Politicking threatens welfare bill (GOP anti child care/min wage/overtime)

[papau]

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1080814852298410.xml

Politicking threatens welfare bill Thursday April 01, 2004 By Bruce Alpert Washington bureau

WASHINGTON -- Despite widespread consensus that the 1996 overhaul of the federal welfare system has been successful in moving people from dependency to jobs, partisan differences and election-year politics are threatening to derail efforts to extend and modify the historic law.

Sen. John Breaux, D-La., one of the architects of the legislation that established time limits and work requirements for welfare recipients, said the possibility of logjam is especially disappointing because he sees surprising agreement in the Senate on how the government should continue reforming welfare.

<snip>But there's no similar bipartisan agreement on Democratic proposals to increase the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7, or to Democratic proposals to block changes in labor laws that Democrats say will cost millions of workers eligibility for time and a half pay, or to offer additional unemployment benefits for jobless Americans whose 26 weeks of eligibility are expiring.

<snip>The law is set to expire this summer unless Congress acts. If lawmakers end up getting squeezed for time, they could vote to extend the measure unchanged into next year, after the fall elections. <snip>

The Bush administration and House GOP leaders say the additional $20.5 billion for child care approved by the Senate isn't needed because the smaller welfare rolls have freed up money for that need. But, Breaux said, the House and Senate bills require welfare recipients to spend more hours in job training or jobs than did the 1996 law, so it's critical that child-care financing be increased. Otherwise, he said, parents will be left with no viable options for their children. <snip>