; preserve a safety net for the vulnerable; build public/private partnerships to overcome poverty; and invest in human dignity. Based on these principles, we believe a central goal for TANF reauthorization should be to address the moral scandal of so much poverty in the richest nation on earth, through policies that support meaningful work, strengthen marriage and family life, and sustain the needy and vulnerable among us, especially our children; and by committing to funding TANF, at a minimum, at current levels adjusted for inflation.

 

For more information, see the TANF section of our website: www.usccb.org/sdwp/national/welfare2.htm

 

 

Copyright 2005 | Peace and Social Justice Ministry