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REMARKS BY:  DONNA E. SHALALA, U.S. SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND
                 HUMAN SERVICES
PLACE:       American Public Welfare Association
DATE:        February 27, 1995

I am honored to be here today to talk with you about the Clinton Administration's vision of welfare reform.

I am also here to listen and learn from you.

No one knows better what is wrong with the present system than you.

And no one knows better how to fix it.

That's why when the President was formulating the Work and Responsibility Act last year, you were among the first people we consulted.

It is no accident that your proposal and ours share a common vision:

We both agree that, first and foremost, meaningful reform must be about moving people from welfare to work.

It must be about a paycheck -- not a welfare check.

That means insisting on parental responsibility, strengthening child support enforcement, preventing teen pregnancy, putting in place work requirements that have real teeth, providing safe and reliable child care, and offering education and training.

We also agree that welfare reform should not be about punishing poor children for their parents' past mistakes.

Of course, you didn't need someone from a Washington think tank to help you come to these conclusions.

You're the ones who understand our welfare system from the inside.

You have seen its failings -- and you understand the real lives and aspirations of the vulnerable Americans who want to move to independence.

It is amazing to me how many self-proclaimed experts, who have never set foot in a welfare office, seem to know so much about the system.

It is remarkable that so many who have never witnessed, much less experienced, the pain and shame of needing to ask someone for help feeding one's children can claim to have all the answers.

Welfare reform is a subject that is rife with experts.

Many of whom bring nothing to the table but a calculator and a stack of statistics:

14 million people receiving AFDC at a cost of $22 billion dollars.

200,000 teen pregnancies each year.

A $34 billion dollar gap in unpaid child support payments.

The statistical dimensions of this issue are well documented.

But let's not get so caught up in the numbers that we forget the human dimensions of this challenge.

Behind every statistic is a face.

The face of a terrified and desperate single mother.

The face of a bewildered laid off worker.

The face of an innocent child.

Welfare reform cannot be viewed from an ivory tower.

It must be viewed from the trenches.

And there's no one we'd rather have with us on the frontlines of this struggle than you.

The President appreciates where you are coming from on this issue -- because he's been where you are now.

He's talked to hundreds of people on welfare.

He's heard their views.

And he knows that no one wants the system changed more than they do.

As you know, President Clinton has devoted more than 15 years to this challenge. As Governor of Arkansas, he championed the last federal bipartisan welfare reform effort, which resulted in the landmark Family Support Act of 1988.

Earlier this year, he again called together Republicans and Democrats, senators and representatives, and governors and county officials to put people before politics and overhaul our broken system.

And, because he knows that you in the states are creating real laboratories of reform, he also promised the governors that his Administration would work closely with the states to streamline and improve the welfare waiver process.

Now we know that, in the past, the word "waiver" has conjured up images of red tape and long delays.

But, we have dramatically speeded up the process.

We have given states much more latitude in testing policy options.

And we have supported you in testing similar policies in more than one state.

As a result, in just two years, we have granted more than twice as many welfare waivers as the previous Administration did in four years.

In fact, we have granted welfare waivers to more states than all previous administrations combined.

And today, I am proud to announce the granting of a waiver to the great state of Nebraska -- the 24th state to enact reforms since the President took office.

Now I know that Nebraska has gotten a lot of attention lately with all the talk about Boys' Town and orphanages.

But Governor Ben Nelson's demonstration program is about strengthening families, keeping them together, and giving real hope to the next generation.

And when you look at all the waivers we have granted, there's a common theme -- jobs, personal responsibility, and state flexibility.

I hope they pay as much attention to that up on Capitol Hill.

The fact is, state demonstrations -- from Vermont to California -- are beginning to show their worth.

If you want to know how they are working just ask Tammy Smith of Oregon.

Ms. Smith was a high school drop-out and teen mother. She had a baby in 1990 and went on welfare. Until recently, she thought she would never be a good role model for her daughter.

She thought the mistakes of her past had doomed her to a hopeless future.

That is, until she volunteered in the Oregon Jobs Plus program. Ms. Smith is now working for a real estate company and earning $6 dollars an hour, plus the benefits of the EITC, which is the President's tax cut for the working poor.

She is well on her way to independence.

Then there's Karen Reed, a mother of two boys, ages 3 and 10 in Pensacola, Florida.

Ms. Reed had a high school diploma but no job skills. After years of living on the edge, she enrolled in Florida's Family Transition Program.

The program helped her pursue a career as a medical assistant. The state helped her enroll in Pensacola Junior College, where she is making all A's and B's. She is also receiving child care assistance and other help -- her future has never looked brighter, and her family has never been stronger.

Time and time again, we see that with the right expectations, incentives, and support, people on welfare can make the transition to work and a better life for themselves and their children.

That's the President's vision for welfare reform. And we've backed up our vision with action:

Granting waivers in 24 states. Strengthening child support enforcement. Insisting that nutrition programs always be there for children. And making tough demands for strong work requirements.

