Clinton Lauds Final Budget Accord

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Clinton Lauds Final Budget Accord

Updated 2:32 PM ET December 16, 2000

By LAWRENCE L. KNUTSON, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Clinton, pointing to achievements in his final budget, said Saturday that welfare rolls have fallen by more than 60 percent during his eight years in office. He also announced $200 million in bonus money as a reward to states where welfare recipients found and kept jobs.

In his weekly radio address, Clinton also said his administration's commitment to fiscal discipline has resulted in "the strongest economy in a generation."

"If we continue to invest in our people and create opportunities for them, if we continue to honor and reward work, our possibilities are truly without limit," Clinton said, one day after Congress approved his final budget.

Clinton said that as a result of welfare changes he promoted, "millions of former welfare recipients now know the dignity of work."

Over the past eight years, he said, welfare case loads have been cut by more than 8 million people. "Last year alone, 1.2 million parents on welfare went to work, determined to build better lives," Clinton said.

"Nationwide over the last eight years, welfare rolls have dropped nearly 60 percent, and now are the lowest in more than 30 years," he said.

The White House said the caseload is at its lowest since 1968 and just 2.7 percent of the population is on welfare - the lowest rate in 37 years.

Clinton noted that when Congress adopted welfare reform legislation in 1996, he insisted on incentives to states to help people moving off welfare find and keep jobs.

The president hoped states would use the bonus money for support programs such as child care, transportation and job training that can make "a critical difference between welfare checks and paychecks."

In response, Rep. J.C. Watts, R-Okla., chairman of the House Republican Conference, claimed welfare reform as a Republican vision.

"Republicans were accused of wanting to starve children and throw grandparents in the streets," he said. "We stepped up to the plate and not only got the job done, but got it done right."

Although many Democrats opposed drastic changes in the welfare system, Clinton campaigned in 1992 to "end welfare as we know it." He has voiced regret in interviews that he did not press welfare reform earlier in his administration, in part as a means of broadening the party's appeal to conservative voters.

The Senate and House voted Friday to approve the year's final spending package, a bill providing $450 billion for hiring teachers, health research, and for Medicare and other programs. Also included were provisions to help about 1 million immigrants who want to remain in the United States, and a $25.8 billion, 10-year mix of tax cuts aimed at creating jobs and spurring investment in poor communities.

Citing those and other successes, Clinton said the new budget will include money to help cover more uninsured poor children, extend Medicaid coverage to thousands of poor parents leaving welfare, and increase payments to hospitals, home health agencies and nursing homes.

"We have also secured an extra $817 million to help working families afford child care, to meet their responsibilities both at work and at home," he said.

Children, and the quality of the education they receive, also are targets of federal dollars for school repairs, hiring more teachers, reducing class size and expanding after school programs.

"By reaching out and working together, our best days still lie ahead," Clinton said. "This budget proves it."

-- (AP@news.article), December 16, 2000

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Hosanna heysanna sanna sanna ho sanna hey sannna ho sana.

This is good. I always preferred coronations just before death instead of at birth.

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), December 16, 2000.


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