Welfare hearing spurs charges of political posturing

CARSON CITY -- A U.S. House subcommittee hearing on welfare reform here turned political Monday.

Rep. John Ensign, R-Nev., said it was "pure utter nonsense" to suggest the law hasn't been a success and pointed to the fact it has gotten people off public assistance and into the job market.

The number of people on welfare in Nevada has dropped 42 percent and in the nation 37 percent. The decrease can't all be attributed to a fast-growing economy, according to Ensign.

But Assemblywoman Jan Evans, D-Sparks, told the House Human Resources Subcommittee that the facts are not in yet to make a final judgment. She urged Congress to keep an "open mind" until there's more data available to evaluate welfare reform.

"The numbers don't tell the story," said Evans, who was instrumental in forging Nevada's welfare reform. She questioned whether local governments and charities were now picking up the cases that are knocked off the state rolls.

Outside the hearing, an angry Evans said the hearing "was quite a disappointment. There was less about policy and more about politics." This subcommittee, she said, wasn't in Carson City to listen to the facts but was here as a political campaign gimmick, obviously aiming her remarks at Ensign, a candidate for the U.S. Senate.

Subcommittee Chairman Clay Shaw Jr., a Republican from Florida, told Evans during the hearing, "we have not turned our backs on the poor." He said the state has 40 percent more to spend on the public assistance program.

Shaw said the former welfare program "enslaved people to a corrupt system."

Ensign, running against Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., also rejected a suggestion from Evans that more subsidized housing was needed for the poor.

Ensign, pushing his own income tax credit law to help people buy homes, said "public housing has been a disaster."

Ensign said there were two winners in welfare reform -- the people who are getting off public assistance and are ending "a seemingly endless cycle of dependency" and the taxpayers.

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