Extending Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program and Related Programs

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. MOORE. Mr. Speaker, here we are, yet again, to extend block grants to States for the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families Act through September 30, 2019, this time in the form of H.R. 2940. I support that initiative.

However, with the reform of ``welfare as we knew it'' pre-1996, instead of helping people out of poverty, as the narrative goes, we have created a permanent underclass of primarily women workers who have been denied education, denied training, and denied childcare while being required to work at below-subsistence levels or, worse, forced to engage in work activities with absolutely no compensation, which is violative of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished slavery and uncompensated work.

Mr. Speaker, our so-called welfare reform can more accurately be described as ``welfare deform,'' given the flagrant flaws that amount to government-sanctioned child abuse--for example, the requirement to work without guaranteed, safe, and affordable childcare, and the imposition of time limits during countercyclical episodes, like the one we saw during the Great Recession.

Mr. Speaker, I have drafted a bill called the RISE Out of Poverty Act that would do more than just extend TANF. It would reform it by stipulating that reducing child poverty and securing childcare while the parent is at work would be the primary purpose of TANF.

We would lift people out of poverty. The block grants would be spent on programs that would alleviate poverty, not on projects like filling the holes in a government's budget.

While I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 2940, I also encourage us, Mr. Speaker, to roll up our sleeves and get to work and craft an overhaul of this program that would fix the shortcomings that exist in the TANF program we now have.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source