Brian Higgins on Welfare & Poverty Democratic Representative (NY-27)

Voted NO on maintaining work requirement for welfare recipients.

• Prohibits any experimental pilot or demonstration project that: waives compliance with mandatory work requirements
• Rescinds and nullifies any such waiver granted before the enactment of this Act.

Proponent's Argument for voting Yes:

Rep. REICHERT: Congress must ensure that work continues to be the centerpiece of the TANF welfare program. We are here today debating the Obama administration's efforts to undermine work requirements. Bipartisan discussions were actually happening before the Obama administration announced they would waive work requirements for welfare recipients last summer. That announcement completely undermined bipartisan negotiations in our committee about ways to strengthen this program. Usually, if an administration wants to change the law, they must submit a legislative proposal for Congress to consider, but that's not what the Obama administration did with its proposal to waive the TANF work requirements.

Opponent's Argument for voting No:

• Rep. LEVIN: Last summer the administration proposed that states would be allowed to apply for waivers and have some flexibility in terms of the application of the work requirements--not the end of them or changing them, but the implementation of them. The idea that the administration is going to try to overturn welfare reform is ridiculous. States have to apply individually for waivers, and they have to explain in detail why the approach would lead to either more employment or better jobs for people who are trying to stay off welfare.
• Rep. NEAL: I chaired the Democratic position [on 1990s welfare reform]. One of the goals of welfare reform was to move unemployed Americans from welfare to work, and it did work. The legislation has been very successful in meeting that goal. Welfare reform put people back on the work rolls. Welfare rolls have dropped by half, & poverty amongst children has dropped as well. Reference: Preserving the Welfare Work Requirement & TANF Extension Act; Bill H.R.890 ; vote number 13-HV068 on Mar 13, 2013

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

  Congressional Summary:Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education (GIVE) Act:
  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.

  Reference: Serve America Act/GIVE Act; Bill H.R. 1388 ; vote number 2009-H169 on Mar 31, 2009

  Voted YES on providing $70 million for Section 8 Housing vouchers.

  Voting YES on this amendment would add $70 million to the Section 8 housing voucher program, funding an additional 10,000 affordable housing vouchers.
  Proponents of the amendment say:
  • This amendment would enable an additional 10,000 low-income families to afford safe, decent housing.
  • To offset this increase, the amendment cuts a poorly managed computer upgrade program. The committee has been very ingenious in squirreling away money in different accounts and the bill would still provide $94 million in funds for IT projects.
  • We have a choice: Do we want to help thousands of families obtain affordable housing, or do we think it is more important to have a somewhat faster computer upgrade in HUD?
  • Our amendment does not seek to restore the amount to the amount that the President recommended, which is $144 million more than the committee recommends, it seeks merely to restore $70 million, or about half of what the difference is to what the President recommended.
  • This is less than the bare minimum of what is needed. We have hundreds of thousands of families on waiting lists, waiting up to 10 years for decent housing for Section 8 vouchers.
  Opponents say:
  • The existing bill fully funds the renewal of Section 8 vouchers. Additional funds are simply not necessary.
  • The cost of Section 8 vouchers are remaining constant and in some markets are actually decreasing. As such, this funding level will provide funds to restore vouchers that may have been lost in recent years.
  • The proposed reduction will cause delays in critically needed efforts to modernize antiquated legacy computer systems.
  Reference: Department of Housing and Urban Development appropriations; Bill HR 5576 Amendment 1015 ; vote number 2006-267 on Jun 13, 2006

  Finish welfare reform by moving able recipients into jobs.

  Higgins adopted the manifesto, "A New Agenda for the New Decade":

  Help Working Families Lift Themselves from Poverty
  In the 1990s, Americans resolved to end welfare dependency and forge a new social compact on the basis of work and reciprocal responsibility. The results so far are encouraging: The welfare rolls have been cut by more than half since 1992 without the social calamities predicted by defenders of the old welfare entitlement. People are more likely than ever to leave welfare for work, and even those still on welfare are four times more likely to be working. But the job of welfare reform will not be done until we help all who can

  work to find and keep jobs -- including absent fathers who must be held responsible for supporting their children.

  In the next decade, progressives should embrace an even more ambitious social goal -- helping every working family lift itself from poverty. Our new social compact must reinforce work, responsibility, and family. By expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, increasing the supply of affordable child care, reforming tax policies that hurt working families, making sure absent parents live up to their financial obligations, promoting access to home ownership and other wealth-building assets, and refocusing other social policies on the new goal of rewarding work, we can create a new progressive guarantee: No American family with a full-time worker will live in poverty.

