▶ 0:00:00doe in part to these penalties the um or in 1960 around 5% of the children were born to unmarried women today that number is around 40% to anybody who cares about the Next Generation these numbers should be deeply concerning parage marriage is the backbone of a stable society and is a force that encourages individuals to be responsible for their families instead of having to rely on government assistance not only is marriage asso assciated
▶ 0:00:30with better with better financial institutions but it's also associated with better mental health for married couples and their children well I personally know many single parents who've done an excellent job Studies have shown that children raised in single parent households are heightened risk for substance abuse crime bad educational outcomes depression and other disorders given that federal policy should reflect the fact that children uh
▶ 0:01:01well it is time that federal policy be changed so we stop discouraging and penalizing people for simply getting married to better understand why this is the case we may we must go back to the creation of these programs while some welfare programs began under uh Franklin Roosevelt most were created or expanded under President Lyndon Johnson's so-called war on poverty President Johnson's stated goal in expanding the welfare state was was to provide Americans
▶ 0:01:31with a chance to pull themselves out of poverty and dependency it was intended to enable Americans who had stumbled on Hard Times to make a comeback but that's too often not the case of today's welfare system our current welfare system is designed to ensure dependence on to ensure dependence on government and penalizes marriage sadly the problems don't stop there many of the benefits paid for by taxpayer dollars are improperly going to illegal immigrants in 2023
▶ 0:02:01the federal government spent $23 billion on health care for legal immigrants and another 11.6 trillion on food stamps Child Nutrition and other welfare programs not only are we spending billions on illegal immigrants but also but often welfare programs are among the most common targets for scammers and frauders last year more than a hundred billion dollar in improper payments were made in programs like Medicaid food stamps in the year income tax credit
▶ 0:02:32this is bad for taxpayers but bad for welfare recipients as well if we continue our current path will be increasingly difficult to fund welfare programs making it hard to justify the safety net for Americans I look forward to hearing from our Witnesses today and to better understand and they will help us better understand the enormous growth of the state so we want to see what we can do to prevent government dependency and Empower Americans I
▶ 0:03:02should point out there have always been people who are hostile outright hostile to the idea of marriage I know a lot of the radical feminist Kate Malay and that crew in the 1960s did not want to have a man in the family of course Carl Marx uh for people who follow him also felt the uh family was uh a negative impact on society and want to destroy it so we don't want to have Kate Malay or Carl marks get their way hence we're having this hearing now I yield to ranking member Christa
▶ 0:03:32morthy for his opening statement thank you Mr chair I'm looking forward to working with you on the important issues confronting our nation within the jurisdiction of this subcommittee uh particularly I'm I'm looking forward to addressing the continuing failures and costs of our broken Health Care system I will confess that I hope that our first hearing together would have tackled one of those vital issues such as PBM or health care uh Insurance reform chairman growman
▶ 0:04:03you and I have been working with chairman comr and the Democrats for years to try try to rein in the abuses of Pharmacy benefit managers we have further worked on concerns about health insurance companies stopping payments for critical medical services such as for instance anesthesia uh that uh anesthesia rules uh limiting the use of anesthesia mid operation uh that were about to be implemented Ed this past winter but sadly this committee is focused
▶ 0:04:33today on Antiquated debates about welfare I know what I'm talking about when it comes to safety net programs because I have personal experience with snap's predecessor the food stamp program I came to this country with my family when I was three months old so my father could continue his education and our family could embrace all the opportunities that America afforded it but despite my family's best efforts it wasn't always easy specifically in the recession of 1973 my father
▶ 0:05:03lost his income but thanks to the generosity of the people of the United States its government and the existence of these safety net programs we were allowed to survive and flourish today my father uh who turned 86 today it's his birthday is an engineering professor emeritus having retired after 40 Years of teaching engineering at Bradley University in Poria Illinois my brother is a doctor at the University of Chicago and my
▶ 0:05:33and myself I'm honored to represent the people of Illinois's eth congressional district in my fifth term that's the American dream the promise of a middle class life with the opportunity for your children to have an even better life than you did that dream was possible for my family because of my parents' hard work and the possibilities and generosity of this country however it was also because the American people people establish programs like Snap and public housing so my
▶ 0:06:03family could temporarily sustain itself in times of severe need for families like mine access to public housing and snap served as a critical social safety net and allowed us to boun back bounce back from Financial adversity it remains true today for tens of millions of struggling Americans House and Senate Republicans according to recent reports rep s are discussing an upwards of $2 trillion cut
▶ 0:06:34to Medicaid almost onethird of its funding this does not sound to me like simply rooting out waste and fraud unfortunately unfortunately it sounds like forcing tens of millions of children pregnant women seniors and people uh from programs they desperately need helping our neighbors through safety net programs is good economic policy in 2025 U the USDA found that in an economic downturn
▶ 0:07:04every dollar in additional SNAP benefits leads to a $154 increase in the gross domestic product this does not surprise me social safety net programs do not encourage laziness they Empower Americans to succeed on their own the demonization of benefit recipients is appalling we will unfortunately hear shortly the untrue characterizations of low lower income people that uh have been made by the majority which undermine
▶ 0:07:34The credibility of the reforms they offer people on public benefits are not lazy they're not dumb and they're not bad people often like my own family they've fallen on hard times and they simply need a hand up the help they seek they hope is temporary the difference we make in their lives lasts a lifetime I'm not going to silently acquest to this Congress turning its back on hungry
▶ 0:08:04frightened cold children or their families anywhere in this country who need help in order for the majority to pay for tax cuts for special interests that's wrong I hope that this hearing shines light on the good work our country does every day in feeding housing and caring for its people thank you and I yield back okay I don't believe I demonized any people
▶ 0:08:35I try to demonize the politicians who set up the program not the people who wind up doing what they are in essence paid to do but to our sad disappointment to all our wonderful people who showed up here we now have to vote on the floor so I apologize we're going to reconvene what should we say 10 minutes after after uh after they bang the gabble downstairs so we will see you guys again
▶ 0:09:05and wish you would have brought you pizza or something or other but thank you for being okay well thanks for coming oh it's a pleasure beautifully hey thanks thank okay let's go vote well I'm gonna follow you because I don't know my way to the
▶ 0:09:37building good luck yes sir there you are
▶ 0:39:56e e
▶ 0:40:32a document called examining the growth of the welfare state uh put together by Hayden duah and Jonathan Ingram and they work for a I assume a think tank thing labeled fga thank you okay uh I'd like to welcome our Witnesses today Dr Robert Rector Ms Patrice an WKA and Dr Michael lendon Mr reer
▶ 0:41:02is a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation Center for Health and Welfare m ananka is the director of Center Director of the Center for Health and Welfare at the Independent Women's Forum Dr Lyon is a senior senior policy fellow at the Washington Center for Equitable growth we look forward to hearing what you all have to say on today's important topic um pursuant to committee rule
▶ 0:41:339g hope I hope they Advance it warns you this in advance the witnesses will please stand and raise your right hand do you solemnly swear affirm that the testimony here is about the affirm that the testimony which you're about to give is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God let the record show all the witnesses answer in the affirmative thank you you may sit down again we appreciate
▶ 0:42:03you being here today and look forward to your testimony I'd like to remind the witnesses that we have read your written statement already and it will appear in full in the hearing record if you can please limit your oral statement to five minutes as a reminder please press the button on the microphone in front of you so that it's on and the members can hear you when you begin to speak in the light in front of you when you begin to speak the light in front of you will turn green after 4 minutes the light will turn yellow when the red light comes on it means 5 minutes is up and we'd like to like
▶ 0:42:33to ask you to wrap up as quickly as you can I now recognize Mr director for the statement thank you okay there we go thank you for the opportunity to come here and speak today um I've worked on the welfare system for 40 years going back to President Carter uh so the issues are
▶ 0:43:03are very dear to my heart and today I'd like to talk about uh one of the core features of the welfare state perhaps the core feature that is largely neglected which is the marriage penalties within the welfare state now those of you that are are Republicans you you know all about marginal tax rates on labor everyone that that's in the Republican Party knows about marginal tax rates on labor you know and so the marginal tax rate on labor if you go out and you you earn $20 and and the
