House Takes Up Welfare Reform Bill

The House opened debate Wednesday on comprehensive welfare reform legislation that would put in place the most substantial change in domestic policy wrought by the Clinton administration and the Republican Congress.

The measure, which appears bound for passage in both the House and Senate, represents the culmination of an intense, 3 1/2-year political struggle over a new social welfare compact designed to connect poor parents to the work force rather than provide them with a constant source of subsistence-level cash support.

Clinton vetoed the GOP-controlled Congress’ first version of welfare reform last year, and congressional efforts to revisit the issue this year seemed destined for another veto as recently as a week ago.

But the prospect of enactment has been enhanced recently. Congressional Republicans, who realized that they needed a major accomplishment before this fall’s election, pressed their leaders to strike the portion of the bill that Clinton found most objectionable: an overhaul of the Medicaid health program for the poor.

Although Clinton still opposes some parts of the package, congressional leaders and senior administration officials said he is almost sure to sign what Congress produces.

Under the GOP congressional packages, which are expected to face votes in the House today and in the Senate as early as Friday, the 60-year-old federal guarantee of cash assistance to poor families with children would be canceled. States would be given the authority to design their own programs for nudging welfare recipients into jobs.

At a minimum, recipients would be required to take jobs within two years of applying for welfare and be limited to five years of cash benefits in a lifetime.

The package would save about $60 billion over six years--largely from cuts in the food stamp program and by making most noncitizens ineligible for most federal benefits.

Rep. John R. Kasich (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Budget Committee, opened the House debate Wednesday evening by saying that the reform plan is based on the Judeo-Christian ethic that people should help those in need but should not make them dependent on that help.

“It’s a sin to continue to help people who need to learn to help themselves,” Kasich said.

But some Democrats countered that while the measure may help the political prospects of some members of Congress, it will do so at the expense of poor children and legal immigrants.

“What you’re going to have is more desperate families out there,” said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles). “This is not welfare reform. This is welfare bashing. Welfare reform has become the political football in this election year.”

After making encouraging sounds for days, the White House hardened its position somewhat Wednesday, warning that the president would veto a bill that falls short of his expectations.

“We have already vetoed two welfare bills, and, if the past is any indication, we will veto this bill if it doesn’t measure up,” said Rahm Emanuel, a senior White House aide with responsibility for welfare issues.

In a letter from the White House Office of Management and Budget, the administration specifically called on Congress to modify provisions that would cut the food stamp program, deny most federal benefits to most legal immigrants and prohibit states from using federal money to provide vouchers to help families who are cut off welfare after five years but have no income.

But other senior administration officials stressed that the White House has drawn no lines in the sand and is likely to accept the bill--indicating that the heightened rhetoric primarily is intended to improve the administration’s bargaining position as it attempts to soften the Republican measure.

The White House, Congress and the nation’s governors have all played a role in shaping the new welfare system. The basic structure more closely reflects a GOP vision than Clinton’s proposals, but the Republicans have compromised on many provisions to move toward a consensus.

Clinton made welfare reform a high priority in his 1992 campaign, and his administration devised its plan for reforming welfare during its first two years in office.

The administration plan, which focused only on the youngest welfare recipients, would have required participants to work after two years on the rolls but would have provided public sector jobs for parents who could not find private sector work.

But after the Republicans took control of the House and Senate in 1995, Congress took the lead on welfare reform, and Republicans pressed to shrink the federal role in the program and transfer most of the authority to the states.

Clinton vetoed the first version of welfare reform, saying that it was, among other things, too harsh on disabled children and did not provide enough money for child care for children whose parents are forced to go to work under welfare reform.

At the same time the administration pursued a parallel strategy, working with states to reform their own systems and then allowing them to make the changes by granting them waivers from federal requirements. So far, 28 states have received permission either to require recipients to work or to limit the amount of time their recipients can collect cash assistance.

At the urging of the nation’s governors, Congress took up the issue again this year but attached a plan to reform Medicaid, which Clinton opposed and said would force him to veto the whole package.

Because of the promised veto, the effort appeared doomed until a group of House Republicans--who did not want to face voters again without delivering a welfare reform package--persuaded 100 of their colleagues to sign a letter urging their leaders to drop the Medicaid portion of the bill.

“There has been a lot of work on welfare during the last two congresses,” said Rep. David Camp (R-Mich.), one of the leaders of the drive. “To let this opportunity go by would be wrong.”

Camp conceded that in the end, passing welfare could work to Clinton’s advantage.

“He’s very good at claiming credit and will probably do that, but we’ll be able to claim some credit too,” Camp said.