Terrorism in the Guise of ‘Reform’

Forget Paula Jones, Whitewater and the FBI files. The character issue for Bill Clinton boils down to one question: Will he veto the welfare “reform” bill that Congress is about to send him? This is where we find out what he’s made of.

Clinton knows the nuances of the welfare debate as well as anyone, and he knows this bill is a disaster in the making. It has nothing to do with serious reform of welfare and everything to do with a random brutal assault on the poor, most of whom are children. There are 9 million kids sitting in a boat called AFDC, the federal guarantee of subsistence income for families with dependent children, and Congress has launched a torpedo aimed at scoring a hit below the waterline.

Sink or swim, Congress has ordered, with a callous indifference to the fate of innocent children that would make an ordinary terrorist proud. Maybe state governments will pick up the survivors, but not too many. Congress will redirect some money to states, but funding for the poor, including food stamps, will be cut by $60 billion over the next five years.

The rationale is that states will have more freedom to experiment with ending welfare “dependency.” Clinton tried to do that for a decade in Arkansas and he knows that to have any real success in getting people off the rolls and into jobs requires spending more, not less, money in the near future. Even the Wisconsin plan, which Bob Dole touts, involves greater initial outlays. Will Clinton now forget everything he has said about the need for job training, child care and income supplements to help welfare mothers manage this difficult transition?

Or will he suddenly embrace the vicious shock therapy approach of the Gingrich revolution? Just pull the safety net out from under those welfare mothers, Gingrich has argued, and they’ll find jobs fast enough. Even in inner cities where there are no jobs?

The bill’s sponsors are obsessed with the notion that habits of welfare mothers are at the root of poverty. Forget salvaging neighborhoods and the men in them or improving schools or creating jobs or dealing with the legacy of racism; it’s all the welfare mothers’ fault. They have grown soft and “dependent” on a monthly welfare check equal to what a congressional lobbyist might blow on lunch.

This from a congressional leadership that increased the dependency of defense contractors on the federal trough this year by an amount equal to two-thirds of the entire budget for Aid to Families With Dependent Children. Too cowardly to move against any other federal entitlement, Congress found welfare mothers to be the target of opportunity. Too mean-spirited to think straight, they ignore their own slogan of states’ rights and require the states to set time limits, after which a welfare mother and her children will be ineligible for further assistance.

Clinton has said it is unconscionable to set time limits if the government will not also guarantee jobs to those who cannot find them. How can he now sign into law legislation that would not even allow survival support for children in families no longer eligible for welfare?

The Senate rejected an amendment to allow states to issue vouchers to buy diapers, school supplies, clothing and medicine for the millions of children expected to be forced off welfare. What is to become of them? Can Clinton go along with depriving them of the necessities of life because their mothers can’t or won’t hold a job? Or will they be stripped from their mothers and placed in one of the orphanages that Gingrich finds attractive?

And what about legal immigrants, mostly political refugees, who would immediately be denied all benefits, including medical, if Clinton signs this bill into law? Have they suddenly done something to make them undeserving? No, as Clinton has pointed out, they are merely a convenient punching bag in this mean political season. Will the president now also pile on?

If he does, it will be his undoing. Maybe not in this election, since the full effect of these changes will not be felt for a few years. But a cynical surrender now that signs away the limited security of one in five children in this country will ultimately destroy the meaning of his presidency.

Welfare reform is not the issue. Clinton already has signed off on reform experiments proposed by 40 states. Every Washington pundit knows that this bill was pushed through Congress by the Republican leadership simply to score points in the election. Now is the time for Clinton to put to rest the character issue by refusing to play that dirty game.

Robert Scheer is a Times contributing editor. He can be reached via e-mail at <rscheer@aol.com>.