dean hammond, arthur participant, has worked in low-income and homeless housing for more than 30 years, including founding a company focused on hud housing, management software. he joined the board of the foundation for a formal housing in 2004, served as its chairman and was contracted as its president before stepping down in 2012. he is now a consultant to the board. he is a retired army major and was awarded the purple heart and distinguished flying cross and the defense meritorious service medal as chief of aviation of a military training mission in saudi arabia. after these three presentations we will have a congressman, can present on sections of the report and then we will have professor harry holzer and angela rachidi make comments. during parts of this and that defendants will dedicate dialogue with the audience as well with questions. i have one other person to introduce come and she is here

somewhere and that's not cool who works for aei and she is the timekeeper. she's over there and she will be giving signs so that we can keep everybody on schedule. i'm sorry to say that but that's part of what happens when you're trying to run a well-run seminar. i want to say one last thing about seminars because roberta is from chautauqua county. some of you may know that chautauqua institute is one of the earliest sort of institute of good thinking and sharing of ideas of the united states, and when president johnson was president, he would get frustrated with things that he would say we will have one of these darn chautauqua seminars. that didn't get a laugh i was hoping for but that's okay last night but the point is this is something like that. we want of a free and open discussion. and with that i will start with codel. thank you very much. >> i do want to thank you all for coming.

it's interesting we talk about it ever looks at the baptist preacher and said okay. that's who we need to keep the time for. we got first glad that this discussion is on the table in a forum the kosovo side of the aisle. when i read the book a conservative hard look at the other reports, it's interesting because 20 years ago when i got into this business i was in divinity school and doing my masters thesis when the 1996 welfare reform act came out, and the thesis was that like church's response to the 1996 welfare reform act. and in that piece of paper we talked about how can we do this and then 10, 15 years later we are able to move folks off of welfare rolls to the point that at about $11 million in earnings. what we didn't do a good job of these to document how much say does from the odell was on the system. you know, when you look at that number line from this figure, how much say things did become

to the bottom line? but when you start looking at the human impact of folks lives, how all of a sudden people strictly good about themselves because they were working, all of a sudden they were being successful. successful. all of a sudden of the faith community and the black community that so many people believe in is on the front lines of helping people, giving them a hand up not a hand out. and into cheerleader and dumping them into the community, hoping business owners say listen, you don't have to go halfway around the world on a mission trip. i have a mission for you right around the corner. exercise your faith and get involved. let's help create jobs. let's hope with all these things and that's how we became so successful. you have to understand though one of the things we did is the fact that people who didn't want help, we left them alone. you cannot make somebody want to

change. i think part of the discussion i read in the paper is a lot of it you want to make summit or encourage them to get married or some who've been married for 31 years who love my wife, that's what the guys in the group, you know, you have to want to be married. not for the legislation make someone get married. but i was so disappointed when i read that the current administration took the work requirements out, the work requirements must be put back in and they mostly because that's a big driver that helps make all this work. if you're asking the social workers in the system, department of social service, system to be job developers can that's the point award. that's not their forte. so with a partner with us, usually giving hardest to serve because no one am people understand again.

they usually get the faith community the hardest to serve. how would you give this person employed? that's where we do our miracles. no hocus-pocus, just going, building relationships with business owners eating them to buy in. and making a success. when you get to having to buy if you go back to the individual educate in order to buy in. believe it or not the baptist preacher is going to push a time on because i look forward to the discussion. i'm just so excited that we are having this conversation. inspite of people's biases, prejudice, stereotypes about poor people, especially poor black people who look like me, a lot of your stereotypes are not accurate. my purpose today along with others is to make you wrestle with your stereotypes. we can show success. we can show people what a hand up, not a handout. also part of the system to a lot of the problem is systemic and i will end with this.

some people have seen the safety net, which is a metaphor for our social programs and they turned it into a hammock. some people see poverty as a pillow and just maybe it has some bugs in it but you can get used to a lumpy pillow. but you stay in the safety net or the hammock long enough and that what was there to protect you end up in staring to come in handling you with life issues. when you give and give you can't move. it's a problem so it's systemic a lot of the problem is us. we look for the enemy and the enemy was uzbek we put things in place where odell you have to work the you didn't have to do anything, i don't have to do anything so some of us, i'm not going to do anything. now we blame us for what we created. i know that i'm going to push it to the next person.

thank you. >> thank you. my name is a nice, director of commuting action agency. we are at the opera agency and our mission is to assist people who are living in poverty, prevent people who are vulnerable to falling into poverty from getting into poverty, create economic opportunities for the community to get out of poverty and to discover in our local community exactly what it is that is causing or assisting people to slide down economically into multiple economic situations. in our agency we work holistic with the people that we serve meaning we know that when you fall into poverty edge of the problem it affects all parts of your life. we are not there just to do with your children or just to deal with your housing or just to deal with your health. we deal with all of it.

when you come to a big risk assessed across 26 life domains. based on that risk we will find out all the services you are eligible for. but we will measure your against a continuum of care. that continuum of care track you from crisis to the economic security. our goal of course is for everybody to be self-sufficient to reach the middle of that continuum. but our hope for everybody is that they move toward economic security. in 2008 i think it was a validation of our process that those among us who consider ourselves secure found we were not quite as economically secure as we thought we were. so we are teaching sound financial principles. we are training people to be responsible, to take responsibility in their lives. we use our services and we are an umbrella agency that covers

all ranges of services. we are taking an action, community development financial institution, a license home care agency, child care resource and referral agency. many, many titles, agencies. that allow us to do a whole plethora of services for people. and assist people to develop their own plan for economic security. what our continued does is it shows people where they are. for most people living in poverty they had been in generational poverty. they don't realize where they are. they don't realize where they can be. we don't take somebody who is homeless and talk about homeownership. we take people from what they are and would look at the next wrong along the continuum. that's something they can relate to and they can't understand the collateral cost of where they are today. so intimately than make that progress.

they make sure long-term plans and we assist them along that continuum. we track and measure the outcomes. we been doing this for about 20 years. we are an evidence-based agency and it works. >> thank you, roberta. the current president of the foundation for affordable housing and i would like to thank aei and the congressman for having us here to discuss this very important topic. we all are part of this topic and where to find solutions for these problems. the foundation for affordable housing is been in the homeless housing business for 22 years. i'm going to focus right down on dissent and talk about a model we talked about and support and roberta brought up several of those areas of those support agencies that we use. in any case rebuilt in 1994 a 100 unit as our own facility to house homeless. we came to find out that many of

them fall into a couple of categories come especially those were on some sort of disability or welfare payments where they have about an average of $850 a month to live and that's not going to change. we've been housing them thousands throughout the years that st. james place in those apartments. they pay $360 a month and that's more than 30% of their income so we are going with on that model considerably but they have a safe, clean, affordable place to live and they can continue to live there safely and some of them it's the last place they will ever live. in 2005 we constructed a veterans wing, a 38 unit as our own facility that was funded by the a grant, some tax credits and home funds. we use that with the support intensive transitional housing program supported by the veterans administration grant

per diem program. we have men and women in the program and they can be in the program and maximum of 24 months and that's part of this model. i realized some have labeled transitional housing as a barrier to housing and that's not the case at all. we doubt if he gives them an opportunity it provides the right tools and incentives that they can develop into a good citizen and move on. what our target is unsubsidized housing, permanent and subsidized housing. certainly they can continue on up the ladder. but support model we used as want to go to talk about today. i'll be referencing some evidence-based statistics associated with this program over the last 43 months. when we speak of a model like this kind of figure out a way to turn a life ready for goes completely bad, we look for some checklist in the objective. stable housing, good departments, permanent work,

work, training and education, two different things. stable finances. when we look at these models what do we find in there all the time clock struck chair. it's always structure and that's that -- that's the big key, structure. the military, same thing. you see structure. prisons unfortunately, sometimes they go back to the. and family, structure again. we have to create an environment where they can create their own structure. it's mostly about we're going to treat you like a good citizen until you are one. is not a one size fits all. where to look for the person and we are looking for a specific client. he or she may be homeless, maybe drug court. probably has an addiction and as no structure. here's the fork in the road. here's the decision. we can enroll this individual

ultimately in the course out of the university of incarceration. are he or she can learn new skills, have access to drugs, need influential people, have exciting paychecks, still not pay their child support, graduate with a degree in recidivism, go back to the life and divided where they left and returned to prison within three years. 68% within three years, or five years, 77%. 84%, 24 younger will be back in jail within five years. there will be no found the reconciliation to the. or we can enroll this individual in the course of study, this is oriented to the addiction as well. where he or she can learn new skills, targeted job training or job seeking, aberrant inspections, need influential people, the drug and alcohol tested often. complete dave ramsey's financial teach university. increase self-awareness and a key component, participate in a

mandatory savings program. we will help you get a job that you will do savings. that mandatory savings program monitored or adjusted for the hud way. instead of going to rent at first didn't go to savings. our veterans is an average of $2200 per veteran. 94 points over the last 43 months have saved $206,885. these are homeless, penniless people who come to us. the 124 participate and saved $259,000, a quarter of a million dollars. continued, the up to date and agreed on child support. starting in the second quarter. do not go back to the life and find they left. move into permanent housing. move into permanent housing 86.4%. move into permanent non-subsidized housing, 74%.

