Reagan Promises to Veto Welfare Reform Without Work Requirement
President Reagan warned Saturday that he will veto any welfare legislation Congress sends him that does not contain a work requirement. ``The best way to learn to work is to work,'' the president said in a Labor Day weekend radio address from his vacation ranch 20 miles north of here. Rep. Thomas J. Downey, D-N.Y., in the Democrats' response, said that quiring welfare recipients work may be necessary, but he said such requirements should be controlled by state and local welfare officials, not the federal government. Reagan mingled talk of welfare reform with celebration of his administration's economic record, saying Friday's unemployment figures showed that the jobless rate ``hovered just above the lowest it's been in 14 years.'' The figures from the Labor Department showed unemployment of 5.6 percent, up from 5.4 percent in July and from the May figure of 5.3 per cent, which was a 14-year low. ``But there are still some Americans whom our expansion has passed by _ those caught in the welfare trap,'' he said. To deal with this, he said, his administration launched a program encouraging states to come up with their own plans to get people off the welfare rolls. ``Nearly half of the states have implemented or proposed widespread welfare reform plans that build upon some good old common sense _ that the best way to learn to work is to work,'' the president said. ``Now, Congress appears to be close to a decision about welfare reform and I have a message for them,'' he said. ``I will not accept any welfare reform bill unless it is geared to making people independent of welfare.'' A House-Senate conference committee currently has before it a Senate-passed bill that contains a work requirement and a House-approved measure that does not. ``Any bill not built around work is not true welfare reform,'' the president said. ``If Congress presents me with a bill that replaces work with welfare expansion and that places the dignity of self-sufficiency through work out of the reach of Americans on welfare, I will use my veto pen.'' Downey said that while more people than ever before are working, ``the fact is that the typical worker in America is no better off today than he or she was 10 years ago; in fact things have gotten worse.'' The poorest 40 percent of American families, with incomes adjusted for inflation, are worse off today than they were 10 years ago; the richest 5 percent are better off than they were a decade ago; and 32.5 million Americans remain mired in poverty, he said. The House bill, with training and education programs as well as health and child-care benefits, would make welfare parents who work better off than those who do not, said Downey, acting chairman of the Ways and Means subcommittee on public assistance and unemployment compensation. ``Yes, requiring a welfare recipient to work may be necessary, but those requirements should be controlled by state and local officials who administer our welfare programs, not federal bureaucrats,'' Downey said.
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