Senate Welfare Plan Would Lessen Mandates for States : Congress: Proposal would not impose tough restrictions included in House legislation. Packwood stresses flexibility.

The leading Senate plan for reforming welfare would give state governments vast authority over the system but would do so without imposing the tough federal restrictions written into the House welfare legislation--such as denying benefits to teen-age mothers and legal immigrants.

The Senate plan, outlined for the first time Monday, would require a certain percentage of welfare recipients in each state to work or take job training and would probably limit eligibility for cash benefits to five years over a lifetime, said Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.), the chief architect of the legislation.

But it would avoid the mandates to states included in the House bill that the Clinton Administration, Democrats in Congress and some governors have denounced as “cruel to children.”

“It’s going to give the states as much flexibility as I have the votes to give them,” said Packwood, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. “If the Congress is going to talk about flexibility, then we just don’t substitute conservative mandates for liberal mandates.”

Meeting with reporters in his office, Packwood provided the fullest account to date of his committee’s plans for welfare reform and the clearest indication that the Senate will not set mandates on the states like those in the House plan, which was approved earlier this year.

The committee will cast the first votes on the plan next week, and the measure will go to the Senate floor soon after members return from Memorial Day recess, Packwood said.

Once approved, the Senate and House versions will go to a conference committee charged with reconciling the two.

The Finance Committee plan, while viewed as the most likely to emerge from the Senate, is not the only proposal being advanced in that chamber.

Sen. Lauch Faircloth (R-N.C.) has introduced a competing Republican bill. On the Democratic side, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), the Senate’s longtime expert on welfare reform and the ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee, and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) both intend to introduce competing plans that would retain welfare as a federal program.

Packwood told reporters he could see no justification for leaving the federal government in charge.

Instead of guaranteeing funding for every eligible family nationwide, as the current program does, both the Senate and House versions of welfare reform would provide lump sum block grants to states, giving them the flexibility to craft their own programs for moving people from welfare to work and to determine benefit levels.

While advocates of other welfare plans have promised glowing results, Packwood struck a modest tone.

“Can I guarantee the states will be successful? No. Some will. Some won’t,” Packwood said. “Can you guarantee that the federal program is unsuccessful? Yes.”

He also conceded that some states could opt to have no welfare system at all.

The state official who has had the most influence on the Senate’s proposal, however, said he has higher hopes for the reforms. “I think you’re going to see more people working,” said Gerald Miller, who is director of social services in the administration of Michigan Gov. John Engler, an influential Republican in the area of welfare reform.

“I think you’re going to see reductions in out-of-wedlock births,” Miller said. “I think you’re going to see lower caseloads. And more importantly, you’re going to see more children move out of poverty.”

Packwood did not disclose the specific elements of his plan, although he estimated it would save $30 billion over five years--about the same amount, he said, as the comparable portion of the much broader House plan. The complete House package, which revises most child-care programs and food stamp and other nutrition programs, is estimated to save $66 billion over five years.

Among the most controversial provisions of the House plan are requirements that states deny cash benefits to mothers under 18, cap checks to families on welfare even if they have additional babies and withhold federal assistance from legal immigrants.

Many Republicans in the House and some in the Senate believe that cutting teen-agers out of the program and capping family benefits are essential to reversing the high rate of out-of-wedlock births, which they regard as a cause of many of society’s ills.

The Finance Committee plan would give states the option to adopt those provisions, Packwood said.

Faircloth’s measure is closer to the House version, requiring an end to cash assistance for unmarried mothers under 21 and capping benefits for families on welfare.

In an interview, Faircloth said the Packwood plan distresses him because it does not go far enough. “The people of this country voted for welfare reform, and we’re watering it down to much,” he said.

Packwood, however, said he expects all Republicans will vote for his measure, realizing that to vote against it would be to endorse the status quo.

Packwood said that conversations with White House Chief of Staff Leon E. Panetta and Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala had influenced his thinking on welfare reform. He expressed confidence that Clinton will sign the legislation that eventually emerges from Congress.

“I think at the end there will be a bill that he will be very hesitant to veto,” Packwood said.