THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 1, 1996 TAG: 9608010626
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ROBERT PEAR, THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: 107 lines
After hours of suspense and soul-searching, President Clinton said Wednesday that he would sign a bill that reverses six decades of social welfare policy and touches the lives of tens of millions of people.
The bill emerging from Congress would affect most of the 12.8 million people on welfare and almost all of the 25.6 million people who receive food stamps. It would alter the benefits paid to more than one-fifth of U.S. families with children.
And it is expected to save $55 billion over six years as it dismantles a welfare program first created by Democrats in the New Deal.
Some of the reforms are similar to laws that already have been approved in Virginia and are to be phased in by July 1999. But the legislation Clinton endorsed Wednesday is far more sweeping and would offer states much greater control over their welfare money.
After Clinton voiced his support for the bill, the House promptly approved it by a vote of 328-101.
Democrats had waited anxiously for the president to announce his decision, perhaps the most important he has made on any domestic issue. The president's stance emboldened many Democrats to cross over and vote yes.
Clinton said the measure was ``significantly better'' than two similar bills that he vetoed in the past eight months. But at a news conference he conceded that his advisers had been deeply divided over whether he should sign it.
House Democrats were divided as well, with 98 voting for it and 98 opposing it. Despite the president's endorsement of the bill, the House Democratic leader, Richard Gephardt of Missouri, and the Democratic whip, David Bonior of Michigan, voted against the measure.
With Wednesday's action, Clinton fortifies his credentials as a ``new Democrat'' and strengthens his political position going into this fall's presidential election. But he disappointed many Democratic Party loyalists, civil rights advocates, labor union leaders and religious organizations.
Announcing his decision, Clinton said: ``I will sign this bill, first and foremost, because the current system is broken; second, because Congress has made many of the changes I sought, and third, because even though serious problems remain in the nonwelfare-reform provisions of the bill, this is the best chance we will have for a long, long time to complete the work of ending welfare as we know it, by moving people from welfare to work, demanding responsibility, and doing better by children.''
The bill would end the 61-year-old federal guarantee of cash assistance for the nation's poorest children. It would give states vast new power to run their own welfare and work programs with lump sums of federal money. It would establish a lifetime limit of five years for welfare payments to any family and would require most adults to work within two years of receiving aid.
Clinton said he would ask Congress later to modify some of the bill's provisions, including cuts in food stamp benefits and its ban on most forms of public assistance and social services for legal immigrants who have not become citizens.
Clinton said that the food stamp cuts and the restrictions on benefits for legal immigrants had ``nothing to do with welfare reform'' and were simply intended to help balance the federal budget. Republicans said that these provisions accounted for 75 percent of the $55 billion in savings projected under the bill in the next six years.
Clinton's likely opponent in this year's presidential race, Bob Dole, commended Clinton for ``finally climbing on board the Dole welfare reform proposal,'' but said the president had ``stymied every attempt to pass meaningful welfare reform'' until now.
Dole has repeatedly denounced Clinton's earlier vetoes, saying they showed that he had abandoned his 1992 campaign promise to ``end welfare as we know it.''
Welfare has been a major issue in the presidential campaign, and Republicans were ready to pounce on the president if he vetoed the new welfare bill. Republican National Committee chairman Haley Barbour said Wednesday, ``Welfare reform would never have happened without the Republican Congress.'' Barbour asserted that the president had been forced to sign the bill ``rather than risk his election.''
Among the Democrats dismayed by Clinton's decision was Rep. John Lewis of Georgia. Just before the House approved the bill, Lewis asked the chamber in anguished tones:
``Where is the compassion? Where is the sense of decency? Where is the heart of this Congress? This bill is mean. It is base. It is downright lowdown. What does it profit a great nation to conquer the world, only to lose its soul?''
But Rep. John R. Kasich, R-Ohio, chairman of the Budget Committee, summarized the case for the bill this way: ``People are not entitled to anything but opportunity. You can't be on welfare for generations.'' ILLUSTRATION: Graphics
HOW ASSISTANCE WILL CHANGE
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
VIRGINIA'S PLAN
Some of the reforms President Clinton is embracing already have
been approved in Virginia.
Virginia's plan will be phased in statewide by July 1999. Hampton
Roads cities will be brought into the plan in the spring of 1998.
A two-year limit is set for able-bodied people getting Aid to
Families with Dependent Children benefits, with a third year of
transition benefits available. During that time, able-bodied
recipients must accept a private sector, public sector or
state-subsidized job or perform community service. Unmarried mothers
under 18 must be enrolled in school. Additional benefits are denied
for having a baby while on welfare.
NOT AFFECTED: Food stamps, public housing programs or Medicaid.
KEYWORDS: WELFARE REFORM BILL by CNB