Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 14, 1995 TAG: 9501160059
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Get in the back seat and let the states take the wheel, Michigan Gov. John Engler told the House human resources subcommittee.
``We've tried it for 40 years with Washington in the front seat driving,'' said Engler. ``It's time to give the states a chance.''
The new Republican majority has pledged a House vote on a welfare reform bill by Easter, but the form of that bill was still in doubt Friday.
Engler and other Republican governors want Congress to dismantle hundreds of anti-poverty programs and give the money to the states in eight block grants dealing with issues such as job training, cash benefits, child care and nutrition.
The proposal goes well beyond House Republicans' ``Contract With America,'' which would consolidate food and nutrition programs and return them to the states in a lump sum, end the entitlement status of major welfare programs, and ban cash welfare to unmarried teen parents.
Rep. Clay Shaw Jr., R-Fla., the subcommittee chairman, said, ``The governors are coming from the side of pure block grants. We're going to move in their direction, but the federal program is going to be set up in such a way that it has a purpose.'' At the same time, he said, ``we're going to try to do away with those things that irritate the governors most.''
Statements by Shaw and others Friday were the first clear indication that the bill eventually voted on is likely to be a hybrid of grants to the states and provisions of the "contract" legislation.
Although welfare spending is nine times higher than it was when President Lyndon Johnson launched the ``War on Poverty'' in the mid-1960s, "the official poverty rate has remained virtually unchanged, dependency has soared, the family has collapsed, and illegitimacy has skyrocketed,'' testified Robert Rector, the welfare expert for the conservative Heritage Foundation. He has helped write GOP welfare bills.
States should have more flexibility in running welfare programs, he said, but should be prohibited from using federal money for benefits to teen mothers or increases for additional children.
A Clinton administration official cautioned that national standards are needed to guarantee that states help parents get jobs and protect children.
The administration has allowed 25 states to launch their own welfare reform efforts. Many of them do not include time limits, a provision nearly everyone agrees is essential to reform, said Mary Jo Bane of the Department of Health and Human Services.
``We must balance the benefits of increased state flexibility with those of a national framework of requirements and performance standards,'' said Bane, who was an architect of last year's Clinton welfare plan.
Committee members of both parties are generally skeptical about turning over too much control to the states.
Republicans worry about mismanagement scandals and still want to impose on states ``tough love'' provisions to curb out-of-wedlock births. Democrats worry the poor could be hurt even more when the money runs out and Congress no longer has to give more.
Cox News Service and The Washington Post also contributed information to this report.
by CNB