possibly family reconciliation. remember this class can do is homeless and penniless. let's talk about the money. university of incarceration, the average in 2014, $30,619. state prison in new york, 60,000. city of new york jail, $167,731. we should just put them in the waldorf. university of addiction, life recovery, $22,900 a year. i ask you which one is better, 30,000 or 23 or 167,000? listen to these bulletins. berea, white female served three continued drug sense, in our program 15 months, is working

part time three jobs, say $2850 she got another program, paid cash for her car and a furniture. she said i will not be returning to prison and working toward reuniting with her daughter. so this is not a giveaway. this is a program we have to work to what you were doing in the program. 8% probably will not make it. 92% can really change their lives. 86% can be a stable condition and 72% can be in permanent place with a permanent job. this is the reality of rebuilding a life. thanks. >> can i say one thing? i think you will see that all practitioners that have been successful as you have and that you have, have discovered that it takes comprehensive and we have to take the same approach with our customers, but the issue is the money, the funding for antipoverty programs do not follow this approach and it

takes an organization to step back from a contract and say we have a model and we will find the money and use the money to follow our model, not we will not be an agency that implements a contract. government contract in the anti-poverty programs that exist in this country are not designed at all in any of the ways you heard the three of us talk about. and they are not in any way measuring success or breeding success. there's not one government contract to operate that requires an outcome. and operate $70 million worth of government contracts and none of them require one outcome. so i'v i have taken those contrs and put them on the side burner and use them as tools and bent them like beckham in order to

make us work and help people change their lives. and apply them when they are appropriate. for example, and not just use two very brief examples if i can. section eight housing subsidized housing is an extremely useful tool if you don't tell somebody that they can have it for the rest of their lives, which they can't but you don't. and you use it at the right time in the right way and destroyed the way it was designed to be a rigidly but has become a crutch that allows people to just live in poverty for ever as you said. and the other is he energy assistance which we go to great lengths as an agency to a people develop sound financial practices and to establish good credit and many seniors have

fallen into hard times since 2008 and their on fixed incomes are going for energy assistance for the first time in their lives. and they are applying adequate to get a new york state double energy assistance which isn't going to carry you through a winter anyway, you're going to have to default on your bill. and in order to default you will ruin your credit. when they default, the energy company counts and shuts them off and charges everybody a shot off the. energy companies don't lose money. they go to the public commission and say we lost money last year so we will raise our rates. so the taxpayers are bad for the subsidy for the person who is on energy assistance who is now defaulting to get the full benefit. that's costing the taxpayer more money because the rates are going to go up because the utility companies are paying more money. all you have to do is pay the utility companies to give

eligible customers a subsidized energy rate and cut out 10 layers of bureaucracy and stop putting people into default. this is just small examples of every antipoverty program that exist. every single one of them is flawed and needs to be reworked, and needs to work together but they are all operating in government silos and it takes an organization that operates either many times in housing programs or many times of antipoverty programs to be able to step back and take that approach. .. as he -- as opposed to one aspect of the person. we heard about the federal role.

seems to me there is a federal role helping low income americans and people on the front lines recognize that, providing resources money and assistance. finally we heard about local control. the ability of locality toss and local leaders to structure their problems the way they want and i also think i heard from three of you, and we're going to come back to these issues, the willingness to accept evidence and outcome measurements to hold you accountable for how well you do. so for the second part of our presentation today, we have three distinguished congressman from the house of representatives and going in order from congressman barr, congressman reid, congressman walker. we'll start with congressman barr, who served u.s. house of representatives from kentucky sixth congressional district since 2013. he is committed to creating better environment for job creation and economic growth. his immediate priorities include promoting economic growth to

increase wages for kentucky families and restoring fiscal sanity to washington. tom reed after congressman barr will to next. he is serving third full term in congress, representing new york's 23rd district and a member of the house ways and means committee. in this role he is engaged in the house of representatives anti-poverty efforts and tax reform and energy security and manufacturing policy. before his time in congress representative reed was a small business owner working in law and real estate. his career in public service began in 2008. with successful mayoral run in his hometown ever corning, new york. by the way is in the finger lakes, one. most beautiful part of america. want to put that plug in. that is where my mother grew up. congressman walker represent north carolina's sixth district in the house of representatives. he is currently serving his first term in congress, serving on house committee oversight, government reform, homeland security and administration. es is a member of several

caucuses and bipartisan congressionally historically black college and universities. he served as executive pastor and music pastor and lead pastor. very pleased to have all three of you here. congressman barr, you're first into thank you, robert and thank you to the american enterprise institute for hosting this important forum for my colleagues and our constituents who come to share their stories and successes combating poverty in particular. in particular i would like to thank dean hammond and james grey, st. james place in kentucky, they demonstrate ad innovative model combating poverty and helping people recover from addiction. i recover from a congressional district like so many other members of congress features urban poverty, but in the far eastern part of my congressional district we have a number of counties designated severely

economically distressed as part of the appalachian rural commission. there is not only poverty throughout my district but throughout the country. 50 years of war on poverty and trillions of taxpayers dollars spent i think it is fair to say washington failed many americans who are most in need. worse, bureaucratic inertia crept into government officials who refuse to give up on failing policies that they almost treat as dogma. for example, housing and urban development secretary julian castro who will appear again before our house financial services committee again this week has pushed a housing-first model that ignores all other factors of beneficiaries well-being or future self-sufficiency. last summer when secretary castro testified before our committee i asked him how he measured success at hud? he responded, quote, putting a roof over someone's head. he touted that the number of people in public housing was increasing. but is that really an

appropriate measure of success? most private and non-profit assistance initiatives such as alcohol drug abuse recovery programs focus on number of people they have actually helped achieve sobriety or recovery, not how many are currently in the program. so i think we need to focus on outcomes as opposed to the size of government or the number of government programs. there will always be a need for safety net programs. and for those who have fallen on hard times, to assist those who can not work, such as seniors and the disabled but the measure of our success should not be how many people are struggling in poverty, measure of success should not be how many people struggling in poverty are propped up by taxpayer dollars. instead it should be how many people have we helped achieve escape poverty? how many people have we helped achieve upward mobility in achieving the american dream?

despite $22 trillion spent on anti-poverty programs since the announcement of the great society, poverty rates have been essentially level. today there is 46.7 million people including more than one in five children who are struggling in poverty. and worse, measurements of social mobility appear to be headed in the wrong direction as business formation and entrepreneurship are at a generational low. so in sum, if you're born poor, likely to remain in poverty today as you were when the great society or when the war on poverty was announced in 1965. and that's obviously the reverse of the american dream that we all share. so more of the same can not be the solution. that's why my colleagues and i working through the republican study committee's empowerment initiative produced a comprehensive review of federal anti-poverty programs to inform legislative proposals to create a new model. this work is informed speaker

ryan's better way to fight poverty. my focus in the efforts is on housing reform, an issue within the jurisdiction of the financial services committee. hud can no longer treat those in need as liabilities. warehoused for generations in publicly-assisted housing. our fellow americans want to recognize the full potential, contributing to their full communities, body politic and national economy. of course arthur brooks with the american enterprise institute so eloquently put it in his book, the conservative heart, when he talked about poor people as not being liabilities to be managed by some distant, remote government bureaucracy in washington, d.c., but poor people are dormant assets, untapped potential and we view as brooks does, that work is not a punishment. it shouldn't be viewed as a punishment. work is a blessing. it gives the people the opportunity to achieve their potential and give back to their fellow human being.

so the most effective anti-poverty program known to man is a good-paying job. that is why we're advocating work and job training requirements for able-bodied individuals in public housing. to get people back in the workforce, reduce poverty and east the cost to taxpayers. more people we help out of public assistance the more people we can reach with limited federal resources. we're building on the successes of the 1996 welfare reform model which led to employment rates increasing by 15% and dramatically reduced child poverty. in recent years these reforms have been chipped away and results speak for themselves with low labor participation rates. the lowest labor participation since the malaise of the late 1970s. our plan also improves flexibility for states and encourages establishment of pilot programs to test innovative assistance models like those demonstrated by our panel.

the work of dean hammond and the st. james place's model works but not really compatible with with hud's housing first model. we must break down bureaucratic barriers to invent solutions to ease lives. warehousing poor people is not a solution. identifying underlying causes of homelessness, dealing with those issues is a better approach. we also should consolidate access to assistance so beneficiaries can receive unemployment, food, assistance, housing benefits all this one place and get questions answered quickly to avoid being caught in red tape. our plan would also encourage competition so scarce resources for section 8 vouchers or vouchers for housing would not be simply allocated to one public housing authority but instead, those housing authorities out there doing a

good job, helping people graduate into non-subsidized housing situations they would be rewarded for services that are actually working and think would take on a a greater responsibility. i believe we should open it up to the institution of private societies, dioceses, faith based institutions, churches, and synagogues, non-profit organizations that have better results when it comes to graduating people from public assistance into self-sufficient situations. finally our plan would demand results and accountability. no more useless metrics or ambiguous mission statements. if programs administered by state and local governments are not moving people from welfare to work sufficiently, they shouldn't deserve taxpayer support. one definition of insanity is doing same thing over and over and expecting a different result. washington's fighting poverty has been insand a failure.

