Clinton Vows Tougher Rules On Welfare Fathers
By John F. Harris and Judith Havemann
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, June 19, 1996; Page A02
President Clinton said yesterday he is directing the states to implement new rules that would require mothers to provide detailed information about who fathered their children before they would be eligible for welfare.
The announcement came in a speech devoted to showing that Clinton has used his executive powers to be a tough-minded innovator on welfare, even though he vetoed two reform proposals sent to him by Congress that he said were too severe. It was followed immediately by Republican complaints that Clinton's vetoes show that his promise to "end welfare as we know it" in the 1992 campaign was just talk.
The initiative announced yesterday is actually a refashioning of rules for establishing paternity rather than a dramatic new policy. Under the law now, mothers are required to cooperate in efforts to identify the father. But as a practical matter, administration officials say, the rules about what qualifies as "cooperation" are vague and efforts to establish paternity often don't occur until long after a person is receiving benefits.
The Department of Health and Human Services will devise more precise rules about what information a mother must provide -- both a name and some other piece of identifying information, such as address or place of employment -- and states will be instructed not to send checks until the information about the father is supplied.
In a speech to the American Nurses Association, Clinton also vowed to improve national efforts at hunting down so-called deadbeat dads -- fathers who don't pay child support -- when they cross state lines.
Half the states have programs requiring or encouraging employers to supply the names of new hires to a state agency as a way of tracking down parents who are delinquent in their child support. Under the new program, these 25 states are being encouraged to send their computer data to HHS's Federal Parent Locater Service, which keeps track of records of delinquent parents from all 50 states.
The lists will be compared against one another. When there is a match, the state where the delinquent parent is working will be notified so that it can begin garnishment proceedings to attach the parent's wages.
"Our system should say to mothers: If you want our help, help us to identify and locate the fathers so he can be held accountable," Clinton said. "And it should say to fathers: We're not going to just let you walk away from your children and stick the taxpayers with the tab. The government did not bring the child into the world, you did."
Robert J. Dole's rival presidential campaign dismissed Clinton's initiatives and challenged the president to allow Wisconsin to proceed with its own overhaul of welfare.
"Bill Clinton's initiatives, as announced today, were nothing new -- baby steps, at best, on the path to welfare reform," said the Republican candidate's deputy press secretary, Christina Martin. "This is, after all, the man who said he would `end welfare as we know it.' He could have at least taken a giant leap forward and signed the Wisconsin waiver as promised and promised and promised."
On Capitol Hill, Rep. Bill Archer (R-Tex.), the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and Rep. E. Clay Shaw Jr. (R-Fla.), who chairs that panel's subcommittee on human resources, dismissed Clinton's speech as posturing. Only legislation, they said in a statement, can fix a loophole that allows "many mothers [to] provide just enough information to qualify for benefits but not enough to locate the father and the president doesn't have the authority to correct this through executive action."
Republicans in the House are divided about how to proceed on welfare reform. Committees there have passed bills for welfare reform as well as a proposal to make cuts in the rate of growth for the Medicaid health care program for the poor. Republicans had planned to bring them to the floor together as a package.
But many GOP lawmakers believe that it would be politically smarter to separate the two proposals and send welfare reform to Clinton without Medicaid cuts. The thinking is that welfare reform is so popular, he would have no choice but to sign the GOP plan, despite the anguish this would cause more liberal supporters. Republican leaders in both the House and Senate yesterday said the issue of how to bring welfare reform up for floor votes had not yet been resolved. "There are a number of configurations under consideration," said House Majority Leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.).
A leading Democratic voice on welfare reform accused the Republicans of manipulating the issue for political gain. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (N.Y.) said that the "only consideration is election-year politics district by district; it has nothing whatever to do with the substance."
"Anything we do in this atmosphere, we will regret for a generation," Moynihan said in an interview.
Meanwhile, Clinton's effort to show that he can transform welfare without legislation has caused a debate within his administration. A month ago, he declared that he expected to approve soon a welfare experiment in Wisconsin -- where state leaders want to impose strict work requirements and time limits on benefits -- and he repeated the pledge yesterday.
But some administration officials said Clinton made his comments even before Wisconsin had submitted all the materials needed for a waiver of federal rules, and they worry that the president is now committed to approving a plan that may go farther than federal law allows.
© 1996 The Washington Post Co.
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