tv Key Capitol Hill Hearings CSPAN July 10, 2014 11:00pm-1:01am EDT
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given envelope you could have a significant increase in staff with very little cost. that wasn't true with the older model. again, i think the standard embassy design taught us a lot. but i think we can improve on it. we can improve on it in meaningful ways that give us more flexibility for the long-term. and i think -- >> right. mr. green, as you respond to that question, i just want you to include from your research from your committee's activities, in fact, isn't that what standard build is supposed to do is to include that? so isn't it mend it, don't end it, rather than saying, standard build didn't include future annexes and expansion in their consideration? >> no, it's -- it's a continuously moving standard that is done. let me just respond to your earlier question, though. you know, what do we need 50 years out?
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the ambassador wants a bigger latrine in his office, or we want 50 consular windows instead of five. that changes all the time. i mean, we saw it here today. it changed with papua new guinea. you had a plan to do something, all of a sudden the department says, no, we need more, for whatever reason. there's right sizing that goes on constantly within the department. there's the much-publicized but i'm not sure how much it's occurring, the pivot to asia. what does that mean for those embassies in asia? more people. well, you know, five years from now it might be a pivot somewhere else. i don't know that we're ever going to reach the perfect solution to say that we could build something that's good today and it will be good even ten years from now. >> thank you. and mr. chairman, i think the
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point that your research and what water hearing today is all about is that as you standardize and drive down the cost per square foot, the ability to build that few extra square feet and the flexibility is inherent in it as you drive up the square foot cost, you inherently are building smaller and tighter. and tight-sizing is not what we need for flexibility, it's right-sizing with a plan to expand or to add in. and hopefully as you continue your research, and we get the numbers, we'll begin seeing how standard build can be made to do just that. and i thank you for your indulgence and yield back. >> thank you, chairman. we'll now recognize a very patient member from michigan, mr. bent vole i don't, for two minutes. just teasing, five minutes. >> five minutes, good. thank you, mr. chairman. during our last conversation i forgot to ask you a very, very important question when it came time -- when we were discussing
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london. and you clarified it. it's not going to cost $1 billion, it's going to cost about $800 million. you don't look at how many employees it's going to house, you call them desks. is that correct? okay, so how many desks in the london embassy? how many? >> sorry, i believe 644. >> 644. what does that work out to? how many did you say? >> 644 desks. >> that works out to be what, $1 million a desk? >> some of our costs can be very high, including -- >> $1 million a desk? okay. but i understand the risk in london and the cost for square -- or is it per meters? what's that cost? do you know the breakdown? how much it costs pier meter or per square foot? i know here in america we look at the square foot cost. >> right, right. for london, i don't have the square foot costs at the top of
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my head. >> okay. >> i would like to add for london, for those members -- >> i think you already said that you're selling property to cover the costs of the $800 million embas embassy, correct? >> yes. >> you did say that. you're in these old buildings now, is that correct? >> yes, these are old existing buildings at the embassy. >> if it runs over the london building takes lo s longer than expected what's it going to cost to house our employees in the older buildings? per month? >> we're not expecting that to happen. >> you're not expecting -- have you -- seriously, for the life of me, and i'm sure there probably has been one or two government contracts that didn't go over budget and didn't go over -- or came in on schedule. but -- okay, so let's just ask you this. how many work orders or change orders are pending or are in process in the london embassy
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new construction? change order dozen delay a project, don't they? or do you add that to the -- it's a change, it's going to take longer, so we'll just move the schedule completion date out? >> as you might imagine, with over 200 projects in construction, i don't have the number of change orders in london. but what i would like to make clear is that while delays pose a -- like on any project, a certain amount of risk, the department made the decision in 2006, many years before i was there, under a different strait administration, that this was the best value for the taxpayer. and i think it was a great decision. >> okay. >> we, for $50 million more, are getting a brand-new embassy that meets all of the security standards in exchange for property that we had been in for years -- >> so you're going to meet all the security standards in london. >> yes. >> versus -- not in -- nam pen,
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some of these other countries that, well, seem to be -- look to me maybe in the future, greater threat. let's talk about that threat. awhile back we had some secretary of state people tell us they don't do a risk analysis when it comes to risks in the country that they're housed, thus benghazi, they didn't really read what was happening. and a lot of our americans were killed. so do you do a risk analysis every day in what the dangers are outside of the embassy? no matter what country you're in? wait a minute, i'm sorry, i just answered my own question. you don't do that, do you? what you do apparently is in places like london, you take every risk imaginable and come up with a building that's worth $800 million at a cost of $1
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million per desk. you know, i can't really -- just thinking about the soldiers in iraq, you know, we looked at the risk out there, if we thought the risk was greater. by the way, they shot rockets at us once a week. we put these concrete barriers in front of us, sandbags, and we'd adjust. i'm sure because of curb appeal we can do those things a little nicer, a little fansier, taking every single building, including a modular, cookie cutter design, and add to that building outside to address any risk that, well -- if you actually looked at the risks outside of your embassies and addressed them, you could take proper precautions. but i will say, i know my time's running out, mr. chairman, but you have always had at every embassy in the world the best security system you could
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possibly buy. it's called the united states marine. thank you very much, mr. chairman. >> thank the gentleman. now i'm going to recognize myself in consultation with mr. cummings here. just a couple of quick things and then we will -- promise we will end. i do have a question about london. london is unique. beijing was quung. there are some iconic properties, there are some amazing relationships, security needs. that's understood. there's been a suggestion that you're still on time in london and on budget in london. what is your current assessment of where we're at in london in terms of budget and time? >> that's exactly my assessment, that we're on budget and on schedule. >> what about the vat issue? where are we at with the vat issue?
