Rick Lazio on Welfare & Poverty Former Republican/Conservative Representative (NY-2)

Advocate for public housing in Congress

CLINTON: He fought to weaken the safety standards for manufactured housing and in-home building.

LAZIO: There’s been nobody else in the House who’s stood up for poor people and to provide them with good- quality housing. I’ve been there for the homeless, I’ve been there to provide housing for people with AIDS. I’ve been there for people who rely on Section 8. I’m boosting homeownership for our young families.

CLINTON: In fact, I’ll be meeting with a group of public-housing tenants this evening because what their memory of that fight was, Mr. Lazio, is that you were trying to remove the caps from the limits that would in some way prohibit a lot of people from being able to have the public housing.

Congressional fight against FHA was supported by HUD

LAZIO: Do you understand that the standards that you’re talking about were endorsed by the administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development? Do you understand that?

CLINTON: Do you understand that the standards I’m talking about, that you were trying to weaken, were said by the AARP that they would have put people in danger?

Allow food stamps for legal immigrants

Public housing: More work & service; less concentrated poor

Promote responsible fatherhood via faith-based institutions

Voting record on faith-based institutions:
• Voted YES to establish a program that would promote more responsible fatherhood via grants to state agencies and nonprofit groups, including faith-based institutions. (HR.3073, 11/10/99)
• Voted to ALLOW federal funds for a program to promote responsible fatherhood from going directly to churches, synagogues and other groups that are “pervasively sectarian.” (HR.3073, 11/10/99)

Tax incentives & vouchers to reduce homelessness

Lazio supports the following principles regarding homelessness & housing:
• Provide tax incentives for companies to hire and train homeless people who want to work.
• Increase funding of homeless shelters and low income housing projects.
• Increase funds for housing assistance for welfare recipients who need housing to get or keep a job.
• Provide homeless families with apartment vouchers they can use to supplement the cost of an apartment.

Continue welfare-to-work & block grants

Lazio supports the following principles regarding welfare & poverty:
• Continue to give states & local governments responsibility for welfare programs through block grants
• Maintain current welfare-to-work requirements in order for states to qualify for block grants
• Convert government-funded low-income housing projects into private housing, managed & owned by the residents
• Require that unwed teenage mothers live with a parent or guardian and attend school to receive benefits.

Voted YES on responsible fatherhood via faith-based organizations.

Increase the earned income tax credit.

Provisions Relating to Earned Income Credit: Amends the Internal Revenue Code to repeal the supplemental young child credit and revise and increase the earned income credit.

Limit welfare to 2 years & cut welfare spending.

[As part of the Contract with America, within 100 days we pledge to bring to the House Floor the following bill]:

The Personal Responsibility Act:
Discourage illegitimacy and teen pregnancy by prohibiting welfare to minor mothers and denying increased AFDC for additional children while on welfare, cut spending for welfare programs, and enact a tough two-years-and-out provision with work requirements to promote individual responsibility.