Dale Bumpers: “the amendment being offered by Senator Graham of Florida and me is the same one we offered last year. It might have a…”

“the amendment being offered by Senator Graham of Florida and me is the same one we offered last year. It might have a few minor changes in it, but essentially it simply says that the block grant formula in this welfare bill should be changed to take into consideration the number of poor children in each State. I am not very crazy about this bill to begin with, but I cannot possibly vote for a bill that discriminates against the State of Arkansas to the extent this one does. It is not just Arkansas, it is particularly Southern States, but a lot of other States get caught up in it, too. Under the formula, the District of Columbia will get $4,222 for each welfare recipient and the State of Arkansas will get $390. Why is a child in the District of Columbia worth 11 times as much as a poor child in Arkansas? That is a legitimate question, is it not? I will tell you the answer. The answer is, through the years, the Federal Government has matched the States to some percentage or another. It is not the same in every State. For example, in my State, because we are a relatively poor State, we get a big match, I think 73 to 75 percent. So for every dollar we put up, we get about $3 from the Federal Government. The District of Columbia does not do quite as well. But the reason the District of Columbia gets such a staggering amount of money per child is because they have used a tremendous amount of their resources to put into the AFDC Program.”