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>> i'd like to keep that conversation limited, because our conversations with our counterparts in britain are sensitive. but i would like to say that we're making good progress and we're comfortable that we're within the budget on that. >> and i appreciate that. i see that as a potential threat. they have -- i believe it's a 20% vat which could obviously be a huge and major issue. and something we would appreciate if you'd keep us apprised of. i had an opportunity to visit dubai which was one of the last standard embassy designs. what do you find wrong with the facility in dubai? >> i don't know that particular facility. so i wouldn't be able to address it. but i would like to say that there are many standard embassy designs that i think work well for their missions. i think there are some that could work better and i think this initiative is about
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improving on something that was good and that did a lot of good. so i could look at dubai more closely and get back to you with comments, but i don't have any particular, not knowing it in great detail. >> the general concern here is, it just doesn't make common sense to me -- it's just not common sense to suggest that we're going to spent more time on design and ultimately that's going to take a shorter period of time. i just -- i still will follow up -- we've been talking for hours here. ought as a follow-up, this is just conceptually -- i just don't understand it. there have been some suggestions that standard embassy design was just one size fits all. that's not true, that's never been true. we built nearly 90 different buildings. and one of the things that drives me personally, and i shared this with mr. cummings and others, one of the things that drives me on this is you have multiple gao reports and an
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inspector general report that says, my goodness, standard embassy designs, they're going faster and they're generally coming in under budget. we never get reports like that. and yet i look at the state department and they say, but we're going to totally scrap that, we're going a different design, different way, we're going to focus on architecture. because architecture is diplomacy. you can shake your head no but that's the video that the state department put out. that is the video put out. you're shaking your head. >> because i -- as i explained, we are committed to being on those same budgets. we're committed to that schedule. we're committed to meeting all the security requirements. i just know that we can build even better buildings, right? what we're doing is what we should be doing, what bureaucrats should be doing. we are trying to improve on a good product. as you rightly pointed out, the standard embassy design did require modifications for different -- we're taking that a
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step further and making sure that it is not a fixed envelope, that it takes all of the lessons learned from that and allows us to modify the buildings in a way that's smart for the mission, smart for the taxpayer, smart for the long-term. >> i those assumptions. it will play itself out. i don't believe it will be faster. i think we have strong evidence it's taking longer. i think the consequence is it will cost more. i think the other consequence is we're going to have more people in harm's way -- if you brought the people from papua new guinea here, had them raise their hand and say, which design would you like? they'd just want to be safe. they'd just want to be safe and secure. and it's going to be the most opulent and extravagant building in that country. under the standard embassy design. and those modifications could have been there. i appreciate the dialogue. this is the general concern. you said it in response to mr.
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cummings. the design portion take longer. again, the consequence i think will be more people in harm's way, it will take longer, it will be more expensive, and we'll have ongoing security concerns. i really do appreciate your participation here. i have no doubt about the sincerity of wanting to come in under budget and on time. i just don't think you can get from here to there. i find very few people that agree that you can get there. that's why we need the documents. that's why we're going to continue to push the inspector general and the gao to continue to look at this. it's why we're going to continue to have some hearings on this. so i do appreciate all your participation here. i know you care deeply about your country and the work that you do and you're passionate about that. we want people that are passionate about that. but we also have an obligation to have this back and forth. that's what the oversight committee's all about, that's what the congress is all about. it's part of the process that makes this country unique and better and the greatest country on the face of the planet.
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so i thank you again for your participation. we look forward to getting the documents from the state department sooner rather than later. and this committee stands adjourned. former new york city police commissioner bear nard kerik. "washington journal" live every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern. you can join the conversation on facebook or twitter.
