Senate Passes Tough Welfare Reform Measure

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, July 23) -- The Senate overwhelmingly passed a tough welfare reform bill, a watershed measure that President Bill Clinton is likely to sign.

After defeating several measures objectionable to the White House, the Senate passed the bill 74-24. It would limit lifetime welfare benefits to five years, require able-bodied recipients to go back to work after two years, and cut benefits to legal immigrants.

Likely GOP nominee Bob Dole said Tuesday that Clinton "will sign anything with welfare on it," and White House aides said the president will likely sign the bill, given its veto-proof Senate approval. A similar bill was passed in the House, though not by the two-thirds margin which would override a veto.

Still talking tough Tuesday, Clinton told a Sacramento rally that GOP welfare bills -- he's vetoed two already -- may be reforms in name only. "You can put wings on a pig, but you don't make it an eagle," Clinton said.

But during debate Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said, "This is a bill that will end the limitless cash benefits that we've been dealing with. And it will end welfare as a...way of life."

Clinton in 1992 promised "to end welfare as we know it," and polls show most Americans want changes in poverty programs. But some Senate Democrats said the bill was tantamount to child abuse.

"This day, in the name of reform, this Senate will do actual violence to poor children, putting million of them into poverty who were not in poverty before," declared Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun (D-Ill.). New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bill Bradley said the measure would "simply punish people least able to cope."

Those sentiments stemmed, in part, from the Senate's refusal to let states use federal block grant money for vouchers to provide assistance to children whose parents have exhausted their eligiblity. Adminstration-backed amendments, which did pass, would safeguard Medicaid coverage regardless of new state welfare rules, and keep food stamps as a federally run program.

The Senate and House bills next go to a conference committee, where lawmakers will iron out differences and send a bill to Clinton as early as next week. Clinton could defuse welfare reform as a major campaign issue if he signs the bill.

Senate Passes Tough Welfare Reform Measure

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