"CLINTON BUDGET; MORE BILLS; WWW SITES"

CLINTON BUDGET
NEW LEGISLATION
WELFARE WWW SITES

February 28, 1997

PROPOSED FEDERAL BUDGET
The President, in his proposed budget for FFY98 (which
begins October 1, 1997), has asked for about $21 billion
total over the next five years to address problems he
sees in four areas of the Personal Responsibility Act of
1996: job development, Food Stamps, legal immigrants,
and disabled children.

Note that his budget does not propose changes in TANF,
and, if approved, these budget changes would mitigate
about one-fourth of the projected budget savings of the
Personal Responsibility Act (with projected savings of
$54 billion over five years).

The breakout is roughly as follows:
o $3.0 billion over five years to create jobs for TANF
recipients;
o $3.1 billion to restore some Food Stamp benefits, with
the primary change allowing adults (age 18 to 50) who
are not working and who have no dependents to receive
benefits six months out of every 12, rather than three
months out of every 36;
o $14.8 billion in restorations of benefits for legal
immigrants, with the largest provision ($9.2 billion)
being assistance to an estimated 320,000 legal
immigrants who become disabled after arriving in the
U.S.; and,
o $300 million to allow disabled children who lose SSI
benefits to retain Medicaid eligibility.

NEW STATE LEGISLATION INTRODUCED
As the bill introduction deadline approaches, there will
be many new bills listed on the Senate Health and Human
Services Committee's WWW page on legislation.

In addition to the Senate bills listed already, readers
may be interested in the following Assembly bills. To
find the text of these bills, go to the Committee's home
page, click on the 1997-98 legislation link, and proceed
as instructed.

AB 2 (Ashburn), TANF
AB 20 (Migden), public social services
AB 113 (Oller and Ashburn), General Assistance
eligibility
AB 147 (Runner), AFDC paternity and support
AB 194 (Wright), AFDC employment exemptions

MORE WWW SITES

The Welfare Information Network is a national
clearinghouse for welfare reform information:
http://www.welfareinfo.org

The National Association of Counties has a welfare page
as well:
http://www.naco.org/nich/index.htm

The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) has
a web site on welfare:
http://www.ncsl.org/statefed/welfare/welfare.htm