When Bill Clinton signed the welfare overhaul in 1996, he and his supporters promised that its problems could be fixed later. One problem at the top of the list was the bill's savaging of the food stamp program, including sharp financial cuts and the removal of legal immigrants from its rolls. It wasn't fixed.

Six years and lots of empty plates later, there's a chance to make a considerable improvement--if the senators who see the need to fix it hold out. The 2002 farm bill, with a price tag of $75 billion, has passed both houses and is now in conference committee. The Senate version adds $8.9 billion to the nutrition budget, mostly for food stamps, and requalifies most legal immigrants, including all children and also the disabled--which would add an estimated 400,000 people. In determining general eligibility, it also takes a more realistic view of what poor people have to spend for shelter and to keep a car running. The House adds only a bit more than a third of that and, in the spirit of both the House leadership and the 1996 welfare bill, doesn't fix much.

The Senate pays for its nutrition increases by limiting the farm subsidies that can be paid to individual and corporate farmers. The House--and some senators--would rather keep the money flowing in the same old streams. "The problem is that the House doesn't like the payment limits," says Andy Fisher, spokesman for Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana. "You would think that members would be ashamed to take that position, but they're not."

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