The War on Poverty: a Progress Report
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THE WAR ON POVERTY: A PROGRESS REPORT HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, JULY 31, 2013 Serial No. 113–8 Printed for the use of the Committee on the Budget ( Available on the Internet: www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/committee.action?chamber=house&committee=budget U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 81–981 PDF WASHINGTON : 2013 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001 COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin, Chairman TOM PRICE, Georgia CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland, SCOTT GARRETT, New Jersey Ranking Minority Member JOHN CAMPBELL, California ALLYSON Y. SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania KEN CALVERT, California JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky TOM COLE, Oklahoma BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey TOM MCCLINTOCK, California TIM RYAN, Ohio JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin DIANE BLACK, Tennessee KATHY CASTOR, Florida REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin JIM MCDERMOTT, Washington BILL FLORES, Texas BARBARA LEE, California TODD ROKITA, Indiana DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island ROB WOODALL, Georgia HAKEEM S. JEFFRIES, New York MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee MARK POCAN, Wisconsin ALAN NUNNELEE, Mississippi MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico E. SCOTT RIGELL, Virginia JARED HUFFMAN, California VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri TONY CA´ RDENAS, California JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon LUKE MESSER, Indiana KURT SCHRADER, Oregon TOM RICE, South Carolina ROGER WILLIAMS, Texas SEAN P. DUFFY, Wisconsin PROFESSIONAL STAFF AUSTIN SMYTHE, Staff Director THOMAS S. KAHN, Minority Staff Director (II) C O N T E N T S Page Hearing held in Washington, DC, July 31, 2013 .................................................. 1 Hon. Paul Ryan, Chairman, Committee on the Budget ................................ 1 Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 2 Hon. Chris Van Hollen, ranking member, Committee on the Budget ......... 3 Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 5 Jon Baron, president, Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy .......................... 7 Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 8 Eloise Anderson, secretary, Wisconsin Department of Children and Fami- lies; chair, Secretary’s Innovation Group .................................................... 13 Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 15 Douglas Besharov, professor, University of Maryland School of Public Policy .............................................................................................................. 19 Prepared statement of, Internet address to ............................................ 21 Sr. Simone Campbell, SSS, executive director, NETWORK, a national Catholic social justice lobby ......................................................................... 21 Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 23 Additional submission: ‘‘Priorities for a Faithful Budget,’’ Internet address to ............................................................................................... 79 Hon. Allyson Y. Schwartz, a Representative in Congress from the State of Pennsylvania, prepared statement of ...................................................... 64 Hon. Barbara Lee, a Representative in Congress from the State of Cali- fornia, submissions for the record: Tianna Gaines-Turner, chair, Witnesses to Hunger, prepared state- ment of .................................................................................................... 64 Deborah Weinstein, executive director, Coalition on Human Needs, prepared statement of ........................................................................... 68 Hon. Gwen Moore, a Representative in Congress from the State of Wis- consin, submission for the record: Citizens for Tax Justice press release, dated April 24, 2013, ‘‘Execu- tive-Pay Tax Break Saved Fortune 500 Corporations $27 Billion Over the Past Three Years’’ .................................................................. 72 (III) THE WAR ON POVERTY: A PROGRESS REPORT WEDNESDAY, JULY 31, 2013 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET, Washington, DC. The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 12:30 p.m., in room 210, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Paul Ryan, [chairman of the Committee] presiding. Present: Representatives Ryan, Price, Garrett, Ribble, Rice, Duffy, McClintock, Williams, Rokita, Messer, Blackburn, Hartzler, Woodall, Lankford, Pascrell, Castor, McDermott, Lee, Cicilline, Jeffries, Pocan, Schrader, Yarmuth, Moore, Lujan Grisham Chairman RYAN. All right. The hearing will come to order. First of all, I would like to ask for unanimous consent that members have five calendar days to submit opening statements, and that it include any extraneous material for the record, without objection. Good afternoon, everybody. This looks like a very well-attended hearing. I expect more of our members to show up as we progress. Well, why are we doing this? Forty-nine years ago Lyndon John- son declared a War on Poverty. In 1964, he said, quote, ‘‘We have declared unconditional War on Poverty. Our objective is total vic- tory,’’ close quote. Later that year he added, quote, ‘‘I believe that 30 years from now Americans will look back upon these 1960s as the time of the great American breakthrough, the victory of pros- perity over poverty,’’ end quote. Well, since then, we have spent $15 trillion on that war. So what do we have to show for it? Today 46 million people are living in poverty. Twenty million Americans live on less than half of the poverty level. For too many families the American dream is out of reach. Now that is partly because of this recession, but even as the economy picks up steam, millions of families are falling farther behind. And many communities have been hurting for years, well before this recession hit. The fact is, we are losing this War on Poverty, and we need to know why. This is not about cutting spending, this is about improv- ing people’s lives. In this country, the condition of your birth should not determine the outcome of your life. If you work hard and play by the rules, you can get ahead. That is something that we all believe in and that we all care about. This is the central promise of this country. We want to protect that idea, and we want to preserve it for the next generation. And government does have a role to play. But we have been doing a pretty lousy job. The reason is govern- ment is focusing too much on inputs. We are focusing on the money (1) 2 we spend. Instead, we ought to focusing on results. We should focus on how many people we get off of public assistance because they have a good job, because they have opportunity and upward mobil- ity. The federal government is like a giant sedimentary rock. There are layers upon layers of programs that have been built up upon each other over time. In fact, there are so many of them, and there is so little coordination between them that, in many cases, they work against each other. In effect, we penalize people for finding a job or getting a raise. And even worse, some programs displace the efforts of local communities to help families in need. Govern- ment should not displace these efforts; it should support them. So I hope today’s hearing will start a conversation. Both sides need to rethink the government’s approach to poverty, both sides. How can we support our local communities? How can we renew the American Idea? How can we focus on outcomes and results, and see those results? To that end, I am very pleased to welcome from Wisconsin, our secretary, Eloise Anderson, the head of Wisconsin’s Department of Children and Families. She brings decades of experience as a social worker and administrator. We have Professor Besharov from the University of Maryland. He brings decades of academic expertise. He is well versed in the history of these societal challenges and government’s response to them. We have Jon Baron from the Coali- tion for Evidence-Based Policy. He is a distinguished, non-partisan leader in evaluating government programs. I also want to thank Sister Simone Campbell for joining us here today as well. With that, I would like to recognize the ranking member, Mr. Van Hollen, for his opening remarks. [The prepared statement of Paul Ryan follows:] PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. PAUL RYAN, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET Well, good afternoon, everybody. Forty-nine years ago, Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty. In 1964, he said, ‘‘We have declared unconditional war on poverty. Our objective is total victory.’’ Later that year, he added, ‘‘I believe that thirty years from now Americans will look back upon these 1960s as the time of the great American Breakthrough * * * the victory of prosperity over poverty.’’ Since then, we’ve spent over $15 trillion in that war. So what do we have to show for it? Well, today 46 million people live in poverty. And 20 million Americans live on less than half of the poverty level. For too many families, the American Dream is out of reach. Now that’s partly because of the recession. But even as the economy picks up steam, millions of families are falling behind. And many communities