State officials received similar authority under the 1996 welfare law.

But the new welfare law was supposed to be different.

There would be no welfare law if that were not so.

Sadly, nothing in the new welfare law is likely to change that.

More than 500 state officials met here last month to discuss the new welfare law.

President Clinton knows that the country already has a good welfare law, which he helped write.

But local governments can't do that without Federal help or changes in welfare law.

That is why many said they simply did not believe the welfare law would come to pass.

But he said that the forces put in play by the welfare law left no other choice.

But we could get a welfare law written in two days by people who have had very little sleep.