no american should be limited by his or her conditions of birth and or unexpected hardship. if we work together on these legislative solutions i truly believe we can restore the american dream. thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much and to my colleagues, andy and mark, for joining us here today. to robert and aei and to odell and roberta and dean for sharing front line stories on this important issue and taking on poverty. i will tell you i'm often asked why, why have you made this a priority in your tenure in congress? the fundamental answer to that question is, just as many of you, i care. i care. i'm a republican member of congress and i will tell you often i'm told my mission in life in congress is to penalize people, judge people, and not show any type of compassion for people. i can tell you as my colleagues will attest on my left and right here, we do care.

we just offer a different way. we offer a different way. i will share the story of my life with you. i will share the story of being youngest of 12, eight older sisters, three older brothers whose father pass abay when i was two. i was raised by single mom, given a curveball in life, you can either develop a chip on your shoulder, get knocked down or never get back up. or what you could do is take that curveball and make lemonade. and you can get back up. and you can smile and can count your blessings and treat each other with respect and work hard and that is the lesson she taught to me. when i was a law guardian, when i first got out of school, i represented kids. law guardians appointed by courts to represent kids throughout various actions in the court system. i met and met one of my clients for the first time. he was an eight-year-old young man in western new york, which is beautiful part as robert pointed out, part of the country

and essentially it is appalachia. he essentially had dirt floors still in his house. i sat with him in his living room, i asked him, what do you want to be when you get older, to develop a friendship, relationship, being his attorney in that court proceeding? and the response was eye-opening. the response was, essentially, what do you mean? this is what we do. i thought maybe he would say, astronaut, police officer, you know, cure cancer, something like that but essentially then it dawned upon me, how could i expect that young man who was 8 years old, to when he is 21, 22 to know anything different than the life he was exposed to? that's the cycle of poverty that i read about and that i have seen first-hand. so when i come to this issue i come at it from a personal perspective we must do better, we need to do better. the status quo of the federal government that has been taking on the on poverty for decades

just doesn't work and i am influenced by a lot of leaders across the country and former leaders of the country. i see jimmy kemp. his father also comes from western new york. jack kemp is somebody i looked up to and look up to each and every day and what he taught us was to be happy warrior and take on issues and look people in the eye and recognize the potential that is there. the systems that we have developed in the federal government at the state level and the local level just don't do that. the silos that have been talked about roberta and others, that andy mentioned, left hand of government not knowing what the right hand is doing, recognizing under our proposal, the better way, rsc proposal, that we need to look at a holiestic approach. that is roberta keller. i've gotten to know roberta over the years representing her in chautauqua county. she is doing amazing work. i toured her facility many times. she takes holiesic approach. because when you deal with

poverty it is not one size fits all solution. when you have policies not only cause you to be penalized when you work, but we also have a life-changing impact. you lose your day care. you lose your heating assistance. you lose your transportation assistance. our policies need to be coordinated. our policies have to look at the entire approach. and that's what we're proposing in the rsc proposal as well as the better way. rewarding work. standing with people as they go through life. recognizing we can be there during that time to offer some type of assistance, be it cash assistance for the crisis situation, but only takes care of an individual for a moment. we need to make sure we're standing with them to get the skillset, the education, that is going to empower them for a lifetime. that is truly caring for people. it is old adage. you give a man a fish you feed him for a day.

you teach a man to fish, you not only take care of them and their families but the next generations to come. that is the policies you see here today. recognizing we have to break the silos of bureaucracy, stand with work. the other reason why we're standing with work, this is often as republican member i often get chastised, all you want to do is penalize people forcing them to work. what was taught to me by my mother, work is good. work is not only good but gets you a paycheck. i have talked with people that received that first check after going through life's struggles and it rewarded their soul. it touched them here. it allowed them to have self-worth. it allowed them to take pride of ownership what they were able to achieve. that is what our i think our policymakers and our policy operators lose sight of each and every day, is that by empowering people to earn their own way, they actually not only earn that paycheck, they earn that confidence, that pride and that ability to go on, not only for themselves but for their

children and the next generation. so i am excited to be part of this effort. i hope you join us in this effort. and this is not about republican or democrat. this is about us as human beings looking at each other saying there is a better way because the status quo has failed and we need to move forward in a positive, proactive way. >> thank you, andy, thank you, tom. thank you to robert at aei for creating this venue. love hearing stories from mr. hammond and miss keller on the success, not overnight but years of hard work and specifically my friend o'dell cleveland, jr. when i began this process three years ago, not having any kind of background or experience what i compelled to do, find people in the community, regardless of their political affiliation, of people making a difference, measured difference and impact on our community and i found a gentleman, odell, respected by

both democrats, independents and republicans alike. he had been spending time over the years crafting relationships. in fact one of the gentlemen that worked with him for many years is now a legislative correspondence liaison in our office and does a great job. i want to speak specifically on my aspect of the policy side which is education. i want to break it down in two ways, if i could, please. one is the system and the other aspect of it is the public. specifically when it comes to the system, i want to talk about specific piece of legislation that i believe is conducive to building a base level and foundation that can help curve potential poverty in the various family structures. i believe the united states was founded on you all do being created equal. while it is not government's job to fulfill our dreams and our goals, as lawmakers we have opportunity to empower people as opposed enabling them when it comes to accomplishing the

american dream. every man, woman, boy and child should have the same opportunity to escape the poverty and achieve the fullest potential as god created that person to accomplish. one of the things we've seen recently over the last couple of years in my long tenure of 17 months in congress is the d.c. opportunity scholarship program and some of the great choice that has provided families. $8,000 a year. i believe choice plays a huge impact. not just in the scholarship opportunity but if we could zoom out about 30,000 feet, a piece of legislation part of this rsc initiative called the a-plus act which specifically allows states, local arenas to opt out of all the federal mandates but continue to keep the federal funding to invest it in put it into local arenas that see some success. to me that is a common-sense approach as federalism, at its finest when it comes to

empowering the people who are there on the ground, they're at the battle line, making that kind of difference there. we need to take a hard look at government's approach for the last five decades. be one thing if we had measured success and i believe that we can see through different testing and different results that something hasn't worked in our education system since the creation of the department of education, and other aspects we have created tons of programs in many more different vehicles or creative avenues but something isn't working when it comes to the overall testing but a-plus act allows these schools to be able to take those funds and invest it where it has the greatest impact. a great education should not be a privilege available only to the wealthy. yet sadly millions of children are trapped in failing schools with really no education options. there is not a whole lot of flexibility. sure everybody in the room is familiar with common core. one of the pushbacks on that one

size fits all strategy. we want to get away from that. we want to be allowing those teaches, i would dare say, teacher made most impact in your life it was probably someone who got outside the box, someone who were allowed to take their personality and have flexibility and creativity that would impact, that would make a difference as far as your future life. the mind of a child is a precious thing. every child is unique. and there is no one size fits all solution. parents know their children the best. not faceless bureaucrats sitting behind a desk in washington. let me take a minute if i could talking about families. one of the things i believe that the a-plus act does, it gives us a chance to continue to restore that family. see a lot of these are symptomatic issues as we've seen the family dissipate since the 1960s, when you're able to do anything that brings the family backs in, puts ownership on the

family, empowers them, i believe it gives you the best chance for future success. by limiting itself government can actually expand opportunity when it gets out of the way and paves the road to collaboration between students and teachers. that to me is part of what i would call the system part of it. and a few more things if we have time, questions answers, as far as wonkish or nitty-gritty of act itself. i don't want to for at this time some of my time unless i also talk about the public side of this. this is maybe the most important aspect. when we talk about programs and we talk about policies, sometimes we fail or neglect to mention the conduit which those programs are delivered. and i think to me, any program succeeds or fails based on how it is delivered. you say, what do you mean by that? let me talk about relationships for a moment. my background is working in inner cities of baltimore, new york, and cleveland long before there were any political aspirations.

i remember specifically sunbeam elementary school in cleveland, ohio. we took a team of about 60, 65, began to work and tried to do our best to refurbish the school. this is first through sixth grade. i remember seeing metal detectors. run-down, playground had one piece of equipment left. a plastic little tykes picnic bench that faded over years. lack of hope impacted me to eventually come back and talk about transitioning from nearly two decades of ministry, to be able to talk about what is it that we're missing in government? what is it that we have bypassed that we skipped over that are fundamental aspects? i believe it is crucial from the education side we begin to make those invests. i look at it from a faith perspective. that god created every single individual with unique skills and i believe when the federal government begins to wedge itself in there, i think sometimes we do a disservice to the public because we limit

those opportunities to achieve or fulfill those wonderful things. sometimes i have had opportunity to teach postgraduate work at divinity schools and it is interesting when you're teaching these younger pastors because they can't wait to get out there and change everything for the music style to the curtains, carpet, you name it. we're in. i have got the plan. it is my thesis, i'm ready to go with it. what has happened though, sometimes we failed to understand that it is about putting the relationship first. when you're able to build trust, you're able to make a difference. i see my time expired. conclude my remarks there, hopefully have a chance to share some more. thank you very much. [applause] >> harry, you go here. angela, you go over there.

