Clinton Accepts Broad Welfare Changes as ‘Last Best Chance’

WASHINGTON —  Calling the latest version of welfare reform legislation the “last best chance to fundamentally change the system,” President Clinton said Wednesday that he will sign the landmark measure that sets in motion the biggest change in cash benefits for poor families in six decades.

Hours later, the House voted, 328 to 101, to approve the bill, which will limit payments to five years and give states broad flexibility to create programs designed to move recipients from welfare to work.

“Today we have a historic responsibility to make welfare what it was meant to be--a second chance, not a way of life,” Clinton told a news conference.

Although the Senate will not vote on the package until today, the president’s decision ended the suspense over the legislation’s fate.

The action climaxes an intense 3 1/2-year struggle over the shape of the safety net for America’s poor families, most of them headed by single mothers.

The legislation would give states a year to implement their new programs or risk reductions in federal assistance. Legal immigrants who currently receive benefits would have a year’s grace period before they become ineligible.

“July 31 has got to go down as independence day for those who have been trapped in a system . . . which has corrupted their souls and stolen their futures,” said Rep. E. Clay Shaw Jr. (R-Fla.), the primary author of the GOP welfare overhaul.

The legislation would:

* Require welfare recipients to work within two years of applying for benefits.

* Eliminate eligibility for Supplemental Security Income, food stamps and most other federal benefits for most legal immigrants until they are citizens. States have authority to choose whether legal immigrants are eligible for Medicaid.

* Set a tough work requirement for food stamp eligibility for able-bodied adults between the ages of 18 and 50 with no dependent children. Such individuals would be eligible for only three months of food stamps in any three-year period unless they work at least 20 hours a week. Individuals who are laid off after exhausting their three-month allotment could get an additional three months while they are searching for jobs.

* Require teen mothers to live with a parent or other adult and attend school to receive welfare benefits.

* Improve child-support enforcement by requiring that states develop automated systems for tracking noncustodial parents.

The White House, Congress and the nation’s leading governors all played a role in developing the new welfare framework, which attempts to break the culture of dependency by requiring recipients to work instead of providing them an open-ended source of subsistence-level support.

Clinton vetoed the first two versions of welfare reform that the Republican Congress sent him and had expressed reservations about the current package. His advisors were deeply divided, with some warning that the bill was too harsh and should be vetoed and others arguing that his signature was a political imperative as he seeks reelection.

The final plan more closely reflects a Republican vision than Clinton’s proposals, but the Republicans have compromised on many provisions to win his support.

After pledging to “end welfare as we know it” in his 1992 election campaign, Clinton was under great pressure not to cast another veto before facing voters again.

His Republican challenger, Bob Dole, called Clinton’s announcement “an election-year conversion.”

“While I cannot applaud the rationale behind the president’s swiftly changing positions, I commend him for finally climbing on board the Dole welfare proposal,” the Republican candidate, who was Senate majority leader when Clinton vetoed the other two measures, said in a statement.

Despite Clinton’s endorsement, House Democrats split down the middle on the measure, voting 98 to 98. House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri voted no, and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota announced that he would vote against the measure.

All but four of the 26 House Democrats from California voted against the measure, in large part because they believe that California will be unfairly hurt by provisions that deny most federal benefits to most legal immigrants.

The overall measure is estimated to save $55 billion over six years, with most of the savings coming in food stamps and benefits to legal immigrants.

Clinton criticized as “deeply disturbing” both the legal-immigrant and food stamp provisions. He said he plans to introduce legislation next year to try to correct those parts of the bill, but members of Congress were skeptical that such improvements could be made.

“I wouldn’t want people back home to be under any illusions,” said Rep. Robert T. Matsui (D-Sacramento). “The atmosphere is not good to reinstate benefits for legal immigrants. And we’re talking about more than $20 billion. Where would the money come from?”

Matsui, who voted against the bill, said his greatest worry is that the states, which will now have the greatest control over the welfare system, will not provide enough protections for children of welfare recipients who are cut off.

When the measure is signed into law, the 61-year federal commitment to provide cash assistance to every eligible family with children will be canceled. States would have to require most recipients to work within two years of applying for cash assistance and cut recipients off after five years. But they would have the authority to demand that recipients work earlier and could cut them off sooner, which many states have already indicated they would do.

Some House Democrats expressed bitter disappointment with Clinton.

“Unfortunately, the president has joined the Republicans now in making the children the victims of the very system he said he wanted to reform,” said Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez).

“How can any person of conscience vote for a bill that will push a million children into poverty?” Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a civil rights pioneer, bellowed in a floor speech dripping with outrage: “This bill is mean, it is base, it is downright low-down.”

The Urban Institute, a Washington-based research center, last week estimated that more than a million more children would be pushed into poverty under the GOP welfare reform initiative. Millions more already in poverty would become more destitute, the study said.

House Democrats who voted for the bill said they, like the president, believe that the measure was greatly improved from the versions that Clinton vetoed last year. It would provide more funding for child care for children of parents who must work under the new system, include broader guarantees for health care coverage and continue benefits for hundreds of thousands of disabled children.

“Yes, we are going to take a risk to get people out of welfare and into work, but the current system is not fair to either the taxpayers or the welfare recipients, “ said Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.).

Clinton and Republican sponsors of the measure stressed that the bill, while far-reaching, was just a first step toward arresting the problems of inter-generational poverty and welfare dependence.

“All of us have to rise to this challenge and see this reform not as a chance to demonize or demean anyone but instead as an opportunity to bring everyone fully into the mainstream of American life, to give them a chance to share in the prosperity and the promise that most of our people are enjoying today,” Clinton said at his news conference.

“And we here in Washington must continue to do everything in our power to reward work and to expand opportunity for all people.”

Shaw, the bill’s primary author, stressed that Congress had a responsibility to pass future bills that improve job opportunities for people living in areas of concentrated poverty.

“We’re not through with welfare reform,” Shaw said.