WASHINGTON -- Warning of a coming disaster for the poor, advocates pleaded with Republicans in Congress yesterday to forgo their plan to revamp welfare and Social Security disability aid by turning over much of it to the states.
But House Speaker Newt Gingrich told a news conference that their pleas won't be heeded -- charging that "academics and welfare bureaucrats" have "made a mess" out of federal programs for the disadvantaged.
Waving a laminated copy of the Republican "Contract With America" at TV cameras, Mr. Gingrich vowed to pass laws within two months that will cut off welfare and Social Security disability checks to many, while giving billions to states and neighborhood action groups.
Even before they heard that pronouncement, social welfare advo
cates were conceding that federal disability programs are probably headed for the most serious cuts in more than a decade.
Advocates testifying before a House Ways and Means subcommittee said the revisions would plunge thousands of America's most needy people into despair, which in turn will end up costing taxpayers more than current welfare programs.
States will offer vastly different levels of service, they predicted, and many of the poor and disabled will wind up in orphanages, hospitals and prisons.
"What's needed is a scalpel to cut out the specific cases of fraud, waste and abuse," Rhoda Schulzinger of the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities said. "What they're getting ready to use is a meat ax."
Said Democratic Rep. Charles B. Rangel of New York: "They have a dateline. They have their 'Contract
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With America.' So don't think they're going to be sitting down with us to work this out."
Even if the Republican leadership was willing to soften its position, testimony yesterday showed that the two sides weren't speaking the same language.
An example was the differing views of the Supplemental Security Income program, a welfare plan for the disabled that Republicans have vowed to slash and that advocates are fighting to save.
Run by Social Security, it provides cash aid to poor people who are too handicapped or old to work.
But it has grown into a $25 billion behemoth that gives checks to children, drug addicts and immigrants, spawning charges that some are getting money for marginal disabilities and faked mental conditions.
Advocates for the poor testified that such claims are grossly exaggerated, unproven and undocumented, and that thousands of desperate people will be hurt by the kind of broad cuts envisioned by the new Republican majority in Congress.
They disputed allegations that some children are "coached" by their parents to act mentally ill to qualify for disability checks, citing a recent Social Security study that found no evidence of widespread abuse.
Ms. Schulzinger told the committee that the agency's study is "the only thorough investigation of such allegations."
However, those who have charged there is "coaching" have claimed that Social Security's study was based on just 600 cases nationwide and not in the Deep South, where most fraud allegations have centered.
Also, they say investigators in two other federal agencies tried to look into the fraud claims but were thwarted by privacy laws that prevented them from seeing records.
Rep. Jim McCrery, the Louisiana Republican who wants to cut the children's program, said: "I think there is ample evidence that there are children receiving SSI who most ordinary Americans would agree do not deserve to be on SSI."
But while there have been numerous news media accounts documenting abuses of the program, no government agency has ever defined the overall dimensions of the prob
lem. Advocates say there have been only isolated incidents of abuses, along with media "horror stories."
A heated exchange between Representative McCrery and David Liederman of the Child Welfare League of America highlighted the differences.
"Whatever you do, don't start messing with a child-welfare system that serves 1.6 million people," said Mr. Liederman.
"Surely, you can't be suggesting that there isn't a need for reform," replied Mr. McCrery.
"You're talking about millions of kids," retorted Mr. Liederman, charging that the Republican plan to turn over much of the SSI aid to the states will open huge holes in the "safety net" for needy children.
"We're not going to be brain-dead up here," said Mr. McCrery. "If the state programs prove to be a disaster, then we can revisit that."
"Unfortunately, you're talking about millions of children," said Mr. Liederman.
As he spoke, Mr. Gingrich was wrapping up his news conference, vowing to turn over billions in federal welfare and disability funds to the states and grass-roots organizations.
"These are people who live in the real world, who are interested in solutions," he said. "They don't represent the Harvard professors and they don't represent the mid-level bureaucrats who study these problems in the abstract.
"The secular welfare maintenance model has been a failure. Our interest is in transforming people into workers and taxpayers -- not maintaining them in lives of poverty." A group of community activists from around the country cheered as Mr. Gingrich spoke, then took turns recounting how federal regulations had hampered their efforts to get money for neighborhood drug clinics, halfway houses and food banks.
"They want our leadership to have college degrees," said Freddie Garcia, a San Antonio minister who runs private community centers that serve addicts and the poor. "Well, I don't have a degree, but I have an education from the streets that you can't get at Yale."
Said Ernest Boykin, who runs a private job training program in Washington, D.C.: "We're not sociologists, we're not drug counselors, we're not social workers . . . But we know how to get the job done."