▶ 0:43:33government takes away half of it that would be a marginal tax rate of 50% everybody says that's kind of bad what we don't know is marginal tax rates on marriage okay when when PE when Republicans hear about marriage penalties they're thinking about marriage penalties in the income tax code which means basically families that pay income tax which are those in the top half of the population above $110,000 a year but the marriage penalties are not in the income tax code they're
▶ 0:44:03in the 1.6 trillion doll welfare state there are 90 means tested welfare programs including 40 that go predominantly to to families with kids meaning single parent families and every one of those programs has an outrageous marginal tax rate on marriage a penalty on marriage so that we talk about marginal tax rates on labor okay it would be very high if we earn a dollar in the government took away half of it but the marginal tax rates on marriage
▶ 0:44:34are infant okay at least with a marginal tax rate on labor if you work more you get to keep something of it but if you are a lowincome family a mother a potential mother and father you face a a net loss in income uh a net negative in income when you get married it's as if you went to work and you earned $20 $ an hour and the government dinged you for a hundred bucks the more you work the more you lose it is
▶ 0:45:04a confiscation rate it's not a moral it's not a marginal tax rate and the reality of that is because all of the welfare programs all of these 90 programs they for the most part give maximum benefits When there's no earnings in the household and then as earnings go up the benefits go down right but earnings are all the earnings in the household the mothers and the fathers so if the father is in the household and he's married and he holds a job your earnings
▶ 0:45:34went up your welfare benefits are confiscated and they fall dramatically such that if you look at the r or the testimony I sh I put in that if you let's take a family with a a mother that makes $20,000 a year a father makes $30,000 a year let's say they have two kids if if they are not married they and they cohabit they could have a a joint income of around $80,000 from their earnings plus about $30,000
▶ 0:46:04coming out of the the welfare state however if they marry they lose $115,000 of that it's a mar it's a tax rate of about 30% on their original earnings beforehand if they are in Housing section 8 or public housing then their combined benefits if they're not married are over $90,000 earnings plus cash food housing Medical Care and housing but if they get married they out of that $93,000 they're going to lose
▶ 0:46:34$28,000 uh in penalties and and the answer is they don't get married because we've made marriage economically irrational for them through these horrendous penalties and and what we need to do is rebuild marriage because if you look today what out of four children in the United States are born to an unmarried woman who is cohabiting with the father of the child at the time of marriage they often remain together for 10 years later but they don't get married
▶ 0:47:05why don't they get married because this institution will penalize them will take their money away when they do we need to stop doing that we need to take all of the waste and Fraud and Abuse there's a there's a 30% waste and fraud rate in the eitc take some of that money save it and apply it over to giving more G generous benefits to these low-income couples when they do get married and they do do the right thing and I think that that you will have an enormous behavioral
▶ 0:47:35response to that we also need to tighten up the work requirements on all of these programs I was a principal author of welfare reform in the 1990s and we believe that the work requirements would not have so much an effect on labor but a an effect on family formation and they did for example the non-marital teen pregnancy rate when we put work requirements in it dropped about 70 to 80% immediately and it did that also by reducing abortions at the same time so the public
▶ 0:48:05that we're talking about no they're not evil they in fact want to do the WR the right thing and the right thing is to form a stable family and and raise kids that way but they can't do that because you're going to penalize them for doing it that's a terrible thing we shouldn't do it anymore thank you very much Miss anuka yes thank you chairman thank you ranking member of and members for uh inviting me to appear today
▶ 0:48:35I am the director of the center for Economic Opportunity at Independent Women and we know this is an important topic because we represent we speak to about women and their issues and we recognize that we've made significant strides in this nation in attacking poverty but there's still a lot of failures and particularly as a black woman and the black family we've seen the impact of of uh policy welfare policies on black families as has been mentioned over 80 welfare programs spending a trillion dollars yet we have so much duplication and opportunities for Waste
▶ 0:49:06Fraud and Abuse so how can we overcome some of these challenges well I'll just mentioned today we want to close the loopholes that federal agencies and States exploit to grow program emplo enrollment we want to Target improper payments and we want to promote work in family I will just say a word on our poverty rate right now we have 36.8 million people living in in poverty according to the US Census Bureau although when you calculate people who receive non-cash payments uh in kind housing others other
▶ 0:49:36forms of of subsidies I think the actual uh poverty rate is much smaller which is a good thing but how do we ensure that these folks who were still unable to uh enjoy the benefits of prosperity are able to do that and be independent uh when it comes to the actual fiscal impact of welfare programs we're seeing that that it's they're growing exponentially 34% um is expected to be the increase in welfare spending over the next 10 years uh and we're talking about going from 1.2 trillion
▶ 0:50:06to 1.6 trillion we have many welfare program many agencies tackling a lot of the same different problems 15 agencies dedicated to providing food Aid alone 13 hitting housing 12 hitting Healthcare and five hitting Cash Aid so where can Congress Focus its energy well I think forming eligibility and participation to I say quote rightsize these mandatory and and uh mandatory spending welfare programs so talking
▶ 0:50:36about some of the loopholes we say States and and frankly the federal government have relaxed some eligibility requirements or expanded the definition of what of who is needy in the latter case states are providing benefits to individuals earning far above the poverty rates in the poverty line we know very often or we we I think we're familiar here that snap Grand grants categorical eligibility to tanif and Ro Le and that means that these folks are being Exempted from program income and asset limits that's a loophole
▶ 0:51:07uh at an expected cost of over one11 billion dollar over the next decade to taxpayers so this is one of the loopholes that we should be figuring out how to close we also want to make sure that uh when we look at the types of people who are taking participating in welfare programs we want to make sure that these are folks who are taking advantage of the millions of open positions that are available in this economy right and so a lot of these folks are able-bodied Americans both those with children and without children and I think that there's a case to
▶ 0:51:37be made that we can uh whether you're talking about Medicare snap or tanif you have uh 60% rates or above of non-disabled adults who are able to work but receiving these benefits so how can we get them to work well part of it is that states have been waving or have been able to wave requirement uh requirements that that individuals are working or sometimes states are using backdoor ways to uh dedicate Federal funded money to other priorities that are not uh promoting work
▶ 0:52:07and family formation frankly so I think these are the ways that we can be we need to attack the perverse incentives that encourage States and and the federal government to uh to reduce the the dependency the the dependency rates whether you're talking about snap or some of the other programs fraud waste and abuse it is not surprising that there is a lot of Fraud and waste and abuse and this is created because uh there's not a good amount of tracking of how much there is uh the GAO
▶ 0:52:37estimated that taxpayers have lost probably $2.7 trillion dollar uh over and over the past 10 years between 200 and maybe 500 Bill billion dollars annually on fraudulent payments while the GAO has already provided to Congress a road map for how to attack these things better reporting we need to make sure that federal agencies that are providing welfare are reporting tracking data collecting uh providing oversight to ensure that people who are receiving benefits are
▶ 0:53:07not the ones that should be receiving it and then uh and going forward being prepared for the emergencies that happen and I think during Co we saw an a tremendous expansion in our welfare programs and we haven't seen a recision back down to normal levels despite an economy that's generating millions of jobs as we know finally a quick point on marriage there is a marriage penalty and I think that marriage is an important part of this conversation and we know that the success series if you just graduate with a
▶ 0:53:37high school diploma if you get a job and get married before having children your your likelihood of falling into poverty drops significantly and even if you don't even if you're a single mom and you get married the poverty rate Falls as well so we cannot leave marriage out of discussion thank you so thank you Mr Lyndon thank you uh chairman grothman ranking member Krishna morthy members of the committee I really thank want to thank you for my opportunity to be here today today
▶ 0:54:08I'm going to make three main points first of all federal investments in Health Nutrition housing and other work supports for low and very low-income people are both a moral and an economic necessity the major problem with our current approach is that we don't do enough to make sure that low-income children have a real path out of poverty and that struggling families have a real chance at the middle class second if you are interested in efficiency and cost savings you're looking in the wrong place the federal tax code
