The polls--Trends: Welfare

The Republican victories in the 1994 congressional elections have led to a shift in government attention from the highly controversial issue of health care reform, which failed to win enactment in the 103rd Congress, to welfare reform, another of President Bill Clinton's legislative priorities. There has long been a bipartisan consensus favoring work over cash welfare payments, and favoring a significant welfare reform. The current controversy is over how to reform the welfare system, with Republicans pushing for reforms that will turn over increased responsibility to the states, increase disincentives to out-of-wedlock births, and reduce federal expenditures, while Democrats have stressed the need to provide additional child care and job guarantees while protecting poor children. One of the most stable elements of American public opinion in the US is the unpopularity of welfare, the general label for public assistance programs in the US that is most commonly applied to the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program.