GOP Finishes Up Welfare Package : Reform: Compromise measure would give states control over safety net for the poor. House vote is expected today.

Breaking three months of intraparty gridlock over the details of their sweeping plan to reform the welfare system, House and Senate Republicans Wednesday reached agreement on their plan to give states control over the safety net for poor families.

The measure, which is expected to come to a vote today in the House, is likely to be vetoed by President Clinton, who has argued that the legislation is too tough on poor women and children.

In intense negotiations since late September, senators and representatives have haggled over the final version of the sweeping measure, which would make the most dramatic changes in 60 years in the welfare system, giving federal funds to the states as block grants and largely ending federal control of the system.

In recent weeks, the negotiations were deadlocked because two Republican senators--Richard G. Lugar of Indiana and James M. Jeffords of Vermont--refused to sign a final conference committee report that included a House provision that would transfer control over the school meals program from the federal government to the states.

The House version of welfare reform, which passed in March, would have provided states with lump-sum block grants to run their own school meal programs. The Senate version of the legislation, which was passed in September, would have kept the school lunch program intact.

After holding out for weeks, Jeffords struck a deal with House Republicans. The compromise would allow no more than one state in each of seven regions to take over the school lunch program during a five-year test program. The seven states would be required to continue serving as many poor children as they now serve and to meet federal nutrition requirements.

The agreement is likely to pass both houses on largely partisan lines. Clinton campaigned on a pledge to “end welfare as we know it” but has expressed dissatisfaction with the current legislation, contending that it fails to provide an adequate safety net for poor women and children.

“The last version I saw of that bill, I don’t believe I could approve it,” Clinton said in an interview with The Times. “I don’t want to sign a bill that is going to punish children or punish women who are on welfare because they never had an education and because many of them--almost half of them--have been violently abused and have to put their lives back together.”

“We don’t need to go out there and place a huge burden on poor women and little children,” Clinton added. “We need to try to change the circumstances so that we can move more of those folks into a successful and independent life.”

The compromise measure is more generous than the original House plan, which Clinton said he would veto, but tougher in some provisions than the Senate plan, which the president signaled he could support after it passed on a bipartisan, 87-12 vote.

Many Senate Democrats who embraced the Senate’s version of welfare reform now are saying that they will vote against the compromise version.

The legislation would cancel the guarantee of Medicaid health care coverage for all recipients of cash welfare, a provision that Clinton opposes and that he has said is non-negotiable.

Six moderate Republican senators, including Jeffords, wrote a letter to Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) Wednesday saying that they have “strong reservations” about the House-Senate compromise.

They said that they oppose provisions that make the plan harsher than the Senate plan, which include:

* Canceling the guarantee that all recipients of cash welfare qualify for Medicaid health care coverage.

* Reducing by $1.4 billion the funding available for child care.

* Denying 320,000 more disabled children supplemental security income.

* Cutting funding for some child welfare programs.

They also expressed concern about denying most benefits to legal immigrants, including school meals for immigrant children.

But while Clinton and Senate moderates expressed concerns, House Republicans were jubilant.

“It’s a Christmas present for those millions of people in the country trapped in a welfare system that has kept them living in poverty,” said Rep. E. Clay Shaw Jr. (R-Fla.), the chief architect of the House plan. “I just hope the president is not sending me a bag of coal in the form of a veto.”

The GOP plan would cancel the federal guarantee that all eligible poor families receive cash benefits. It would give states block grants to design their own programs to move parents from welfare to work.