▶ 0:54:38is Rife with loopholes special subsidies and giveaways that benefit the very wealthy and giant corporations with little or no discernible public benefit third it is frankly in indefensible to scapegoat hardworking Americans who are striving every day just to make ends meet while the ultra wealthy and giant corporations have been given trillions literally trillions in tax breaks and even as we speak this Congress is proposing yet another round of tax handouts
▶ 0:55:09investments in healthcare nutrition and housing and other work supports uh pay enormous dividends not only for those families but for the entire US economy children who receive nutrition assistance have better health and lower health care costs their whole lives children whose mothers receive Wick do better in school than children whose mothers did not children of families who use rental assistance earn more as adults and are less likely to become single parents boosting the incomes of very po poor families including through for example the eitc or the child tax credit results in more
▶ 0:55:39schooling more hours worked higher earnings in adulthood for children of those families Medicaid expansion has resulted in better Financial Security for Millions lower eviction rates lower cost for hospitals especially rural hospitals fewer premature deaths and positive Statewide economic impact these conclusions and the many others like them are drawn from literally hundreds of studies the facts are not disputed but you don't have to pour over studies to find the benefits of these Investments you just have to talk to the people
▶ 0:56:09who actually use them and the ranking member spoke eloquently of his own experience with this take the story of Zoe uh a young woman from Colorado who recently shared her story with the Ark of the United States she completed a four-year college degree like so many other people of her age and is now applying to grad schools Zoe has spin or muscular atrophy or SMA which is a genetic neuromuscular development disability she she relies on the caregiver support she receives through Medicaid in order to live independently while she
▶ 0:56:39pursues her education for Zoe and the millions of other Americans who rely on Medicaid one in five in fact slashing these programs would have devastating effects on their lives and their livelihoods we invest too little not too much in reducing poverty and providing Pathways in the the middle class the federal government spent just 1.3% of gross domestic product on income supports in 2024 which is down from 1.8% a decade ago and the lower than the average of 2% from the last 30 years
▶ 0:57:10roughly one in five children is in poverty today which is twice the rate of other developed countries these numbers are especially concerning given that there are more working age Americans in the labor force and working today than at almost any time in modern history and that's why it is a grave mistake both morally and economically to slash the benefits and services for low-income people and don't be fooled adding bureaucratic red tape narrowing eligibility requirements setting arbitrary
▶ 0:57:40limits all amount to the same thing indefensible harm to poor families and our economy but there is another place in the federal budget that is truly bloated with wasteful costs and subsidies and counterproductive incentives and that's the tax code over the past quarter Century Congress has repeatedly enacted trillions of dollars in tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the wealthy consider the 40% reduction in the corporate tax rate that was passed in 2017 under President Trump that single giveaway is estimated
▶ 0:58:10to have cost roughly $1 trillion dollar to date and will cost trillions more over the next decade these corporations did not raise wages or create more jobs they enriched their shareholders and their Executives that's the very definition of wasteful spending those who are quick to scrutinized the choices of a poor family receiving $6 a day in nutrition benefits never seem to get around to asking whether a giant Corporation is doing what they promised to do with their tax cuts or whether they needed them in the first place the truth is that far too many Americans
▶ 0:58:40are struggling to make ends meet while those at the top get richer and richer and that is why most Americans support investing more not less in Aid to poor families and that's why I find it surprising that Congress is considering spending another $5 trillion or more not on lowering health care costs or improving Public Schools or expanding benefits to address marriage penalties but to give tax cuts mostly to people at the top it's hard to take seriously claims that we spend too much on poor families
▶ 0:59:10as policy makers write a budget that would take money out of their pockets to give it to billionaires that's not Effective Government that's highway robbery anyone truly interested in improving the efficiency and reducing waste in the federal government should be appalled by efforts to scape those living in poverty while patting the pockets of the super wealthy well thank you uh I'm going to lead off with uh Mr director I think the purpose of this hearing is to see whether it's
▶ 0:59:40appropriate we're supposed to treat all Americans equally but whether it's um appropriate to design programs such that we are doing what we can to discourage formation of the traditional um American family we'll start off with Mr director how many welfare programs penalize marriage C married couples about do you think yeah there 90 such programs every single one
▶ 1:00:11of them has a significant marriage penalty it's the way to understand these programs is as if you had the income tax code where you didn't have a category married filing jointly so that as soon as you got married you would be moved into a higher tax bracket and you would be Penal that every program is designed like that that makes no sense okay it never has made any sense I've been watching this for 40 years and uh and it's and it won't make sense tomorrow we need to stop doing that okay uh can you give me
▶ 1:00:41just a couple maybe common programs that seem as if they were designed to punish traditional married couples absolutely food stamps Section 8 housing Medicaid the Earned Income Tax Credit um Wick every single one of these programs operates this way that if you get married to an employed man to the employed father you lose roughly half of those benefits and uh I mean we just
▶ 1:01:11said this is just it doesn't make any sense and it's it's an irony that most poor people understand this they understand that they're going to lose benefits if they get married so they cohabit right but they don't form stable bonds they don't make public commitment ments and so forth because we basically said don't do that uh you can hide the father in the home to cohabit with him just don't tell us about it okay and you'll be you'll be doing fine but if you were to go out and make a public commitment and so forth and so on well
▶ 1:01:41we're going to take $25,000 away from you it's an absolutely nutty system but it's a system that we have okay um do you know about how much we spend today on what we'll refer to as welfare programs yeah I would say it's about $1.6 trillion it's about 6% of GDP I would say that we're probably spending about 700 billion dollars on uh lowincome families with children and about 80% of that goes to single moms it's a subsidy system for
▶ 1:02:11single Parenthood it has been since the beginning of the war on poverty and uh if you take that uh and you just take the total amount of money that we spend on families with kids which is again close probably to six $ 700 billion doll and you divide It by Say the bottom income third of the population you come up with something like $660,000 per family so we say we don't spend enough well we don't even know how much money you spend there's no federal record of total spending
▶ 1:02:41on means tested uh programs for for children you have to go through the budget line by line and and and bring it out and when you find it's an enormous amount of money and we don't know where that money goes if you were to go to any state any in the United States and take any given family and ask the question how much does this family get from welfare no one knows the answer to that because they're getting benefits from six or seven programs at the same time it's all disperate the programs don't talk to each other and there's no record on how
▶ 1:03:11much they get so one of the clear things we ought to have is a clear record of what the family gets integrated so we know that okay and we also ought to put that into to our poverty measurement system you we just we're told oh we have we're we we we don't spend enough and we have one in five children living in poverty today well you have one in five children living in poverty because of that six or 700 billion dollars that you spend none of that is counted as income for purposes
▶ 1:03:42of poverty it's all hidden it's all off the books and therefore all the spending on any of these programs by definition has no effect on poverty because it's not counted as income food stamps is an income housing is an income ITC is an income it's all off the books no matter how much you spend on it it has no effect on poverty except it makes it worse because you're going to reduce earnings earnings are counted so so you're going to have more poverty not less as a result of these programs thank you
▶ 1:04:12uh whenever I talk hear about this topic I I I remember the the stuff on Black lives matter where one of their goals was to get rid of the traditional West the traditional Western prescribed family and it didn't prevent people from marching with them despite their goal was to get rid of the family primary goal of marks and ANG right Miss anaka is it true that many welfare programs don't require recipients to work uh it is true when we look at uh a number of different programs we see that either states have Exempted individuals in their
▶ 1:04:42uh jurisdiction from work requirements or that there are programs that just simply don't have them and so those are loopholes that I think should be closed and Congress can work with states to ensure that that states are not waving these requirements you guys just one more question either one of you um since this big explosion of what we'll call the welfare programs in the in the mid-60s do you know what's happened to the birth rate in which the father stays around and doesn't stay around what effect Lyndon Johnson's
