Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 13, 1995 TAG: 9501130114
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LOS ANGELES TIMES
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The revised plan is a significant shift from the welfare reform proposal in House Republicans' ``Contract With America,'' which prescribed tough new restrictions on benefits but left control in the hands of Washington officials.
The new blueprint, for the most extensive restructuring of the federal safety net for poor families since the modern welfare system was created in the 1960s, would strip many welfare programs of their protected status as federal ``entitlements'' and let states tailor them to their own needs.
``We want the American people to know we are going to be tough,'' said House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Archer, R-Texas, whose panel has jurisdiction over welfare.
``We are totally revolutionizing the whole welfare system in this country,'' added Rep. Clay Shaw, R-Fla., who was involved in crafting the proposal.
In an unexpected parting of the ways with House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., the principal architects of the GOP welfare plan said their initiative calls for denying benefits to legal immigrants. Gingrich has expressed personal reservations about that provision and many lawmakers expected it would be dropped. Gingrich did not comment on the plan Thursday.
The GOP initiative would require states to limit most welfare recipients to two years of benefits and deny cash assistance to minor mothers and their children and to families in which the father has not been identified.
States would be forbidden from increasing benefits to families on welfare when they have additional children. Beyond those guidelines, states would be given the flexibility to design their own programs, deciding who is eligible, how much assistance they should receive and in what form.
States could impose even stricter rules than the federal government, under the plan, for example, by limiting assistance to less than two years.
``There are going to be people who are going to be hurt. We know that,'' Shaw said. But the pain is necessary, he said, to change a system that has fostered a class of Americans who are mired in poverty and dependent on taxpayers.
Under the proposal a myriad of specific federal programs, including many child care, nutrition and child welfare programs - some now designated for particular minority groups - would be abolished. Funding for the existing programs would be combined, reduced and given to states.
The administration and congressional Democrats argued that forcing states to deny benefits to some families and to remove others after two years without guaranteeing them jobs could result in millions of destitute children.
The shift from the federally run program outlined in the GOP's campaign contract to the turn-it-over-to-the-states approach in the plan announced Thursday resulted from heavy lobbying by governors as well as the perception among Republicans who worked on the plan that the Nov. 8 election proved Americans are tired of big government in Washington.
Some Republican governors who have been negotiating with their allies in Congress to replace the federal welfare system with block grants to states were cautiously optimistic about the House plan, which is likely to set the agenda for the debate in Congress on welfare.
``It's an excellent starting point for negotiations,'' said Michigan Gov. John Engler. He added, however, that ``conservative micromanagement is only slightly better than liberal micromanagement'' and stressed that he and other governors would continue to fight to remove ``strings'' from the block grants so they can craft their programs without federal directives.
House Republicans stressed that they do not want to give states complete flexibility. They pointed out that the federal government collects the taxes that would pay for the program and that it is a federal responsibility to make sure welfare does not create dependency or encourage teen-agers to have babies.
by CNB