■ How can David Kessler say he leaves the Food and Drug Administration with his objectives accomplished when someone, somewhere, is still enjoying himself?
■ Get ready to see hordes of starving children on the screen, if not the streets. Liberals are gearing up to “fix” the welfare bill passed this summer. They want to let noncitizens (and, in their more fanciful moments, single men under 50 who don’t work) collect food stamps. Similarly, they want to ease eligibility rules for noncitizens seeking Supplemental Security Income—currently the fastest- growing welfare program. All told, they would snatch back $13 billion of the $55 billion the welfare bill saved. The First Lady wants to lead this charge. Sounds good to us; maybe she can bring back Ira Magaziner to assist. Republicans in Congress should be looking forward to fighting on this territory. But the liberals are right on one point: the welfare bill should be revisited. Work requirements should be strengthened; under the law only a quarter of recipients have to work by 2002. Medicaid should be cut and block-granted to the states. And the Legal Services Corporation should be prohibited from using federal funds to challenge welfare reform—or to do anything else, for that matter.
Comments