The American Feminist

The American Feminist, Fall 1996

Clinton Signs Welfare Bill; Child Support Enforcement Strengthened

Pro-life feminists have scored a major victory with the defeat of the "family cap" (also known as a child-exclusion provision) and support for enhanced child-support enforcement under the recently-passed welfare reform legislation that President Clinton signed August 22, 1996.

Although the House supported the "family cap," the Senate under the leadership of Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) rejected such provisions and their arguments won the day. The "family cap" provision denies Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) benefits now paid for each additional child born to a mother on AFDC.

Advocacy groups such as the National Organization for Women and the Children's Defense Fund expressed their dissatisfaction with the legislation, saying that it would leave women and children without a safety net. "Many of us will hold our noses and vote for President Clinton," said NOW President Patricia Ireland. "Others of us will not - we'll be discouraged voters who simply stay home."

White House spokesperson Michael McCurry responded, "If the president has to live without the support of the National Organization for Women, he'll just have to pay that price." Clinton has pledged to reverse two provisions that will cut funding for nutritional programs and deny assistance to legal immigrants.

Experience with "family caps" in New Jersey highlights the potential tragedy of such legislation. After the "family cap" was instituted, Medicaid-funded abortions increased from 7,619 in 1992-93 to 7,932 during 193-94. But our work is not over - the welfare reform bill does allow states to pass their own "family cap" provisions, so FFL members must continue to be vigilant at the state level.

With just 37 percent of 10 million custodial mothers receiving child support in 1989, no serious effort can be made to move single mothers toward self-sufficiency without an overhaul of our child-support enforcement system. As one displaced homemaker on welfare put it, "Just about every welfare case is a child-support case." This bill takes some important first steps toward ensuring non-custodial parental responsibility. Each state, as well as the federal government, would be required to develop a registry of child-support orders and cooperate with both federal and other state agencies in ensuring that child support is collected across state lines. In addition, states will have to establish a "new hire" registry for businesses to register new employees. This will allow for state governments to cross-check new employees against the child-support order registry and notify businesses to withhold wages on employees who owe child support. States will also have the authority to suspend business, drivers, and recreational licenses for any parent that owes past-due child support.

FFL Executive Director Serrin Foster acknowledged the importance of grassroots lobbying in ensuring that child-exclusion provisions were not included in the legislation: "This victory highlights how critical our membership is to effecting change by ensuring that our representatives hear a pro-life feminist perspective. Much of the credit belongs to FFL leaders for getting the word out to our members by publishing alerts, participating in phone trees, and our members who contacted their representatives and senators repeatedly. You have made the difference!"