RESTRUCTURING WELFARE WILL BE A RUGGED ENDEAVOR

Welfare in this nation is a nightmare ... bloated, expensive and, worst of all, offering little hope of extrication to those on its rolls. President Clinton, to his credit, wants to reform the system. With a mess this big, it takes a certain level of chutzpah just to say the words. However, audacity alone won't serve this mission. And invention may be useless in Mr. Clinton's vast project if the economy is not in shape to accommodate his wishes.

Three million American parents have been on welfare at least two years. President Clinton proposes a program that will provide able-bodied recipients with education, training and child care for two years, then force them off the rolls and hopefully into the work force. The limitation idea is the centerpiece of this overhaul plan, as well as its most controversial aspect. Some see it as a two-year free ride for recipients, while others say it puts a gun to the head of those already living in poverty. In truth, there has to be some incentive, and accompanying deadline, to prompt people to leave the security and consistency of government assistance.

Is all this necessary? Is welfare in its current state draining America? The raw numbers speak loudly enough: In just one aspect of it, the states and federal government expended $22 billion last year on Aid to Families with Dependent Children, which doesn't count the $2.6 billion spent to administer the program. In addition to this, however, the nation suffers from the dismal effects of a cycle of poverty. While many find themselves on assistance rolls as a result of job displacement, medical problems or simple misfortune, there is a significant and troubling number of people who pass along welfare from generation to generation, a birthright of misery.

In searching for solutions, leaders in the nation's capital might look to the efforts of various states that have attempted to restructure their welfare systems. Vermont put into place a program that cut recipients' benefits if they don't land a job or do community service work after 30 months. Wisconsin is launching a different program on a pilot basis, making welfare recipients begin work or training for work within 30 days of joining the rolls; after a year, they would be required to work for benefits.

Mr. Clinton begins his quest to revamp the welfare system with a disadvantage of his own making. The punctuation on a successful welfare program must be gainful employment, a job that will last and one that can support a family. Government can not produce such jobs, at least not without weighing more heavily on the taxpayers. (At least one source cited in a recent series of stories by The Associated Press published in this newspaper indicated that the cost of creating one community service job and associated day care is $3,500. Some 5 million families, most of them headed by a single mother, receive benefits from Aid to Families with Dependent Children.) The type of jobs needed to put welfare recipients to work are created by the private sector, and President Clinton has chilled the capacity for creating these jobs with his recent round of tax increases and business disincentives.

America is a nation of compassion. The people of this country have always reached out to those in need. It was only in programs of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, and those spawned in the decades following, that government supplanted the citizens of America (not to mention churches, benevolent organizations, and so on) as guarantors of the down and out. No one believes the welfare system is working. President Clinton has his hands full in trying to change it in a meaningful way.