[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 102 (Thursday, July 11, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1240]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    CLINTON WON'T LET WELFARE CHANGE

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. DOUG BEREUTER

                              of nebraska

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, July 10, 1996

  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, this Member highly commends to his 
colleagues this editorial which appeared in the Omaha World-Herald on 
June 24, 1996.

                    Clinton Won't Let Welfare Change

       People keep trying to help President Clinton accomplish his 
     stated goal of ``end(ing) welfare as we know it,'' but he 
     won't let them do it.
       Congress presented him a welfare-reform bill in 1995 that 
     seemed destined for presidential approval. But liberal groups 
     criticized the legislation and persuaded Clinton to veto it.
       In February this year, the National Governors' Association 
     produced a bipartisan plan to reform welfare and Medicaid, a 
     plan endorsed by Nebraska Gov. Ben Nelson. Clinton, too, 
     spoke favorably of the plan, but officials of his 
     administration have been fighting it in congressional 
     hearings.
       Two months ago Gov. Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin signed his 
     state's welfare reform plan. It would end welfare as an 
     entitlement program. People could be denied benefits without 
     recourse to hearings. Welfare assistance would be conditioned 
     on work. Jobs, child care and health care would not be 
     guaranteed.
       Three weeks after the Wisconsin plan was completed, the 
     president called it ``a solid, bold welfare reform plan'' in 
     his weekly radio address. Bob Dole was scheduled to give a 
     major speech on welfare reform three days later. It was a 
     preemptive political strike by a president who lately has 
     talked, but not acted, like a Republican.
       Now that the president has exploited the opportunity to 
     upstage Dole by patting the Republican Thompson on the back 
     and appearing to be the champion of welfare reform, his 
     administration is challenging the Wisconsin plan.
       For proof of its welfare-reform credentials, the Clinton 
     administration cites waivers it has granted to 39 states to 
     implement welfare programs that don't conform to federal 
     requirements. But in this case the Washington penchant for 
     centralized bureaucratic control may prevail. Wisconsin may 
     not get the federal waiver it needs to proceed.
       In 1993, first lady Hillary Clinton's proposal to reduce 
     the growth of Medicare spending from 10 percent to 7 percent 
     was touted by the administration as responsible reform. Two 
     years later, when congressional Republicans proposed the same 
     spending growth rate reduction, the president decried a 7 
     percent growth cap as an attempt to ``cut'' and ``destroy'' 
     Medicare.
       Governor Thompson's once ``solid'' and ``bold'' welfare 
     plan may face the same fate that befell Mrs. Clinton's 7 
     percent growth cap once it was expropriated by Republicans.

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