House OKs Welfare Overhaul That Cuts Off Aid Guarantees : Reform: GOP measure, approved in 234-199 vote, would dramatically change decades of New Deal, Great Society poverty programs. Proposal goes to Senate.

A partisan House approved Republican welfare legislation Friday that would fundamentally change six decades of New Deal and Great Society poverty programs by ending guarantees of federal assistance and transferring most authority over social spending to the states.

On a fourth day of emotional and at times fierce debate, only nine Democrats joined with Republicans to pass the Personal Responsibility Act, a central element of the House GOP “contract with America.” The vote was 234 to 199, with five Republicans opposed.

The legislation, which now moves to the Senate, would overhaul a welfare system first conceived to help a nation reeling from the Great Depression in the 1930s. It has evolved over the decades into a maze of regulations and payments that many lawmakers and Americans believe have created a cycle of dependency.

“We are sweeping away a destructive system and we are putting in a system that can work,” said Rep. E. Clay Shaw Jr. (R-Fla.), chief architect of the plan. “Let’s join together in a new meaning of American spirit and solve the problem of poverty.”

Democrats, however, said that the plan, which would cut federal spending by $66 billion over five years, leaves millions of needy Americans without help. They said that its real purpose is to pry loose money for tax cuts to benefit mainly those who are well off.

“The Republican bill repeals the public trust,” said non-voting Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-District of Columbia). “It is not welfare reform. It is welfare fraud.”

President Clinton said in a statement released after the vote: “It’s a shame the House of Representatives could not produce a real welfare reform plan.”

Clinton said that the bill is “weak on work and tough on children” and added that he is looking forward to working with the Senate on the legislation in what he hopes will be a bipartisan effort.

The GOP blueprint would radically change the relationship between the federal government and the poor, ending the federal “entitlement” guarantee that any person who qualifies for aid will receive it. Under the new plan, authority over cash assistance, foster care, child care and school meal programs would be given to the states. And for the first time many benefits would be conditioned on the behavior of recipients.

After two years on welfare, for instance, recipients would have to start working if they want to continue receiving checks. Able-bodied people between 18 and 50 would have to work for food stamps after getting the benefit for three months. Legal immigrants would become eligible for most programs only after becoming citizens. They currently qualify for most benefits.

No aspect of the GOP plan is intended to change behavior of recipients more than a provision that would deny cash assistance to unwed mothers younger than 18. That is one of three provisions in the legislation specifically designed to discourage out-of-wedlock births. States also would be forbidden to increase benefits when families on welfare have additional children and the federal government would provide substantial increases in funding for welfare to states that decreased their out-of-wedlock birthrates.

The Senate is expected to question some of the boldest steps approved by the House. Even so, the legislation that eventually emerges from Congress is certain to contain profound changes--for the House debate vividly demonstrated that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle believe the current system has failed and must be reform.

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Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.), who will help draft the Senate welfare bill as a member of the Finance Committee, stressed that--while there is growing support for transferring authority over welfare to the states--Democrats in the upper chamber will have a hand in shaping the legislation.

Senate Majority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said he expects that “in some areas we may soften it but in some areas we may make it stronger.” In particular, Lott said, the Senate may require a greater percentage of recipients to work.

While House Republicans praised the bill as a formula for bringing an end to the cycle of dependency that they say the current system has created, Democrats said that it is merely a tool for taking money from children and giving it to the wealthy in the form of tax breaks.

To prove the point, Democrats called for an amendment that would reserve any savings from welfare reform for use in cutting the federal deficit but Republicans defeated the proposal.

“If we’re going to take this money from the children, we ought not leave them with a debt,” said Rep. Sam M. Gibbons (D-Fla.).

While Republicans cited their reasons for not reserving any savings for deficit reduction, Democrats chanted: “Capital Gains!” Republicans favor a cut in the capital gains tax rate on investment income.

Rep. Bill Archer (R-Tex.), chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said he is proud to offer Americans a tax cut.

“Government is too big and it spends too much,” Archer said. “We’re fixing welfare and the taxpayers deserve a piece of the fix.”