so when we started to decide that we wanted to invite the congressman over to present this report, they said that they didn't want it to just be about them. they wanted representatives from people from their communities that taught them so much about these issues. and they also wanted some pushback, some give-and-take. they wanted discussion. and so we went looking for discussion on these issues i could not find two better people that i have greater confidence in their integrity and wisdom than professor, harry holdser from georgetown and angela rachidi in aei works with me in new york city. i will introduce both of them. harry, you to first. angela, you go second. i know we have good response, back and forth discussion. i have a couple follow-ups. let me do introductions first. harry holzer professor of public

policy at georgetown university. he is former chief economist for the united states of department and professor the economics at michigan state university. he is also a non-resident senior fellow at brookings institution and research affiliate for institute on research of poverty at university of wisconsin-madison, among other affiliations. he authored or edited 11 books and several dozen journal articles, mostly on disadvantaged american workers and their employers and education and workforce issues and labor market policy. holed as phd in economics from harvard. angela rachidi, research fellow in poverty studies at ei. studies effects of public policy on low income families. research and valuation for the department of social services in new york city, dr. rachidi oversaw team of analysts using making policy issues how work, family, public policy and reduce poverty and reduce economic situation of poor families.

she has a phd in social welfare policy she has written several research papers for aei. including child care, earned income and marriage penalties. thank you for both being here. harry, you are first,. >> thank you, robert. when my friend robert called me a few weeks ago, robert i will have to say a lot of critical things. he said it is okay. just be polite. that's a little problematic because some of you may know i'm polite isn't always my strong suit. even under the best of circumstances but i will try. but i think you know, to me this is very blunt report and it merit as very blunt response. anything less than this would be dishonest. i will try to get the right balance of politeness and bluntness f i fail to get that right balance i apologize to everybody in advance. and tell you a little bit who i am and way i look at the world. i am an economist.

i did serve in the clinton administration. i'm tagged ad democrat in this town but unlike many of my fellow democrats i part company from them. i think work incentives are really, really important. i think tanf did improve an increased work incentives. some of that was very food. it also created other problems i mention in a minute. i think stable, two-parent families are the best ways to raise children in america, not every country. in america, that means marriage. i wish we had policy buttons we could push to raise marriage rates. i think conservatives have largely been right about that i was one of the authors of aei-brookings poverty report. robert was another author. great experience. i stand by every word in the report. i'm used to working reaching across the aisle and working with my conservative friends i learn a lot. i read other reports, paul ryan report. not my favorite document in the world but i found some positive things to talk about and think about. having said all of that, my reaction to this report, i got to tell you was really pretty negative.

i personally, with all due respect to the congressman, i found the report to be extremely partisan, extremely be idealogical. it is nasty in tone, to people like me who are democrats. it is full of gratuitous slaps at president obama and president johnson. many of which serve no purpose except to alienate people like me. it is polarizing, it is polemical, in many ways, it doesn't do, it doesn't have this nice amicable tone i think congressman today tried to strike. there are many statements in the report that i believe are demonstrably false. if you look carefully at the research evidence. talking about the rigorous, research evidence, using rigorous methods. and i will mention a few of them. some are grand general statements. some are very specific. by the way i think the american poverty programs have a lot of problems and silos mentioned before are real issues. no doubt about it. it could be much better. but let me make a few comments. all three of you said, current

system is a failure. one of the statements in the opening paragraph, johnson's big government welfare state has been a failure. i'm sorry, i regard that statement as demonstrably false when you look at the rigorous evidence on these programs. on head start, job corps, some of the others, simply that is not what you can conclude from carefully looking at that evidence. you can be critical. you can say the evidence is very mixed. can say the programs are too costly. you say they don't get at underlying issues which is correct comment but to say complete failure ignores the positives you find in a lot of research and evaluation literature. in fact if you measure poverty correctly, not using official rate which has a lot of flaws but census calls supplemental rate it has declined over time and pretty easy to link declines to some of the programs demonized in this report. carefully look at evidence. another comment, obama has gutted the tanf work rules. i regard thats a false statement. the reason i think it is false,

ron haskins has told me it's fault. ron haskins look and written on a lot of rules and regard those --s, i trust ron. he pretty much wrote the welfare reform policies and tanf and i trust his judgment on that. he dis' degrees completely. there is all kinds of half-truths in the report. for example we hear a lot early in the report about the 799, round up, call it 800 billion, okay? that's fine. half of that is on health care, medicaid and a few other s ship type programs which to me says, tells us how more outrage justly expensive in america rather than we're overspend on this all the other stuff, other 400 billion, they sound like a massive amount. it is 2% of gdp in america. 2% is not a huge massive government, in fact when you compare us to all other industrialized countries we're on low end what we spend as fraction of gdp. when you compare us to those countries, they all have more

generous safety nets, lower poverty rights and higher up-rate rates of mobility than we do. the notion that our program is so generous and trapping people has -- tell you one more thing about this report upsetting to me. 42 footnotes. a few of them are to the census bureau, congressional budget office. vast majority of the articles are either to papers coming out of right-wing think tanks, right-wing media outlets or right-wing conservative political appointees. not one footnote to a rigorous, peer-reviewed article in a rigorous journal which there is a large quantity in the social science. not one which to me tells me in some sense the information that was driving the view. let me talk a little bit about the a few of the programs. i will argue not that these programs don't have negative but reality is much more complex that they simply all failed. first of all, welfare reform. i think welfare reform did a lot of good when the economy was really strong.

since then the number of disconnected mothers, disconnected from work as well as from welfare gone up quite dramatically. ron haskins writes about this more than anybody else. millions of those moms not on welfare, not working because they're hard to employ. i will get back to that. tanf no longer raise anybody out of deep poverty, income one-half the poverty line and it used to. it did nothing in the recession to combat rise in poverty occurred when jobs were disappearing in the recession. on the other hand food stamps, heavily demonized in the report, food stamps does raise millions of people and families out of deep poverty. it is successful doing that it does, it did combat the recession. it had a counter cyclical role and very importantly the rigorous evidence shows food stamps raises the nutritional quality of poor children. that is clear fact when you look at valuation evidence on that. those children do much better as

adult and work more better as adults than those that don't have access. therefore a rise in food stamps somehow proving obama has been a failure is simply another falsehood in my view. the earning income tax credit, report does have a positive paragraph or two on earned income tax credit. then it talks a lot more about all the fraud and irs needs to be much stricter combating fraud. i have no problem with that i don't mind the irs, except we have one problem, the irs has been so demonized by house republicans last six or eight years, and its funding so dramatically cut hard to give them unfunded mandate to do this work. jugs at that position of those comments strikes me a little bit -- juxtaposition. a lot written about marginal tax rates. i will need a little more time, robert, i'm sorry. the notion that people face these massive cliffs when earnings go up a little bit and come up with one or two hypothetical examples. in fact the congressional budget office wrote a report late last

year on marginal tax rates. they are nowhere near as high as ones cited in report. i think they're still too high. but expensive to reduce the marginal tax rates and doesn't always generate changes in behavior afterwards. there is huge literature on rigorously evaluated pre-k programs and k-12 programs, workforce programs none of which cited in the report. you would think that stuff doesn't exist anywhere and that was troubling to me. let me talk then about what do we know about poverty from the research and some of the underlying -- and do we really believe the suggestions in this report and many fine efforts been discussed are going to be up to the challenge of really reducing poverty especially without more resources? first of all, there are a lot of adults in country who fit into the category we call hard to employ. people with multiple barriers to finding jobs. especially keeping jobs that they find. they often become disconnected moms and their children, children of the poor in general grow up with a lot what we call toxic stress.

the stress, instability of life, resources that run out at end of the month, impedes their brain development and consequencely cognitive, non-cognitive skill gaps develop very early in life of children. imposing more work rules on their parents will solve that, to me defies logic. by the way, and then, those gaps get reinforced in highly segregated schools, segregated by race and economics. a lot of schools reinforce a lot of failures but a lot of choice problems doesn't necessarily solve problems. if you look at charter school literature. some charter school networks are successful, many others are not. choice experiments are successful, some are not. if you look at evidence, make softer statements. what happened in the labor market. work is great thing. i'm 100% pro-work. however wages badly deteriorated or in the two, three, four decades we're talking about

here. somewhere the federal minimum wage working year-round full time, depending how define that, makes 14, $15,000 a year. when you add in eic, still below poverty line for family of four for parents. number one helped drive a lot of men out of the labor force and number two, driven them almost out of marriage. you can debate magnitudes. to make no comments about the level of wages labor market offering to me miss as lot of action. marriage, i like marriage. i like marriage. it's a great thing. we don't have policy buttons to push. marriage and fraction of children growing up outside of marriage in red states, blue states, in every kind of policy environment. the notion you blame all that on the programs is another falsehood. contraception is different. we have strong evidence on conception policies. saw hill, folks at national campaign. not mentioned at all in this

report. one other thing. it is true that the poverty programs we have often don't address those problems. they are very, very hard to solve but the notion that proposals stepped forward in this report will solve those deep structural problems again i find unpersuasive. i will close saying following. i'm actually open to a lot of policies as i was in the aei-brookings report. i'm open to consolidating some of these programs, coordinating them better, raising flexibility. open to strengthening work requirements. opening to lowering the marriage tax, accountability and more choice, i'm open to them if you do them carefully and thought fully based on the evidence, however people have to meet me halfway. they have to acknowledge the evidence, that some of these programs really do perform positive things and not just demonize these programs. if you're going to have extra work requirements, you have to provide appropriate work supports and services for people. what conservative scholar larry

mead at nyu, talked to help and hassle. when i talk to robert doar he likes to do the same. you don't slam on work requirements and do nothing to help people. which leads in a principle we embraced our brookings-aei report, no one should be kicked off a program if they haven't been awarded work activity and sufficient supports. i support that for instance pill. if want people to do work, you have to have job creation. as witnessed in great depression and depressed reasons. that costs significant money could be money well spent. emergency tanf in the stimulus bill some evidence suggests it was effective i'm going to stop. i'm willing to meet people halfway in the arguments not in the context of reports like this demonizes democrats and demonizes programs and denies every bit of evidence on things that actually work. >> okay. thank you, harry. [laughter]

