Clinton May OK GOP Welfare Plan

President Clinton indicated Saturday that he is willing to sign the latest Republican-drafted welfare reform plan, provided it is approved by Congress without extraneous provisions affecting Medicaid, a step GOP leaders have already accepted.

In his weekly Saturday radio address, Clinton referred to new GOP reform measures, scheduled for debate in both houses of Congress this week, as “a genuine turning point” that “can be a real breakthrough.” He predicted a plan could become law “within the next month.”

The decision to embrace the GOP legislation marked an important turnabout for the president, reflecting what analysts say has been his increasing eagerness to push a welfare reform bill through Congress before the November election.

In 1992, Clinton promised to “end welfare as we know it,” but he has been unable to come to any agreement with Republicans on the matter. In the past eight months, he has vetoed two GOP-drafted welfare reform bills, partly because they would have cut other domestic programs.

Republican congressional leaders welcomed Clinton’s remarks but expressed doubts about the president’s sincerity in offering to back their approach essentially as written.

“On welfare reform, President Clinton has changed direction more times than Hurricane Bertha,” Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), chairman of the Republican Conference Committee, told reporters Saturday.

Rep. Bill Archer (R-Texas), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said he is hopeful Clinton will sign a plan but that he remains “skeptical about the president’s ultimate position” on welfare reform.

In a joint statement, Archer and Rep. E. Clay Shaw Jr. (R-Fla.), also a member of the Ways and Means panel, warned that “as Congress moves forward this week with bipartisan, tough but fair action,” they would oppose “any efforts to pass a weak welfare bill.”

Enactment of welfare reform legislation also could give the president a way out of another politically thorny issue--his agreement a few months ago to approve part of Wisconsin’s radical plan to overhaul its welfare program.

Clinton had been expected to grant a waiver this week that would allow Wisconsin to put the program into effect, although the approval would include a spate of restrictions designed to prevent its author, Republican Gov. Tommy G. Thompson, from denying Medicaid to welfare recipients.

Thompson has been mentioned as a possible running mate of Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole. Clinton endorsed the Wisconsin plan in May but has been trying to come up with a way to allow it to get started without giving Thompson too much credit.

On Friday, however, White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry raised the possibility that Wisconsin might not need specific federal approval for its plan if Congress passes legislation to revamp the entire welfare system.

“I would imagine that the president himself will want to see what the possibilities are on the federal legislation, because that would have a very direct impact on the Wisconsin case,” McCurry told reporters at a briefing. He said a decision is expected soon.

Clinton has had a difficult time politically with the welfare issue since he took office. Although Republicans have criticized him for being too liberal, he has moved far closer to the GOP position than might be expected for a Democratic president.

He has embraced the idea of a lifetime limit of five years on welfare benefits, has praised Wisconsin’s reform package and has instituted measures designed to require teenage mothers on welfare to stay in school.

But the shift has brought him political heat. Republicans have dismissed his actions as a blatant attempt to protect himself on the issue, and liberals have criticized him for abandoning Democratic principles simply to push through some form of welfare reform.

Last week, White House Chief of Staff Leon E. Panetta reportedly told Democrats in Congress at a welfare strategy meeting that Clinton was determined to sign a reform bill this year.

Clinton cited two bills Saturday that he said he could support: one introduced in the House by Reps. Michael N. Castle (R-Del.) and John Tanner (D-Tenn.), and a Senate bill by Sens. John B. Breaux (D-La.) and John H. Chafee (R-R.I.).

The House and Senate measures differ in some details but follow the same basic outline.

Republicans have said they plan to have a welfare reform bill on Clinton’s desk by the congressional recess scheduled for early August, shortly before the Democratic and Republican presidential nominating conventions.

The Republican approach, which draws on recommendations by the National Governors’ Assn., would end the federal guarantee of cash assistance for poor children. The money instead would go to states, which would write their own rules.

It also would require that every head of a family on welfare obtain work within two years or lose all cash benefits. States could stop payments to unmarried teenage parents, except for a mother younger than 18 who stays in school. Lifetime benefits would be limited to five years.

States also would be permitted to refuse to pay additional benefits for children who are born to women who are already on welfare. And states that show a drop in the number of births by unmarried women would receive more money.

Finally, noncitizens, such as legal immigrants who have not yet been naturalized, would be ineligible for most federal welfare benefits and social services during their first five years in this country. Those who receive them would be denied food stamps and Supplemental Security Income benefits.

In his address, Clinton said last week’s decision by Republican leaders to detach welfare reform from a proposal to reconstruct the Medicaid program for the poor is a sign they want to move forward, not court a certain veto.

The GOP’s previous insistence on coupling welfare reform with a bid to convert the Medicaid program into block grants largely administered by the states had been a barrier Clinton said he could not cross. Because states would be able to set their own standards, the president said, this action would “repeal Medicaid’s guarantee of quality health care for elderly Americans, poor children, pregnant women and people with disabilities.”

The president said the new GOP proposals were “good, strong bills” that “should be the basis for quick agreement” between the two parties. “I look forward,” he said, “to having a bipartisan welfare reform bill within the next month.”

He called on Republicans to “extend this same [bipartisan] spirit” to legislation involving other important domestic issues, from insurance reform to overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws. “It would be very good for America,” he said.