Earlier in the day, more than half the Democrats in the chamber joined Republicans as the House voted, 336 to 96, to reject a substitute bill by Rep. Patsy Mink (D-Hawaii) that would have retained much of the existing welfare system but offered more education, job training and child care and contained more incentives to get recipients off welfare rolls.

Republicans pointed to the plan as evidence that Democrats are not willing to let go of a system widely believed to be in need of an overhaul.

“Dependency created by the Great Society has led us to the condition we are in today,” Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) said. “We want to break the cycle of dependency and you don’t. You want to keep the people of America dependent on you so you can get reelected and reelected and reelected.”

While Republicans tried to paint Democrats as patrons of the status quo, clearly many Democrats were committed to changing welfare from a permanent to a temporary safety net. The Democratic caucus voted Thursday for another alternative plan, which would have required welfare recipients to work after two years and cut off their benefits after four--instead of the five called for under the Republican plan.

The difference was that the Democratic alternative retained welfare as a federal system, guaranteed that all eligible recipients would receive benefits and provided more education, job training and placement and child care to help recipients make the transition to work.

Some Democrats chose to vote for the GOP plan, however, arguing that it was not enough to vote for a version that had no chance of passage.

Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. (D-Ohio) said he was voting for the GOP plan because the current welfare system had “destroyed our country.”

“I am not going to vote to sustain the status quo and I am not going to demean the bill that’s come from the other side of the aisle,” he said. “Anybody who supports the status quo is anti-family, anti-kids and, dammit, anti-American.”

Evoking colorful images of animals, Republicans made it clear they believe that welfare hurts poor people by offering a stream of free income.

Rep. Barbara Cubin (R-Wyo.) compared welfare recipients to domesticated wolves who refuse to leave their cages when set free. “When you take away their freedom and dignity they cannot provide for themselves,” she said.

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Rep. John L. Mica (R-Fla.) held up a sign that read: “Don’t feed the alligators,” explaining that if people feed alligators, “dependency sets in as otherwise able alligators can no longer survive on their own.”

“Now people are not alligators, but I submit that with our current handout, non-work welfare system, we’ve upset the natural order,” Mica said. “We’ve failed to understand simple warning signs. We’ve created a system of dependency.”

Democrats said that such stories showed that Republicans failed to understand what it means to be poor.

“We’re not talking about alligators. We’re not talking about wolves. We’re talking about America’s children,” said Rep. Walter R. Tucker III (D-Compton).

“Don’t feed the alligators but please feed the children,” Norton pleaded.

Times staff writer Janet Hook contributed to this story.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

What Plan Would Do

The impact of the welfare overhaul plan approved 234 to 199 by the House, on various groups:

Welfare recipients: Would limit cash benefits to five years.

Unmarried young mothers: Girls under 18 who had children would not be allowed to receive cash assistance.

Schoolchildren: Proposes combining school lunch and breakfast programs into block grants to states. Impact would vary.

Legal immigrants: Most would be barred from receiving food stamps, non-emergency health care, cash assistance for disabilities and other services.

The Cuts

Food stamps: 25%

SSI: 28%

Family support: 19%

Medicaid: 11%

Child nutrition: 15%

Foster care: 3%

Does not add up to 100% due to rounding

Main Points of House Plan

Key elements of the Republicans’ welfare overhaul plan, which is designed to save $66 billion over five years:

-- Aid to immigrants: Most legal immigrants would be barred from receiving food stamps, non-emergency health care, Supplemental Security Income, cash assistance to dependent families and certain social services. Exceptions include refugees for the first five years, those over 75 who have been here more than five years, some very disabled people, veterans and active-duty military and their spouses and children.

-- Child care: Consolidates nine federal child care programs in a block grant to the states. Spending would be capped at the current level of $1.94 billion per year.

-- School meals: Combines school lunch and breakfast programs into a block grant to the states.

-- Family nutrition: Combines funding for several nutrition programs, including the Women, Infants and Children supplemental feeding program, into a block grant to the states. Overall spending for these programs would be $4.6 billion less than the current level over five year.