>> i hope harry will tell us how he really feels? >> i know. i have a few things i would like to talk about. we will go to angela first. angela, five to seven minutes. >> thank you, night quite sure how to follow that up. i will try to. it is really a pleasure to be here this afternoon. as robert mentioned i study effectiveness of primarily federal safety net programs here at aei. we focus on trying to reduce poverty and low income in america. as robert mentioned for a decade of i worked for department of new york city social services as director of policy research. saw these programs how they functioned at the ground level and how people experience them. so my comments are very much influenced by that experience, sort of working you know, more in the field and at ground level as well as research i've done as part of my academic work as well

as here at aei. and i also just want to mention, you know, i'm very much a realist. i think it comes probably to a great extent from my midwestern roots. i also spent a number of years in new york city welfare department which is about as real as you can get. so my comments really sort of do reflect some of those, those experiences. you know, when i read the reports, i had a very different reaction than professor holzer who i respect very much. many of his comments resonate with me but i didn't have quite the same reaction. i feel the plan articulates some very broad themes that i think do resonate with a number of people. i didn't look at it so much as you know, a report that was coming out of a scholarly institution. i recognized it's a report coming out of a political body, really trying to articulate some broad themes. again many of those do resonate with me based on my experience and my research.

in i think the report, or the plan does touch on some issues that often times are criticized as political rhetoric but i think that it's, if we're too, if it's too easy to dismiss some of them as political rhetoric, we don't get into some of the real issues. so i want to focus on basically three broad themes that i sort of took from the plan. one is on work, which we have heard quite a bit b both sides do agree work is critically obviously to reducing poverty but the major question how do we encourage employment so we can reduce poverty? as was proposed in the plan work requirements can be a an effective way to do that if implemented appropriately and fairly. which to be honest they aren't always, but i think in general the intent behind work requirements are a good intent that is much of what we heard from the members of congress earlier.

too often i also agree with the members, their comments earlier too often these comments are viewed as punitive or punishment to people seeking benefits when they really shouldn't be viewed that way. they should be viewed as an opportunity to build people up and to provide work programs and to some extent training for people who may not be connected to those type of services. so the supplemental nutrition assistance program which does have a work component for individuals who are able-bodied without dependent children but doesn't have very robust programs for those who are not, to me that seems like a missed opportunity rather than some sort of effort to try to implement punitive measures on those individuals. and i agree, work promotion, activities, work promotion requirements can be a larger part of other programs such as housing assistance we heard about, housing assistance programs as well as our disability assistance programs and more broadly food assistance.

research does primary tell us that work is the best way out of poverty, if families and if individuals are work able. it also shows us that work, as again was mentioned earlier, provides a sense of belonging, community, self-pride really critical not only for affluent people but he low income people as well, why would we, why would we try to deny that for all americans? census data show us 60% of the poor working page people do not work at all, so those are people denied some of these opportunities that employment can provide. the reasons that they give for not working are not inability to find a job. it es actually about less than 10% say they can't find a job. primary illness and disability and home and family responsibilities. so this suggest as strong, robust economy with a lot of jobs can obviously do a great deal to increase work but it can't be the whole story. we need other efforts as well.

reasonable work expectations can be a part of this. but it is not the only part. it has to be coupled with supports that allow people to work. child care assistance, for example, is a critical component. we can't, we can't expect parent to work in exchange for benefits if we're not providing assistance to them in the forms of child care. then we also know the federal policies that have effectively supported work and we should continue to support those such as the earned income tax credit. but as the report also mentioned, the eitc has problems in terms of improper payments and, again, i wouldn't be too quick to dismiss some of those and there's lots of issues with the tax system but the eitc is one area, that needs to be addressed. luckily aei is putting out a report in the coming weeks that shows there are legitimate and credible ways to address some of these issues and i hope for people that are interested in that you will have a chance to

take a look. the second area that i think is of critical importance is the family. and we didn't talk a whole lot about that earlier and it's kind of a hard thing to talk about. people often draw on their own values and personal beliefs thinking about marriage from a public policy perspective but if you look at issue from purely empirical perspective the data are pretty clear. two parent families experience lower poverty and children do better in two parent than single parent families. there is good deal of research to support that. as harry mentioned research also shows that the government does not do a good job promoting marriage but as the plan correctly outlines, government should not necessarily be in the business of making low-income parents who do decide to marry, makes it financially, making it a disadvantage to them if they do decide to marry. my own research found when it

comes to the eitc for actual low income, unmarried parent the penalty for the eitc can be in the range of 1500 to $3,000 if an unmarried couple decides to marry instead of staying unmarried and even raising a child together. these marriage penalties are real and they need to be fixed. it will cost money. and so that's another piece that is often not talked about when you know, some on the right talk about these marriage penalties. to get rid of marriage penalties it will cost money and, you know, it needs to be addressed in that context. the third point i want to make is around experimentation and this really gets to kind of one of roberta's points from the earlier panel about all these funding streams, that they're together. how they're able to take an approach that is more holistic but a lot of, anti-poverty programs are not set up that way. the plan advocates for more state flexibility to experiment

with some of these programs and i do think that is the direction that we need to go in. at least on a pilot basis. states need to pilot programs that streamline programs together, try ininnovative programs. i like the pay for success models mentionedded in the plan. there are other efforts, savings models, things like that. the states need the ability to experiment with some of these things. and states really may be in a good position to do that. we learned from the 1980s and 1990s, when states were experimenting with welfare programs, that, you know changes could be made and we need that same sense of experimentation today. i do though understand the concerns that some have that states may not be up to the task to do that and that it's a risk for poor families but i would argue that the federal government needs to then take the role of holding states accountable for these pilot programs, have rigorous evaluation, hold them accountable for outcomes and make it time limited.

if they're not producing results, the funding goes away. and then, one just last point i will make before closing. the final statement in the plan was about the federal government's fiscal health and needing to get the fiscal house in order and the need to shrink government. while that is true, it doesn't have to mean just cutting safety net programs and it also does not have to mean no new spending for example. in my opinion it should mean better targeting spending and spending money on things that are going to achieve the goals that we want to achieve. we have heard that those goals are work, family and experimentation. so, if there are areas where, that are not effective and you can have less spending it should be realized there may need to be new spending in child care, for example, or paid leave for low-income family. things we know will support work and support family because those

are the things that we are, or those are the goals we are trying to achieve. so ultimately, you know, again i sort of looked at the report, the plan a little bit differently than maybe some others did but i see a lot of possibilities in the study committee, the republican study committee's empowerment plan. we all won't agree on everything that's in the plan but i do believe that there's a lot of agreement on both sides in the areas of work, family, and experimentation and i just hope that people will take the plan, maybe a little bit more as i did, as a broad framework what can be achieved and try to work towards that thank you. >> okay. thank you very much, angela and harry. i want to give members opportunity to comment on anything they heard. i might have a follow-up question or two. you might have a couple follow-ups. we might want to engage the audience and our previous panelists. i will start with congressman

barr. >> thank you very much. i would like to first start by complimenting professor holdser for his passion. >> but not my politeness. >> i think it was perfectly polite. let me compliment, in all seriousness let me compliment for his passion. everyone should be outraged by witnessing people struggling in poverty. there should be passion in this debate. we may have vigorous disagreements but what we all should be is passionate about this issue because it is unconscionable people in this country, a country built on the concept of the american dream can not escape poverty. that denies the american, the uniqueness of the american experience. so when i go to eastern kentucky and in the eastern part of my district, i go to wolf county, kentucky, i try to absolutely share in the passion that professor holzer has.