▶ 1:05:13programs had on that yes I when the war on poverty started one in seven CH 7% of children were born outside of woodlock today it's 42% It's particularly striking in the black family where the non-marital birth rate the percentage of children were outside of marriage black that's the black family survived slavery it survived Jim Crow it survived the depression it survived War World War II so when you get the beginning of War on poverty about 15 16% of
▶ 1:05:43black children were born out of wedlock incomes the war on poverty all these different programs liberalization of these programs and the black family literally disintegrates within a decade and now you have close to 70% of black children be born outside wedlock because that's what you pay for you pay you get what you pay for it's not just within blacks it's also now beginning to affect moderate income whites and Hispanics every low-income family is is suffering from that you're very lucky that you'd have any marriage at all in the bottom half of the
▶ 1:06:13population because they all pay penalties for the fact of being married Mr Christ morthy thank you Mr chair good afternoon Mr director you've written uh welfare payments quote unquote increase dependency isn't that right and in your opinion dependency on welfare benefits is a Bad Thing obviously no I wouldn't say that I would say that that having welfare benefits is is is necessary I'm not against the welfare state
▶ 1:06:43but I believe that the incentives of the welfare state should help people to go upward rather than to fall apart and go downward and the system you have now let me let me just let me just jump in here I I'm talking about dependency over dependency on welfare benefits is a Bad Thing long-term dependency certainly is yes let me let me bring your attention to something that happened at the Republican National Convention last summer in this visual Teamster president sha O'Brien said quote the biggest recipients of welfare in this country are corporations close
▶ 1:07:13quote you don't dispute he said that right I I guess not in 2023 the KO Institute by no means a liberal Think Tank found that the federal government spends more than 100 B billion dollars a year on what they call quote unquote corporate welfare you don't dispute that they found that right I guess not now Mr Lyndon according to the Brookings Institute oil and gas companies annually receive $20 billion in Direct Federal subsidies that no
▶ 1:07:44other business in this country gets and you don't dispute that the Brookings institution found that either right nope that's absolutely right look if we're going to talk about reforming the welfare state Mr chair let's also look at corporate welfare in the words of Paul Ryan the former speaker quote Republicans can't make the case the American people that Republicans are the Reform Party If Republicans won't reform the giant corporate welfare state in Washington chairman this is a theme I'll be returning to on this committee as we proceed
▶ 1:08:14let me turn to my next topic Sir Mr recor according to the Washington Post you said the following quote is poverty harm har f for childhood question I think not you don't dispute that you said this right no let's explore if poverty is harmful the NIH under President Trump found that poverty is consistently associated with academic achievement gaps as early as kindergarten
▶ 1:08:45and by age 14 lower income students are quote a full year behind their peers the NIH found you don't dispute the NIH found that right I could explain what I am saying in that quote if you want me to I'm asking you you don't dispute that the NIH found these academic you don't want me to expl gaps dispute no I don't I'd like to bring your attention to an a department of HHS study which finds that childhood poverty is associated with quote developmental delays
▶ 1:09:15chronic illness and nutritional deficits Mr Lyndon you don't dispute that the HHS found that and I I presume that you agree with them yeah I mean there's a lot of studies that show childhood poverty has long-term negative effects for the children and the economy as a whole so academic gaps development delays along with chronic illness now in addition Mr Rector you said to the Heritage Foundation in 2007 quote most poor children are super nourished you don't
▶ 1:09:45dispute you said that right that's exactly what the USDA data shows yeah I've read the reports very very few you're not a doctor right you're not a medical doctor no I I am an ex ERT in you're not a medical doctor are you I do know more about nutrition you know you know more about nutrition than a medical doctor I know more about nutrition and Welfare programs than any doctor you're not a nutritionist are you I no I said exactly what I'm saying I if you want to simple yes or no question you're not a nutritionist are you no I'm
▶ 1:10:16I'm an expert in the food stamp program anybody you want to talk about the food stamp program and its nutritional effects or do you want a grandstand anybody body who thinks that childhood poverty is not harmful to Children unfortunately should not be talking about whether these welfare programs benefit families or not let me turn your attention to my final Topic in my limited time on January 31st Politico quoted Donald Trump as promising to quote love and cherish Medicaid
▶ 1:10:46uh Mr Lyndon you don't dispute that political reported that right they definitely reported that Donald Trump also promised that quote the people won't be affected Medicaid will only be more effective and better that's what he said right that's what he's promising punchball news reported quote the Energy and Commerce Committee currently currently is eyeing up to $2 trillion doll in cuts to Medicaid you don't dispute they reported this do you Mr director this
▶ 1:11:16is what punch B news said I'm not aware of that Michael can you tell us briefly what would happen if $2 trillion in cuts to Medicaid Medicaid actually occurred in terms of the number of people who'd be dropped from Medicaid yeah tens of millions would lose coverage or benefits or both there's just no way around it those level of cuts there is not uh tweaks or efficiencies to be found that is onethird of total Medicaid spending at the federal level
▶ 1:11:46it just it isn't it isn't there if just one of the proposals that I've heard being batted around would cost would uh would mean 36 million potential uh people would lose coverage so there's there's a lot of harm here we are at a proverbial fork in the road either we keep president Trump's promise that the people won't be affected close quote or we accept trillions and cuts to our safety net programs that drop tens of millions of people Americans
▶ 1:12:17from the Medicaid roles this will not only affect them this will devastate them thank you and I yield back thank you uh Paul thank you Paul goar yeah thank you um I age with all your comments let me ask you something first you did access in Arizona cut people off of the r
▶ 1:12:47I'm not entirely familiar with the specific okay so we got an exemption on Medicaid and we did it ourselves it did not cut was this was the work requirements and no no no it was just access it was it's called access it's a Medicaid we got a waiver and we tried to hit different populations so just just looking at the incentivization or the growth of of a product doesn't mean you're cutting people off does it it depends on what you're doing I oh that that's all I wanted to hear because what you just came across by
▶ 1:13:17saying it does it's my time hold on it's my time yeah fair enough okay so if we're to look at using that fmap okay and you're saying listen we're going to use inflation to carry it on and block that Grant block that back to the States tell me how that disincentivizes good opportunities tell me how how that does I can do that go ahead quickly you if you're block graning Medicaid and you're capping the growth of Medicaid below health care cost by definition no I didn't say that I didn't say that I said
▶ 1:13:48capping it according to inflation but that but healthcare costs grow faster than inflation that's that's that's in the private sector and in fact the private sector grows faster than in the public sector so if you are capping Medicaid costs below the growth of healthare spending then by definition you are going to be cutting Medicaid funding for the states and the states will have to either reduce benefits or cut people off the rules and the savings this the important thing here is the savings are being considered here will be funneled into tax cuts for rich people and
▶ 1:14:18corporations you're not putting those savings back into Medicaid you're not saying let's make this two this let's cut taxes for rich people so miss wanu um I'm glad you brought up covid you know because we went on the spending spree of 4.8 to7 trillion doll not a single receipt exists out there and in NIH we talk about the NIH doing this and that this is the same NIH who gave us covid and an improper appropriation to how we took care of it
▶ 1:14:48you know it's sick so can you tell me a little bit more about in your opinion did this continuous enrollment opportunities for for how does it build up waste Fraud and Abuse sure so when we see during covid obviously and frankly during recessions we tend to see the enrollments in Medicare and some of the other welfare programs increase now that said the economies bounce back and so as people gain employment they should fall off things like Snap they should fall off certain programs but we haven't seen that and Co supercharged
▶ 1:15:18that uh even with the child tax credit for example that was expanded a republican idea the child tax credit but it was expanded and morphed into Universal basic income by paying it out in monthly increments to every household and removing work requirements so when you remove work requirements you provide waivers for states to allow to and and you create these loopholes where states can certainly roll people into these different programs regardless of what what their resources are or their income then that's how you see these these enrollments increase and it's it's a shame
▶ 1:15:48that we're spending as much money we as that we are and our enrollment numbers are not falling that's telling us something well I tell you what I'm I'm so excited for this Advent looking at this idea coming about a wellness I can can't can't tell you I'm a dentist previously so I love the fact that we're going to hopefully look at Wellness okay so I want to know more about this though so this this fam's first Corner response act provided Advanced Federal funding or the fmap to states to continuously enroll Medicaid beneficiaries
