TRANSCRIPT' OF PROCEEDINGS NATIONAL GOVERNORS' ASSOCIATION 1994 WINTER MEETING PLENARY SESSION Washington, D. C. Tuesday, February 1, 1994 ACE - FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC. Stenotype Reporters 1120 G Street. NW Washington. D.C. 20005 (202) 347-3700 NATIONWIDE COVERAGE 800·336·6646 7649.0 1 I'Sjg NATIONAL GOVERNORS' ASSOCIATION * * * 1994 WINTER MEETING PLENARY SESSION J. W. Marriott Hotel 1331 Pennsylvania Avenu , N.W. Grand Ballroom Salons II, III, IV Washington, D. C. Tuesday, February 1, 1994 9:25 a.m. ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC. Nationwide Coverage 202-347-3700 800-336-6646 410-684-2550 4900101 2 DAVjbg 1 PRO C E E DIN G S 2 GOVERNOR CAMPBELL: If everyone would go ahead 3 and please take their seats we'll get started. 4 I want to welcome everyone to the closing plenary 5 session of the 1994 National Governors' Association winter 6 meeting. As throughout, we have a busy agenda this morning 7 so we'll get underway immediately. 8 We're delighted to introduce Senator Daniel 9 Patrick Moynihan, the distinguished Chairman of the Senate 10 Finance Committee. 11 As we all know, Senator Moynihan has had a long 12 and distinguished career in public service and has played a 13 key role in the development of welfare reform legislation. 14 We remain grateful to you, Senator, for your 15 efforts on behalf of our states during the development of 16 the Family Support Act. That Act took place in 1988 and it 17 has helped us immensely and we look forward to working with 18 you this year as we move toward further reform. 19 Senator Moynihan will make brief remarks this 20 morning and then we invite you, Senator, to stay with us for 21 the state presentations on their activities designed to 22 strengthen and restructure their welfare systems and to ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC. Nationwide Coverage 202-347-3700 800-336-6646 410-684-2550 ;4900101 3 DAVjbg 1 participate at any time you would like during those 2 discussions. We felt that an open and free flowing format 3 would probably serve all of us very well. 4 Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Senator 5 Daniel Patrick Moynihan. 6 (Applause.) 7 SENATOR MOYNIHAN: Thank you, Governor Campbell, 8 and good morning, governors. May I say that what would 9 serve the Senate most would be for me to be brief and to 10 then commence to listen. 11 Governor Campbell was generous enough to refer to 12 the Family Support Act of 1988, which I would like just to 13 run through in terms of two facts. The first is that this 14 was our basic redefinition of what we call or have come to 15 call welfare. 16 The Aid to Families with Dependent Children 17 program began in 1935 as the Aid to Dependent Children in 18 1940. It began as a widows' pension. We would describe a 19 typical recipients as a West Virginia miners' widow, with no 20 intention that the person involved would ever leave that 21 situation and with the expectation, in respects to 22 widowhood, that in time survivors insurance would come into ACE-FEDERAL REpORTERS, INC. Nationwide Coverage 202-347-3700 800-336-6646 410-684-2550 4900101 4 DAVjbg 1 play and the program simply would go away. 2 For a period after the war it served as a form of 3 interim support, on income insurance, for mothers with 4 children whose marriages had dissolved or one thing or 5 other. It tended to be a transitional thing also and not . 6 really requiring a great deal of attention any more than 7 unemploYment insurance seemed to require that. 8 Then there began to be a change in family 9 structure and you had a large number of persons coming into 10 the system early in life with young children and not much, 11 if any, economic experience and thus the present situation. 12 The statute was in need of redefinition, which 13 we did in 1988. We said this is a reciprocal arrangement. 