A Sword Over the Disabled

When President Clinton signed the welfare reform bill last August, he did so knowing he was putting at risk about 500,000 elderly and disabled legal immigrants and he vowed to ease the new law’s harshest aspects after the presidential election. Now, however, many of these people are being notified that their aid may be cut by Aug. 1, and they rightly are fearful. Congress should help stem their panic by delaying the implementation of the welfare reform law until the problem is resolved.

Several proposals have already been put forward to save the benefits of those who would be unfairly harmed. A short delay in implementing the cuts would allow time to study the proposals and decide on a proper solution.

Consider, for instance, the man of Armenian origin who had fled from Iran at age 87. He entered the United States in 1990 and has lived in Los Angeles County since. As a political refugee, he needed no relative or other sponsor here, and he had none; come next August, he may lose his Supplemental Security Income, the only income he has.

The unfairness in this case and others like it has not gone unnoticed in Washington. As part of his budget request, President Clinton wants to restore Supplemental Security Income benefits and Medicaid for those legal immigrants who are permanently disabled. Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) and Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Ill.) have introduced a bill to restore certain benefits cut in last year’s reform legislation. Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and John H. Chafee (R-R.I.), with ample bipartisan support, have introduced a bill that would ensure that no current recipient of SSI and food stamps would lose them without a good reason; the measure would exclude future legal permanent residents from receiving benefits even if they became disabled or too old to work.

Judging by these proposals, it seems that both Clinton and Congress now realize that somewhere along the way the intention of the welfare bill was distorted. The central idea was to shift able-bodied people from welfare to work. It was never to punish those who need assistance to pay for such basic necessities as food, shelter and medical care.

Now that it is clear that many elderly and blind people who are unable to work will be hurt by the new law, those who wrote, passed or signed it have an obligation to fix it. And that they should do.