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the house energy subcommittee on health examines the patient perspective on the drug development and review process. see it live starting at 9:00 a.m. eastern on c-span2. 40 years ago, the watergate scandal led to the only resignation of an american president. throughout this month and early august, american history tv revisits 1974 and the final weeks of the nixon administration. this weekend, hear the supreme court oral argument, united states v. nixon, as the watergate special prosecutor contests the president's claim of executive privilege over his oval office recordings. >> now the president may be right in how he reads the constitution, but he may also be wrong. and if he is wrong, who is there to tell him so? and if there's no one, then the
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president of course is free to pursue his course of erroneous interpretations. what then becomes of our constituti constitutional form of government? >> watergate 40 years later, sunday night at 8:00 eastern on american history tv on c-span3. baseball does strike me, i don't want to get met physical about this, i'm the anti-met physical school of baseball. but it's a good sport to be the national pastime of a democratic nation because democracy is about compromise and settling. you don't get everything you want. and baseball's like that. there's a lot of losing in baseball. every team that goes to spring training knows it's going to win 60 games, knows it's going to lose 60 games, you play the whole season to sort out the middle 42. if you win 11 of 20 games, 89
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game, you've got a good chance to play in october. so it's the sport of the half loaf as is democracy. >> george will on his latest book on "baseball and wrigley field" and the recent controversy surrounding one of his columns, sunday night at 8:00 eastern and pacific on " a "q&a." next, a hearing examining the impact of federal, state, and private charitable programs on reducing poverty. this house budget committee hearing is about two hours. >> the committee will come to order. a number of our members on our side of the aisle will be here a little late because their conference is still ongoing. i want in the interests of time to get started. welcome, everybody. it's good to see a great full-capacity crowd. this is our fifth hearing on the war on poverty. over the past year we have heard
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from a number of voices, policy experts, community groups, federal officials. today we're going to hear from people in the middle. people in the private sector who work with the public sector. people who coordinate state programs with private charity. we're also going to hear from an especially important voice, miss tianna gains turner. first, miss gains turner, i was happy to meet you in the rayburn room off the side of the floor. i'm excited to hear her testimony. in fact i want to quote from her previous written testimony because i think she hits the nail on the head. "poverty is not just one issue that can be solved at one time. it's not just an issue of jobs or food or housing or energy assistance and safety. it's a people issue. and you can't slice people up into issues. we are whole human beings. poverty has to do with a whole person who is in a family in a neighborhood in a community."
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i couldn't have said it better myself. i think that's exactly right. for too long the federal government has treated people as numbers. instead of whole people with wholly connected needs. that is why i'm excited to hear from heather reynolds, president of catholic charities of ft. worth. miss reynolds is doing great work in ft. worth. she's putting together a pilot project to test how case management can expand opportunities for working families. and as miss gains turner urges, miss reynolds' program sees people as whole human beings who deserve time and care, not just another client to usher through the door. and the results speak for themselves. in 2013, 90% of the people in the refugee program became self-sufficient within six months. i'd also like to welcome jennifer tiller from america works. america works has pioneered two key concepts that are crucial to real reform. work first, and accountability. america works gets paid only if
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they succeed. and i can't find a better definition of success than their own definition. they say success "is an individual moving to employment, maintaining a self-sufficient lifestyle, and progressing in their desired career trajectory." i think we should insist on the same kind of accountability from our federal programs as we do from these community groups. one last thing. at a previous hearing, some of my colleagues kept asking our witnesses if they had received federal aid. ress as if that would undercut their testimony. the point of these hearings is not to question whether the federal government should help. the point is to figure out the best way it can help. and with that i hope we can listen and learn from our witnesses today because i think each of these three ladies have so much to offer us. i'd like to recognize the ranking member for his opening remarks. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank all the beens for being here today. as the chairman said, this is our fifth hearing on the
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question of how we can better address poverty in america. and as i have in the past i want to begin on two points of agreement. the first is that the best anti-poverty measure as job, in fact, a job that pays a living wage, a job that can support individuals and a family. and second, if there are better ways to channel resources to get better results in terms of our fight on poverty, we welcome that conversation. and case management may be a very successful way of doing that. but while it's our fifth hearing, we've still got a huge disconnect between the goal cited by many of our republican colleagues of reducing poverty, and the republican budget that passed out of this committee and passed out of this house that dramatically cuts funding for programs that help people climb out of poverty.
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and mr. chairman, the fact remains that the budget that you presented would cut areas of the budget that would help provide the kind of case management we're talking about today. dramatic cuts in what we call the discretionary part of the budget funded at lower than two types the sequester cuts. and deep cuts in programs like food and nutrition. so we want to have a discussion here about how to better use existing resources to help people climb out of poverty. we welcome that conversation. what we don't welcome is using that conversation as a pretext or a means to dramatically cut funding for those programs. whether it's medicaid or food and nutrition programs. and as the chairman indicated, we've had witnesses who have received important federal funding. there's -- apparently there's no
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disagreement here that the federal government can play an important role in helping people climb out of poverty. but it's hard to do that at the same time that you have a budget that dramatically cuts funding for those programs. so reform, better use of existing resources to help more people and have more effective results, yes. but a conversation that doesn't answer the question about how deep cuts to anti-poverty programs will advance that goal is something we'll continue to ask about. finally, as i also join the chairman in welcoming all the witnesses, i am pleased that ms. gains turner is here today. i think she's the first witness in the series of five hearings who herself has experienced the struggles of poverty and the effort to climb out of poverty. and so we think your personal
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testimony's especially important in that regard. and as you state in your testimony, one of the keys there is mag making sure that work pays. that when you have a job you can at least have a job that supports a family. and one of the things we've been trying to do here in the house is at least raise the minimum wage from its current $7.25 an hour, which is lower purchasing power than when harry truman was president. we'd like to raise that to $10.10 an hour, which still doesn't in many cases provide a living wage, but at least provides greater opportunities for people working to take care of themselves and their families. we're still hoping to have a vote on that and many other issues that support work. but really pleased to have all these witnesses here today to talk about how we can tackle this important challenge that's before us. so thank you, mr. chairman.