when i meet a young woman named sally coming up to me after town hall meeting, with tears running down her face, it is august, going back to school, and my two children have grown out of their shoes. i can't afford to buy them shoes. i went to walmart and bought them flip-flops because they wouldn't be embarrassed going back to the school barefoot. that deserves our passion and our outrage. the reason i can't afford shoes for my children, is because my husband was laid off because his coal company doesn't have a permit. he couldn't get a permit. so i would say, first and foremost, let's not promote government policies that actually produce poverty. first let's not do things that actually affirmatively put people into poverty. now with respect to the anti-poverty programs that we do have, let me come halfway to where professor holzer is as he is requested. i think he deserves us to come

halfway, where i would come halfway, in truth some of these anti-poverty programs been around for 50 years have alleviated material deprivation to a certain extent. the problem is the spirit all deprivation, remains, persists, perhaps even exacerbated. when we look at programs like in my district, the st. james place, we're looking at programs that don't just maybe on the margins alleviate material deprivation by providing some cash assistance or some housing or what secretary castro says, let's put people with a roof over their head, what we want is something better than that. we want to alleviate spirit all deprivation. what we want to alleviate the idea that people can't achieve self-sufficiency and independence so they can put a roof over their own head. so it is not that we deny some of these programs on the margins have helped people like sally in eastern kentucky maybe get

through a rough patch where her husband lost a job because of coal regulations or environmental regulations but because we want soley's husband to go back to work because we want him to have an opportunity, where we want her to have a opportunity so she can not only buy shoes for her kids, but so that she can provide them with a life of greater opportunity. so, we're not denying that we should come halfway. of course we should come halfway. we all should share in this passion to do better in the war on poverty. i will say this. our report does credit president johnson in some regards for actually talking about the fact when he declare a war on poverty, we need programs that actually tackle the root causes of poverty, not just mask the symptoms of poverty but get at the root cause of poverty. so just in conclusion, that's what we're trying to do. we're trying to actually go with the core causes of poverty, not just mask over with some kind of a transfer payment to symptoms

of poverty. >> congressman reed? >> thank you, robert. i too want to echo some of the comments andy made. i will say this i'm the most senior member up here, relatively three terms. the good professor articulated something that i have experienced numerous times especially in my district. i have the most left district portions, with the right portions of that district. we're very unique district in that way. often way will hear is rhetoric, professor. such as yourself, immediately knee-jerk respond to potential reports in a partisan, political scene we're attacking. i respect that i respect that opinion but at the end of the day what we can not do, and i can promise you, professor, that i'm not leaving. i have done this numerous times in town hall meetings. yelled at, hour 1/2, two hours,

called every name in the book, i have been damned to hell for some of my political beliefs. >> i can help you with that. >> if i will go to hell for many things i support, get ready, mark i will be in confessional for many, many hours. after hour 1/2 and two hours, i'm not leaving because i care about this. we'll find area we can agree upon. you know what happens after you get through the rhetoric, i've seen that in washington, d.c., it is amazing what we can agree on, if we at least get through the rhetoric if we get to the substance. professor articulates some things we agree with, that angela points out. we believe in recognizing in work. that is where we should spend the time going forward. where can we find the common ground, the halfway point. where can we find issues with silos, professor articulated is a problem? the issues roberta keller

demonstrated with a lifetime of economistment to break doesn't silos so the right and left hands of government know what is going on in individuals lives? where can we promote, you know, those training skills, those educational skills going arm people for a lifetime. you see broad agreement in the reports that i have been part of, that want to do that. i think the professor from the comments i heard is committed to that. so gives me a lot of optimism and to the people watching this back home, somewhat, this is kind of what d.c. operates like for the first 20, 30 minutes, but when cameras are off, and lights are down, serious legislators like my colleagues here at table today, committed themselves, given up so much back at home to be here to get the people's business done that will continue to do this work because it's the right thing to do. i can assure you many times we'll meet halfway, professor, and we'll be able to find solutions to these problems because our fellow citizens deserve that that's why we're here and that's why i'm again

inspired by jack kemp and work that he did in his career here in washington, d.c. >> representative walker. then i have a, some questions of things we can get agreement. >> sure, thank you. once again it has been a privilege to be here today. i do believe that professor holtz every's comments someplaces were exaggerated, specifically, when i believe you indicted all three panel members saying all three of us had blamed, to use your quote, all of this on these programs. i don't believe anybody up here made the case all this is based on programs. if you were listening to some of my comments, i don't know how much of your notes were prepackaged, i talked about some of the family and things there part of the issues as well, not just the program side. the other thing that i heard you say, if i remember correctly was that kids are, kids that are on food stamps are better off as adults. i would love to know what report that is based on. i would love to get the information honest think.

that would help us then. and final thing that you talked about, you said, when it comes to school choices you said some charter schools and some choices are good and some of it is bad. that is a pretty broad sweeping statement. that really doesn't give you an idea one way or the other but i would say this in conclusion, with my thoughts here. who is it better to make those choices, bureaucrats or parents? . .

we put on as opposed to how many people we transition out until we think the transition also exists and not adding on is the other success that i think we have problems here, thank you >> one of the things we hear in these debates a lot is and thank you very much congressman and all of you, you're all wonderful but i want to focus on one particular issue and that is the work requirement issue. and harry, i think i heard you say that for an able-bodied individual on food stamps, this is really where it sometimes comes to bear. and offered job that is declined or an offered activity that is declined or failed to show up for, my response from the agency providing that assistance it is an effort to get them to comply or take advantage of what's being offered. how do you react to our work requirement that isn't get a job or lose your benefits but

take this job that were offering or take this activity that's here and is available for you tomorrow. do you feel that then there could be consequences? how do you react to that? >> i'm open to certain versions of that. you and i debated for many hours on this issue and some of these people who are able-bodied often suffer from severe depression or posttraumatic stress disorder. that might cause them not to show up. whenever you and i talk about programs that have work requirements, the service piece of it and the support piece is very strong so maybe not the first time somebody does this, but in canada if you have a repeated pattern and if there have been efforts made to be supportive of the model, then on more open to considering some version of that. i would say in the experience i had in new york city where we really pushed food stamps as a work support supplement,

low wages and household where the wages work enough to make them rise above the poverty level that was a good thing but then it turned out that many able-bodied adults, working age adults, not disabled recipients of food stamps who we thought we were giving the work support two words working and they worked on task so we don't know what they were doing and failing to address that is an issue. i'm open to that quest as long as the support services are provided that go along with it. >> for you guys, block grants or state experimentation? how do you feel about testing that kind of flexibility first? >> if i could, that handout we've written that some of the proposals that are out there to give netflix ability, that authority to make sure it's not just a blanket block grant like that's the solution that's going to be all solutions area it's about having

accountability, having netflix ability so i would say experimentation, flexibility, making sure that we watch and look for the unintended consequences we are dealing with because this is complex. it is not as easy as black and white because each case is unique .that is something i've learned in the time being in this area and also as a person in this firsthand. each family situation, each individual situation is often very unique and one-size-fits-all is not going to work i'd like to have a microphone brought to our participants from community-based organizations because i like to follow up with a question on that. is the microphone coming in that direction? thank you. you've all talked about federal programs that were a little amorphous, you are sure how they were working or where the money was going or why they were coordinated working successfully together but people who work in any poverty program in kentucky or north carolina or in new york do know what the food stamp program is. you know what that program is. if washington decided in your state to use that funding source as the way to give

states greater flexibility, in other words instead of allowing the federal government to provide that benefit through the food stamp card but gave it to the states and your programs to find a way to use that money to holistically service the clients you serve, would that all are you? dean, you go first. >> you need to eliminate the food stamps? >> they would take the food stamp program away and take that money and instead give it to your state and say you can give them your version of food stamps but you can also give them a work program or give them an early supplement or do alcohol substance abuse program with this fund. >> this is like if you stop beating your wife, you can't get the answer. the thing here i think is to pick one thing and cut it off like that, i would not agree and the reason being i agree with the flexibility, i really do but that's a super

important program and to just pick one and cut it out and give the money out, we got a lot more complex problem here than picking one of those things and i can pick anyone program, anybody in this room could pick a program and say it's crazy were spending this money, it's stupid and that's fine but this is got to be a lot bigger than that,holistic , and we got to go to at least a two-pronged attack. we got something deal to deal with today, i can't buy my shoes, the example is given but we got to look in the future and fix our education. make sure the kids are getting educated no matter what it takes to get them educated when they are 20 they are not there. >> you want to comment on that? >> i really am scared. in new york it's one of the largest bureaucracies in the country probably and where new york gets a blockgrant,

the first thing it does is fill in the cracks of its bureaucracy with the block grant to keep its bureaucracy intact . and then the dragons go down so i don't believe that new york is different than other states and other philosophies. new york will keep its bureaucracy first but other states may not philosophically believe in feeding children or may not philosophicallybelieve in supporting education . so for different reasons, block grants going to different states may have terrible consequences and i think that food and housing and these issues when i talk holistic leak in the need for flexibility and for more integration to the services, i'm not dead against block grants but i think they need unbelievable oversight, unbelievable accountability and i think the cfp g block

grant is a perfect example of that. there are a lot of questions during the bush administration about the fb g block grants and i think that in the last eight years there has been a lot of oversight on cfgb. same thing with head start. head start with question during the bush administration and i think headstart is one of the most phenomenal programs in the country. i think people have no idea what these children are coming to school with or what they would be. if you can take the children who have lived in five generations of poverty and tell me that whenever in the fourth grade they are equal to other fourth-graders, you have performed a miracle.>> odell, did you want to comment on this? >> real quickly, even though the trends are alarming and i

don't think that if we look at the trends, the national trends we can keep it up, i would say no to block grants in the state but i will say yes to when we look at the department of labor and you look at any people in internships, a lot of times the employers when i talk to them, the got job creators they are like odell, we love what you're doing but we don't want to take the risk as it relates to someone coming into our company and now all of a sudden the department of labor rules and regulations apply to them. we understand how to relax those rules when it comes to the academy. we understand how to relax those rules when it comes to interning in the medical field so we can go in and change that legislation or tweak that legislation so the employer who creates jobs, the federal government doesn't create jobs, will be able to kind of minimize the risk so that if they give someone a chance to intern and it doesn't work out, now they are paying unemployment insurance. nothing against unemployment insurance but come on. let's look at from those

