Competing Welfare Plans: Is Goodwill Too Much to Ask? : Presidential ambitions complicate the already difficult task of reform

Radical surgery is needed for Aid to Families with Dependent Children, the nation’s main welfare program. Benefits should be temporary. Parents of course should work to support their children. But welfare reform must walk a thin line, instilling incentives for adults to work but not punishing children.

Three competing proposals--by House Republicans, Senate Republicans and Senate Democrats--are under consideration and each has some merit. Common sense, tempered with compassion, should prevail. That’s unlikely, however, due to competing presidential ambitions.

Republicans and Democrats should build on common ground, such as a two-year limit after which time recipients must go to work and a five-year lifetime limit on benefits. They all agree that fathers should be identified and teen-age mothers should live with their parents. That’s a solid start. House and Senate Republicans would deny additional aid to welfare mothers who had more children. The Democrats would leave that determination up to the states; the Clinton Administration has allowed California to do just that. The new state cap on benefits will take effect in 10 months.

House Republicans would deny welfare checks to unwed teen-age mothers, who, even if living with parents or other responsible adults, need money to clothe their children and contribute to household expenses. In the Senate, Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) agrees. But the White House and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) oppose that restriction because it could result in more abortions. This disagreement must not derail welfare reform this year.

Senate Republicans led by Dole would give a lump sum grant to states to fund all AFDC cash benefits, workfare programs and child care subsidies. Governors and legislatures would then set benefits and determine how to spend that money. States need greater flexibility from the federal bureaucracy, but President Clinton wisely insists on a minimum level of protection for poor children.

Dole’s bill would mean that poor families who qualified would no longer automatically get help. If they applied once the state reached its limit, they would be shut out. That’s neither fair nor smart. Denying eligible families at the onset of a crisis such as a job loss, a divorce or the death of a spouse would increase homelessness and other social problems. Senate Democrats would continue to allow poor families to receive help automatically as long as recipients followed the rules, got training and were willing to work.

Welfare spending must have limits. Senate and House Republicans would freeze welfare spending at 1994 levels. That strategy could provide a windfall for states that lose population. A freeze, however, would hurt states like California, which is not only gaining in population but has lost jobs in a lingering recession. In Los Angeles, layoffs by the county and private employers could inflate welfare rolls.

California could take an even harder hit if Senate and House Republicans succeed in denying AFDC to legal immigrants. The state can’t control who enters the United States. Furthermore, legal immigrants have played by the rules. Those who fall on hard times deserve temporary help.

Young parents need child care if they are required to go to work or school. The House GOP bill would provide a separate subsidy. Senate Democrats would increase the existing subsidy because more parents would be required to leave home. Either of those proposals could work. Dole’s bill, on the other hand, is weak on child care. He would leave that determination to the states, and that could spell trouble because some states would wrongly treat child care as a mere frill instead of the key to a plan allowing mothers to work outside the home.

Workfare programs, such as California’s successful GAIN, also merit a separate subsidy.

The Dole bill is likely to prevail in the Senate. It’s an effort at compromise, but it needs to specifically address child care and job training. Whatever finally emerges from Congress should improve on the current system, a humanitarian legacy of the New Deal that clearly has some excesses that need correcting. But in reforming welfare, the well-worn caution not to throw the baby out with the bathwater has never been more apt.

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3 Approaches

Comparison of the welfare plans in Congress *

House

AFDC: Turns AFDC into state block grant, which is capped.

FAMILY CAP: Mandates states to denyaid for additional children born on welfare.

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Senate / GOP

AFDC: Turns AFDC into state block grant, which is capped.

FAMILY CAP: States have option to deny payments.

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Senate / Dems.

AFDC: Maintains AFDC as individual entitlement.

FAMILY CAP: No provision. Administration willing to let states decide.

Source: Office of Sen. Bob Dole, Health and Human Services Department