Duncan Faircloth: “my pending amendment modifies a provision in the Dole bill which allows Federal funds to be used for cash aid to…”

“my pending amendment modifies a provision in the Dole bill which allows Federal funds to be used for cash aid to unmarried teenage mothers. The sole purpose of this amendment is designed to disrupt the pattern of out-of-wedlock childbearing that is passing from one generation to the next. My amendment seeks to stop giving cash aid that rewards multigenerational welfare dependency. Let us be clear what the Dole bill currently does. The bill says you can use Federal funds to give vouchers or in-kind benefits to an unmarried teenage mother or you can use funds to put the mother in a supervised group home. That is fine, and we have all agreed upon that. The Dole bill then goes on to say that you can use Federal funds to give cash benefits to unmarried teenage mothers if that mother resides with her parent. We need to be very clear what type of household we are putting cash into. In this household, there will be three people. First, the newborn child; second, the unmarried teenage mother of that child; and third, the mother of the teenager who has the child, or the grandmother, the adult, in other words, in charge of the household. The problem with this scenario is that the adult woman, the mother of the teenager, the grandmother of the new child, the person in charge of the operation, the one we are depending upon for supervision of the unmarried teenage mother is very likely either to be or have been an unmarried welfare mother herself.”