GOP Fight Over Food Keeps Welfare Reform Off Table : Congress: Intraparty squabble involves school nutrition program. One side wants states to control it, the other believes it should stay federally run.

While the budget impasse between Congress and the president is in the spotlight on Capitol Hill, another tense standoff--this one among Republicans--has stymied progress on the GOP’s high-priority welfare reform plan.

The dispute that has blocked welfare reform for a solid month has nothing to do with single mothers getting jobs. It involves a program that many people probably do not associate with welfare: federal subsidies that help feed 26 million children nutritious meals at school and another 2.5 million children at day care centers.

On one side, Rep. Bill Goodling (R-Pa.), chairman of the House Economic and Educational Opportunities Committee, insists that Washington must hand over control of the $7-billion school nutrition program to the states by giving them lump-sum block grants and authority to design their own programs.

On the other side, Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), chairman of the Agriculture Committee, which has jurisdiction over the issue in the Senate, refuses to sign off on any welfare reform measure that cancels the existing, federally run lunch and breakfast programs.

“It’s a food fight,” said Rep. E. Clay Shaw Jr. (R-Fla.), principal author of the GOP welfare package. “We’re in a war of wills now.”

The House approved its version of welfare reform in March and, after much delay, the Senate passed its measure in September. A committee of House and Senate members then blended the two versions into a measure calling for the lump-sum grants. That compromised version must be voted on again by both houses before it goes to the president.

But first, a majority of the committee, which is made up of Republicans and Democrats, must sign the finished product and supporters are one signature short. Lugar refuses to sign, as does Republican Sen. James M. Jeffords of Vermont, whose support for the legislation is even less likely because he objects to other provisions.

So far, every attempt at mediation has failed.

“I took my shot at it,” said Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), who was a leader in welfare reform in the House before being elected to the Senate last year. He was asked by Shaw to intercede. “I could not budge anybody.”

Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) called the warring parties together to negotiate a compromise but even they failed.

While some lawmakers may admire the steadfastness of Goodling and Lugar, they fear that the standoff is jeopardizing what could turn out to be the GOP’s biggest legislative trophy.

“Some of the people involved have lost sight of the greater good,” Shaw said.

Both Lugar and Goodling say they are standing on principle and cannot in good conscience acquiesce.

“There is no reason school lunches need to be part of welfare reform,” Lugar said in an interview Friday. “They were simply an add-on by those looking for more money.” By giving school lunches to the states, Congress would be destroying “a safety net that is extremely important to children,” he said.

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Goodling argues that turning school lunches over to the states and providing them with lump-sum block grants will give them more flexibility that will enable them to serve children better for less money.

His House colleagues support him but concede that he has a personal investment in the fight. He initially opposed the block grant idea but eventually embraced it. The idea remained unpopular in many quarters and Goodling took considerable heat for his position.

“Bill Goodling got all beat up” over the program, Shaw said. “He paid the price and did the right thing. Now he feels he’s being short-changed by Lugar and others in the Senate who don’t want to agree to a very substantial compromise.”

The divide is all the more aggravating to Republicans. As they watch their poll numbers sink, they are unable to use one of their favorite trump cards with the voters--welfare reform.

A New York Times/CBS News poll published this week showed that the overall approval rating of the Republican Congress had dropped to 26%--the lowest level since the GOP swept elections last year. The same poll showed that 48% of Americans believe the GOP welfare overhaul would be good for the country, while only 30% believe it would be bad.

In exasperation over the impasse, the House Ways and Means Committee is considering approaching one or two Democratic senators on the committee, to see what changes they would require to sign the legislation.

But Democrats, who oppose the school lunch changes and other provisions of the GOP welfare reforms, were cheering Lugar on.

“We never should have had school lunches as part of welfare reform,” said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.). “Welfare reform means getting people to work not taking meals from kids at school.”

For Lugar, who is running for president as a moderate Republican, the conflict has provided an unexpected boost on the campaign trail, where, he said, people have been “resoundingly supportive” of his position.

“This is not a fight that I picked but, having taken a stand, it has been overwhelmingly popular,” Lugar said. “I believe a very large percentage of Americans favor keeping the school lunch program the way it is.”