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Since a Senate floor debate never occurred one needed to look at the cited reasons why
the Democratic leadership failed to embrace a debate or the proposed legislation. The findings
suggest that two issues divided members and that these issues were used as political fuel to
politicize welfare policy near the 2002 elections. These two issues were: 1) a fiscal perspective
(how much it would cost and whether or not additional money was necessary); and, 2) a numbers
focus (the state percentage of recipient workers and the numbers of weekly hours to be worked in
a job). Both of these decisive issues stem from the Administration’s proposal to reauthorize and
amend welfare law.
Most GOP members argued that money was plentiful because the caseload numbers were
drastically reduced. In effect, Congress could flat-fund TANF and demand higher work
participation rates and increased workweeks. If we ignore the fact that caseloads began to
increase and use the GOP argument, whereby taking advantage of financial savings in current
grants and spending, one would compromise the effectiveness of current welfare programs that
actually move people off of welfare because states spent their TANF dollars and invested
additional state funds to run welfare-to-work programs. We also know that states have been
facing deficits. Take for example California, a state that is nearly broke; no additional funds are
available to supplement welfare. Rather, California is reducing services and eliminating
programs. Therefore, money is a serious and real issue to be addressed.
When looking at the numbers of recipients receiving welfare, the caseload reduction
argument and proposed legislative changes coming out of the administration does not appear to
be logical. On the one hand, if the reduction in caseloads were directly due to welfare programs
and policies embedded in P.L. 104-193, why have members who touted these successes been so
Convention