14 It is not meant to be a permanent one. Society has a 15 responsibility to help the mothers and dependent children 16 involved and, in turn, there is a mutual responsibility to 17 help yourself through the jobs program to get out into the 18 regular economic mainstream: point one. 19 Point two is that this never could have happened 20 without the governors, without the states. We won't get 21 into any fuss about this, Governor Campbell, but in the 22 1980s there was a certain withdrawal of the federal ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC. Nationwide Coverage 202-347-3700 800-336-6646 410-684-2550 4900101 5 :JAVjbg 1 government from a lot of activities and the states resumed 2 them. That's what federalism is meant to do. I think 3 Lowell Weicker down there would recognize that. 4 States began to innovate in this area. We had 5 the good fortune to have the Manpower Development Research 6 Corporation following the programs and we had a database on 7 which to design a new program. It could not have happened 8 without two governors, the then-chairman of the Governors' 9 Association your predecessor, sir -- then-Governor, now 10 President Bill Clinton, and, in a bipartisan effort, then- 11 Governor and now Representative Mike Castle. They worked 12 very well together.· We had the kind of support from home 13 that made members, Senators and Representatives feel 14 comfortable here in Washington. 15 The bill passed as near as makes no matter. It 16 was a unanimous bill and President Reagan signed it with 17 great eclat in 1988, followed by about what we expected, 18 which was some measures of small, steady success. We didn't 19 make great claims and we probably ought not to do now. 20 We have had a problem of not funding the program 21 at the levels it needed. And we have a problem of recession 22 that carnealong just as we were thinking jobs. And we had a ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC. Nanonwide Coverage 202-347-3700 800-336-6646 -l1Q.684..2550 54900101 6 DAVjbg 1 problem of resistance in the organizations. 2 Most welfare offices in most parts of the country 3 no matter what you do are basically places which certify 4 eligibility to receive government monies and that's about 5 where it begins and goes on indefinitely. Even so, we begin 6 to see ourselves with a new national consensus about time 7 limitations. I don't want to underestimate the difficulty 8 that this can involve. You will know more about it than we 9 do here. Some of you are already trying it. 10 There is also a condition of a new cadre -- is 11 that the word? A new generation of welfare recipients who 12 are, to a singular degree, single mothers. The 13 Congressional Research Service has just given us a report on 14 this that tells us the simple increase in the number of the 15 population of never married mothers accounted for 71 percent 16 of the families receiving AFDC during the two years. The 17 President observed in the State of the Union message that in 18 a decade or so we may be at the point where half the births 19 in our country are non-marital. If that is the case the 20 central social problem will be the successful transition of 21 these families from dependency to independence, which is 22 what you are about. ACE-FEDERAL REpORTERS, INC. Nanonwide Coverage 202-347-3700 800-336-6646 ~10-684-2550 34900101 7 DAVjbg 1 We want to help you. I can say to you that we 2 can have both a health care refor.mbill and a welfare bill 3 this year. The governors made an extraordinary success with 4 the President yesterday. I have to tell you this: it's very 5 refreshing when a President says "Oh, don't believe any of 6 that stuff. It's just getting along and humoring the 7 Congressional Budget Office." You made far more progress in 8 one day yesterday than we've made in the last six months. 9 We can do health, we can go on to refor.mwelfare, 10 to change welfare in the directions you desire. Now it's 11 for you to tell us. Last time we were very careful, very 12 explicit and I think to a very considerable degree we were 13 able to respond. 14 Thank you, gentlemen. 15 (Applause.) 16 GOVERNOR CAMPBELL: Thank you very much, Senator. 17 I am sure we will rise to the occasion and respond again in 18 some detail. 19 I'd now like to turn the meeting over to Governor 20 Carper and Governor Engler, who will lead a discussion on 21 state initiatives for welfare refor.m. 22 Senator, as I said earlier, we ask you any time ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC. Nationwide Coverage 202-347-3700 800-336-6646 410-684-2550 4900101 8 DAVjbg 1 that you feel you want to pop into it, offer advice or ask a 2 question please do so. 3 Governor Engler. 4 GOVERNOR ENGLER: Thank you very much, Mr. 5 Chairman, and thank you, Senator Moynihan, for joining us 6 today. 7 The President also deserves recognition for 8 reiterating his commitment to welfare reform as recently as 9 his State of the Union Address and promising legislation up 10 to the Hill this spring.