CR Includes ‘Clean’ Welfare Extension; Separate Waiver Debate Planned

By David Harrison, CQ Staff

The six-month continuing resolution that House Republicans introduced Monday would extend the 1996 welfare overhaul through the middle of the next fiscal year without wading into the partisan battle over the Obama administration’s recent changes to the law’s work requirements.

Authorization for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program is scheduled to run out Sept. 30. Advocates had feared that an extension of the welfare program might be held up because of congressional GOP opposition to the administration’s plan to allow states to apply for waivers from TANF’s work participation requirements.

The continuing resolution (H J Res 117), slated for a House vote Thursday, simply reauthorizes the welfare program without mentioning the waivers. But that doesn’t mean Republicans are dropping the issue: the House Ways and Means and Education and the Workforce committees on Tuesday scheduled Thursday markups of a stand-alone resolution of disapproval (H J Res 118) on the work requirement waivers.

The last five-year reauthorization of the 1996 welfare law (PL 104-193) expired in 2010. Since then, Congress has passed several short-term extensions, most recently as part of the payroll tax cut package (HR 3630) in February.

The welfare law requires states to show that 50 percent of families receiving assistance are either working or enrolled in workforce programs, with some exceptions. But in July, the Health and Human Services Department announced it would consider waiving the work requirements for states that come up with their own pilot programs intended to move people back into the labor force.

Republicans on Capitol Hill decried the announcement as a backdoor way of weakening the intent of the 1996 law, and the administration’s new policy has emerged as a significant issue in Republican Mitt Romney’s campaign for president.

Democrats say that Republican governors — including Romney when he was Massachusetts governor — had asked for the changes. They also argue that the waivers do not dilute the work requirement, but rather allow states to innovate on their own.

The House resolution of disapproval follows a Sept. 4 ruling by the Government Accountability Office that the administration was legally obligated to formally notify Congress of its intention to change the TANF rules. The GAO said the July 12 HHS memo advising states that they could apply for the waivers amounts to a rule under the Congressional Review Act (PL 104-121).

The resolution of disapproval requires only a majority vote in both chambers. Although President Obama is unlikely to sign such a resolution, the debate gives Republicans the opportunity to keep the issue in the spotlight for a few more weeks.

In July, House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., and Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, also introduced separate legislation (HR 6140, S 3397) to block the waivers. Camp and Hatch are scheduled to address reporters on the issue later Tuesday.