Mr. President, I rise to express my concern on the FY 1999 emergency supplemental and rescissions bill. I support disaster relief for Central America and the Caribbean, emergency relief for America's farmers in crisis, and aid to Jordan to implement the Wye River agreement. It is important that these priorities be funded.
My concern is that one of the budget offsets to pay for this bill pits these important foreign and domestic needs against the needs of the country's poorest families -- something that Hawaii's poorest families can ill afford. This supplemental bill seeks to defer $350 million in funding from "unobligated balances" under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program until FY 2001. The language in the bill requires deferral of portions of states' unobligated TANF funds. The deferral is based on the states' share of total unobligated funds. Preliminary estimates show this means Hawaii would not be able to spend about $800,000 of its TANF funds until FY 2001.
It is my understanding that my friend from Alaska, Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Stevens, is working to find a different offset so that the $350 million in TANF funds will not have to be deferred. I strongly encourage him in these efforts and urge that this be done.
In the meantime, we all know that TANF replaced the Aid to Families with Dependent Children welfare program in 1996. I am a critic of the TANF program for failing to provide an adequate safety net for low-income families. However, I am adamant that full funding must continue to go to the states to assist welfare families and their children. No part of it should be deferred to offset supplemental spending.
The term, "unobligated," may seem self-explanatory. Anyone may think that a $350 million deferral of unobligated funds under the bill would apply to funds that have simply not been spent under this program. Proponents would argue that welfare rolls have fallen so far that this money is not needed by states, which is why it remains unobligated. However, Mr. President, we know that funding decisions by state and local governments take time. Transfers of expenditures must go through a process. States often commit funding to counties and local governments that is not transferred immediately, so the amount is not taken off the states' books.
The fact is many states rely heavily on these unobligated funds and have already committed them for a wide variety of uses, such as distribution to counties and local agencies, "rainy day" funds for contingencies such as economic downturns that swell the rolls and leave states without enough money until the next federal payment, transfers into child care and social services activities, or other basic expenses to help low-income families become self-sufficient.
My state of Hawaii continues to plan uses for all available funds to provide child care services to our TANF families so that they can be given a chance to continue at their jobs and make it work. Hawaii is doing this the right way, instead of simply looking at the numbers and acting to drop welfare recipients off their rolls. Hawaii is truly "teaching them to fish," so that they truly achieve self sufficiency.
Deferring release of TANF funds for a number of years and using the $350 million for emergency spending violates the agreement made when TANF was passed. I have a letter here from Governor of Hawaii, Benjamin Cayetano, dated March 12th, that describes the agreement between Governors, Congress, and the Administration that the entitlement nature of the old AFDC program would be replaced with a set amount of funding to states under TANF. I ask unanimous consent that the letter be included in the Record. To use TANF funding as an offset abrogates this agreement. I hope my colleagues, the appropriators, are working to keep this agreement intact. Hawaii and other states need this money to assist poor families.
And of all states, Hawaii needs assistance the most.
Mr. President, our Nation is enjoying the longest peacetime expansion in American history -- yet Hawaii is not benefiting from this expansion. While the country is enjoying the lowest unemployment in nearly 30 years and tremendous job creation, Hawaii is losing jobs and its people are having a difficult time find work at a living wage. Our unemployment rate is at 5.7 percent as of November 1998 -- well above the country's average of 4.3 percent. Bankruptcy filings increased more than 30 percent from 1997 to 1998. Retail sales fell seven percent from $16.3 billion in 1997 to $15.2 billion in 1998. These are some recent economic indicators. Hawaii has been suffering from an economic downturn for most of this decade. As if this were not enough, my state has had to endure the worst of all states from the economic crisis in Asia. The Aloha State welcomed 11 percent fewer tourists from Japan and other parts of Asia in 1998. If anything should be slated for emergency funding, Hawaii should.
With all of this need, you can see why $800,000 in TANF funding means a lot to my state. The number of families in Hawaii receiving assistance under this program has increased since the new law was passed. According to the Hawaii Department of Human Services, as of January, 1999, 16,575 single-parent families and 7,119 two-parent families were on the rolls, for a total of 23,694 families receiving assistance. This represents an increase of more than 2,000 families since 1995 when the number of families receiving assistance was 21,480. Hawaii's numbers have increased because of the tough economic conditions we are now enduring.
Hawaii needs every bit of our TANF funding to make sure that our poor families continue to be self-sufficient. This is stated in the letter I submitted earlier from Governor Cayetano. We have not put our unobligated balances aside for a rainy day fund because we do not have enough of it -- we need to use every dollar we have for caseloads now.
Once again, I urge my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee and the gentleman from Alaska, Chairman Stevens, to continue working to find another $350 million offset for this emergency supplemental bill, rather than defer much-needed TANF funds. I appreciate having this opportunity to speak and yield back the balance of my time.