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and look forward to the conversation. >> thank you. to make sure that every witness knows it's against the law to provide false witness to the committee and congress we've begun a new committee practice in all the congressional committees, not just this one, of swearing in all of our witnesses. this does not reflect any distrust of any witness. we've taken this step because of recent legal guidance we've ben given from the department of justice. i'd like to ask the three of you if you wouldn't mind standing so we can swear in our testimony. please raise your right hand. do you solemnly swear or affirm the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, whole truth, and nothing but the truth? let the record reflect the witnesses have answered in the affirmative. please take your seats, ladies. that's a formality we have to engage in you. why don't we begin. heather, why don't we begin with you and move this way. >> thank you.
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chairman ryan, ranking member van holland, and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you. my name is heather reynolds and i'm president/ceo of catholic chair tizz ft. worth. let me get right to my main point. poverty is complex and often cyclical. poor parents have poor children, and poor children often become poor parents. the cycle continues unless it is broken. case management is the critical element in moving someone from government dependency to self-sufficiency. that is why we believe that case management has got to be an integral part of the conversation on how we reform our approach to poverty. first, case management allows us to work with a client in an individualized way. every day in ft. worth, texas, we have over 300 people coming to our organization for help. each individual's poverty looks very different but we typically see three main types of poverty.
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chronic poverty which results from a combination of factors such as age, significant disability, or mental illness. people who are going to need safety net services the rest of their life. the second type of poverty is situational poverty caused by divorce, unexpected health care expenses, and the loss of a job. this type of poverty is often the most temporary and with a quick intervention families can be put back on track. the third type of poverty is generational poverty. people in generational poverty are those who have had two or more people living in poverty. it is passed down from parent to child. it is the mindset of living in the moment. being proactive, setting goals, and planning ahead are simply not in the frame of reference. understanding these types of poverty is critical for understanding how to combat it. case management is most needed
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for those in situational and generational poverty. and those in generational poverty need a deeper level of case management because it requires a mindset change. second, case management allows us to serve in a way that's holistic. in most cases, people who come to catholic chair tizz ft. worth face very complex challenges. the way the federal system is designed, clients receive services for each of their needs independently from other problems they're facing. case management helps transform interventions from an array of standalone services to a comprehensive plan to get families to achieve their fullest potential. effective case management is a process in which the client and case manager work to holistically move a family forward and out of poverty permanently. third, case management gets results. for example, the matching grant program for refugees, which we participate in in ft. worth, is
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a successfully federally funded anti-poverty program. in ft. worth, our success rate of moving individuals from poverty to self-sufficiency is high because of case management. in 2013, 90% of our clients became self-sufficient within six months. from my experience many federal programs are not designed and measured for the end-goal impact. how can we set our goal at ending homelessness and then measure success by counting the number of shelter beds we fill? how can we have a goal of families thriving and count it successful when they sign up for public benefits? that is why it is my firm belief that research and a focus on results has got to be pared with services. at catholic charities our main partner in this effort is the lab for economic opportunities at notre dame. one of the initiatives being evaluated is our stay the course program aimed at increasing persistence and degree
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attainment along low-income students by reducing the chance that events outside of school derail a college education. this is achieved through holistic case management and emergency financial assistance. the pilot is tracking outcomes for randomly assigned students receiving services and a control group of students not receiving support. in order to measure the true impact of these services on academic performance, educational attainment, employment and earnings. the results from the first year of this pilot indicate that students receiving case management services not only average more credit hours than the treatment group but they were more likely to persist in their education. case management was the difference. and there is not a better way to get someone out of poverty than to help ensure they graduate with the degree that can get them a job that pays them not enough just to survive, but enough to actually thrive. poor parents have poor kids.
