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Bill Status: Signed Into Law

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Bill Introduction Date: February 8, 2006

Legislation Signed into Law: The Reauthorization of the Temporary Assistance To Needy Families, TANF (S.1932, H.R. 4241) - Signed 02/08/06

TANF, a federally funded state block grant, which provides assistance and work opportunities to families who are below the poverty threshold, was reauthorized by the Budget Reconciliation bill in February of 2005.

Legal Momentum's Approach

Our goal was to:

• include provisions to protect domestic violence victims in the context of marriage programming
• Lobby for funding for child care
• Emphasize education and training in lieu of punitive and stringent work requirements.

Summary

Under the TANF structure, the federal government provides a block grant to the states, which use these funds to operate their own programs. States can use TANF dollars in ways designed to meet any of the four purposes set out in federal law, which are to:

• "(1) provide assistance to needy families so that children may be cared for in their own homes or in the homes of relatives;
• (2) end the dependence of needy parents on government benefits by promoting job preparation, work, and marriage;
• (3) 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 (4) encourage the formation and maintenance of two parent families."

Work Requirements

The bill imposes rigid and restrictive TANF work requirements while providing only $200 million in new child care funding, a small fraction of the amount needed to keep pace with inflation, and will force states to further cut child care for low-income working families.

Child Support
The budget bill cuts federal funding for child support enforcement by $1.6 billion over five years and $4.9 billion over ten years-which will result in $8.4 billion in child support payments that would otherwise be collected will go uncollected in the next decade.

Healthy Marriage Promotion
The budget appropriated $100 million in matching funds from participating states. Federal marriage promotion: diverts welfare funds from basic economic supports, coercively intrudes on fundamentally private decisions, and places domestic violence victims at increased risk. And most importantly, government marriage promotion sends the message that the way out of poverty for women is dependence on someone else to act as a breadwinner, rather than economic self-sufficiency.

Other Items of Interest

Child Welfare
The budget decreases federally funded foster care services by $343 million over five years and $845 million over ten years - chiefly by removing federal financial support for many grandparents and other relatives caring for children. It also sets time limits on federal financial support for children in safe but unlicensed relative placements. The Agreement authorizes the appropriation of $345 million for the Promoting Safe and Stable Families program for 2006, which funds services to families in crisis and foster youth awaiting adoption, and others. The Agreement also appropriates $20 million for grants to improve courts' handling of child welfare cases.

Student Loans
Congress cut $12.7 billion from the student loan program, most of which comes directly from students. The 2006 budget bill allows student loan interest rates to effectively increase to a fixed 6.8 percent on July 1, 2006 (currently it is variable with an 8.25 percent cap; students currently pay 5.3 percent), and increases the interest rate on parent loans. Although these changes primarily affect middle and upper-income students, the fact that the maximum Pell grant remains frozen at $4,050 for the fourth year means that even lower income students may need to rely on loans to fill the gaps. Nearly one-third of the savings are generated by capturing excess subsidies that students pay to lenders. In contrast with other bills earlier this year, the savings from these cuts would not be redirected to expanding higher education assistance for low-income students.