Carper adopted the manifesto, "A New Agenda for the New Decade":
Strengthen America’s Families While the steady reduction in the number of two-parent families of the last 40 years has slowed, more than one-third of our children still live in one- or no-parent families. There is a high correlation between a childhood spent with inadequate parental support and an adulthood spent in poverty or in prison.
To strengthen families, we must redouble efforts to reduce out-of-wedlock pregnancies, make work pay, eliminate tax policies that inadvertently penalize marriage, and require absent fathers to pay child support while offering them new opportunities to find work. Because every child needs the attention of at least one caring and competent adult, we should create an “extended family” of adult volunteer mentors.
Family breakdown is not the only challenge we face. As two-worker families have become the norm, harried parents have less time to spend on their most important job: raising their children. Moreover, parents and
schools often find themselves contending with sex- and violence-saturated messages coming from an all-pervasive mass entertainment media.
We should continue public efforts to give parents tools to balance work and family and shield their children from harmful outside influences. For example, we should encourage employers to adopt family-friendly policies and practices such as parental leave, flex-time, and telecommuting. Public officials should speak out about violence in our culture and should press the entertainment media to adopt self-policing codes aimed at protecting children.
Goals for 2010
Cut the rate of out-of-wedlock births in half.
Recruit a million mentors for disadvantaged children without two parents.
Provide affordable after-school programs at every public school.
Make every workplace “family-friendly.”
Promote policies that help parents shield their children from violence and sex in entertainment products.
Source: The Hyde Park Declaration 00-DLC4 on Aug 1, 2000
Rated 16% by the Christian Coalition: an anti-family voting record.
Carper scores 16% by the Christian Coalition on family issues
The Christian Coalition was founded in 1989 by Dr. Pat Robertson to give Christians a voice in government. We represent millions of people of faith and enable them to have a strong, unified voice in the conversation we call democracy.
Our Five-Fold Mission:
Represent the pro-family point of view before local councils, school boards, state legislatures, and Congress
Speak out in the public arena and in the media
Train leaders for effective social and political action
Inform pro-family voters about timely issues and legislation
Protest anti-Christian bigotry and defend the rights of people of faith.
Our ratings are based on the votes the organization considered most important; the numbers reflect the percentage of time the representative voted the organization's preferred position.
Keep TANF program focused on family welfare, not other tasks.
Carper adopted a letter to House leaders from 4 Governors:
The nation’s Governors have serious concerns with recent proposals to expand the use of TANF funds beyond the original intent of the statute. The TANF block grant was at the heart of the 1996 welfare reform agreement and we strongly oppose attempts to use welfare-related funds to pay for other federal programs.
Specifically, the House budget resolution anticipates that states will be given additional flexibility to use unspent TANF funds for educational purposes, such as school construction and hiring teachers. Notwithstanding the merit of these initiatives, designating welfare funds for such programs is clearly beyond the original purposes of TANF. We caution you that an expansion of flexibility outside the scope of TANF sets a dangerous precedent of violating the original purposes established as part of welfare reform agreement, [which states] that the purpose of TANF is to:
provide assistance to needy families so that children may be cared for in their own homes or in the homes of relatives;
end the dependence of needy parents on government benefits by promoting job preparation, work, and marriage;
prevent and reduce the incidence of out-of-wedlock pregnancies and establish annual numerical goals for preventing and reducing the incidence of these pregnancies; and
encourage the formation and maintenance of two-parent families.
We have experienced tremendous success in transforming the welfare system from one of dependency to one of self-sufficiency. However, there is more work to be done. Opening up the TANF block grant to fund other priorities sets a dangerous precedent and is simply unacceptable. The nation’s Governors urge you to protect the integrity of the TANF block grant as it was established in 1996.
Source: National Governor's Association letter to Congress 99-NGA32 on Mar 24, 1999
