THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 17, 1995 TAG: 9502170547
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY GREG SCHNEIDER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines
Moments after the House of Delegates passed a welfare reform package already approved by the state Senate, Gov. George F. Allen promised Thursday to veto what he called the ``cynical, expensive, business-as-usual welfare bill.''
The Republican governor thereby drove a spike through the last remaining element of his own legislative agenda; Democrats had already obliterated tax and budget cuts and scaled back money Allen requested for new prisons.
What the Democrats came up with on welfare reform is unacceptable, Allen said, because it costs too much and gives recipients too many ways out of having to work for their benefits.
Allen has seven days 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 G. 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, predetermined strategy of obstructionism'' and its ``lockstep 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. Donald S. Beyer Jr. said the governor's rhetoric would make negotiations more difficult.
Beyer, who chaired a welfare reform commission that led to incremental legislation last year, added that Allen 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. Those elements include requirements that, in most cases, a minor live with a parent to receive aid; unwed mothers identify the father of their babies; and families get a one-time cash payment in an emergency instead of going onto welfare.
Most important, the Democratic 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 can never 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 slated 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 led 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 face-off goes unsolved and Allen exercises his veto - much as he did last year when unhappy with loopholes in a long-sought bill requiring juvenile girls to tell their parents before getting an abortion - Virginia will be left with a 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.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Gov. Allen called the package a ``cynical, expensive,
business-as-usual welfare bill.'' Democrats - and Allen - say
they're willing to work for a compromise. But the party rhetoric
continues.
KEYWORDS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY by CNB