House Panel Backs GOP Welfare Plan : Reform: Approval along strict party lines caps fiery debate. Republicans cite goal of independence for poor but Democrats call bill harmful to children.

The sweeping Republican welfare reform plan cleared its first legislative hurdle Wednesday, winning approval from a House subcommittee whose Republican majority thwarted virtually all Democratic attempts to revise it.

The proposal would impose first-time limits on cash benefits paid to poor families, deny cash assistance to teen-age mothers, eliminate benefits for hundreds of thousands of disabled children and make legal immigrants ineligible for most social benefits.

Approved by the House Ways and Means human resources subcommittee on an 8-5 party-line vote, the plan now goes on to the full committee, which is expected to make no major changes before sending it to the House floor.

It would save $40 billion over five years and help make possible tax cuts promised by Republicans.

“We are trying to achieve independence of the poor in this country,” subcommittee Chairman Rep. E. Clay Shaw Jr. (R-Fla.) said after the vote. By “pampering the poor,” welfare today “is not making a whole people.”

Approval came after three grueling days of debate, capped by a fiery partisan rhetoric Wednesday that illuminated the fundamental philosophical differences between the two parties about the federal government’s responsibility to poor families and abused, neglected and disabled children.

Rep. Harold E. Ford of Tennessee, the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, chided Republicans for resisting every attempt by Democrats “to make constructive suggestions for cushioning the pain that we fear you and your ‘contract with America’ are inflicting on our children.”

Ford said that the measure would cancel America’s 60-year commitment to the financial security of its children: “I won’t be part of an experiment that uses America’s children as crash-test dummies.”

Republicans fought back, arguing that they are remaking a system Democrats created and protected that has become the “last plantation” in the United States.

“I do not believe it is the Republicans who are cruel,” Shaw responded in a voice filled with indignation. “I believe it is the Democrats who have been sitting on their hands and watching the inner cities of this country decay.”

If passed as drafted, the plan would radically alter the major federal programs that provide cash assistance to 5 million families with children, subsidize foster care and adoption for a quarter of a million abused and neglected children and supplement the income of 900,000 children with disabilities. It would make legal immigrants ineligible for 50 federal social programs.

The measure is based on the principle that power should be shifted to the states. It would grant states large blocks of federal money and give them vast leeway in using the money to help the needy.

Under the existing system, the federal government provides money for each eligible person and states must contribute a share and abide by detailed federal specifications for spending the money.

Debate Wednesday centered on a little-noticed element of the GOP proposal that would save $15 billion over five years by slashing Supplemental Security Income benefits for families with disabled children who care for them at home.

Democrats agreed with Republicans that some families abuse the program or receive SSI even though their children have problems that lawmakers consider mild, such as attention deficit disorder, a condition in which a child has difficulty concentrating.

Democrats said that eligibility for SSI should be tightened but argued that the GOP plan goes too far. It would deny cash assistance to almost all disabled children, unless they are so severely impaired that they normally would require institutional care.

Administration officials released an analysis of the GOP proposal which showed that only 6% of the 813,000 children whose families applied for SSI since 1991 would have qualified under the new plan.

The number of children receiving SSI has nearly tripled since 1990, when the Supreme Court ordered the Social Security Administration to change eligibility requirements for children, making it easier for them to to receive assistance, particularly for mental, emotional or behavioral problems.

Some lawmakers argued that parents are coaching children to act up in school to qualify for SSI, which can provide a maximum monthly check of $458. But a draft of a report by the Government Accounting Office said that the accusation cannot be verified.

Under the Republican plan, states would have the discretion to grant medical benefits and some services to many of the children denied SSI assistance. The provision also would allow some disabled children already receiving SSI to continue to receive benefits, even if those benefits would not be provided for future applicants with similar problems.

The present system grants SSI to children in two categories: those whose condition is on a list of disabilities spelled out in the Social Security Act and those certified as impaired by a medical board, even if their particular condition is not on the list. The Republican plan would cut off children in the second category--about one-third of the current recipients--from cash and all other benefits.

Shaw defended the changes, saying that they would enable the government to “care for the truly needy and get rid of the greedy.”

Democrats accused Republicans of hurting disabled children to make tax cuts for the rich possible.

While Shaw appeared willing to consider minor changes in the language concerning benefits for disabled children and other aspects of the GOP welfare reform proposal--either before it reaches the full committee or as an amendment during the committee debate--the subcommittee session made it clear that Republicans are united behind key elements of the plan.

Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-Mich) said that Democrats on the panel felt like they were “hitting a Berlin Wall” as they tried to soften the GOP proposal.

Ford announced that the Democrats on the panel would develop a competing plan and introduce it to the full committee.