Republicans to Seek to Soften Welfare Bill

Rank-and-file House Republicans, who have already sanded some of the rough edges off the GOP welfare reform proposal, are planning further efforts to soften the bill when it goes to the House floor Tuesday.

Republicans have asked to introduce dozens of amendments, many of which would take some of the sting out of the sweeping proposal to overhaul programs for the poor. The House Rules Committee, which is controlled by the Republican leadership, plans to determine today which amendments will be in order.

A child-care amendment by Rep. Nancy L. Johnson (R-Conn.) is expected to pass without any trouble, sources said. It would provide $750 million in additional child-care money over five years for parents forced to work under the Republican proposal.

Another Republican amendment that appears destined for passage would require states to revoke the driver’s and professional licenses of parents who fail to pay child support, a provision that President Clinton strongly supports.

In all, more than 150 amendments were submitted by Republicans and Democrats for the coming floor debate, which promises to be one of the most impassioned of this bitterly divided Congress. Welfare reform was one of the key aspects of the GOP “contract with America” and was one of President Clinton’s major campaign themes.

The Republican leadership has been increasingly concerned that negative publicity about its plan, especially concerning food programs for children, is making an impact on the public.

Democrats, meanwhile, appear to be relishing the opportunity to attack the GOP proposal as mean to children and weak on helping recipients get jobs and become independent.

Almost sure to be debated on the House floor is at least one Republican amendment designed to reduce a possible side effect of welfare reform: an increase in abortions sought by women who would no longer receive benefits for their children.

As it stands, the welfare reform bill denies cash welfare payments to mothers younger than 18 and their children. It would prevent states from increasing benefits to families on welfare who have more babies.

An amendment by Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.) would provide vouchers for diapers, cribs and other infant-care necessities to parents who have babies while on welfare. Smith argues that such a provision would protect children but discourage women from having babies while on welfare.

Rep. Jim Bunn (R-Ore.) has drafted a similar amendment that would offer vouchers to unwed teen-age mothers. “As a pro-life member of Congress, I thought it was quite inconsistent to tell someone with crisis pregnancy to have her babies but refuse to help her,” Bunn said in an interview earlier this year.

The Republican welfare proposal shifts much of the authority over the shape of welfare programs to the states, requires that recipients work after two years and limits cash benefits to families to five years over the course of a lifetime.

The proposal is estimated to save $60 billion over five years, largely by making legal immigrants ineligible for dozens of federal programs. No substantial amendments on the issue of immigrant benefits will be accepted during the floor debate, sources said.

At least 1,000 people, many of them young children, gathered on the Capitol steps Sunday to voice their disapproval of the GOP plan, especially its provisions to substitute lump-sum state grants for the federal school meal programs and the Women, Infants and Children supplemental food program.

The so-called block grants would not grow as quickly as the federal programs do to allow for inflation and population growth.

“These programs work for our children,” said Vernell Weedon, a grandmother from a poor neighborhood in Washington who brought 20 children with her to the demonstration. Weedon and the children all wore pins with the slogan of the rally: “Pick on Someone Your Own Size.”

“These programs that Congress wants to cut were established because our children were not eating right,” she added. “We want healthy children.”

The Rev. Jesse Jackson called the welfare reform debate “the bottom-line moral issue of our time” and said the GOP proposal “flies in the face of all that we know is right in America.” He accused Republicans of “picking on Aid to Families With Dependent Children and not aid to dependent corporations.”

Republican congressional aides said that despite all the negative publicity, no substantial amendments on the nutrition programs would be debated.

The Republican leadership will allow Democrats to offer for floor debate two competing plans for welfare reform. The one that appears to have attracted the most support, which is led by Rep. Nathan Deal (D-Ga.), would require recipients to work after two years but guarantee benefits to every eligible family.

Speaking on CBS-TV’s “Face the Nation,” House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) said: “I think the Republican bill may be in some trouble on the floor this week.”

He referred to a statement Saturday by the U.S. Catholic Conference administrative board, the leadership body of bishops, which attacked the GOP welfare plan on moral grounds and suggested that it would increase abortions and hurt innocent children.

But House Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert L. Livingston (R-La.) stressed that many religious people in America support the GOP welfare reform plan because they believe it will encourage people not to have babies that they cannot care for properly.

“I don’t think that’s an issue,” Livingston said on the same television program. “Most of the people pushing the changes believe in the right to life.”

On the final welfare reform vote in the House, which is expected by Friday, the Republican leadership could lose the support of about half a dozen GOP representatives over the issues of abortion and immigrant benefits. But they are also expected to gain the votes of at least some conservative Democrats.