Latest Welfare Reform Plan Reflects Liberals’ Priorities : Congress: Rep. Matsui outlines a bill joining several other competing blueprints. They fill a void left by Clinton’s failure to introduce legislation.

In another sign of fragmenting congressional opinion on welfare, Rep. Robert T. Matsui (D-Sacramento) outlined his own reform bill Thursday, one that could become a rallying point for liberals.

When it is formally introduced, Matsui’s bill will join more than half a dozen other welfare reform plans put forward by legislators across the ideological spectrum. The proliferation of competing proposals testifies to the vacuum left by the Clinton Administration’s failure to introduce its own plan.

After repeated delays, the Administration again has pushed back the introduction date on its reform plan. Officials now say that the President will not unveil his welfare reform blueprint until after he returns from celebrating the 50th anniversary of D-day in June.

In remarks to reporters Thursday, President Clinton said that welfare reform still “might catch fire--we might get a bipartisan consensus to move the bill in a hurry and get it this year. I wouldn’t write this off.”

But, in fact, most close observers both in Congress and the Administration believe that the extended delay has virtually eliminated the possibility of final legislative action on welfare reform this year.

Matsui’s legislation, which he said he will introduce after Congress returns from its Memorial Day break, shows just how wide a range of views Clinton must attempt to reconcile in forging a coalition for welfare reform.

While Matsui’s bill shares the Administration’s emphasis on encouraging work, it departs in most key particulars. At the core of Clinton’s plan is a requirement that welfare recipients--beginning with those 25 and younger--accept public or private employment after two years on the rolls. Those who fail to work could eventually face the loss of all their benefits.

Matsui’s bill rejects the time limit and would restrict penalties to the parent’s share of a welfare grant--about one-third of the typical payment.

“The problem with the strict time limit and the kind of penalties they are talking about is you basically make the mother homeless,” Matsui said. “And you put the kids in a situation where they have to go into a foster family or become homeless with their mother.”

Matsui builds his proposal on the training and work program, known as JOBS, that Congress established in the Family Support Act of 1988, the last major attempt to re-craft the welfare system.

Under that law, states are required by 1995 to enroll at least 20% of the eligible welfare caseload in the JOBS program, which provides training and public employment for recipients.

Matsui’s bill would require states to enroll in JOBS 50% of the eligible caseload by 1999. Half of that group would be required to be in work programs, rather than education or training. But he would impose no limit on how long a welfare recipient could hold such a publicly funded job.

“We need to shift the debates from time limits to work requirements,” Matsui said.

But Administration officials said that simply expanding the existing JOBS program will not sufficiently reform the system, because it exempts too many recipients from work requirements. Current rules exempt from the JOBS program almost half of all welfare recipients, mostly those with children under the age of 3, according to government figures.

Moreover, because of state funding shortages, only about one in seven of those required to participate actually took part in JOBS in 1991 and almost all of those are in education and training, rather than work programs, government figures show.

Matsui said that he would be willing to discuss narrowing the exemptions from the JOBS program during the legislative process. And he pointedly noted that the Administration’s plan also would exempt much of the caseload by limiting its work requirement to younger recipients. “The Administration is not going to get everybody either,” he said.

Beyond its approach to requiring work, Matsui’s bill illuminates two other potential dividing lines in the welfare debate. The bill proposes a major expansion of child care for the working poor--a top priority for liberals in the welfare debate. The Administration scaled back its plan to expand such aid when Clinton recently decided against raising taxes to fund his proposal.

Just as importantly, the Matsui bill rejects proposals backed by Republicans and moderate Democrats to discourage out-of-wedlock births by denying additional benefits to women who have more children while already on the rolls.

Notably absent from Matsui’s bill is any recommendation on how to pay for his plan, which he estimates would cost $12 billion to $15 billion over five years. He said that it will not be necessary to explore funding options until the full Ways and Means Committee tackles welfare reform.

One reason the Administration plan has been so long delayed is the difficulty in finding offsetting cuts to pay for the package. In his remarks Thursday, Clinton again emphasized his opposition to a proposal from moderate Democrats and House Republicans to fund reform by cutting off all social welfare benefits to legal immigrants who are not yet citizens.

Some White House advisers, and the House Democratic leadership, have counseled Clinton to further delay the welfare bill to avoid a fight with congressional liberals whose support he needs to pass health care reform, his top legislative priority. But, Clinton said Thursday, “I don’t believe that my introducing my plan will undermine our ability to achieve health care reform this year.”