Maine Congressmen concerned about welfare bill

By Rhiannon Varmette

WASHINGTON--The House Thursday passed a Republican-sponsored welfare reauthorization bill that was supported by the Bush administration and staunchly opposed by Maine's two Democratic representatives.

The bill, H.R. 4, would set tougher work requirements than the 1996 welfare reforms and would maintain the program's annual funding at $16.6 billion.

Rep. Mike Michaud said in a statement that he supported a rejected Democratic alternative that, he said, would have allowed more state flexibility and helped people find better jobs. He said the Republican bill, which passed, 230-192, would hurt states and welfare recipients.

"H.R. 4 would leave Maine with a $56 million unfunded mandate over five years," Michaud said. "Just as bad, right now, a Maine family of three receiving the maximum benefit only reaches 39 percent of the federal poverty level."

The bill, he said, "doesn't give any new resources to change that. Instead, it simply asks states and welfare recipients to meet new goals, without giving them a real chance to achieve them."

Rep. Tom Allen, who was attending his father's funeral in Maine and did not vote, also opposes the legislation.

"I support welfare reforms that encourage people to get and keep meaningful jobs," Allen said in a statement. "The reforms enacted back in 1996 did that by giving states the freedom and the resources to tailor procedures to their circumstances…. H.R. 4 abandons that reform model, imposes a '"one-size-fits-all'" approach and shifts more of the costs onto already budget-strapped states."

The 1996 welfare reform law replaced a system of guaranteed cash assistance with a stipulation that welfare recipients had to participate in 30 hours a week of "work-related activities." The act also required that 50 percent of state's adult welfare recipients had to be so employed.

The House bill would increase the number of required work hours to 40 and mandate that 70 percent of a state's welfare recipients be engaged in work-related activities.

Mary Henderson, executive director of Maine Equal Justice, a non-profit organization that lobbies for low-income people in Maine, said that the House legislation proposals were unrealistic.

She said that Maine handled the 1996 welfare overhaul well because of programs like Parents as Scholars, which allowed parents on welfare to advance their education, and the flexibility that the 1996 reforms allowed for families with health barriers.

Henderson said that a study conducted by the Maine Center for Economic Policy in 2000 found that half the state's welfare recipients had health care problems that limited their ability to work. She called the proposed standards unrealistic.

"The average person in the United States does not work 40 hours a week," she said. "In a population where half of them have significant health problems - and in Maine where many of them have transportation problems - that leaves the children out in the cold."

Henderson said that the funding already is inadequate and that the new legislation does not provide enough money for the requirements it sets, especially for child care.

The maximum federal grant for a three-person family in Maine is only $485 per month, she said.

"That's not enough to pay the rent, never mind to pay utilities or oil or children's school supplies," Henderson said.

Similar legislation passed the House last year, 229-197, but the corresponding Senate bill did not make it to a vote because Sen. Olympia Snowe and a few other Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee, which must approve the legislation, opposed the bill.

Snowe's spokesman, Dave Lackey, said the senator would still oppose any similar measure this year and would back legislation similar to the bipartisan bill she supported last year that "builds on the successes of welfare reform and focuses on self-sufficiency."

Lackey also said the senator would push for more child-care money so that parents are not faced with the choice of going to work or having their children safe.

Published in The Bangor Daily News, in Maine.