ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, December 2, 1996 TAG: 9612020126
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
Sen. Don Nickles, the Senate's second-ranked Republican, ruled out fundamentally changing the new welfare law, as the White House wants. Even Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the Democrats' leading expert on welfare, reluctantly agreed Sunday it won't happen in the coming Congress.
Nickles, appearing with Moynihan on NBC's ``Meet the Press,'' also said the GOP doesn't want first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton actively involved in the welfare debate.
Clinton pledged when he signed the Republican-crafted welfare overhaul bill last August to fix aspects he said were too severe - particularly cuts in food stamp spending and benefits for legal immigrants.
The White House is now considering a plan to restore $13 billion of the projected $54.6 billion in savings from the new law of over six years. The law shifts responsibility for welfare programs to the states and sets time limits for how long people can remain on welfare rolls.
``I think Congress is going to be very cool to make those changes,'' said Nickles, R-Okla., the Senate Majority Whip. ``I think you'll see technical corrections this year. But significant reforming or undermining the welfare bill? No.''
Moynihan, asked if he believes Congress would go along with White House-proposed changes, responded, ``No. None. Whoever said that?'' The New York Democrat strongly opposed the legislation, predicting that ending welfare entitlements will significantly increase poverty in the United States.
Moynihan urged Clinton to concentrate on protecting children, who he foresaw as the first victims of a smaller social safety net.
``If the president can produce a national awakening about the condition of children and not get us into fussing about eligibility for food stamps, we may pull it off,'' Moynihan said Sunday. ``If not, why, we have a calamity, I believe.''
Clinton emphasized in his weekly radio address Saturday, ``Now that we have ended welfare as we know it, let the change not be to have even more children in more abject poverty but to move people who can work into jobs.''
On the House side, Ways and Means Chairman Bill Archer, R-Texas, said last week that House Republicans would fight ``with energy'' any attempt by Clinton to alter the new law significantly.
During the election campaign Clinton raised the prospect of Mrs. Clinton participating in welfare policy, and the first lady told Time magazine last month she plans to ``speak out about welfare reform and write about it.''
``She has suggested she would like to see what is happening on the ground out there, and that's good. I'm for it,'' Moynihan said.
But Republicans, highly critical of Mrs. Clinton's lead role in promoting the White House's failed national health care legislation in the administration's first two years, have warned that the first lady would not be welcome in the welfare debate.
``To have her be the overseer for the administration, if she's philosophically opposed to the bill and the big change that we made, I think it would be the wrong person to be in charge of the review,'' Nickles said.
He also urged the administration to take the lead on the contentious issue of returning solvency to Medicare and said he opposes the idea advanced by leaders in both parties of a bipartisan commission.
``I hope we don't pass the buck,'' he said. ``I think putting it off to a bipartisan commission to solve the problem a year from now is ridiculous.''
Moynihan, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said the key to saving Medicare is to recalculate the Consumer Price Index, which determines cost-of-living adjustments for people on Social Security and other benefit programs.
He said the government could save $1 trillion over 10 years with a one percentage point decrease in the CPI. He said nothing would get done on Medicare ``unless we have some money, and we won't have the money unless we pay attention to this issue.''
A commission studying the CPI question is to report Wednesday.
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshots) Nickles, Moynihan. color.by CNB