▶ 1:16:19I want to get to this point so what did the states do they just Contin they just kept enrolling in fact they even followed through there was no accountability to everybody that was under the SE map okay for three years we did this so tell me how you would feel about that aspect well I mean it's it's it's it's it's concerning when you have so many able-bodied people we're not talking about people who have disabilities or are not able to work but able-bodied people who are participating in programs like Medicaid because it's been expanded so much we talking
▶ 1:16:49about 60% of able-bodied adults on Medicaid 25 million Americans who are reporting no earned income so that's telling us that there are people who can work we know that there are millions of open positions and they're participating in the Medicaid Program but they're not working that's a problem with that that needs to be fixed and there's a loophole there's something there that that's broken that needs to be rectified and we're also seeing this fact that there's no accountability the federal government's not going back the state's not going back and say Hey listen you had P private insurance why did you take this so
▶ 1:17:19there's no accountability whatsoever so we just blank it across the board I do want to thank you Mr lynon because I think you were one of the people that supported my thing about McCarron Ferguson revoking that in regards to healthcare that's why I want to see new ideas new advantages all the way across the board so from that I'll say thank you I'll yield back thank you Congressman well thank you um next we have Miss Randle thank you so much uh Mr chair it's delightful to get the chance to talk about Healthcare access
▶ 1:17:50uh in this first subcommittee hearing and I you know want to start out being a new member um and I I don't I don't know if this makes me a radical feminist or not I am a married woman but I don't have a man in my family um but I do believe that we need to make sure that access to the services that folks need um is is not um that we don't create
▶ 1:18:20additional barriers and I I believe that because of really personal experience when I was 7 years old um my sister Olivia was born with micral which is a complex disability um the doctors didn't know how long she would live or if she would live my dad had a good uh government civilian job had good federal employee insurance but it would not have covered all of the equipment and Specialists that Olivia needed to survive in our family but because the Washington State Legislature in 1993 was
▶ 1:18:50one of the first states in the country to expand Medicaid Olivia was able to survive and thrive in our family and because of special education funding she was able to go to school be integrated in her classroom and that is when I learned that government can play a role in making people's lives better in ensuring that families have the tools to build strong Futures ensuring that children like my sister and my brother and I um can be
▶ 1:19:21um can be civically involved community members and can build better for our kids and our kids kids um I'm also the first in my family to go to college I benefited from financial aid when my parents got divorced my mom after being a primary caregiver for my sister struggled to re-enter the workforce and SNAP benefits made a difference for us I you know uh went on to break a lot of barriers in my family and was elected to the state senate where I had the
▶ 1:19:51chance to chair the higher education and Workforce Development Committee for 5 years where I heard story after story after story that was like mine and my family's working parents who were trying to go to school so that they could build a better future for their kids who were penalized um and who weren't able to dedicate the time to their schoolwork because they were trying to hit the work requirements students who were penalized because they got a little bit of a raise a tiny tiny tiny
▶ 1:20:21bit of a raise which meant that they lost their child care benefits or their housing benefits or their food assistant benefits those Cliffs are what keep so many families in poverty and I also believe that we should tackle the marriage penalty I've talked to a number of particularly disabled parents you know who want to get married who want to build a strong family unit but who don't have the opportunity because they know that they will be made homeless by
▶ 1:20:51getting married and losing the benefits that are allowing their children to have Healthcare and Thrive um Mr Lyndon I don't know if you're if you tracked any of Washington States um response to the Great Recession I assume that it's like many states we were forced to Make Some Cuts to our safety net programs um can you speak at all about any other states that made Cuts uh to programs um safety net programs under the Great Recession
▶ 1:21:22and what impact that had on families yeah absolutely I think stepping back broadly we know that when States and localities are forced to pull back on Aid to struggling families because of economic resources because the federal government has cut back that the effects are very long-term certainly people get hurt right away but there's something in the economic literature that we call scarring it's sort of a you know kind of a gross term but it it it does capture the real long-term effects of
▶ 1:21:52uh people getting grown out of these programs before they are able to to pick themselves up you see it in years years and years afterwards they have lower educational attainment lower earnings less attachment to the workforce all the things that we want to see you get the opposite of that so I'm sure that happened in Washington state it happened all over the country it happened in countries we definitely saw um that impact in Washington state and in fact what we saw was a greater strain on the budget long term because
▶ 1:22:23since we kicked fol off of programs that were allowing them to build themselves up then we had to pay for housing and other safety net programs longer term not only for the parents but for the children as they grow up um Washington State like many states in the country also has uh extensive Workforce shortage and one of the ways that we meet that is by ensuring that folks get credential attainment After High School we have a goal of 75% credential attainment um none of that is possible
▶ 1:22:53if we are are um ensuring that families are not able to access education to keep a roof over their head to send their kids to child care and to thrive so I hope that as we think about what is good for families and what is good for our economy we remember that these programs Provide support thank you Mr chairman y back thank you uh we'll now go to the gentleman from Texas Mr sessions Mr chairman thank you very much
▶ 1:23:23Mr director i' like to play a game with you what is the amount of money total that you believe a family of four that is married two children what is the amount of money that you believe that they should have total benefits for by the way I think I'm looking for you to help me in this endeavor maybe you're trying
▶ 1:23:53to to to figure out how much they currently get and well no I think what I'm trying to say is if you go to the poverty level coverty line and then you add in whatever amount of money you would choose to add in what is that correct level that you believe would be something that would be a good number to say if a person makes this much yeah what is that number I think that
▶ 1:24:24uh that you can very easily within the current system ensure that any family that has work could have enough benefits to get to say1 yeah I'm not saying that maybe I maybe I maybe I'll catch yall I'm s go ahead that that the welfare system is designed to to to reinforce work and to supplement work so you and that's what I I I said I said married right so and then what is that amount of money I'm trying to look at work and then
▶ 1:24:54amount of benefits because I think there ought to be a sliding scale up and down instead of you don't qualify or we do this or we penalize it ought to be okay if we decided I I'm just going to say it $100,000 I just I I'm it's I'm playing the game I want you to play if you just $100,000 Congressman sessions would be an amount of money that I believe a
▶ 1:25:24family of four husband at work or husband and wife that are married they $100,000 however you Cobble it together to live and then we looked at the amount of money that they make right and then we looked at the amount of money that they received benefits for and we just said 100,000 bucks that way we're not penalizing marriage
▶ 1:25:54now I could have this wrong but that's one way to look at it and then you would go and sit down with a person whoever it might be maybe it's a computer and say I work and I my salary is this and my wife's salary is this and our tax level is this maybe they don't pay any taxes to get to $100,000
▶ 1:26:25I am allowed to add in benefits that look like the following matters M and that we marriage instead of then telling them no you don't qualify or what you do let them package together the things that they believe they needed the most what kind of game is that is that too much of a of a of a articulation of maybe a philosophy no I think that
▶ 1:26:56that you the if you look at what we currently spend if we were spending through the means tested welfare system close to $60,000 for every family that has an income in the bottom third of the population it's a huge amount of money which no one knows where it's going for the most part but you can very easily within that system ensure that any family that that has working at least one working p parent has an income oh say 150% of the
▶ 1:27:26poverty rate you you can easily do that but the S current system first of all all the spending is hidden it's not on the books okay I agree with that and we put it on the books no you don't if you look at the like the measurement of poverty 95% of the 101.6 trillion dollars you spend every year is off the books it's not counted it has no effect I didn't say you wouldn't count it I'm saying we would count it oh you definitely count it and and then you you have a system that has incentives
