Dole Endorses Welfare Limits

FOND DU LAC, Wisconsin: Seeking to retake the high ground on welfare reform from President Clinton, Bob Dole on Tuesday endorsed a five-year time limit on welfare benefits and said states should have the option of requiring mandatory drug testing for welfare recipients. Dole said welfare and other Great Society programs represent the failures of liberalism: "Today, it stands as its greatest shame; a grand failure that has crushed the spirit, destroyed the families and decimated the culture of those who have become enmeshed in its web." Clinton had launched a preemptive strike on Saturday when he announced his support for Wisconsin's plan that ends the guarantee of welfare benefits and requires all recipients to work. TIME's J.F.O. McAllister says Dole can't let Clinton play to draw on the welfare issue. "Dole is trying to make himself seem tougher than Clinton on welfare. Clinton will pay the price politically for not solving welfare in his first two years. But he has been able to effectively paint himself as concerned with welfare reform, so it should not be a great loss in November." Noting that Clinton has vetoed two Republican attempts to reform welfare, Dole said Clinton has already retreated from his embrace of Wisconsin's workfare program. "Too often, President Clinton's statements are like the tornadoes in the movie 'Twister' -->