President Lauds Plan For Welfare Under Gop Fire, Clinton Endorses Radical Wisconsin Plan That Child Advocates Criticize

Under attack by Sen. Bob Dole for having twice vetoed welfare legislation, President Clinton Saturday gave his blessing to the most radical of all state welfare experiments, saying that if Congress passes a similar program, “I’ll sign it right away.”

The program, which has been hailed as an innovative way to move people from welfare to work, was devised mainly by Gov. Tommy G. Thompson of Wisconsin, a Republican often mentioned as a possible running mate for Dole in this year’s presidential election.

The plan would abolish the federal guarantee of cash assistance for poor children in Wisconsin and replace it with wage subsidies for single mothers who work.

But child-welfare advocates have strongly criticized the program, saying it will harm the most vulnerable children.

And a new nonpartisan study says that Wisconsin’s Learnfare project, which cuts welfare benefits for families with children who quit or skip school, has failed to improve school participation.

Republicans promptly labeled the president’s new offer “a cynical deception.”

In his weekly radio address, Clinton said Saturday, “Wisconsin submitted to me for approval the outlines of a sweeping welfare reform plan, one of the boldest yet attempted in America, and I’m encouraged by what I’ve seen so far.”

Under the Wisconsin plan, Clinton said, poor people will “have the dignity of earning a paycheck, not a welfare check,” and “people on welfare who can work must work immediately.”

Wisconsin needs federal approval because its plan would abrogate many federal guarantees. Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services have just begun reviewing it. And Michael D. McCurry, the White House press secretary, said, “We have some legal and technical issues we will have to work through with the state.”

But Rahm I. Emanuel, a White House aide who coordinates welfare policy for the president, said the application would be approved. “They’ll work out the details, and it will be approved,” Emanuel said.

Clinton, who as governor of Arkansas worked with Congress on the last major revision of federal welfare policy, in 1988, has rarely balked at any state’s request for permission to revamp welfare or Medicaid.

If he promptly approves the Wisconsin plan, Clinton will, to a large degree, immunize himself against Republican criticism of his record on welfare and can claim some political credit for Wisconsin’s experiment, as he has done in other states that have been granted waivers.

But Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, chairman of the House Republican Conference, remained unimpressed with the president’s statement.

“For Bill Clinton to take credit for the welfare reform efforts of Republican governors is a cynical deception,” Boehner said. “For three years Bill Clinton has been a non-combatant in the battle for welfare reform. He has preserved welfare as we know it with his two vetoes and has never allowed a single state to impose a real time limit on welfare recipients.”

Over the last four years, the emphasis of Clinton’s welfare policy has often changed, and his positions on specific proposals have been consistently unpredictable, confusing his friends and angering his foes.

In the 1992 presidential campaign, Clinton promised to “end welfare as we know it,” but he was preoccupied with health policy in the first two years of his administration, and Republicans seized the initiative on welfare when they took control of Congress last year.

To reclaim the issue, Clinton now asserts that he has presided over “a quiet revolution” in welfare policy by allowing governors to innovate.

Clinton endorsed an earlier version of the federal welfare legislation, passed by the Senate with bipartisan support in September, even though a study by his administration predicted that the bill would push more than one million children into poverty.

He then rejected the final version of the legislation after Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund, told him that the bill was an obscene violation of “God’s mandate to protect the poor and the weak and the young.”

The president’s comments Saturday were remarkable for several reasons. Wisconsin formally requested federal approval just last week. When the state plan was signed into law on April 25, Thompson criticized the president, saying, “The only person standing in the way of welfare’s demise in Wisconsin is Bill Clinton, the man who promised America he would devote his presidency to ending welfare.”

Child-welfare advocates and religious groups, including some who persuaded Clinton to veto two welfare bills in the last six months, have criticized the Wisconsin plan and say that if the president approves it, he will approve almost any state plan.

Deborah V. Weinstein, director of the family income division at the Children’s Defense Fund, said Saturday: “We oppose the Wisconsin plan. The most disturbing element is that it would strip income away from families with children. Some will not be able to comply with the work requirements and will lose assistance. That will hurt children. Many of those who do comply will, out of their very meager incomes, have to pay more for child care and health coverage.”

Dole, the likely GOP presidential nominee, denounced Clinton’s record on Thursday. “The president’s vetoed welfare reform twice,” Dole said. “He pledged to end welfare as we know it, but defends it with his veto, a welfare system that is destroying families and communities.”