▶ 1:27:56that promotes people to work I agree and to get married and and you get rid of all the fraud which is in there which is huge and you can definitely do that for considerably less than you're spending today but you have to be honest about what the benefits are who's getting them you have to count that in terms of measuring poverty I mean you have a $1.6 trillion doll welfare system well I've read Phil Graham's book yes I I get that okay I'm I'm trying to reverse engineering
▶ 1:28:26I'm not trying to take the time of this important panel I'm trying to say is that something that might be a better yes way to look at because I think it is for instance the Gent woman just before me talked about her mother had to probably quit work because of her sister Not Unusual I have a Down syndrome son they they there are people in family emergencies and they cut down
▶ 1:28:57one person working and all of a sudden much of their income is cut in half so I have dealt with these circumstances I'm trying to say seems like we could have a workbook of paper that would say okay here's where you got to be you're at this and our job is to try and get you there our job and then make it easier for someone that is married right to stay married and because
▶ 1:29:27there there's that way there's less back and forth okay I'm interested in getting in touch with you I'm interested in seeing if if we could design a sheet of paper that could be a potential model of saying if we get to this how do we get to this how do we encourage that and then seeing if we can float that with any ideas around it you're very kind thank you for playing my game Mr chairman I yield back thank you Miss Simon
▶ 1:29:58thank you so much Mr chair and thank you to uh our Witnesses who've come here today to talk about um the issues surrounding family and the health of our families the health of our children and it's the reason that I came to the United States Congress and for the folks who are listening in you know they women and mothers who are escaping domestic violence and families who have small children who are trying to finish school you know the farmer
▶ 1:30:28that called my office out of District so nervous so nervous that there is the potentiality of his family losing benefits because our system will count his small amount of land and his farm equipment as assets and he has a severely disabled child I care so much as you all do I believe we uniquely all have a deep place in our profession profal and personal spaces for the American family
▶ 1:30:58um I don't believe that they're I'm making an assumption so I'll ask are are there any members of of of the witnesses who came here today that were single parents um any members uh any Witnesses uh who've ever collected snap or Wick I appreciate it because we need people on both sides our our advocate kids our organizers our academics um I was a Teen Mom
▶ 1:31:29a single Teen Mom and I had my daughter uh while I was in college uh Community College and I worked three jobs and I got $28 of food stamps and because I'm legally blind and I wasn't able to drive I would have to catch a bus an hour in Martinez in Coco County in the Bay Area to get that $28 and at one point it just felt like it was just too much but I kept my Wick and I would go to the grocery store every month you only get
▶ 1:31:59Wick once a month and I would go and I was humiliated every single time purchasing beans and rice and milk and being asked to put back because the milk maybe was 2 ounces more than the wick stamps cost being poor is hard trying to live up to the values in this country of working hard and raising children in fact I got married later on my husband died of leukemia I will tell this story every single day my 13-year-old
▶ 1:32:29is at school right now in Washington DC it is a snow day I am a single mom and a widow no one's there to pick her up I'm asking her to wait on the stairs so when we're going to talk about families let's really talk about families we've talked about so many of the stats that are put before us I only have one question but I want to give a little bit more background you know during our last work week members I took members of my leadership of our party on a tour
▶ 1:33:00of University of California's bof Children's Hospital it's an amazing facility one of the state-of-the-art burn centers it's a sio cell center they provide stem cell transplants to Children there are fears that much of this federally funded immediate care may be denied to lowincome families who are just trying to survive um they're also really thinking about the leaders of this Hospital they're
▶ 1:33:30thinking about what they're going to do should our Administration attack the 340b drug pricing program again as someone who spent a lot of time with my husband when he was living and dying trying to move through cancer um the program is essential not only uh for our adults fighting life-saving or life critical diseases but for our children I also met with are federally qualified Health Centers Diabetes Care prenatal care when I was pregnant as a teenager I got all
▶ 1:34:00of my prenatal care from Planned Parenthood I have one question actually the question I have a statement actually before the question and let let me get it let me get it clear um what I heard earlier was this estimation of poor women should immediately work when they give birth to their children or it's really important to have work requirements you know I agree that folks should work I've run organ organizations that put young women to work but we don't have the same expectation for middle class and
▶ 1:34:30wealthy women we're asking them to stay at home take care of your babies so I'm curious you know Mr Lyndon with all the hypocrisy in this conversation we know that poor folks struggle to just make it and they're pathologized every step of the way when we're talking about the plan to cut medical at $2 trillion give me 7 Seconds of what the effects could be on our low-income families in this country sure 7even seconds it would cut we would cut
▶ 1:35:00millions of people from their life-saving health care and for what to fund tax cuts for billionaires that's what's that's what the discussion is right now in Congress should we or should we not take Healthcare away from low and moderate income families so that we can have more room to give tax cuts to billionaires and corporations I think the American people would be pretty unhappy to find that's what's that's what's under discussion here I appreciate and I yield back thank you so thank you the gentleman from Texas Mr Gil thank you Mr chairman I
▶ 1:35:30appreciate it um the the great Economist Milton fredman once quipped that you can either have a welfare state or you can have an open borders but you shouldn't have both and I don't think you should have either for one um you know we've talked and we've heard a lot over the past four years about root causes of mass illegal immigration into our country and I'd like to perhaps suggest a few of them and they're coming from the other side of the aisle and that
▶ 1:36:00we are creating a welfare state that incentivizes uh Mass migration into our country from every country on the globe that is poorer than we are my colleagues on the other side of the aisle like to say that illegal aliens can't get welfare I think that that is um verifiably not true in fact illegal and their families can receive welfare from about over a dozen different programs I'll list out a few of them
▶ 1:36:31food stamps child nutritional programs temporary assistance for needy families supplemental security income child care and development block grants the Earned Income Tax Credit the child tax credit Obamacare premium tax credit Obamacare cost sharing subsidies Medicare Medicaid the children's health insurance program p grants student loans Head Start public housing in the Corona virus state and local fiscal Recovery
▶ 1:37:02Fund whenever we think about how much money we're giving to a legal alien it the numbers really are absolutely staggering um and I can give you just a few of them me pull them up here we spend on illegal aliens and their families over $3 billion dollar in primary and secondary education
▶ 1:37:32$580 million on limited English proficiency programs $239 million for migrant schooling $2.8 billion for Head Start programs over8 billion and uncompensated Hospital expenditures over one nearly $1.6 billion do for medic births almost 8 billion a year on fraud $5.4 billion for Medicaid for
▶ 1:38:02us-born children of illegal aliens in terms of law enforcement costs we spend almost 1.7 billion dollar on federal incarceration of illegal aliens $4.1 billion for enforcement and removal operations $ 8.6 billion for custom and Border protections 1 .7 billion for other ice operations $237 million for State Criminal Alien assistance programs over8 billion
▶ 1:38:33dollar for alien Miners and I'm going to keep going um1 191 million for DOD National Guard deployment if we look at just at welfare we spend over $1.5 billion for meals in schools for illegal aliens and their children uh 58 $8 billion for SNAP just under a billion dollar for Wick $1.4 billion for tanif programs $991
▶ 1:39:03million for child care and Development Fund uh $334 million for public housing $600 million for social excuse me supplemental security income I think in a context of a federal debt that's at $36 trillion I think that that is absurd um as it all comes out according uh to various estimates we're spending right around 50 billion dollar on the federal level
▶ 1:39:33on illegal aliens and their families and about hundred billion dollar a year on the state level as well um Mr Lyon i' I'd like to start uh with you and I know we only have a little bit of time but do you think it makes sense that we provide welfare benefits for illegal aliens and their children I think it doesn't make sense to spend multiple times that on subsidies to corporations and rich people do you think we should be taxing workingclass American families to pay for I think welfare for illegal
▶ 1:40:04aliens I I genuinely believe we should make sure that the welfare and Healthcare and nutrition programs that we have in this country are going to the people who are entitled to them who are in the law that the law says who should get them but I also think and I also think that if we're worried about the federal deficit in debt we are spending multiple time times what you just described there on tax cuts for rich people in corporations and I don't understand the focus there's a difference between providing tax cuts for American citizens and providing handouts for illegal alien huge beneficiaries of these