That's a real commitment to welfare reform.

In contrast, the current House Republican proposals that are weak on work and tough on kids are not real reform.

We all know that welfare reform must be about strengthening families -- not tearing them apart or writing them off.

We want to fashion a bipartisan bill this year, but we will not endorse provisions in the House Republican proposal that undermine American values shared by all of us in this room.

I'm talking about the values of work, family, responsibility, and state flexibility.

Let's talk about work first.

The Republican proposal requires only a tiny fraction of recipients to engage in work activities next year.

In fact, these work requirements would be weaker -- yes, weaker -- than those under current law.

And the tools we know are necessary to move people from welfare to work -- particularly child care -- would be cut dramatically in the House Republican plan.

Checking a book out of the library or leafing through the want ads might even qualify as "work" under their proposal.

That's not work and we shouldn't call it that.

In fact, an article in the New Republic last week called it "Workfake" -- a ploy rather than a plan that actually takes us backward. More politics-as-usual -- not real reform.

Then there's the issue of strengthening families and protecting the health and safety of our children -- which has always been a non-negotiable American value.

But in our rush to get tough on people on welfare, some would blindly trample on the future of our children.

As far back as 1935 Franklin Roosevelt said, "Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel in order to be tough."

Cruel is the only way to describe provisions that would abolish nutrition programs for children, deny benefits to children of teen mothers, and reduce assistance to thousands of abused, neglected, and abandoned children.

Our goal must be to lift people up from dependence to independence, not to punish them because they happen to be poor or young.

As the President said in his State of the Union address, "All of us have made our past mistakes, and none of us can change our yesterdays...but every one of us can change our tomorrows."

We're not willing to give up on teen parents.

Because giving up on them would be giving up on the value of responsibility.

We believe that holding teen parents responsible for support of their children makes more sense than simply cutting off their benefits or maintaining the status quo.

Our approach provides time-limited benefits for teen mothers, but only if they live at home with their parents or a responsible adult, identify their child's father, and stay in school.

That's the way to help teen mothers change their behavior, prepare for a lifetime of work, and break the cycle of dependency.

Our approach makes so much more sense than simply giving up on them and not requiring them to take immediate steps to secure long-term futures as good parents and providers.

Our approach also includes strong child support enforcement -- something the Republicans have agreed, at our urging, to add to their bill.

We must make it clear to everyone on welfare -- both men and women -- that having a child is an immense lifetime responsibility.

It is simply not acceptable for parents to walk away from the children they helped bring into the world.

Our message to parents is clear: if you're not providing for your children, we'll garnish your wages, suspend your driver's and professional licenses, track you across state lines, and, if necessary, make you work off what you owe.

This commitment is paying off. From 1992 to 1993, my Department dramatically increased child support collections.

And today, I'm pleased to announce that the President signed an Executive Order that will make it easier for the government to track down federal employees who owe unpaid child support or will not acknowledge their paternity. This makes the federal government a model employer in this critical effort.

I'm proud of these achievements -- but, our work is far from done.

Did you know that two-thirds of absent parents still don't pay a dime in child support?

That's wrong -- and we're committed to holding both parents responsible for raising their children.

It's the right thing to do -- and the smart thing to do.

Finally, the Republican plan could undermine the value of state flexibility -- something we all have fought long and hard to expand.

Under their plan, states would lose almost $18 billion dollars in federal funding over five years to block grant AFDC and child welfare funding.

This capped block grant would not adjust for recessions, population growth, or other events that could increase the need for services and put states in a fiscal crunch.

In addition, the Republican plan cuts federal funding to states for child care by $2.5 billion dollars over five years.

By the year 2000, California would lose slots for more than 33,000 children...

New York for more than 22,000 children...

And Pennsylvania for more than 14,000 children.

While we are absolutely committed to state flexibility, we want to be sure that we maintain our historic partnership with the states.

We need to listen closely to leaders like Delaware Governor Tom Carper, who had this to say about the Republican proposal.

He said, and I quote: "This proposal's reduction in funding and lack of a safety net threatens to limit the very flexibility we seek" to reform welfare.

In closing, let me say again that welfare reform must be about a paycheck, not a welfare check.

We won't have ended welfare as we know it until our central focus is moving people into private sector jobs -- so they can support themselves and their families.

A job has always been the best social program.

If we're not talking about jobs and empowerment, we're not talking about welfare reform.

In the coming weeks, we will need your voices to help us bring this message home.

We need your wisdom.

We need your experience.

We need your moral leadership.

Because, ultimately, history will judge this debate by whether we upheld the American values of work, responsibility, family, fairness, and state flexibility.

History will judge us by whether we were tough but not cruel. History will judge us by whether we made sure that everybody who can work does work. History will judge us by whether we protected children and gave them stronger futures.

And history will judge us by whether we accepted our historic challenge to fix this broken system ... and got the job done.

Thank you for standing with us, with your communities, and with all our children.