perspectives, those are things we can do to help. thank you. >> you want to follow up but i did want to ask you a question about the disconnected moms, they are all on snap. that's where they are. they are not really disconnected from government systems. theredisconnected from cash systems . then the assistance might not be to change the cash program but alter the food stamp programs, we know where they are, i could get a list if i wanted to and track themdown. >> i don't know , that's a big number but let's look at the experience mechanics which is the ultimate block grant program.and i part company with a lot of democrats, i think did some good in the first four or five years when the labor market was strong because it's a program that assumes a strong labor market and when the labor market not list on it didn't do wonders and again, i don't believe the problem is there because obama went against the work

rules which is a director in your report the one thing we've learned about tennis and i recommend phones at the hamilton project at brookings which to me is a very centrist outfit, had a program about a month or two ago on potential safety net reforms, it was a good paper on it talking about the pluses and minuses and what they found is in some ways, the flexibility has been abused by some states much along the lines of that roberta said that states spend a lot of this money on things not even remotely related to the poor and so one of the recommendations that came out and nobody wants to get rid of a tenant, we want to keep the good that was accomplished but still building the safeguards and the appropriate oversight to eliminate and one of the ordinance was there should be some rule that says half of the grant should be spent on what they called core support which is cash assistance, childcare and things of that nature. but that's i think what we ought to be talking about here. not is it. >> ability, let's look at the

failures as well as the successes of flexibility and try to come to a middle place that has the benefits and doesn't, without some of the costs . >> in partial defense of the report on working requirements, the letter of the law and there's the spirit of the law and there's a sense among people who worked in social services programs that an emphasis on work requirements has not been a high priority of our administration and that comes through in the administration and comes through in the administration of other social services programs that don't have them and they're not interested in bringing them into play. but i have another question of the itc but did you want to comment because i want to press you guys on irs? >> can i touch on the work requirement, work incentives and the issues raised by the professor that perhaps the

labor market is not in a place to accommodate additional jobs? one bit of anecdotal response to that is that there is a paradox in our labor market where you have high unemployment or low labor participation but unemployment rates come down the labor participation is historically high, labor participation problems and yet when you go and talk to plant managers and hr directors throughout our congressional districts, the anecdotal evidence at least is very strong that there is a huge demand or even unskilled workers in fact, many plant managers in my district tell me, and this is a district with elevated unemployment in the and this is what these employers say to me. i don't even need a skilled worker, i just need an unskilled worker who was on time and drug-free. that's what i need. i think a little bit of that is overblown. i think there are jobs available but there is a paradox there. remember what our report says. we focused on able-bodied non-senior citizen age folks

for the work incentives and frankly i believe as the brother of a disabled sister that the disabled and contribute meaningfully in our labor market and we ought not say that they cannot. finally, what i would also say is the professor is absolutely right. there are some systemic problems with work requirements that we have to deal with coincident to the work incentive. the childcare issue for a single mom, we got deal with this. the childcare issue for a single mom asking her to work. we also have to deal with transportation issues so the report addresses that. we actually talk about portability of vouchers so people can escape low income neighborhoods where there are no jobs, take about her to a place where they can actually get to work. >> do you want to piping on the labor? >> quickly and i mention this earlier but your emphasizing, the vast majority of poor working age people are not even looking for work. so they give reasons for not working, that's their

disability and home and family responsibilities and maybe that they've given up looking for work because they're frustrated in the labor market but when i hear things about oh, we have a mismatch in jobs or there's just not enough jobs available i think we are missing the point that there is a lack of even looking for work and we need to address those issues if we hope to get more people to work quite but you would also agree and i think all congressmen would agree that a lot of the people who don't even show up in those surveys are men with criminal records who have a huge barrier because of enormous evidence that employers don't want to hire someone with a criminal record and they sometimes have incentives, we talked about that but there's different problems or it's the mom that has a substance problem as many people do, they have to get rid of that or post traumatic stress disorder or depression and there's evidence that large populations, ...

>> it's not an absence of opportunities, it's an absence of people moving to take advantage of those opportunities. >> there are low-wage jobs available, a lot of people left this labor market because they looked at those low-wage jobs and found them unattractive, the beer off the path, they didn't get married, they dropped off the labor force. it's a complex problem but it's not either/or. we just have to kick them in the butt and get them back does not translate. >> does the congressman, any one of three of you, one thing it appears we all agree on is there's an inappropriate or improper payment ratio in the earned income tax credit which is our largest anti-poverty program, food stamps and a itc are to spending onyear, $70 billion a year . 20 percent, 18 percent improper payment rate. it does reward and incentivize work to many conservatives and republicans like it. if the irs came to you and said we could fix this but

you need to fund us all we can do the things to make sure we don't send these payments out to the wrong people for the wrong reasons, how would you respond? >> as direct oversight and we know the irs commissioner, i had him in my office i think there would be an appetite for that conversation. butit would not be just okay, we're going to give you more money overall. it could be a conversation as simple as we need to prioritize this . where can we potentially reallocate resources within the irs that's not working and that needs to be deployed into a higher priority and i think you can find that halfway ground that both of us could come to and i think that's a conversation that is happening, will happen and continue to happen because we recognize that as these agencies get bigger and bigger and the irs is an example of that, that resources here is a serious question but it's not the end all be all.

more money is not going to solve this problem. i've seen this in the irs in thesix years on ways and means and in other areas across the spectrum . >> congressman walker, i was curious in your comments because we all recognize that long-term this will help of the country is at rest. but we also recognize i think that the bulk of the $800 billion that we spend on low income americans, harry's right is medicaid so the healthcare world takes that and in payments to providers and payments to managed care plans and i wondered whether, how you react to that desire to maybe find ways to spend more in some things, less in other things that are less efficient where the total spending on programs for the poor remains about the same? how do you react to that spending on healthcare and

are you in this in order to find fiscal relief for the federal government long-term or is there something else estate is more important? >> it has to be a long-term goal. i don't know the short-term, it may get you celebrated in certain circles. one of the reasons we were a strong proponent of repeal of the scr was look at this long-term when it comes to our healthcare options there, the chip reauthorization program, we felt like that was giving us a long-term in my opinion reform entitlements that we talked about a long time around congress. i think it's very crucial to look at this from a long-term perspective where there are health tire side or a medicare side or on the issues we are talking about today. i think it's an easy trap sometimes to take the quick solution and there are times but let me also say this. the reason my fellow congressmen are here with us today is to talk about some of these tough issues.

these are not sexy issues. these are not issues that are easy fixes and i commend my fellow members here who have longer than i have been in congress, they're going to tackle something that is a very difficult issue. it's easy to make other issues the limelight, the one that gets the storylines, the one that's featured on the different talkshows but these are issues i feel like long-term have to be resolved and i also will say that the people that are going to be the ones resolving this are people who love genuinely the people that we have a chance to represent and i don't want to be clichc or sheet when i make those comments. if there's not a genuine heart and tone and spirit, then we don't accomplish anything long-term and not to use the term too much, not to be blunt to what we said earlier today, to challenge that the tone and spirit among the panel is inappropriate or is not one

that, i don't believe we can let the reporters or the audience decide at some point that this has been an overly partisan shot from the panel here. i believe it's one that's gone right down the middle where there are comments made as far as this decision or that decision made by some in the past, yes but nobody's up here bashing the left, i'm not even sure the word democrat was used to single time by anybody on thepanel so i want to make sure i also had a chance to address those , were coming at this from the white tone and spirit. we work in these environments. we're back in the places they're seeing the poverty, seeing these urban areas or whether it's urban poverty that's something that's important to all of us. >> data shows that all three districts have portions that are struggling and not getting better so that would motivate a member of congress to want to address the issues that their constituents are facing.

so i now want to open it up for questions from the audience. we got about 15minutes and we like , here's the rules about questions. we like questions. we don't like statements. brief comment, preface and then a question and any of the panelists can address it so let's get some hands up, where do we have a question? right here. right there in the white. >> hi, thank you all for being here today and having this discussion, it's really empowering from, i'm from south carolina and it's good to see this conversation going on. from both sides of the aisle so briefly, i wanted to give an example and pose the question to you, early in my career i worked in transitional housing and was out to save the world and through that experience i worked with a lot of individuals who, we worked with them to do job training

to give them the skills they needed and one example of that was a woman who had come into the transitional housing, was doing very well, went through job training, we found an apartment for her. she got to the point where she was offered a raise and promotion but if she took that race and if she got that promotion she would lose every benefit that she had. so instead of moving forward which would have actually been a loss to her, she got fired.she lost her job and went back to square one. so i'd be curious to see and would almost venture to say that a large majority of the folks who you see who don't move forward may find themselves in that same situation on curious as to how the policies that you're looking at might address the gap between those folks who

the reality is especially in south carolina, a good minimum wage job maybe the reality for some, right? so where they can get, how do we build support for them? how do we bridge that gap between dependence and independence so we are not incentivizing people to go back to square one and last question is, how do you help states use the earned income tax credit to do so? >> this is a major issue in the discussion of the proper calibrating of benefits so you are always better off by taking a higher paying job or the additional hours and so i want the members to go first on that issue and then i will ask angela and harry to pipe in and well and i might make a comment myself. >> i will speak for my other two members but our thought process on this, our commitment is this has to be a shared type of solution. by that i mean a shared solution between taxpayers

