Clinton Praises GOP Governor’s Welfare Model

Renewing his call for a welfare reform plan that both parties can agree on, President Clinton on Saturday praised the Republican governor of Wisconsin for engineering “one of the boldest yet attempted in America.”

Endorsing the plan as a model, Clinton pledged in his weekly radio address to help Wisconsin and the nation “make an effective transition to a new vision of welfare based on work, that protects children and does right by working people and their families.”

Clinton contrasted the Wisconsin plan with two welfare reform bills passed by the Republican-controlled Congress, both of which he vetoed. He said the bills did not combine work requirements with protections for children of welfare recipients, as the Wisconsin proposal does.

Clinton’s address, in which he pledged to grant a waiver for Wisconsin’s plan, seemed in part to be intended to preempt his GOP challenger, retiring Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, on the welfare issue. Dole is expected to make a major policy speech on welfare reform Tuesday in Wisconsin, where Gov. Tommy G. Thompson is among the potential running mates that Dole is known to be considering.

Clinton had “no trouble” giving credit to Thompson, a nationally recognized leader in welfare reform, according to White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry.

“The only way we’re going to reform welfare is to do it in a bipartisan fashion with both sides of the aisle working together,” McCurry told reporters.

Wisconsin sent its plan to Washington last week, asking the administration to grant a waiver of federal regulations that otherwise would block implementation of its innovative features, officials said.

In his address, Clinton noted that he had already signed 38 waivers in the last three years to clear away existing federal rules so that states could adopt effective welfare plans of their own.

Ironically, Thompson criticized Clinton last week for having done nothing but talk about welfare reform.

“Four years ago, Bill Clinton came to Wisconsin and promised to end welfare as we know it,” Thompson said. “It’s now 1996 and Wisconsin has ended welfare, but Bill Clinton hasn’t done a thing.”

In referring to the waivers he has signed, Clinton said “the state-based reform we’ve encouraged has brought work and responsibility back to the lives of 75% of Americans on welfare.”

About 1.3 million fewer people are on the welfare rolls now than when his administration took office in January 1993, Clinton said. “So the states can keep on sending me strong welfare reform proposals, and I’ll keep on signing them.”

However, Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Republican Conference, said it is cynical for the president “to take credit for the welfare reform efforts of Republican governors.”

Clinton, Boehner said, “has been a noncombatant in the battle for welfare reform,” citing his two vetoes of reform bills.

The president insisted that he will continue to push for his own national welfare reforms, including work requirements, support for children of recipients and incentives for teenage mothers to stay in school.

Under the Wisconsin plan, for example, “people on welfare who can work must work immediately,” he said.

“The state will see to it that the work is there--in private-sector jobs that can be subsidized if necessary, or in community service jobs if there are no private jobs available.”

Clinton said Wisconsin intends to provide child care and health care for families “so that parents can go to work without worrying about what will happen to their children.”

Maryland also has developed the kind of welfare plan he favors, he said, cracking down on welfare fraud “and on parents who turn their backs on child support.

“So I say to Congress: Send me a bill that honors these fundamental principles. I’ll sign it right away.”

Republicans focused their reply to the weekly radio address on the federal budget, saying their plan offers real reform while Clinton’s relies on gimmicks.

“Never before in the history of this nation has one generation failed to deliver a better tomorrow to the next generation,” said Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine). “But we are in very real danger of allowing that to happen today.”

She accused Clinton of using the “politics of fear” to discredit the GOP budget by accusing Republicans of drastic cuts in Medicare when, she said, they are actually increasing spending.

Meanwhile, Snowe said, Clinton defers much of the savings until the final two years of his budget plan and fails to reform Medicare so it can remain solvent.

Times wire services contributed to this story.