March 20, 2003 Update/Action Alert --

Senate Finance Committee Action On Reauthorization of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF)

        The Senate Finance Committee plans to complete its work on TANF reauthorization by the end of April and hopes to have a floor vote, finish the conference report, and send the final legislation to the President for his signature before funding for the current program ends June 30.

      The Finance committee's TANF hearing on March 12 produced no surprises. It was held in a small hearing room with most of the space occupied by Senate staff. No "overflow room" was set up for those who could not get seats, despite the fact that perhaps 100 members of the advocacy community were waiting in line for admittance long before the scheduled start of the hearing.

      Only Sens. Baucus (D-MT) and Jeffords (I-VT) were present for the full hearing, which lasted most of the morning. Other members of the Committee attended for the parts of the session that were of special interest to them. Most of the Senators listened passively to witnesses and few raised difficult issues.

     The exceptions were Sen. Snowe (R-ME), who opposed the Administration's increased work requirement and pressed hard on the issue of counting post-secondary education as a work activity (she has introduced separate legislation for this purpose) and Sen. Breaux (D-LA), who vigorously opposed increasing work hours, especially for mothers of pre-school children. Sen. Grassley (R-IA, Chair of the Committee) expressed doubts about adding new mandates on the states.

      Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, as anticipated, strongly defended the Administration's proposal and the House-passed bill, HR 4. He maintained that TANF has been highly successful at cutting the welfare rolls and that no more money is needed for cash benefits or child care because the reduction in the rolls has freed up funds for child care. He has never accepted that there is a desperate shortage of child care, that increasing the work requirement would worsen that situation, and that more money is needed for child care for low-income families. The House bill adds $1 billion over five years for this purpose and the Senate is likely to add more.

      Representatives of three state governments testified on aspects of particular importance to their state programs --marriage promotion for Oklahoma, meeting increased work requirements in Texas, and the importance of increased child support recovery for Massachusetts. Of particular interest was the testimony of Margy Waller from the Brookings Institution, who reviewed the research on work requirements and was critical of proposals, as contained in HR 4, to increase the work requirement.

      It is not clear whether the Finance Committee will hold further hearings on TANF before moving to markup. When the Committee does begin to develop its final language, the House-passed bill will be on the table, along with proposals by several Senators. One of those will be S. 5 by Sen. Talent (R-MO), a bill that is similar to HR 4 except that it would eliminate poverty reduction as a goal of TANF and deny TANF and food stamps t the entire family (including young children) of any adult who fails to comply fully with TANF work requirements. Current law denies benefits only to the relevant adult.

      It is generally agreed that the Senate will not simply approve the House bill. The big arguments are expected to be over child care funding, education and training, benefits for legal immigrants, increasing the work requirement, and the Administration and House proposal to grant superwaivers, allowing states to waive certain provisions of over half a dozen programs serving low-income people. There is little support for this proposal in the Senate.

      Grassroots organizations that wish to make input into the Senate Finance Committee deliberations can still submit testimony to be included in the record of the March 12 hearing. Statements must be received by the Committee BY MARCH 26, 2003. They should by typed in Word Perfect or MS Word, single-spaced, no more than ten pages long, with the subject of the hearing on the first page, and sent to the Senate Finance Committee at Editorial@finance-rep.senate.gov