Major Advance in Welfare Reform Is Backed by House

The House on Thursday approved a comprehensive overhaul of the nation’s welfare programs, voting to transfer primary responsibility for administering the system to the states and to begin moving able-bodied recipients into the work force.

Under the Republican legislation, cash assistance would be limited to a lifetime total of five years, and states would be given broad flexibility to design their own programs for helping participants make the transition from welfare to work.

House members approved the measure by a vote of 256 to 170, with 30 Democrats joining all but four Republicans in voting aye. A similar bill is expected to win Senate approval next week, and Clinton administration officials say the legislation appears less likely to provoke a presidential veto than previous GOP reform plans.

If signed into law, the GOP welfare overhaul probably would represent the central legislative accomplishment of the Republican-controlled 104th Congress.

“This is not an exercise in politics--this is a rescue mission,” said Rep. E. Clay Shaw Jr. (R-Fla.), the House bill’s chief author. “People in inner cities all across this country [are] paid to do nothing with their lives, paid not to work, paid to have children outside of marriage.”

The House measure would save Washington $60 billion over six years, largely by cutting food-stamp benefits and denying most federal assistance to legal immigrants until they become citizens.

Those two provisions remain potential sticking points for President Clinton, who says the bill cuts too deeply into the food-stamp program and argues that legal immigrants should remain eligible for welfare benefits. Clinton has also objected to the bill’s failure to provide an adequate safety net for children whose parents are cut off welfare.

Nonetheless, “the president remains optimistic that when it comes to welfare reform, we’re talking signature, not veto,” White House spokesman Mike McCurry said after the House passed the bill.

The Senate is expected to cast a final vote Tuesday on its version of welfare reform. A House-Senate conference committee would then try to reconcile the differences between the two versions.

Although problems could arise, lawmakers of both parties and administration officials say they expect Congress will produce a final bill in short order, and Clinton is likely to sign it.

The GOP legislation would make significant changes in the network of social support programs conceived during the New Deal era and expanded during the Great Society period:

* Most able-bodied welfare recipients would be required to go to work within two years of applying for benefits.

* States would be forbidden from increasing benefits checks when families on welfare have additional children, unless their legislatures specifically pass laws to do so.

* Eligibility for the Supplemental Security Income program for children would be restricted.

* A nationwide network would be established to track custodial parents who are delinquent in child support, and states would be prodded to determine paternity.

* Most legal immigrants would become ineligible for many federal benefits, including Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income, and cash welfare assistance.

Democrats were particularly concerned about the deep cuts in assistance to legal immigrants, who currently become eligible for federal benefits after they have been in the country for a few years. Under the GOP plan, they would be barred from receiving benefits ranging from food stamps to Medicaid.

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) said the immigrant cuts “will have a devastating effect on California.” The state is expected to bear more than 20% of the impact of the reductions, he said.

Republicans offered no apologies. “Those we welcome to our country as guests should not abuse the hospitality of hard-working Americans,” said Rep. Phil English (R-Pa.).

Last year, Clinton vetoed a tougher version of welfare reform. This time, however, the administration was pleased with several changes made before the bill reached the House floor.

Among other things, Republicans scaled back planned cuts in the earned income tax credit for the poor and restored Medicaid coverage for families cut off welfare and children born to mothers already on welfare.

At the same time, House Republicans may have complicated the measure’s prospects by making last-minute changes that toughened provisions in two key areas where Clinton had asked for moderation.

First, they altered the provision governing Medicaid benefits to make virtually all legal immigrants ineligible for health benefits. According to an estimate by the Congressional Budget Office, about 1.3 million legal immigrants, many of them children, would lose their Medicaid eligibility by 2002 under the Republican plan.

In addition, the only amendment allowed to be introduced on the floor further restricted food-stamp eligibility for able-bodied adults age 18-50 who have no dependent children. Under the amendment, which passed 239 to 184, they would be limited to three months of food stamps in their adult lives unless they work at least 20 hours a week.

Nearly 1 million unemployed workers a month would lose assistance as a result, said Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman.

The bill, he said, “would cause serious hardship among individuals who have been working and paying taxes for years, but who then lose their jobs and need temporary aid while they look for a new job.”

House Budget Chairman John R. Kasich (R-Ohio) defended the amendment, arguing that it follows the basic GOP philosophy of requiring able-bodied people to work for their benefits.

Before approving the Republican package, the House, by 168-258, rejected an alternative proposal sponsored by Democrats and some moderate Republicans.

The Democratic measure, like the GOP bill, would have ended the federal guarantee of cash assistance to all Americans who satisfy eligibility requirements, substituting lump-sum block grants to the states, but would have softened the blow somewhat.

It would have required states with time limits of less than five years to provide vouchers for in-kind assistance to help children whose parents are cut off welfare. It would have given states with five-year time limits the option to use federal funds for vouchers. Those provisions were strongly supported by the president.

Throughout the emotional debate, Democrats characterized the GOP measure as too tough on poor children, arguing that it does not provide adequate safeguards to protect them if their parents are thrown off the welfare rolls.