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and more often than not, poor kids become poor parents. the cycle continues unless it's truly and purposefully broken. case management is the critical item to moving a family out of poverty for good. thank you for your time today and thank you for what you are doing to bring attention to the important issue of ending poverty. >> thank you. ms. tiller. >> chairman ryan, ranging member von holland, members of the committee. america works and its network of companies, including america works of washington, d.c., has successfully managed performance-based employment and retention programs throughout the united states since 1984. under the mission of changing people's lives by lifting them from depend ence into the productive world of employment, america works and its network of companies have placed over 400,000 people into jobs nationwide. america works' rapid attachment to work program allows individuals to be placed quickly into the workforce. america works believes work
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should be the central focus. wrap-around services including but not limited to mental health, shelter services, substance abuse services, child care, and educational endeavors are addressed simultaneously. over the years america works has taken on tough social problems which cost taxpayers billions of dollars with the belief that if a job is provided, dependency on the government diminishes and disappears. to that end we have rapidly attached ex-foebders to work, therefore reducing recidivism. we've taken people with a life long benefit of social security disability benefits and moved them towards self-sufficiency by way of employment. america works has taken people out of homeless shelters and showed that by providing jobs, we vastly decrease the cost of homelessness. if work were the central social policy through which each problem is examined, we could create productive citizens and decrease expenses. america works pioneered the work first model which rapidly transitions welfare recipients into employment about while
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simultaneously providing them with supportive services as necessary. this has been critical to erasing years in which welfare recipients spend in and out of training programs which seldom lead to jobs. when the regulations were being written for reform, states were limited to a very small percentage of people allowed to be in education and training. this forced employment first and training later, or simultaneously, for upgrading and improving your prospects. america works also pioneered performance-based government contracting, a business model that is still not commonly used in the social services field. states and cities pay only when people move from dependency into employment. most other contractors are paid when clients may enroll in their programs regardless of whether they ever enter employment. betty mckay of the "wall street journal" wrote, it's a responsibility of government to ensure some semblance of fairness and equity in our owe site. while this was written in context to the obesity epidemic it holds true for welfare programs. but government involvement should not stop with the
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management of funding and or the programs. it should also champion personal responsibility. the personal responsibility and work opportunity act aimed to encourage rather than discourage employment, as well as hold recipients accountable by way of time limits and ending welfare as an entitlement program. in order to successfully and efficiently move into intervals from depend ence to independence we must revisit the premise of the act, accountability. what is the definition of success for a recipient? for the government? success is an individual moving to employment. maintaining a self-sufficient lifestyle. and progressing in their desired career trajectory. charlene dorsey, assigned to america works of washington, d.c., shares her success and i would like to share it with members of the committee. my name is charlene door dorsey and i've been a part of america works for the past two years. when i first started the program i was not focused on my employment goals or the steps
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that i needed to take to work toward self sufficiency. after several months of "messing around" i came to the realization that i had had enough. i finally realized the taniff would be cut soon and i could not rely on this as a way to support me or my children. i got tired of my lifestyle of dependency and after speaking with the director decided to start taking the program more seriously. i began working closely with the staff at america works and put all my energy into gaining employment. within one week i had a job. i started working as a cashier. when i was searching for employment food service was my last resort. but after working for only a few months i realized that i loved my job. and that i had the potential to grow within the company. i've been working there for nine months now and i'm currently in the training program to become a manager at my location. i love my supervisors and the staff that i work with and i really enjoy getting and up going to work each day.
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even though food service was not the field of work that i was initially interested in, i came to the realization that working was better than relying on taniff and i could provide a much better lifestyle for myself and my children by keeping the job that i had. i'm so happy at my job now and i'm looking forward to all of the opportunities that i will have to advance my career there. i'm so grateful for the assistance that the staff at america works gave me. they were patient, they helped me, they provided case management services. miss dorsey has not received taniff benefits since october of 2013 and she's near completion of her management training program. america works recommends continued emphasis on work requirements for those receiving transfer payments and public subsidies as long as they're deemed eligible for employment. thank you again for your invitation to speak. >> ms. gains turner. >> good morning, chairman ryan, and distinguished members of the house budget committee. thank you very much for inviting
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me to come here for formal testimony. my name is tianna gains turner and i'm a member of witnesses to hunger. so let's get down to business, shall we? i will be talking about a large array of different thins that are important to me and my family. let's talk about jobs and wages. the fact that we even call it minimum wage to me is just a problem. we need to invest where people cannot have a minimum wage but have a living wage. we need to make sure that we have paid sick leaves so that a mother and a father or a person who's taking care of a caregiver can take off of work and not worry about losing their job. we also need to address the fact about affordable child care. for those who have children with disabilities and those who are entering into the workforce. safety net. where do i begin? food stamps. the food stamp program is very important to me and to my family. no one wakes up in the morning and says, we want to be in poverty. we want to stand in a two-hour line at a food pantry to get to the front just to be told there
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isn't any food. i would like to say i know for a fact that food stamps is a very important part of my life. it helps me and my husband to make sure that we can feed our children, three of them with medical disabilities, nutrition food. wic. this is another important program. i know this firsthand. for having twins myself that were born premapremature. my twin son, he had open-heart surgery when he was 2 weeks old. i was able to breast-feed and get a pump, something i know i wouldn't be able to afford, through the wic program. health care. as you look on the screen right now that is my son. i took this photograph because i thought it was very important for people to understand the many struggles the family has to go through every day. i took this photograph minutes after my son had suffered his second seizure. when you ar parent and you have children with disabilities it is very difficult. it months the easy to wake up every day and not know, do you pay the phone bill? or do you pay for medical?
