The House Ways and Means Committee ratified the central piece of the GOP's welfare reform plan Wednesday, with only one Democrat joining the Republican majority to send the legislation to the House floor.
The bill replaces cash welfare and foster care programs with block grants to the states, reforms child support enforcement, ends public aid to most legal immigrants and replaces cash benefits to thousands of disabled children with expanded medical services.The bill passed the committee by a vote of 22-11, with only Rep. Gerald Kleczka of Wisconsin siding with the Republicans. A floor vote could come by mid-March.
Hours earlier, another House committee approved legislation that would fundamentally change the $27 billion food stamp program by tightening rules and holding down automatic increases in benefits that help one in 10 Americans buy groceries.
There, too, only one Democrat, Rep. Scotty Baesler of Kentucky, joined Republicans, and the House Agriculture Committee passed the bill 26-18 after more than 15 hours of debate.
The Ways and Means committee finished its work on the blueprint last week, but a final vote was postponed when Democrats insisted that the bill - which had been written in layman's language - be turned into legislative text.
Two weeks ago, the Economic and Educational Opportunities Committee approved the third element of the GOP's welfare overhaul, a bill that would consolidate federal child-care and nutrition programs and return the money to the states in three block grants.
Democrats on the agriculture committee invoked images of hungry children with distended stomachs as they sought to portray the food stamp reforms as cruel to the poor and fought largely unsuccessfully to reshape the legislation.
"There is no intention to punish anyone for anything," said Rep. Bill Emerson, R-Mo. "But to have a tight program that helps real people who need real help and to eliminate fraud, abuse and trafficking."
The bill would hold automatic cost-of-living adjustments in food stamp benefits to 2 percent a year, replacing a system that bases increases on inflation.
Republicans say the bill would cut food stamp spending by $16 billion over the next five years, out of an estimated $150 billion.