Seizing a Welfare Reform Moment : A bicoastal odd couple of Florio and Wilson?

During their recent national conference, the nation’s governors were challenged by President Bush to come up with a bipartisan plan for welfare reform. It was a fair challenge--and it’s vital that this opportunity to reform the nation’s patchwork quilt of welfare programs not be missed.

Two governors--Pete Wilson, a Republican from California, and Jim Florio, a Democrat from New Jersey--are particularly well-suited to take up the challenge. And they would do the nation a big favor if they would: Most state governments face steep rises in welfare costs and worry about projections of future increases due to the explosion in the number of single mothers. Few states can absorb these new costs without cutting deep into other spending at a time when revenues are declining. The problem is to reform welfare--to improve the program while controlling costs--without, as it were, throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Cuts must be carefully made; real people, especially children, could get hurt if reform is ineptly or unthinkingly done.

CALIFORNIA: Gov. Wilson has proposed cuts of up to 25% in welfare benefits, reductions for welfare mothers who have additional children and restrictions on benefits for state newcomers. There would also be incentives for teen-age mothers who live at home and stay in school.

NEW JERSEY: In January, Gov. Florio signed into law welfare reform that requires all “able-bodied” recipients to go to school, attend job training or work--or lose part of their benefits.

But, unlike other states that fund very limited programs, New Jersey guarantees help for all recipients in getting jobs. That’s something California should consider.

New Jersey is the first state in the nation to penalize welfare mothers who have additional children. Still, those new mothers will be allowed to make up that loss and earn up to an additional half of the amount of their welfare check without losing any benefits.

The New Jersey plan mirrors the federal Family Support Act of 1988. That bipartisan plan approved by Congress requires welfare recipients to go to school, attend training or find a job in order to keep benefits. But fewer than a third of the welfare mothers who qualify can participate because most state governments cannot afford to come up with their half of matching funds.

What can Wilson and Florio bring to the welfare-reform table? Some experience in moving reform and cost control forward; and--between the two of them--some necessary political balance.

Welfare reform is a useful task of government that will get all fouled up if it becomes nothing more than a political football.