▶ 1:40:34tax cuts are foreign investors one of hope you guys Contin your side of the aisle continues defending welfare for illegal aliens because Republicans will win every single election in perpetuity if that's your view and Mr chairman I yield my time thank well thank you have another new person we're getting used to here uh Mr bow from Missouri thank you Mr chair thank you Mr chair um so let's level set
▶ 1:41:04here uh it's no secret that Republicans want to cut Federal programs that hardworking families rely on in order to fund tax cuts for the wealthiest Among Us and Democrats will continue to fight for programs like Medicare Medicaid and social security because we can't turn our backs on the people that need us most a month ago I was an elected da back home and I'm going to give you all a piece of advice that I got a long time
▶ 1:41:34ago you want to fix your Public Safety you want to fix Public Public Safety fix your health systems so there's a public safety component to ensuring that everyone has access to Quality Health Care so like my colleague on the other side I'd like I'd also like to play a game and we should be able to find bipartisan consensus that waste Fraud and Abuse within Federal programs
▶ 1:42:05is intolerable we should also support inspectors generals and law enforcement Personnel that have dedicated their careers to rooting out this fraud and recovering lost funds from Bad actors instead I've been very disappointed and dismayed to that for that fact that President Trump spent his his his first week in office firing inspectors generals and career prosecutors including people who were tasked
▶ 1:42:36with investigating and preventing fraud within the very programs our Republican colleagues claim our right for abuse I want to I want to stress the importance of our independent and nonpartisan inspector generals they the work they do should be commended so let's also play a money or investment game for the relatively small investment made in offices of Inspector generals the taxpayer receives a massive return
▶ 1:43:06on that investment in fiscal year 2023 inspectors generals detected and Claw back as much as $93 billion in taxpayer funds by one measure for every $1 invested in an office of of the inspector of Inspector General R $26 is saved by their oversight work so Mr Lyndon president Trump fired the HHS Inspector General in January what impact will this have on the ability
▶ 1:43:37for people to defraud Medicare and Medicaid it will make it a lot easier and exactly as you said Congressman if we are really interested in rooting out waste Fraud and Abuse I'm all for that we should be spending every single dollar of American taxpayers with responsible responsibility and oversight and when we find those savings let's reinvest them into the people who actually need those benefits and who actually deserve those benefits who will grow our economy let's not give that money to the wealthy incorporations and stay on that what signal does
▶ 1:44:07removing a watchdog send to Bad actors intentionally seeking to defraud the government it says that it's open you know it's open season for fraudsters if the inspectors generals are not on the job looking out for the American taxpayer who's doing it is it is it Elon Musk I don't trust him our our colleagues on the other side push this common misperception that increasing access to Federal programs will lead to rampant Fraud and Abuse why is that untrue there are it's
▶ 1:44:37it's it's simply not true we can absolutely increase access and the generosity of benefits the uh the availability of benefits at the same time making sure that those benefits are going to the people who we intend them to go to and stopping scammers and fraudsters from from taking advantage of the low and moderate income people who need those benefits without independent inspectors generals at the will effective oversight diminishes and programs that Congress established become far more vulnerable to waste Fraud
▶ 1:45:07and Abuse if my colleagues across the aisle were truly serious about examining how to cut down on waste or fraud then president Trump's Purge of independent Watchdogs would be a flashing red light telling us something is wrong we should come together make sure that independent inspectors generals are nominated confirmed and committed to a career that is free from political influence and games thank you and I yield my time to the ranking
▶ 1:45:39member thank you uh thank you Mr Bell um inspectors General um you know Mr recor let me ask you this question what is your opinion about the utility of having Inspector General at the agencies where they're supposed to be rooting out waste Fraud and Abuse well that's fine but you actually have to work and do something about the reports they give you for example the Inspector General at
▶ 1:46:09at the IRS has told us for decades that there's about a 37% fraud rate in the eitc now I've read all those reports I've done all that analysis so I could sit down here this afternoon and tell you exactly how to prevent all that fraud prevent the money from going out the door in the first place because it doesn't do any good to have an audit of 10,000 people when you have a case load of 22 million you say over and over again there's fraud fraud fraud nothing is done I can tell you right now I could stop
▶ 1:46:39every single bit of that fraud in the eitc I already written out how to do it okay so the question is whether you want to act on that fraud and act on those reports or whether you want to continue the fraud to flow out that door the eitc is noted for having a high fraud rate the reason for that is it's the only program that the government correctly audits there are no meaningful audits in food stamps there are none in Section 8 and if you had a good audit on them you would find equal fraud rates
▶ 1:47:09there as well okay but then you have when you know what the fraud is you know how it's done you have to stop it we have known how the fraud is done in the eitc and the ACTC for decades but there's nothing that is done to stop it I could stop it tomorrow afternoon we'll give my good buddy here Mr Christen morthy a followup so I I'm I'm with you on this which is what I hear you saying is do the audit
▶ 1:47:40but then act on it yes so the utility of Inspector General is high but you have to act on their advice absolutely okay you okay new G from Virginia Mr Maguire thank you Mr chairman you know it is immoral and indefensible to use taxpayer dollars to support a border Invasion illegal aliens are the criminals are robing raping and killing the American
▶ 1:48:11people it's also uh indefensible and immoral to put Boys in girl Sports and boys and girls bathrooms and to allow this fenta be produced in China to come across the southern border and poison the American people more people die every year from fentel overdose than died in the Vietnam War they say age 18 to 45 is the number one cause of death in the country I think it's also um immoral and
▶ 1:48:41indefensible to spend $1.6 trillion do on these programs with no record of where that went I think I heard testimony is that correct Mr Rector $1.6 trillion and we have no idea where it's going and how it's measured is that right that is correct and and to the extent that you have any measures they hide it okay that is why president Trump got a mandate there are two things missing in our country right now trust president Trump
▶ 1:49:11is bringing back trust because he is doing what he campaigned on he got the popular vote and he got the electoral college but he's also bringing back fairness there is 80% of Americans regardless of race religion or Creed or party believe that it is wrong to have boys and girls Sports yet for some reason our colleagues on the other side think that's okay I think it's immoral and indefensible I also think it's indefensible that there is no clear record of how much money each family gets
▶ 1:49:41is it $100,000 is it $50,000 we have no idea Miss um I hope I don't pronounce it wrong wrong anaka anuka anuka really really appreciate your uh comments on the family the breakdown of the nuclear family you know I heard Mr Rector say uh it doesn't make any sense why every single uh safety net program is against the family is that how you said that Mr director that's correct that's just indefensible and it makes no sense and
▶ 1:50:12you know when I heard you say it makes no sense but it makes sense to me why they're doing this because the strength of our country is that our our religious values our judeo-christian values this country was found in the church but it's also the strength of the nuclear family and you remember on the black lives matter website it used to say their purpose was to break down the nuclear family so when you say you don't know why they're doing it I think they they're telling us and when someone's telling you why they're doing something you should believe that um I would say that our social
▶ 1:50:42safety net should focus on supporting the truly poor and vulnerable for able-bodied individuals that need assistance and I would say um work requirements for welfare programs are essential because they encourage self-sufficiency reduce long-term dependency and help individuals gain the skills and experience needed to Achieve Financial Independence uh Miss anaka in your testimony you stated that an estimated 24.6 million able-bodied adults
▶ 1:51:12on Medicaid reported no earned income and no one ever drops off the program so they always po forever and during the pandemic that picked up What factors contribute to this large number of non-working recipients well in part um it has to do with uh how people are enrolled and whether they qualify uh and whether you're talking about Medicaid snap tanif some of these other programs there are lots of loopholes uh that can easily
▶ 1:51:43either roll people into some of these programs or uh wave the eligibility requirements uh and so I think that's where the the concern is and if I may just make a quick point I appreciated hearing some of the personal stories my family I'm I'm an immigrant I'm a naturalized citizen so I came to this country and I I grew up in a very poor neighborhood and a lot of the people on programs that we're talking about today are my classmates and I recognize that the ones who did well were the ones who had parents who are working and Ma managed to move from uh dependency programs
▶ 1:52:13into Independence and move their way they saved and bought a house like my family did and moved out of the poor neighborhoods and away from the negative influences there and so I think that my colleagues who want to see RF reform are not doing it from an incompassion place but actually from a compassionate place to say you know what we want you to be able to determine your to be a master of your own destiny and that is by making sure you're moving from dependency uh into Independence and fruitfulness and that's that's come that comes with some of these tougher things that need to be done
