Kay Bailey Hutchison on Welfare & Poverty Republican Sr Senator (TX)

Secured $3M federal funds for poverty in Rio Grande Valley

Along the river's banks are hundreds of colonias, "subdivisions" where developers never got around to providing the streets, sewers, and drinkable water they promised when they sold the lots and then moved on to the next instant slum.

There are still many colonias that lack water, streets, or sewers. But colonias with no public services are--to borrow a phrase from the former Texas house speaker--"far and few between." Not as far and few between and W. Bush's working visits to the area.

When Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison visited the area in April 1999, she walked into a house with rotten plywood floors. She walked through the mud streets while it was raining. Hutchison also helped secure #3 million in federal funding for the colonias.

Voted YES on instituting National Service as a new social invention.

Adds to National and Community Service Act of 1990 (NCSA) purposes:
1. providing year-round opportunities in service-learning;
2. involving program participants in emergency and disaster preparedness, relief, and recovery;
3. increasing service opportunities for retiring professionals;
4. encouraging service by individuals age 55 or older and continued service by national service alumni;
5. focusing national service on the areas of national need.

Proponent's argument to vote Yes:Sen. BARBARA MIKULSKI (D, MD): [In developing national service over many years] we were not in the business of creating another new social program. What we were in the business of was creating a new social invention. What do I mean by that? In our country, we are known for our technological inventions. But also often overlooked, and sometimes undervalued, is our social inventions.

We created national service to let young people find opportunity to be of service and also to make an important contribution. But not all was rosy. In 2003, when I was the ranking member on the appropriations subcommittee funding national service, they created a debacle. One of their most colossal errors was that they enrolled over 20,000 volunteers and could not afford to pay for it. That is how sloppy they were in their accounting. I called them the "Enron of nonprofits."

And they worked on it. But all that is history. We are going to expand AmeriCorps activity into specialized corps. One, an education corps; another, a health futures corps; another, a veterans corps; and another called opportunity corps. These are not outside of AmeriCorps. They will be subsets because we find this is where compelling human need is and at the same time offers great opportunity for volunteers to do it.

Opponent's argument to vote No:No senators spoke against the amendment.

Voted YES on welfare block grants.

Voted NO on eliminating block grants for food stamps.

Voted YES on allowing state welfare waivers.

Voted YES on welfare overhaul.

Tax credits to promote home ownership in distressed areas.

Amends the Internal Revenue Code to permit a community homeownership tax credit based upon an applicable percentage of each qualified residence's eligible basis. Makes such credit available to residences (including factory built homes) located:

1. in a census tract with a median gross income not exceeding 80 percent of the greater area or statewide median gross income;
2. in a rural area;
3. on an Indian reservation; or
4. in an area of chronic economic distress.