  Goals for 2010 Finish the job of welfare reform by moving all recipients who can work into jobs.
  • Cut the poverty rate in half.
  • Double child support collections and require every father who owes child support to go to work to pay it off.
  Source: The Hyde Park Declaration 00-DLC3 on Aug 1, 2000

  Sponsored funding re-development of abandoned & foreclosed properties.

  Higgins co-sponsored Project Rebuild Act

  Congressional Summary:Appropriates funds for assistance to eligible entities including state and local governments, and qualified nonprofit organizations or businesses, for the redevelopment of abandoned and foreclosed-upon properties and for stabilization of affected neighborhoods. Allows the use of funds to:

  1. establish financing mechanisms for the purchase and redevelopment of abandoned and foreclosed-upon properties
  2. purchase and rehabilitate such properties
  3. establish and operate land banks for them
  4. demolish blighted structures (except public housing)
  5. redevelop abandoned, foreclosed, demolished, or vacant properties.
  • Requires each state to receive at least $20 million of formula funds, all of which shall be used with respect to low and moderate-income individuals and families.
  • Requires each state and local government grantee to establish procedures to create preferences for development of affordable rental housing.
  • Allows a grantee to use up to 10% to create jobs by establishing and operating a program to maintain eligible neighborhood properties.
  • Sets forth Buy American requirements
  • Requires all laborers and mechanics employed by contractors and subcontracto Source: H.R.1397 13-H1397 on Mar 21, 2013

    Voted NO on transferring housing vouchers to ex-addicts.

    Higgins voted NAY Transitional Housing for Recovery in Viable Environments Demonstration Program Act

    Congressional Summary: Transitional Housing for Recovery in Viable Environments Demonstration Program Act: This bill requires HUD to establish a five-year demonstration program to provide low-income rental-assistance vouchers to individuals recovering from an opioid or other substance-use disorder. Specifically, these vouchers shall be provided through a supportive housing program that provides treatment for such disorders and coordination with workforce development providers.

    Statement in support by the Republican Policy Committee: This bill would set aside, out of approximately 2.2 million vouchers, the lesser of 10,000 Section 8 vouchers or .05% of all vouchers. In 2017, President Trump established the President's Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis. The Commission will be chaired by Governor Chris Christie and will study ways to combat and treat the scourge of the opioid crisis. The Commission noted, "There is a critical shortage of recovery housing for Americans in or pursuing recovery. Recovery residences (also known as 'sober homes') are alcohol- and drug-free living environments for individuals seeking the skills and social support to remain free of alcohol or other drugs."

    Statement in opposition by National Low-Income Housing Coalition: The bill would lengthen affordable housing waiting lists for low income families, seniors, and people experiencing homelessness. Rep. Maxine Waters spoke against the bill [saying it] tries to help people suffering from substance-use disorders, but that doing so requires more resources: "You cannot do this on the cheap. Rehabilitation costs money. We would be taking 10,000 vouchers from those who have been waiting in line for years."

    Legislative outcome: Bill Passed House, 230-17-24 on June 14, 2018. No vote in Senate [died in committee].

    Source: Congressional vote 18-HR5735 on May 9, 2018

    Develop a strategy to eliminate extreme global poverty.

    Higgins co-sponsored developing a strategy to eliminate extreme global poverty

    A BILL to require the President to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the United States foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day.

    Congress makes the following findings:
    1. More than 1 billion people worldwide live on less than $1 per day, and another 1.6 billion people struggle to survive on less than $2 per day.
    2. At the UN Millennium Summit in 2000, the US joined more than 180 other countries in committing to work toward goals to improve life for the world's poorest people by 2015.
    3. The year 2007 marks the mid-point to the Millennium Development Goals deadline of 2015.
    4. The UN Millennium Development Goals include the goal of reducing by 1/2 the proportion of people that live on less than $1 per day, & cutting in half the proportion of people suffering from hunger and unable to access safe drinking water and sanitation.
    DECLARATION OF POLICY: It is the policy of the United States to promote the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day.

    REQUIREMENT TO DEVELOP COMPREHENSIVE STRATEGY: The US Government shall develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the US foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by 1/2 the proportion of people worldwide who live on less than $1 per day. The strategy shall include specific and measurable goals, efforts to be undertaken, benchmarks, and timetables to achieve the objectives.

    Source: Global Poverty Act (S.2433/H.R.1302) 2007-S2433 on Dec 7, 2007

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