Welfare Reformers Confront Out-of-Wedlock Births : Senate: Panel shows bipartisan resolve to reduce pregnancies by unmarried aid recipients. But lawmakers are divided over how to accomplish it.

As he presided over the first congressional hearing on the Clinton Administration’s welfare reform plan, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday had the satisfied air of a man finally collecting on a long-overdue debt.

Nearly 30 years ago as a young Labor Department official, Moynihan was denounced for a study warning that a rising rate of out-of-wedlock births threatened the black community. On Wednesday, he listened as Administration representatives and senators from both parties painted the growing rate of out-of-wedlock births among all races as perhaps the nation’s preeminent social problem.

“We ought to be discouraging children born out of wedlock, children born to children, period,” Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala declared in testimony to the Senate Finance Committee.

Moynihan, who previously has questioned the Administration’s commitment to welfare reform, praised Shalala’s comments as “historic” candor on an issue “which we have had great difficulty in addressing.”

But the Senate hearing also showed that important differences divide legislators on precisely how to discourage out-of-wedlock births--which are rapidly emerging as the most emotional and polarizing issue in the welfare reform debate.

While Republican Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa urged Shalala to consider conservative proposals to cut off benefits entirely to young women who bear children out of wedlock, some Democrats raised red flags about efforts to discourage such births by reducing benefits.

“From my perspective, we have to begin to think of the positive inducements in addition to the penalties,” said Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.).

The hearing marked the beginning of a long legislative process whose timetable and prospects are both unclear. At the session, Moynihan repeatedly indicated that he hopes to pass a welfare reform measure this year--a sentiment that Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) echoed. But aides acknowledged that it will be extremely difficult to build a consensus for reform in the limited time left to Congress this year--especially with health care and the world trade agreement also demanding legislators’ attention.

Political calculations further complicate the equation. While Democratic moderates are generally eager to pass a welfare reform measure that they can trumpet in their campaigns this fall, liberals critical of Clinton’s plan generally are inclined to delay action until next year. On the other hand, some liberals fear that delay will leave decisions in the hands of a more conservative Congress, if Republicans make expected gains in this fall’s election.

The hearing Wednesday barely touched the surface of the Administration plan and suggested that many senators have not yet sorted out their positions on the complex issue. It did, however, make clear that whenever Congress considers reform, a top priority will be discouraging out-of-wedlock births. Such births now constitute about 30% of all births in America--about one in five for whites, and two in three for African Americans, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

Historically, Democrats generally have condemned those who have criticized the trend--such as former Vice President Dan Quayle--as racist, sexist or both. But Clinton has repeatedly raised concerns about the numbers and the hearing showed that Democrats appear increasingly comfortable following his lead.

In its plan, the Administration has proposed a series of measures to discourage out-of-wedlock births. It would launch a nationwide education campaign against teen-age pregnancy, prohibit women under 18 from establishing their own households with welfare grants and give states blanket approval to deny additional benefits to women who have additional children while on welfare.

At the hearing, Shalala, who resisted that so-called “family cap” proposal in the Administration’s internal deliberations, gave it a decidedly lukewarm endorsement. At several points, she declared that there is “no evidence” a family cap would discourage women on welfare from bearing additional children.

But Shalala endorsed the idea as an important signal of public concern about out-of-wedlock births. “By raising the issue we also make a very clear statement about behavior, about the appropriateness of . . . out-of-wedlock births and about family responsibility,” she said.

Last summer, New Jersey became the first state to implement a family cap proposal. Early figures suggest that it may be reducing the number of births to women on welfare but the state’s governor, Christine Todd Whitman, said this week that “it really is too early” to assess the program’s impact.

For liberal constituency groups and legislators, the family cap has emerged as an even greater source of concern than the Administration’s proposal that younger welfare recipients be required to accept work after two years on the rolls.

Those concerns were evident in remarks at the hearing from Bradley and Sen. John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), both of whom questioned the focus on denying welfare benefits as a means of discouraging births out of wedlock. Even Moynihan questioned the fairness of the family cap: “It’s very hard to blame an 18-month-old child . . . for its behavior,” he said.

Meanwhile, the House overwhelmingly went on record Wednesday in favor of a controversial provision in the Senate-passed crime bill that is intended to cut off welfare and other benefits to illegal immigrants and others not lawfully in the United States. The vote was 289 to 121.

Opponents charged that the non-binding instruction to Senate-House crime bill conferees was a politically inspired sham that would not affect illegal immigrants but would deny benefits to at least 100,000 American Samoans who are entitled to them. But advocates insisted that passage of the measure would halt an unjustified federal “giveaway” to those who had no right to be in the country.

Times staff writer William J. Eaton contributed to this story.