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do you -- you have constant challenges. i would like to be proud to sit here and say that my mother was never on food stamps when i was a child. i watched her struggle every day, working, sometimes one or two jobs. i feel like right now that we need to have a conversation on the things that are wrong. the cliff effect. why is it that when a person does enter the job force and make maybe 50 cents or a quarter over, they are cut? their food stamps are cut dramatically. their medical may be cut. their taniff benefits are taken away. technology. why is it when i go to the county assistance office and i give them a receipt and they stamp the receipt and they tell me that they have gotten my paperwork, someone is scanning the paperwork, putting it into a document. why a month later i talked to my case worker and she has no knowledge of it. it is sitting somewhere on her desk with abundance of paperwork. we need to make sure that we get the case workers in the welfare office that we are not treated like unhuman, that we are
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treated as individuals. we need to make sure that they understand we are here for a moment, not for a lifetime. educational programs. we need to make sure that we don't push people into these ready to work programs that simply don't work. we need to make sure that we don't put people into four week or 12-week nursing programs to become a cna and then cannot compete with others in that category. savings. let's make sure that it's okay for me and for other people who are on public assistance to be able to open up a savings and banking account. on to be able to save money to own our own homes. to be able to save for our children's college fund wous a case worker telling us, because you have a savings account you are not eligible for certain programs. i feel like right now in america that there should be no child that goes to sleep hungry. that there should be no one that will have to face the troubles every day of not knowing -- this
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photograph right here is a photo of my children. my children are everything to me. i would like to say that we need to break the cycle. we need to make sure that we all remember what the american dream is. values. family values. i am not a number, i am not a statistic. i am not a food stamp recipient. i am an individual who lives in the inner city who just so happens to be right now struggling. just as so many americans are struggling. we need to get back to the core values of remembering that we are people. we do not want to be looked at as someone who is on welfare, who is lazy, who wants to sit back and just collect benefits. i never wake up every day, when my day starts at 7:00 a.m., and say that i want to be on public assistance. this is a picture of my husband and my children on father's day. as you see behind me, my husband is sitting right behind me. he is a strong african-american man who can relate to everyone in this room just as i can. he gets up every day and goes to
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work. he makes sure he wants the same thing as you want for your children, as we want for our children. safe and affordable housing. we want equal pay. we want to be brought to the table as the decision is made. there should be no decision made without someone sitting at the table who are going through these struggles. thank you for having me. >> how old are your kids? >> my twins are 6 years old, my son is 10. >> great phase. let me get started. why don't i start with you, tianna. the cliff. i'm really interested in what you mean when you talk about the cliff. and you've said before, you've given this example about, if you babysit for a friend for 40 bucks you can lose your welfare check. a lot of these programs are layered on top of each other, not necessarily in congruence with each other, connected to each other. and so you have this situation where you could have just a cold cut-off of benefits if you take a step forward and earn some
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money. give me a sense of how you see this cliff and what it does to people, kind of the wrong incentives it gives. more importantly, do you have any ideas about a better way of coordinating them? do you think we should better coordinate these things and have a shooter system so that people aren't faced with these cliffs? what kinds of decisions is this forcing upon people? >> it's very strenuous. it doesn't encourage people to be able to have savings accounts. i when they stack their money because they're scared the case worker is going to find out. i was getting $793 in food stamps which is for my whole family to feed. once i was working and the first cut went through i went from $793 to $220. when the second cut went through i went $220 to $200. >> did you exceed that with your paycheck or not? >> i'm sorry? >> did you make more with your paycheck or were you worse off? >> no, i feel like i was doing a good thing because i was
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working. i didn't want to be on cash benefits. i wanted to be able to get out there in the workforce and work. but my point i'm making is, as soon as i got right there to start being able to put a little bit away or be able to do some things with my children, you know, put them in camp, things like that, i was cut just like that. so i feel like we need to make sure that we patent the programs and make sure that just because a person may make 10 cents over the amount which the guidelines say, they shouldn't lose everything right away. there should be measurements. we should measure the different programs and see where a perpendicular is and not push them to get a job, get a job, get a job, and once you get a job you lose your child care. cut off your food stamps. it seems like everything is just wiped under beneath you. so our safety net is deplenished. >> this is the third or fourth time we've met. i'm very, very intrigued with the model that catholic charities has done with case
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management. walk us through this. what does it look like, what is the relationship between the case manager and the client, the recipient? what's the ratio you strive for? and how can the federal government do a better job at encouraging such a thing in the biggest concern that many of us have is it's cookie cutter, it's distant, it's cold, it treats everybody the same. and we need more customized, more direct, more human to human. and you're doing that. so what does it look like, how do you do it, what can the government do to help facilitate more of that? >> sure. thank you for that question. i think one of the most critical pieces is making sure that you hire private nonprofit organizes are hiring case managers who really have a heart for the client and have a deep understanding of how to cognitively work with folks for a mindset change. but also creating this idea that
