Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 17, 1995 TAG: 9502180042
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG SCHNEIDER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
The Republican governor thereby drove a spike through the last remaining element of his own legislative agenda; Democrats already had obliterated tax and budget cuts and scaled back money Allen requested for new prisons.
What the Democrats came up with on welfare reform was unacceptable, Allen said, because it cost too much and gave recipients too many ways out of having to work for their benefits.
Allen has seven days under state law to sign or veto the measure. Democrats said they are willing to search for compromise. "I will sit down with the governor at any hour of the day or night," said Del. David Brickley of Woodbridge, who sponsored the Democrats' plan in the House.
Allen, too, said he would like to find a solution. ``I am prepared not only to share but to cede the `credit' to any Democrat who will rise above partisanship and join me in the pursuit of genuine, fundamental change in our current welfare system,'' he said in a news release.
At the same time, though, Allen referred to the "intransigent" majority party, its "calculated, pre-determined strategy of obstructionism" and its "lock-step march ... in defense of the failed status quo."
And when Brickley learned of Allen's threatened veto shortly after his bill won a party-line, 52-48 vote, he was incensed. "I think this is just sour grapes and poor statesmanship," Brickley said. "I think he is more interested in politics than welfare reform. I think it's a shame and it's going to be a complete discredit to this commonwealth if we can't have welfare reform."
Later, at a news conference, Democratic Lt. Gov. Don Beyer said the governor's rhetoric would make negotiations more difficult.
Beyer, who was chairman of a welfare reform commission that led to incremental legislation last year, added that Allen so far has been unwilling to bend.
"You've seen all of the movement come from the Democratic side," he said.
Both Democratic and Republican proposals share a bottom line: that Virginia's 74,000 welfare recipients face a two-year cap on aid and that most be required to work for their benefits.
The bill passed Wednesday by the Senate and Thursday by the House borrowed several elements favored by Republicans, including requirements that, in most cases, a minor has to live with a parent to receive aid; unwed mothers have to identify the fathers of their babies; and families could get a one-time cash payment in time of emergency instead of going onto welfare.
Most important, the Democrats' plan absorbed the Republican concept that the program should be implemented statewide, instead of through incremental pilot programs.
Three key differences remain, though, that Republicans say never can be accepted:
The Democratic plan costs more, though the costs or savings of both plans have been subject to wildly varying estimates. The big difference is that Democrats want to hire more social workers to reduce individual caseloads from current levels of 100 or more clients each to 46 clients each.
The Democratic plan has a series of loopholes that allow recipients to stay on welfare if they can't find jobs.
While scheduled to go statewide by 1999, the Democratic plan would have to be funded and re-enacted by the legislature in two years.
If those elements could be changed, "then I'd say we'd be well on the way to a bill that everyone could live with," said Del. Robert McDonnell, R-Virginia Beach, who has spearheaded the governor's efforts in the House.
While Beyer said that "nothing is not negotiable," he and other Democrats insisted that the loopholes, caseloads and phase-in elements are essential.
If the standoff goes unresolved and Allen exercises his veto Virginia will be left with the modest reform plan passed in 1994.
That plan involves pilot projects and phases in 3,000 recipients a year.
"I'm never willing to close the door on this," McDonnell said. "It's clear that everybody wants reform; the only question is what's the best policy and who gets credit. And I really mean it when I say I don't care so much who gets credit as long as we get meaningful reform."
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GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1995
by CNB