and the individual so when you have this cliff effect that we are going out there and we did a lot of work on the disability trust fund in our office and worked with the disability community and essentially your message that you articulated is exactly what often individuals here. and they go into the offices, as they go into the program services offices, they here if you do well you will be penalized and what we have to do is we have to tools. we have two tools in government in my mind, the market pressure and governor mandate. what i'm looking at is by having a shared read on path for every three dollars earned, one dollar key, one dollar goes back to the taxpayer or whatever the ratio could be and we could have an apartment and discussion about that for hours but i think sharon that incentive makes sense to me. not cliff effect, a clip where you over the cliff you lose dollar for dollar. that makes sense on the top level perspective but when you actually live it, see it and died down, sharing the results of that positive step forward i think send the right message to the people

on the benefit. if you're working you should be able to keep some of that you heard but the taxpayer also should sharon that saving as it goes forward and you could come up with a solution in a relatively easy time and take that approach. >> i can see it quickly, no transitional program should create a cliff in an environment for the recipient. in other words any program we are instituting, there should be no penalty for that person to begin that upward mobility process. if there is a huge deterrent and probably when we look back we will realize it doesn't have much success one more thing, the other thing that happens to is because the left and right hand don't know what's going on in government, nobody knows where the cliffs are so the individuals become so scared because they were told by one office and the individuals they don't know the difference between housing, snap area they just know they're in there for help and trying to get assistance so if you have different clips at different levels and different programs it's

complex for the individual that living and breathing this is my feedback so making sure we put across the board where those clips are and making sure we have shared warts. >> i would add that the cliff effect is absorbed not just by people like you and service providers in transitional housing but also it is observed in the labor market so back to my anecdotal example where the hr manager for the plant manager is interviewing someone and they interview the job as a condition for continuing to receive their public assistance but then they declined the job offer because it wouldn't put them in a better position than where they are. they're coming to me. this is verbatim from multiple employers in my district, we are paying people to not work so as to tom's point, smoothing out and ending those clips is critical to getting people back into thelabor market. >> if i could just , two things, number one. there are stories about cliffs, there are realities

about cliffs. the evidence, look at the budget office report from 2015. the average marginal tax rates are not as high uniformly. you can get to a place where all of them ... but let's not exaggerate.angela was exactly right about this. we have solved this problem, it takes more money. it's got to take more money to provide transitional benefits as people, and we have to do that in the itc. the second-order, you don't count of their, but it cost more money so there's a way you can do this. >> if i could, it's important to note that our report is not about cutting budgets. our report does nothing about cutting budgets. our report is about lifting lives and so what we're saying here is smooth it out, yes, it might take a little bit on the front end of additional outlays but the return on investment isgoing

to be significant because you're going to get people into stable, long-term employment . >> also where the cliff potentially is today doesn't mean you have to keep that threshold at that level. if you move it back, you start sharing with the individuals at a lower amount, you maynot have to have as much additional money if you start from the starting point of where you are today and that also sends a policy message that we are in it with you . >> this comes a little bit from my experience as both an administrator and someone surrounded by a wonderful economist like harry and it's where you balance the literally hundreds of times you hear people out there in the country tell you this exists , that they talk to people who made a choice with regard to their future based on the potential loss of benefits and the economic evidence and i have to just say it's a close call. i'm not persuaded by studies alone that this isn't what's really happening because i hear about it everywhere i go and i saw it at hra in new

york city and it's not necessarily that there were soft, they're not better off enough after the wages. they might be better but it's only marginal and so i think the smoothing office important. i would add that companies with a requirement is there as well because if you just smooth off and it's like, you let the economics take care that you don't have a hassle and say that we made it possible to make this work for you, and you still decline this opportunity at an entry-level, then i think you have something that isn't right and also violates the values of the american people. they want people to be helped but they also want them to be expected to make an effort to help themselves. so let's see, what else do we have? yes sir, right here. >> this is going to be the last question guys, last question and for c-span, you have five minutes.

>> i was throwing this out from cleveland, my dad was a pastor back in the 80s, he had 1000 points of light, things like that but even then the unification church was talking about the where the government hands coming into your church. what can we do with respect to this planet socially conservative issues being litigated, how can we incentivize the faith community and also empower the community to do those things. >> i'm happy to take that and thank you, my dad is a baptist pastor preacher to this day, fifth decade so there are to me and i believe there's evidence to support this, you look at faith-based groups, they're the first in line. they're the ones in the hands of the inner-city, getting it done as much as we can keep government out of the way, not to be too clichc there but when you do so when we can partner with them we don't want to penalize them read i think immediately when you said that back to the tornado that hit oklahoma i

remember doing this newscast on cbs and nbc, brian williams said, if you're waiting on the federal government you might be waiting a while but the baptist men are already here. it gives you an idea of how quickly nonprofits and faith-based groups can get together without all the red tape to get at the same time when recently there was a big discussion as far as one of the amendments, we don't want to quit, just because a faith-based organization or connected, we don't want to put toomany stipulations on them that restrict their ability to go in and do the work they've done in the past, thank you. >> i'm going to now , does anybody have anything they want to say they didn't get to say? [laughter] >> i'm likely the only democratic political appointee in the room there's a lot of things to be said. >> he's sort of in between. >> i don't want anybody to think i'd misrepresented

myself. >> what's the right way to think about this and congressman walker said it's not how many people had on it but people getting off, that's the measure of success. i want to disagree with that. it's also not by how many people get off. there are a lot of working people in very low wage jobs who need the support, not only need the itc but use food stamps to get them to supplement their income to get their families about poverty. that is not a failure if we help working people. that's michael, i want people working and i won't working people to rise above poverty and in some of these programs, you've got to deal with these incentives but that the white light. more people on food stamps is not a failure, people not working is evidence of failure but let's think about getting people working and supporting them and getting them about poverty. >> let the record show that here we gave the last word ... [laughter] congressman, i hope you don't object to that

. >> when he said i agree with. that will set the tone for that cycle for that child, the children in the household that work, i mean i've got a 15 and a 17-year-old. they do two percent of what i tell them to do and 98 percent they watch and that's what they do. that's what we'retrying to do, change that culture . >> thank you all for being here and thank you for this wonderful panel, thank you. [applause] >> be sure to keep it on c-span this evening for live coverage of the second day of the republican national convention. the program gets underway this afternoon at 5:30 eastern.

speakers include house speaker paul ryan, new jersey governor chris christie and two of donald trump's children. the theme today is make america work again with a focus on economic growth and job opportunity. today is also the state will call where the convention formally nominate the candidates for president and vice president and it gets underway today at five eastern on c-span. you can also listen on the c-span radio at and c-span.org. >> the republican national convention is live from cleveland this week. watch every minute on c-span. listen live on the free c-span radio app. it's easy to download from the apple store or google play. watch live or on demand any time at c-span.org on your desktop, phone or tablet where you will find all of our convention coverage and the full convention schedule. follow us at c-span on twitter and like us on facebook to see video of newsworthy moments. the republican national convention, all this week on c-span. the c-span radio app and c-span.org and on monday, once the democratic national convention live from philadelphia.

>> coming up next, ohio governor john kasich addresses the delegation to the 2016 republican national convention. the former presidential candidate has been criticized by donald trump and his campaign advisors for his refusal to endorse the presumptive gop nominee and appear on stage at the convention. >>. [applause] thank you. i left, it took us well over an hour to get here. what we should have done is let you come from ann arbor, it would have been closer than it is. i hope you're enjoying yourself, all of you. it's so ... i have to tell you that yesterday i had a great opportunity to meet the michigan troopers and you know, they were dressed in their blue and i told them i

said, i talked to urban meyer since the games in columbus this year, will spot you three points at the beginning of the game but they are just such incredible, incredible ... i got you. i'm not going to forget michigan state either because i have such a great ... [applause] we have michigan and michigan state back to back but i wanted to tell you the troopers, and a number of them, in fact i saw the colonel in charge and it was really great to see him and then i went out on the street and all of the troopers and part of the motorcycle, motorcycle core was out there and they all got off their motorcycles and we took some pictures and it was just great. of course there isn't anything that drives us more or sends us more than to

think about this. have the police show up to try to save us, protect us from something and somebody there with a gun, a sniper to shoot and kill the police officers. it's amazing to me area i of course, being part of the state and the security and everything i had an opportunity to speak to a number of troopers, not just ours but we have an unprecedented number of troopers that have come from all over the country. in fact, even the california is coming and that's to a degree a little bit difficult because there some of the best and they were concerned in california about what if something happens in california and we have our best in ohio? but apparently the head of the troopers in california

said i gave my word and they're coming and they're here. you know, what i believe is that if you spend your life where you commit a big chunk of your life to protecting and serving another individual, then i believe that the scripture holds true area that for those who work and serve another, the reward will be enormous. and i've had an opportunity to tell a lot of these law enforcement that in the last couple weeks. i get to meet once a year with families who lose somebody in war and i meet one-on-one with thefamilies . and it's really tough but it is an assignment that i think is really important. i lost my mother and father

in 1987 to a drunk driver and i went through a long, long process of grieving, finding my faith and recovering. so i feel to some degree that when i see people who go through this terrible black tunnel and i know there are people here who experienced this, one little pinprick of light when tragedy hits your family. i feel like when i'm in the room with those familiesand maybe even when i talk to the troopers or whatever , i'm absolutely convinced that the lord will give them a big crown for what they do.i just happen to believe it. and ... [applause] so anyway, it's been a real honor to be able to meet these folks and particularly