Republicans Blast Clinton For ‘Stealth Veto’ Of Welfare Overhaul Bill

Republicans Wednesday blasted President Clinton for his late-night veto Tuesday of the welfare overhaul bill they worked on all last year, portraying him as a defender of the failed welfare system he had once promised to reform.

“The president may have tried to hide this ‘stealth veto’ by doing it late at night, but he can not hide the message he is sending to the American people. … He will stand in the way of fundamental change and, instead, will fight for the status quo,” Majority Leader Robert J. Dole, R-Kan., told the Senate during a brief session.

The Republican’s landmark welfare bill which Clinton vetoed Tuesday would have ended the federal guarantee of cash assistance to the poor and would have turned major federal poverty programs over to the states.

Recalling Clinton’s 1992 campaign pledge to “end welfare as we know it,” Dole said that the president now “bears total responsibility for the continuation of that failed welfare system.” Dole’s comments to the Senate, which joined the House in adjourning until Jan. 22, seemed a likely preview of the 1996 presidential campaign.

Rep. E. Clay Shaw Jr., R-Fla., flew in from Florida to say that Clinton’s veto of the welfare bill Tuesday night was a “sad day” because the president had “completely caved into the liberal wing of his party.”

Rahm Emmanual, assistant to the president and director of special projects, scoffed at the Republican charges. He said Clinton was busy until late in the day with budget negotiations and his 8 p.m. veto had been announced weeks in advance.

“We said he was going to veto it when it came out of (a House-Senate) conference, we said he would veto it when it passed the House and again after the half-hour debate in the Senate on a Friday afternoon,” Emmanual said. “I will put up the money personally to buy the Republicans a subscription to the newspaper so they can read it.”