Governors, Administration Aides Discuss Their Proposals : Officials See Hope for Welfare Reform Package

Fifteen members of the National Governors Assn. discussed competing welfare reform proposals Saturday with top Reagan Administration officials, and their spokesmen later expressed hope that early agreement can be reached on a reform package.

Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton said at a news conference that he had found “an enormous amount of bipartisan interest” in welfare reform--a principal topic to come before the four-day meeting that began here Saturday. Clinton declared that “the timing . . . is right” for an attempt to sell Congress on the governors’ approach to welfare reform and reconcile it with the Administration position.

Clinton, a Democrat who is the association’s chairman, said a meeting Saturday morning between 15 governors and federal officials dealt with problems that reform of the present costly and much-criticized welfare system might raise for state and federal administrations.

Reagan Aides Present

He said Administration participants included Labor Secretary William E. Brock III, Health and Human Services Secretary Otis R. Bowen, Education Secretary William J. Bennett and Charles D. Hobbs, President Reagan’s assistant for welfare policy and a principal author of the Administration proposal.

“I don’t think they raised any specific objections in terms of the goals and the objectives,” Clinton said. “I think there might be differences at this point in the way they have crafted their package and the way that we have crafted ours.”

There are two evident differences between the draft plan the Executive Committee plans to put before the 50 governors at a working session Monday and a still-unfinished Administration proposal. One is that the governors’ proposal calls for new spending on the order of $1 billion to $2 billion--about 90% of it from the U.S. Treasury--to combat problems that make individuals unemployable. The other is that the Administration would delegate broad new authority to the states to waive eligibility for various aid programs.

Aim for Self-Esteem

New Hampshire’s Republican Gov. John H. Sununu, appearing with Clinton, said the governors’ goal is “to create a system where people become interested not only in earning a check, but the self-esteem that goes with the job . . . and one of the weaknesses in this economy is that there are large portions of our population that aren’t getting the kind of paycheck that goes with a job to become participants in that economy.”

The governors’ plan, like the one under development at the White House, aims for public assistance programs that strengthen and preserve the family structure. It seeks “a system where it is always better to work than be on public assistance.”

To this end, the draft report calls for removal of existing barriers to employment, even though “the initial costs of this investment may be somewhat higher than current expenditure levels.” It proposes use of public and private funds to reduce such barriers to self-sufficiency as teen-age pregnancy, adult illiteracy, inadequate prenatal and child health care, non-payment of child support by absent fathers, parental neglect and alcohol and drug abuse.

‘Foremost a Jobs System’

The governors’ reform seeks “to turn what is now primarily a payments system with a minor work component into a system that is first and foremost a jobs system, backed up by an income assistance component.” It proposes to increase support payments to individuals unable to work, but to take “necessary steps to increase their employability.”

As a first step, the program would base public assistance on contracts between a government committed to investing in the employment of the individual and the aid beneficiary. The beneficiary would agree to “specific actions to prepare for and seek a job, with the objective of achieving self-sufficiency.”

The draft plan recommends that all employable welfare recipients whose children are 3 years old or older “participate in an education, job training or placement program and accept a suitable job when it is offered.”

The governors’ plan calls for “adequate support services” for welfare recipients, particularly in the areas of health care and child care, noting that “parents cannot be expected to give up welfare if the loss of Medicaid jeopardizes health care to their families.” Once a participant finds a job, it said, support services should provide for a period of transition to other health insurance coverage.

The plan also calls for flexible work programs, designed by the states, that include provision for remedial education and job training.