-- Food stamps: Holds automatic increases in benefits to 2 % a year. Requires able-bodied people without children to work after three months. Allows states to take over the program if there is a statewide system for delivering benefits electronically.

-- Cash welfare: Replaces Aid to Families with Dependent Children with a block grant to the states. Ends the guarantee of cash aid to women and children who qualify; benefits are cut off after five years, and unmarried parents under age 18 would not be allowed to receive cash assistance. No additional benefits to women who have additional children while on welfare. Funding set at current levels of $15.3 billion annually.

-- Foster care: Establishes a block grant to the states to prevent child abuse and neglect and provide care for children who cannot stay with natural parents.

-- Supplemental Security Income: Bans disability payments to drug addicts and alcoholics; cuts cash payments to some children with behavioral or mental disabilities; replaces cash with medical benefits for other disabled children; and allows only the most severely disabled children to continue to receive cash.

-- Child support: Establishes state and national registries of child support orders and new hires to help track parents who refuse to pay.

Troubled System

The number of families receiving assistance more than doubled between 1970 and 1990, a period when the U.S. population rose 22%. The average monthly benefit tripled.

Year: 1970

Families receiving AFDC (millions): 1.90

Average monthly benefit*: $178

Year: 1975

Families receiving AFDC (millions): 3.34

Average monthly benefit*: $210

Year: 1980

Families receiving AFDC (millions): 3.64

Average monthly benefit*: $274

Year: 1985

Families receiving AFDC (millions): 3.69

Average monthly benefit*: $339

Year: 1990

Families receiving AFDC (millions): 3.97

Average monthly benefit*: $389

* per recipient Total federal cost for food stamps has risen steadily.

1993: $24 billion Welfare families are smaller today.

Year: 1969

Average number of people in family: 4.0

Year: 1975

Average number of people in family: 3.2

Year: 1983

Average number of people in family: 3.0

Year: 1991

Average number of people in family: 2.9 Welfare mothers are younger.

Age (as % of recipients): Under 20

1969: 6.6

1991: 8.1

Age (as % of recipients): 20 to 24

1969: 16.7

1991: 23.4

Age (as % of recipients): 25 to 29

1969: 17.6

1991: 23.8

Age (as % of recipients): 30 to 39

1969: 30.4

1991: 32.6

Age (as % of recipients): 40 and over

1969: 25.0

1991: 12.1

Age (as % of recipients): Unknown

1969: 3.7

1991: 0 More families are headed by one parent, and more children are born out of wedlock.

% of children receiving welfare where parent...: Is widowed

1969: 5.5

1991: 1.8

% of children receiving welfare where parent...: Divorced/sep.

1969: 43.3

1991: 32.5

% of children receiving welfare where parent...: Did not marry

1969: 27.9

1991: 52.9

% of children receiving welfare where parent...: Other

1969: 23.3

1991: 12.8

Source: Congressional “Green Book,” a statistical overview of entitlement programs

PUBLIC OPINION

The GOP welfare plan would cut cash benefits after five years to families with children.

Do you favor or oppose placing an absolute five-year limit on the amount of time families could receive welfare, after which their benefits would be cut even if they could not find a job?

Favor: 48%

Oppose: 45%

Don’t know: 7%

Source: Los Angeles Times national poll taken 1,285 adults March 15-19. Margin of sampling error plus or minus 3 percentage points.

VOICES

“We are sweeping away a destructive system and we are putting in a system that can work. --Rep. Clay Shaw Jr. (R-Fla.), a chief architect of the bill

“Our best hope now is that the Senate chooses to reject this tax-cut, bail-out bill the Republicans are calling welfare reform.”

--Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), House minority leader

“Now people are not alligators, but I submit that with our current handout, non-work welfare system, we’ve upset the natural order. We’ve failed to understand simple warning signs. We’ve created a system of dependency.”

-Rep. John L. Mica (R-Fla.)

“Don’t feed the alligators but please feed the children.”

--Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of Columbia delegate