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you can get out. and division them the encouragement every step of the way. for us what we've seen be successful is a thorough assessment to holistically understand the client. then a service plan developed that first takes into account, what are your strengths? sometimes we treat clients like they're all full of deficits and weaknesses and i don't think that's a healthy way to do things. our folks focus on a strengths-based model. what are your strengths? what asset dozen you possess? what asset dozen you need to gain? our biggest thing is we've been moving forward in a new pilot with the university of notre dame, what does success really look like? what are we really trying to achieve? we've really made a change internally in our organization that success looks like making a wage where you can actually support your family. not on any public benefits or social service benefits. having three months of savings as well as no debt. i think the biggest thing the federal government could do to assist in that is allow us to serve, number one, more holistically by pulling --
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allowing us to pull more together. the other thing is for case management, we need more time. i quoted the refugee success with a six-month mark. those folks are a very unique population. for us, for people who have been in generational poverty, we need time to work with folks. >> like what? >> i would say on average, about a two-year process. especially those who are in generational poverty. situational poverty might look a little different. but i would say that cost effectiveness of putting the money into case management, and then the back end savings with decreasing in public benefits as you go forward, i think makes it a very economically sensible thing. >> the key is to be able to customize, correct? somebody in situational, that could be really quick, right? >> six months, refugee, situational, yes. >> months. then generational sense, you need more time to be able to walk a person through, whether it's getting an associate's degree or a ged, then being able to -- when we think customized
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case management, what we ought so be thinking, correct me if i'm wrong, is this person might have transportation and day care problems. that person might have education and food problems. >> right. >> be able to customize the benefit to tailor what their specific needs are, correct? >> absolutely. because if you're looking at you want to get somebody out of poverty, out of poverty looks like the four things i described, your goal then is to figure out a plan, how to leverage someone's assets, figure out where there's opportunities, help them build those things so they can accomplish that. many times if it's something like an associate's degree that takes time. >> correct me if i'm wrong but the problem you have with the federal government is this is a patchwork quilt of programs that are all out there with different cutoffs, different requirements, that you had to spend all this time navigating that. if you could have more of a flexible benefit so you could customize, that's basically what you're trying to do? >> absolutely. so if a family doesn't qualify for something that they need but they qualify for something else, it does them no good.
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>> okay. miss tiller, let me ask you a quick question. i visited your facility in d.c. it's really amazing to watch the folks who come in and then leave with a job and then get on that ladder of life. if there are just a couple of things you could do to change the federal aid system, what would they be? you're already doing this. i know you contract with counties and cities. but if there are just one or two things you could change to facilitate these transition to work, this escalator out of poverty, what are the things you would do? >> well, thank you for your compliments, first of all. can you hear me? thank you for your compliments. i think as i mentioned in the testimony accountability and making sure that that's championed from everywhere. and also when it comes to things like perhaps time limits or as heather was saying with case management, ensuring that it is individualized. at america works that's what we do. every person who comes in is
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looked at individually. because everyone who's coming in has a very different skill set. very different educational background. people are from all different walks of life in terms of where they're from in the nation. so we have to make sure that everybody is getting that individualized service. and we will continue to do that. so i think championing that. plus accountability would be of great benefit. >> business reynolds, let me get back to measurement. that's the big issue here, right? so how do you measure success? we've long complained that we have basically input measurement system on the war on poverty, for lack of a better phrase. which is, we measure inputs, we measure how much money we're spending, how many programs we're creating, how many beds are we filling, versus outcomes. how many people are we trug getting out of poverty in a lasting way. but it's that outcome measurement that is something that is new. you have this taught at notre dame that's doing it. not just at notre dame but around the country. what are some of the keys to measuring this successfully?
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what does success look like as you see it and is it the original design of the program that is key to getting at the right measurement at the end of the day? so we want to have a system that truly is outcome-based where we're not chasing statistics, we're not trying to chase metrics and things like that. we see this with other government agencies. the va's a pretty good example. we don't want to be chasing some spread sheet so that if you say, see, my job is done. we want the outcome, did this person get out of poverty? are they tapping their potential? are they in a self-sufficient lifestyle that they want to attain? how do you do that? >> i think one of the most important ideas with that is not just evaluation and outcomes but you've got to pair that with rigorous research. that's why we're partnering with notre dame. because what they're able to do, for example, in ft. worth our stay the course program. we have a control group and a treatment group. most of us who are in the nonprofit sector, we're saying no to people every day. because the resources are limited. so we automatically have a control group, random selection
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that we can provide. so what happens is if you bring, for example, the economists at notre dame, what they are able to do is see not just did this program matter? but because of -- if they didn't have this program, then what would have happened? so having a treatment group and an intervention group actually allows you to tell, if not for this intervention the families would not have improved. so i think federal investment in more rigorous research and evaluation with large sample sizes. if we're seeing something for example in ft. worth that's working how do we scale that up to a national level and get it to community colleges throughout the nation so we can see, does this work, if it does let's reform -- >> that gets to tianna's point which is, don't put me in a program that's proven to fail that just pushes me to a program to say you've done it. >> that's exactly right. >> thank you, mr. chairman. again, thank you all to have your testimony today. it's been very instructive. i want to start also with ms. gains turner. thank you again for being here.
