May 3, 2002 4 min read

WASHINGTON (AP) – Influential senators staked out a middle ground Thursday on changes to the welfare system, urging more vocational education and child care spending along with an increase in the people on welfare rolls who must work. The proposal came from six members of the Senate Finance Committee, which will write the legislation renewing the 1996 welfare overhaul.

With Republicans, Democrats and the Senate’s one independent on board, the group hopes to play dealmaker.

Sen. John Breaux, D-La., predicted their unity will carry influence on the Senate floor, where they hope to win a large majority, and in future negotiations with the House, where a more conservative bill is headed for passage.

“If we have Republicans and Democrats in a solid Finance Committee supporting this effort, it gives us a great deal of strength,” Breaux said.

Across the Capitol, two House committees approved welfare legislation along party line votes, though Republicans made a few concessions to Democrats, including $2 billion for child care over five years and making reduction of poverty an official goal of the welfare program.

In the Senate, a second group of senators – all moderate Democrats – released a welfare proposal of their own. This one, led by Sens. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and Tom Carper, D-Del., has tough work requirements much like those backed by President Bush, but adds $8 billion more for child care.

But it’s the bipartisan proposal offered by members of the Finance Committee that is likely to hold the most sway.

The senators want to give states more flexibility in managing their welfare programs than Bush proposes. For instance, they would allow money set aside to promote marriage to be used for teen pregnancy prevention as well. While they would increase the number of people who must be working, they suggest a variety of ways to make it easier for states to meet these goals.

“Frankly, getting to the next step in welfare reform is going to be more difficult. You can’t have a one-size-fits-all program,” said Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine.

Other Finance Committee members supporting the bill are Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Jim Jeffords, I-Vt., Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., and Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.

They agreed that states should be able to put welfare recipients into vocational education for up to two years and count them toward meeting the work requirement. They said they would fight for significant new child care spending, asking the Congressional Budget Office to determine how much will be needed to meet new work requirements.

They would also allow states to include legal immigrants in their welfare programs. It would be more expensive to include immigrants in Medicaid, and senators said that issue would be debated in the committee.

Their plan was welcomed by the Bush administration. An administration official called it a “very positive effort” that moves in the right direction.

At the same time, it was embraced by two groups representing states, as well as a coalition of liberal groups that called it “a significant reversal in the political dynamics of welfare reform.”

“Moderates from both parties have now rejected the extreme administration proposals, and have taken some steps to push an anti-poverty agenda,” said a statement from Deepak Bhargava, director of the National Campaign for Jobs and Income Support.

Like Bush, the Senate group would require that states have 70 percent of their families at work by 2007. But unlike Bush, they would:

-Allow a wider set of activities, such as searching for a job, to count as “work.” As Bush proposed, recipients would have to do work activities for at least 24 hours each week.

-Require that people do something constructive, including work, for at least 30 hours each week. Bush proposed 40 hours.

-Give states credit for people who leave welfare and find jobs. The House bills give credit for those who leave welfare, whether or not they find a job.

“Our true objective in welfare reform (is) not only to get them off the rolls but into meaningful jobs,” Lincoln said.

Other provisions in the senators’ plan would:

-Require that states write a self-sufficiency plan for every family receiving welfare, a Bush proposal.

-Require that the family plan include an assessment procedure to ensure that needs of children and teens are being met.

-Maintain current spending for the main welfare grants at $16.5 billion per year.

-Continue the sexual abstinence program, which gives states money for “abstinence-only” programs that bar discussion of the benefits of birth control.