ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, July 17, 1996 TAG: 9607170051
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: FAJARDO, PUERTO RICO
SOURCE: The New York Times
NOTE: Lede
President Clinton said Tuesday he was taking action to require welfare recipients to go to work within two years, and he said they would lose benefits if they did not.
Clinton made the commitment in a speech broadcast by satellite to the National Governors' Association, holding its 88th annual meeting here.
He spoke minutes after Bob Dole, the apparent Republican presidential nominee, addressed the group by satellite and attacked Clinton for moving too slowly on welfare.
In Dole's speech to the governors, he said the president looked down on state governments, requiring them to ``beg for approval from Washington.''
The president said his directive embodied the central idea of the welfare measures pending before Congress: ``Anyone who can work must do so.''
He added, ``We'll say to welfare recipients: Within two years, you will be expected to go to work and earn a paycheck, not draw a welfare check.''
But Republicans at the meeting derided the move as an election-year ploy.
The president said he would direct Donna Shalala, secretary of health and human services, to issue regulations making the change.
Clinton said the new requirement would be unnecessary if Congress passes a welfare bill he can sign. Legislation proposed by congressional Republicans would let states impose such a requirement and would give the states great freedom in administering welfare.
The bill calls for using federal welfare funds to give the states lump-sum payments that they could use as they wished to help the poor.
The president said the bill was better than two measures proposed earlier by Republicans, which he vetoed. But he asked Congress to ``continue to improve'' the bill.
White House aides said they hoped the order, which would impose new work requirements on about 2 million people, would give Clinton more leverage in bargaining with the Republicans in Congress over the bill.
Even if the legislation died, the aides said, the president could go into the election saying he had imposed limits on welfare, while Congress would not be able to say that.
Republican governors at the conference scoffed at Clinton.
``He could have done it three years ago,'' said Gov. Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin.
``He could have done it two years ago. He could have done it one year ago. It's now coming in at the 11th hour, four months before the election. It is not very sincere.''
Administration officials contended that the experience gained from experiments with time limits on welfare benefits in 14 states, most of them small, allowed the president to move forward now.
Thompson dismissed the idea that Clinton's move Tuesday gave him new leverage with Congress. ``He's going to sign whatever Congress sends him,'' the governor declared.
The administration's chief concerns about the legislation, which Congress is expected to consider this week and next, are that it would give states the option of using the block grants to replace guaranteed food stamp benefits and that it would bar benefits to legal immigrants, including children and the elderly.
The governors' association, in a resolution passed Tuesday, and the Clinton administration say they are unhappy with the definitions of work in the measure.
They want the bill to require 25, not 35 hours a week, to count up to 12 weeks of looking for a job as work, and adjust the payment formulas to give states some credit for people who leave welfare for work.
Until Dole resigned from the Senate, he had sought to keep changes in welfare united in one bill with proposals to change Medicaid, the health care program for the poor. Tuesday, he said he hoped there also would be action on Medicaid.
But Dole focused on welfare, criticizing Clinton for breaking a promise made to the governors' association a year ago to approve or disapprove waivers for state experiments in 30 days or less. He said: ``I hope the Congress will pass a tough welfare bill, not just any welfare bill. And I challenge the president to finally sign a welfare bill.''
Melissa Skolfield, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said the details of the new policy would be set forth in rules issued by the department. She said she thought children would be able to continue receiving cash benefits even if their parents were penalized for violating work requirements.
In such cases, she said, the benefits probably would be issued to adults other than the parents, for use on behalf of the children. The rules are likely to be challenged in court.
LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. The TV image of Bob Dole, the likely Republicanby CNBpresidential nominee, speaks to the governors Tuesday in Puerto
Rico. color.