Drive to Reduce Welfare Gaining : Finances: Gov. Wilson is among state leaders from around the country who are weighing an overhaul in the face of budget shortfalls. The movement crosses party lines.

Call it “reform” or simply “cutbacks,” but when two governors from opposite sides of the country and the political world sit across the table from each other and agree that welfare needs an overhaul, it is evidence that a national trend may be developing.

Republican Gov. Pete Wilson of California and Democratic Gov. James J. Florio of New Jersey did just that at the annual winter conference of governors, which ended Tuesday. They were not alone among their colleagues in seeking reductions in traditional public assistance.

Democratic Gov. Roy Romer of Colorado, the incoming chairman of the National Governors Assn., said at a White House meeting that welfare reform probably was one issue the governors could unite behind regardless of party.

Wilson aides reported counting 40 states that either cut or froze welfare benefits last year. Several governors are proposing further reductions.

The attack on welfare is largely in response to projected budget deficits greatly aggravated by the recession. Thirty-seven states are facing revenue shortfalls, according to the National Conference on State Legislatures. But many governors--including Wilson and Florio--contend also that welfare has become overly generous and counterproductive by encouraging perpetual dependence on the dole.

During a five-day visit to the nation’s capital, Wilson was like a poised cat, ready to leap at any opportunity to push his welfare reform plan.

On Monday at a White House meeting between President Bush and the governors, Wilson pressed the Administration for waivers of federal welfare requirements--waivers that will be needed before any state can implement reforms or significant cuts. Bush was receptive, reiterating a pledge made during his State of the Union address.

Wilson added that “the real answer” is for Congress to vote outright repeal of the requirements. He asked Bush for his help, conceding that this election year “may not be the perfect season” for such an effort.

The President asked, in turn, whether the governors--Republicans and Democrats alike--could agree on a bipartisan package of welfare changes that he could push. “It would make a tremendous impact on Congress,” he said.

Romer, who moments earlier had attacked Bush’s economic recovery plan as “gimmickry,” said he expected that governors could unite behind such legislation.

Earlier, on CBS-TV’s “This Morning,” Wilson complained that the states “are experiencing an explosion in welfare costs” that is taking money away from other programs such as education. “It’s just not right,” he said.

“We (governors) think we know what our people need. Children need education. . . . Instead of enriching human potential for individuals, we’re spending too much money on public assistance, really maintaining them on dependence.”

Wilson, therefore, is proposing to go far beyond simple cuts in welfare, and Florio already has.

Two weeks ago, Florio signed the nation’s first law denying additional benefits to mothers on welfare who continue to have children. Able-bodied recipients who refuse to take part in educational or training programs also will lose all or part of their benefits unless they have a child under age 2.

Wilson’s sweeping proposal--which also would give him more control over the state budget--would reduce family benefits by an immediate 10%, followed by another 15% cut after six months if an able-bodied recipient had not found a job. Recipients could earn as much as $694 per month in other income without losing commensurate benefits.

Teen-age mothers would get a $50-per-month bonus to stay in school and a $50-per-month penalty if they dropped out. But they would receive welfare benefits only if they lived with a parent or a legal guardian, provided the adult was deemed fit. Unwed welfare mothers who gave birth to another child would receive no extra aid.

Families moving to California would be eligible for the first year only for the same benefits they could have received in their former state.

Realizing that the Democratic-controlled Legislature is highly unlikely to pass this package, Wilson is trying to place an initiative on the November ballot. His longtime political adviser, George Gorton, is directing a $1-million drive to collect the necessary 615,958 voter signatures by the April 17 deadline to qualify the measure for the ballot.

On Sunday afternoon, Florio, generally regarded as a liberal, and Wilson, a self-described “compassionate conservative,” sat across the conference table from each other and described their remarkably similar welfare reform proposals to fellow governors. No governor defended the status quo--or, for that matter, even welfare.

“The welfare system, however well motivated, is, in fact, not working,” Florio said. “It has become a prison of perpetual dependency . . . a system that breaks families apart.”

Wilson said that in California, a mother on welfare with two children would have to find a job paying about $1,400 a month to make it worthwhile for her to get off relief, counting such non-cash benefits as Medi-Cal, child care and transportation she now is entitled to.

Answering an insinuation at the National Press Club on Friday that his proposals are mean-spirited, Wilson said:

“If the mother never leaves the home even for a part-time job, what signal does that send? What message is there for the child in that? I think the most mean-spirited thing we could do is to leave the system the way it is.”

There are competing claims for the taxpayer’s dollar, Wilson said repeatedly, and in his view, welfare ranks below education, fighting crime and such preventive programs as prenatal health care.

Wilson and Florio also share something else. Like other big-state governors who recently have raised taxes to balance budgets, their popularity has dropped dramatically.

“There isn’t a whole lot that I can do about it,” Wilson told The Times. “I do the best job that I can under very difficult circumstances. . . . I’ve been compelled to administer bitter medicine and people don’t like bitter medicine. I think it’s about as simple as that. . . .

“In a time of recession, people don’t like any of the alternatives. They don’t want higher taxes, they don’t want service cuts. None of the alternatives that are available are palatable.”

But he and other governors are betting that welfare cutbacks will be palatable.

“It’s a winner,” said William Schneider, political analyst for the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute. “Welfare’s catching on. It’s a national mood, a national movement.”

Schneider noted that a CNN/ USA Today nationwide poll last month found that 80% of those surveyed said they would be “more likely” to vote for a presidential candidate who wanted to “require all able-bodied people on welfare, including women with small children, to do work for their welfare checks.” That position was even more popular than the death penalty for murderers.

However, the California Poll directed by Mervin Field reported Tuesday that Californians regard Wilson’s reform package with mixed views. They object to the benefit cuts by a 2-1 margin, the poll showed, but tend to agree with other features of the program, such as those dealing with teen-age mothers, the benefit restrictions for newcomers and the no-increase plan for unwed mothers who have more children.