Bipartisanism Advances the Reform of Welfare : Senate crafts a kinder bill than the House version

The welfare reform bill approved overwhelmingly by the Senate Tuesday clearly is better than the House Republicans’ much harsher legislation. Both bills, however, certainly would do one thing: end the current version of welfare, which even the most compassionate must admit is quite different from the program for widows, mothers and children drawn up by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Both bills would require welfare recipients to go to work. Most should. Both bills would set a deadline for getting off the dole, and that’s good as long as states grant reasonable exceptions.

The two bills would shift welfare funding to block grants and give states greater freedom in the use of the money. States should be encouraged to experiment--look at the success of California’s GAIN workfare program. But states should also set high standards for assistance to poor children and hold to them.

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CHILD CARE FUNDS: The Senate passage of a revision of Aid to Families with Dependent Children was made possible by moderate Republicans and Democrats. Bipartisan compromise, a tool of good government, remains possible in the Senate. The House should take note.

The unusual Senate bipartisanship beefed up funds for child care. That’s appropriate. No preschooler should be forced to stay home alone because a parent traded a welfare check for a paycheck.

The coalition also squelched a freeze on benefits for welfare mothers who would give birth to additional children. That provision really made little sense in a nation where 60% of all pregnancies are unplanned.

Moderate Republicans and Democrats also teamed up to reject the House’s prohibition of cash welfare benefits for teen-age mothers. Certainly something needs to be done to curb out-of-wedlock births, but denying cash benefits to the children born to teen-age mothers surely would have done little except encourage abortions.

The Senate’s requirement that states spend 80% of what they spent in 1994 on welfare would fairly share responsibility between Congress and the statehouses. States currently pay about half the cost of AFDC. Letting states off the hook, as the House proposals do, would substantially reduce spending on aid and create a deficit if the need remained the same or rose. What then? Waiting lists?

The GOP dominates the current welfare debate, which is as much about who will challenge President Clinton in 1996 as it is about shrinking welfare. Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (Kan.), the GOP front-runner, must placate the party faithful while avoiding gridlock. Meanwhile, his more conservative rival, Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.), seems bruising for a battle. No presidential challenger will gain if welfare reform is delayed.

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CLINTON ON BOARD: President Clinton has indicated he can live with the Senate welfare bill. The debate, however, is not over. The battleground will probably move next to a conference committee to resolve the differences between the House and Senate, although some provisions could get tucked into the budget reconciliation bill.

Republican unity, though solid in the House, is somewhat frail in the Senate. The chasm between GOP moderates and conservatives should temper the final bill. Political hardball would stall the process, and could even prompt a presidential veto--although Clinton would be hard-pressed to veto a welfare reform bill during a reelection campaign.

The President wants welfare reform. So do Dole and House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). Let them find common ground, not only for their own benefit but for the benefit of needy children who deserve to be treated as more than political footballs.