▶ 1:52:43so I was abandoned as a child at 5 years old I have been foster care system nine different elementary schools and we had some of those programs as well but uh by the strength of a family and working hard we got our way out of that um Mr Lyndon do you believe there is dignity in work absolutely you know one of the things I hear all around my district is we cannot find workers at our restaurant and our other business and so we need to it's irresponsible to not know how much money is being spent and where it is being spent and
▶ 1:53:13that's why I'm so glad that President Trump got a mandate and I trust Elon Musk in just two weeks he's identified millions and millions of dollars in waste Fraud and Abuse that the American people suspect it but had would could not get a clear answer and he's just getting started and with that I yield back thank you very much will uh Mr Chris morthy has a couple things yes I just wanted to uh do a little bit of housekeeping here first I want unanimous consent to enter
▶ 1:53:44this article by the world economic Forum titled quote new research bust the myth of welfare defend dependency which summarizes economic IC research showing the belief that social safety net programs cause dependency is not based on reality and nothing more than a misleading myth I'd like to enter that into the record okay we'll do that and then uh I'd like unanimous consent to enter into the record a report by the center on budget and policy priorities titled Medicaid work requirements could put
▶ 1:54:1436 million people at risk of losing health coverage uh this report estimates 36 million people could lose Medicaid if Republicans condition health coverage on uh a variety of requirements uh that are currently under consideration by the Energy and Commerce Committee thank you we'll enter that into the record I will ask you if you want to do a closing statement yes thank you very much thank you Mr chair and thank you to our Witnesses for
▶ 1:54:45uh devoting your time and thank you to the audience for your attention as well um first of all I was moved by the different stories uh personal stories your own Miss onuka uh as well as Mr Maguire and Mr Bell and Miss Simon um I think that where social safety net programs work they can they they're transformative and they enable people who are in real
▶ 1:55:15need to overcome that need and do great things and to live the American dream however ever I will be the first to concede that there could be improvements but can we do these improvements can we work on these improvements in a thoughtful bip bipartisan manner I think the answer is yes and so for instance with regard to work requirements which Miss onuka talks about I think that more Democrats would be interested
▶ 1:55:46in working on this issue if they also heard about potential supports with regard to Career Technical vocational education that enables people to get the skills to acquire and keep the jobs that are out there in the workforce that we need them fill I think more Democrats would also be very interested in working on this issue if we could talk about the issue of child care which is dramatically scarce not only for poor people but for all people I think everyone
▶ 1:56:16in this room who has ever had to pay for child care knows how prohibitively expensive it is and how we talk about a marriage penalty there's a child pen penalty in this country right now that is operating to in my opinion really um discourage family formation and discourage all the things that we want good to happen in this country so I would just respectfully submit Mr chairman that if we could also talk
▶ 1:56:46about these issues in the context of the ones that you are talking about I think we could really have a thoughtful discussion finally I submit cuts of the magnitude being contemplated in the Energy and Commerce Committee or the Ways and Means Committee cuts to the tune of two trillion doll to Medicaid would absolutely be devastating to the tens of millions of families especially
▶ 1:57:16on expansion who are benefiting from those supports today in my home state of Illinois about 7 to 800,000 Illinois residents are on expansion are some of them are many of them able-bodied adults absolutely are many of them working yes are many of them incapable of affording Private health insurance without these supports the answer is absolutely positively yes that is why they crucially depend
▶ 1:57:47on Obamacare they crucially depend on it and so if we're going to take those supports away from them they will not have access to healthare plain and simple even as they continue to work even as they struggle even as they raise their children so that is the question on the table for my my good friends on the other side which is I understand you are looking for places to find money I respectfully submit do not find
▶ 1:58:17money on the backs of people poor working people people who cannot get access to healthare in any other way than through Medicaid and these crucial safety net programs with that I want to say thank you Mr chair for your Indulgence and I back thank you very much um I'd like to make my closing statement kind of go over where I by the way Mr missan wanka I wish we heard more from you you're just tremendous and I wish we didn't have
▶ 1:58:47just five minutes per person here we'll have to bring you back for another panel on some other topic okay um first of all when I put together this hearing it was not my intent that we wind up talking about tax policy at all or even money that can be saved through these programs we can save money but the problem with these programs isn't the biggest problem to me is not that they cost too much it's that our current programs as Mr oh and by the way
▶ 1:59:17the only uh example in which that I heard today in which somebody throughout we can do something with the money we save is Mr Rector who suggested taking some of the money we save on the abuse and putting it into changing the Earned Income Tax Credit so what didn't wasn't so hating of married couples like it is today okay um the purpose of this committee is saying that well while we expanded the welfare
▶ 1:59:48state overwhelmingly what we did is we created a huge disincentive to raise children with a mother and father at home and that's incontrovertible I there are all sorts of of hypothetical you can come up with but Mr Rector mentioned today a hypothetical in which you would penalize $28,000 for marrying the father of her children I would hope we would think that that was bad public policy we did not get into
▶ 2:00:18though it would be interesting to look at the fact that there are some very scary Progressive type people who dislike marriage and dislike men in the home I'm thinking of course Marx himself the radical feminist Kate Malay and that crowd who were hanging around in the 60s and really just wanted to get the man out of the home and well I can say they were extremists that didn't appeal to a lot of people my good friends in the Democrat Party sometimes have a hard time saying no to their extremist friends okay uh I realize there are many
▶ 2:00:49great single parents I know them we we all know them nevertheless it's an uphill climb and in my opinion we pass bills on here uh dealing with crime problem drug problem even the education problem I talked to Super school superintendent about this all these things are made worse by the obvious incentive the federal government has right now
▶ 2:01:19uh and in discouraging the old-fashioned nuclear family and this is not something that just happened in a vacuum depending on the year you pick out in the 6s in the 50s 4 to 6% of the American four to 7% of the American families uh when there was a new birth um it was out of wedlock we're right now over 40% that's a huge difference in my opinion it happened largely
▶ 2:01:49because of this huge welfare system with 90 programs or whatever Mr director said all with a marriage penalty in them and I think as the result people have understandably changed their behavior that might be the only way they change their behavior but when you're going to 4 to 40% I think it's pretty obvious I was disappointed that upon looking at the $28,000 penalty that Mr director laid out that Mr lynon came back and said our problem is
▶ 2:02:20we got to put more money in these programs 28,000 is enough we don't need a 38 or $488,000 penalty uh for getting married so in any event um otherwise I thought it was a good good uh program I think you all added something to the mix and like I said I hope uh I hope people in Congress both in the uh Bill coming up in the near future and for a period longer than that
▶ 2:02:50uh spend some time when they pass legislation and wonder or spend some time analyzing whether their new program or old programs or the 90 programs Mr recor brought up whether those programs are overly favoring the option of uh of not being married or otherwise and I I'll say one other thing when I get around my district there are two things I hear frequently people who have relatives who are not getting
▶ 2:03:20married to get the benefit benefits it is so common or friends not getting married to get the benefits and in something that was brought up by Mrs I think it was was it m could have been one of them brought up the idea that they in their life uh had to stop working because of you could say the generosity of these programs but if you
▶ 2:03:50talk to your employer particularly employers people who hire people in that say 10 to say in that 14 to $20 range you again and again find examples of employees who will not work extra hours because it it penalizes them and they begin to lose their benefits so I was glad she pointed that out that that's a problem of these systems I think the biggest problem is discourages marriage but the secondary problem is no question
▶ 2:04:21it discour encourages work and improving yourself along those lines so in any event we oh we have to say something here I got to take care of my business too with that and without objection all members have five legislative days within which to submit materials and additional written questions for the witnesses which will be forwarded to the witnesses if there's no further Business Without objection this subcommittee abjured okay thank you all right
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