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Clinton Considers Changes to Welfare Legislation

Clinton aides helping the President with the 1997 budget have disclosed plans to increase some welfare programs radically cut in last year’s welfare legislation. The plans include an additional $13 billion, aimed mainly at aiding legal immigrants, especially immigrant children and disabled immigrants. The plan also includes plans to give indigent people with high housing costs continued food stamps. Under the planned changes, persons who are actively looking for jobs but cannot find them will also be allowed to continue receiving food stamps. Earlier, leaks in the administration warned that the President’s budget included $1 billion in cuts to housing for the poor. The President has apparently decided against the cuts, however.

The Administration expects that any changes will be met with strong opposition from a Republican-led Congress and is explicit in its approval for the overall direction and changes in the 1995 Welfare Reform legislation. Support for the changes, however, is expected to come from moderate GOP Governors whose state’s are starting to feel the adverse effects of the drastic welfare cuts.

Sources:

The Washington Post - December 20, 1996

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