WASHINGTON -- In a break from their partisan bickering, leading Republicans and Democrats met with President Clinton for 5 1/2 hours yesterday to tackle welfare, agreeing afterward that the current approach is a disaster that must be changed.
"It's an absolutely bankrupt system," said Wayne Bryant, a Democratic state legislator from New Jersey who has sponsored one of the toughest welfare requirements in the nation. "We talked about . . . putting families first. There was some consensus . . . on that."
Mr. Bryant made his comments at a White House briefing after the unusual "welfare summit," which brought together more than two dozen governors, key members of Congress and local officials from around the country.
"I was remarkably surprised by the tone of the meeting," said Democratic Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski of Maryland, who was among those taking part. "The entire morning was characterized by a tone of civility, collegiality and cooperation."
Mr. Clinton yesterday called welfare "perhaps the most pressing social problem we face in our country." But, in tacit recognition that Republicans have taken the lead on the issue, he indicated that instead of submitting his own reform plan, he would try to help Republicans shape theirs.
"If we're going to end welfare," he told reporters, "let's do it right."
Consensus was also signaled by the two issues Ms. Mikulski emphasized when she spoke after the session at Blair House, the presidential guest quarters opposite the White House.
First, she said, as policy-makers address the explosion in the numbers of unwed mothers who go on welfare before they are even out of their teens, far more attention must be given to the role played by -- and responsibilities of -- unwed fathers.
Ms. Mikulski spoke of forcing the issue of paternity as a condition of benefits, even raising the idea of requiring fathers to work in a public-sector job, if necessary, to discharge their obligations. This attitude is becoming a mainstream liberal position -- and was part of Mr. Clinton's welfare reform proposal last year.
But the Maryland Democrat stressed an issue that is also at the heart of conservatives' grievances about the current system: the way it discourages work and marriage for poor mothers. In decrying the impediments to marriage, Ms. Mikulski used language almost identical to that in position papers written for Republicans by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
"The differences [between Republicans and Democrats] are few and far between," said Rep. E. Clay Shaw Jr. a Florida Republican who chairs the House subcommittee dealing with welfare. "The president was probably surprised to find there was so much agreement."
Nevertheless, as Senate Finance Committee Chairman Bob Packwood, an Oregon Republican, pointed out, there still are markedly different theories over how best to repair the system. Some of these differences are ideological, pitting conservatives against liberals; some are philosophical, pitting the governors against Congress; others are just honest differences of opinion over the best way to fix the system.
Limiting benefits
Delaware Gov. Thomas R. Carper, for instance, formally asked the Clinton administration yesterday to allow his state to limit benefits to women who have additional children while on welfare and to deny cash payments to unmarried mothers under 18. Mr. Carper is a Democrat.
Gov. John Engler of Michigan has concluded that those steps are not desirable in his state, and instead is focusing most of his attention on job placement for welfare recipients. He is a Republican.
But if the battle doesn't always break along neat lines, one issue became clear yesterday:
The coming battle in Congress will be fought over the precise meaning of the innocuous-sounding word "flexibility." In the jargon of welfare reform, this refers to giving states more authority to tailor their own programs and establish their own minimum requirements for programs such as the main welfare program, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, as well as food stamps and even Medicaid, the government health program for the poor.
Everyone who spoke after yesterday's meeting agreed that states should have more flexibility. But how much flexibility is the question. Will some states force recipients to work, while others won't? Will types of benefits vary from state to state? Will welfare even still be an "entitlement" program?
Republican governors favor almost unlimited flexibility. Some are even discussing moving away from the current system in which individuals are entitled to a payment based on their income. Instead, the federal government would simply give states a set amount for welfare, in the form of a block grant, and leave it to the states to determine how the money is spent.
Those governors now have valuable allies in Congress, which their party controls. The Republican "Contract with America" in last fall's election pledged radical welfare reform, and Republican congressional leaders are moving to back it up.
Top Democrats, ranging from Mr. Clinton and his chief of staff, Leon E. Panetta, to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, raised a traditional liberal concern: If the states fall down on the job, shouldn't there be a federal safety net for the very poor?
"We should require work and responsibility, but we shouldn't cut people off just because they're poor or young or unmarried," Mr. Clinton said in his radio address yesterday. "I don't believe we should punish people because they happen to be poor or because of past mistakes."
How to do worse?
But Republican Gov. Arne Carlson of Minnesota asked incredulously whether the states could possibly do any worse than the federal government. "The current system is a catastrophe," he said.
"Senator Kennedy made it very clear that he was certainly suspicious of the capacity of state governments to run the welfare system," Mr. Carlson said in a later briefing. "Chief of XTC Staff Panetta raised exactly the same question. His question revolved around the issue of 'what would happen if one state failed, then we in Washington got stuck with the problem?' "
Democrats are particularly worried that children will end up getting hurt if the government cuts off benefits to those who don't work, limits benefits to women already on welfare and denies cash payments to underage mothers.
"Los Angeles County has 1.8 million welfare recipients, so obviously . . . we're concerned that [welfare] not be a permanent career for people," said Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, chairwoman of the L.A. Board of Supervisors. "But . . . what really matters are those 9 million children [nationally]. We want to make sure that they are cared for, because they're the innocent parties."
But Democratic misgivings about the Republican approach don't necessarily imply that nothing will happen.
Mr. Clinton made it clear near the close of yesterday's summit that his administration wouldn't be sending more legislation up to Capitol Hill this year. The president is acknowledging that the vehicle for change is now the Republicans' reform bill currently taking shape under Mr. Shaw's direction in the House subcommittee on human resources.
"The momentum is with the 'Contract' legislation in the House of Representatives," mused Governor Engler of Michigan. "That's where the action is, and everyone is scrambling to be part of that."