Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, December 30, 1994 TAG: 9412300144
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Houston Chronicle
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, who released the analysis of the GOP plan, also criticized a proposal by incoming House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., to place children dropped from welfare in orphanages.
``The solution to the welfare crisis is not to send children to orphanages,'' said Shalala. ``It's to send their parents to work.''
Republicans have proposed a welfare plan that would require welfare recipients to work after two years. The plan also would deny benefits to single mothers under 18 and their children, as well as to legal immigrants and children whose paternity could not be traced.
The GOP plan also would end welfare for any family that had received benefits for five years.
Using 1993 data, the administration said these restrictions would result in the loss of benefits to 5 million children. There are 9.7 million children receiving welfare benefits.
The administration's findings are similar to an analysis released earlier this year by the Center on Budget Priorities, a Washington think tank.
To help states defray the cost of taking care of children who are denied benefits, the GOP proposal would give states grants to set up alternatives to welfare, such as orphanages or foster care. According to the administration analysis, the $293 million in grants returned to the states would provide money to house 8,029 children in orphanages or place 61,000 in foster care.
According to one estimate, orphanages cost $36,500 annually for one child and foster care costs $4,800 a year. Administration officials say one child now receives about $1,000 a year under the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program.
Rep. Bill Archer, R-Texas, incoming chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said Shalala was using ``scare numbers that bear no resemblance to the realities of our proposal.''
Archer called the $1,000 figure ``misleading'' and said families actually receive about $12,000 a year in benefits when other programs, such as food stamps, are factored in.
The administration's assessment does not take into account a host of other federal benefits, such as housing subsidies, food stamps, early childhood education and health care, that many of the children also receive.
The GOP plan would not halt these other social welfare programs but would consolidate them into block grants to the states and place annual limits on expenditures.
Archer defended the GOP proposals as the kind of bold measures voters have demanded to address such problems as the number of teen mothers on welfare.
``Children on welfare who have babies on welfare, expecting taxpayers to pick up the tab, represent a fast track to poverty,'' Archer said. ``This self-destructive behavior is wrong and must be stopped for the sake of this generation's children and for children of all our next generations.''
A House Ways and Means subcommittee is expected to begin hearings on the welfare plan the second week of January.
The administration's latest assault coincided with the airing of the 1938 movie ``Boys Town,'' which Gingrich has praised as a positive depiction of orphanages. Gingrich taped an introduction and commentary for the movie, which was broadcast Thursday on cable network TNT.
Earlier this month, Gingrich told Clinton administration officials and Hillary Rodham Clinton that criticism of orphanages was unfounded and they should watch ``Boys Town'' to get a more favorable view of the institution.
But in his introductory comments on TNT, Gingrich called ``Boys Town'' ``a fun movie. I think you have to relax and see it, experience it as a movie before you start analyzing it for high political meaning,'' he said.
Shalala called ``Boys Town'' ``a model of a long gone era.''
``The real issue here is not whether orphanages or group homes can be loving and compassionate facilities," she said. "The issue is what actually happens to millions of real-life children who would be cut from welfare rolls, with no Father Flanagan in sight and no money to pay for the real costs of child rearing.''
by CNB