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i also want to thank congresswoman barbara lee for encouraging the committee to make sure we heard your valuable testimony. >> yes, thank you very much. >> the chairman asked you and you were talking about the disincentives to save, for example, because if you put aside something to save, then you might no longer qualify for food nutrition benefits, is that right? >> yes. >> right. i just, for our benefit of our colleagues, reducing those cliffs which is something i think all of us would support, certainly on the democratic side, may end up costing more money. right? because what you're saying is that instead of being cut off from food and nutrition programs when you start saving, you would be allowed to continue to save and also continue to receive your food and nutrition benefits until you get to a point where your family's truly at a living wage independently. >> exactly. that's exactly what i'm saying. and i just want to be very clear here on what i'm saying. what i'm saying is, i've been
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listening around and hearing a couple of things about generational poverty. i feel like that's -- the main reason why i'm sitting here is for one i was invited. for two, we want to break the cycle of that. that's number one. number two, the federal government programs that are running right now, they are working. i don't want to put a state -- i don't want a state to be involved or to tell me when and when i can't do a certain program. i feel like that is not the way to go. i feel like that didn't work before with taniff and it won't wark now. accountability. we need to hold the big companies like walmart and target and these other companies accountable for not paying their employees enough to where they can have medical benefits. you know, a lot of these big companies only pay their employees a certain amount of hours so they don't have to offer them medical. that's another question that we need addressed. the second thing that is we need to make sure that there is paid
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sick leave. that's another thing that's very important. i want to make sure i cleared up a couple of thins right there. i didn't want anyone to misconstrue what i was saying. i want to make that very clear. >> thank you. and again, just on the budget point, because we are the budget committee. >> right. >> addressing these issues requires resources. i think all of you would agree with that. and to reduce what the chairman referred to as these cliff effects may involve more resource resources. at the same time our colleagues have proposed a budget that deeply cuts a lot of these resources. i think it's important to take the comprehensive view of this because while it is very important to figure out whether case management is the best approach or other approaches, all of them require resources, and in fact to do some of them better, they require more. as ms. reynolds suggested, it may require more up front to get savings potentially down the road. ms. gains tiller, if you could
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talk about the impact the affordable care act has had on your family. i saw that on your written testimony. you may not have had time to address it in your oral testimony. could you talk about how the affordable care act has helped provide additional help for you and your family? >> the affordable care act has definitely helped me and my husband a great, a great bit. i'm very appreciative. for a long period of time i was paying out of the pocket to go to the doctor. so you figurefy pay $75 for a doctor visit, then they give me a prescription, i don't have any medical coverage. so now i don't have any -- i've paid the $75 to go to the doctor. now i have to figure out how i'm going to pay for this prescription. so i went months without getting adequate medical that i needed because i didn't qualify for medical due to the public -- the public welfare department. now me and my husband are both working, which again we're working part-time jobs. our hours do fluctuate up and down. i was able to get quality
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medical insurance through obamacare. so i feel like that is another thing that's very important. we need obamacare. i know that right now some people want to cut obamacare, they're challenging right now, again, to look into trying to cut obamacare. and i would like for you to look at me and my husband as a prime example that if you cut that program, you're taking away to make sure that i'm here, to make sure that i can do the job i need to do as a mother for my children. >> thank you. i want to pick up on the point you just made. you made in your testimony. you're working now, correct? >> yes. >> your husband's working now? >> yes, we do. >> but your combined income still is not sufficient to provide a living about the same for the family, is that right? >> that is correct, yes. >> and what would happen -- and while you're working now, you're also receiving some food and nutrition benefits, that is right? >> yes. >> what would happen to your family, what would be the impact on you and your children if you were to lose that food and
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nutrition benefit? >> it would be an even bigger struggle. now the money -- i'm already struggling enough to keep -- pay the rent, pay the bills that are coming in, water, gas, electric. sofy lose my food stamps, now that's money that's taken away from my bills and from my children to go out and buy food. you know, like i said before, i don't know how much more i can say it. no one who lives in poverty wants to stay on government assisted programs. we want to be independent. we want to work hard and believe in the american dream, that if i work every day, get up at 7:00 in the morning and my husband gets up and we work, that we will have the same jobs, benefits, wages, paid sick leave, as everyone else. that is the most important thing that is to us. so, you know, a lot of people say, oh, well, you know -- they don't need food stamps.
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you know, it's not working. oh, this person is abusing the program and this, that and the third. let's not even go there. there's a lot of different programs we can talk about that have been abused that have been passed through and they're not being held accountable. >> i thank you for that testimony. i think your testimony demonstrates why it's so important to have somebody before this committee who is currently struggling with these questions. and what the impact of some of the proposed cuts would have. ms. reynolds, if i could ask you -- thank you for the good work cat lick charity does around the country and in ft. worth, texas. you mentioned in your testimony that the larger share of your federal funding i believe comes in the refugee assistance area. and hide like to take this opportunity just to ask you for a status report of your efforts on refugee assistance. since we are currently facing this crisis at the border. and i do want to just read for the benefit of the committee a
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statement made by national catholic charities. just a little earlier. one year ago today, the senate passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill moving our nation closer to an improved immigration process. unfortunately, not had a chance to vote on that bill here in the house. we hope at one point to have that opportunity.
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