Washing their hands.

• Position: Congress decides to do away with federal guarantee of welfare assistance

The "Pontius Pilate approach" is what Senator Carol Moseley-Braun called it, and she's right.

By doing away with the federal guarantee of welfare assistance, legislators in both houses of Congress have voted to wash their hands of the poor. It is a reprehensible move, and one that bodes ill for our future.

If President Clinton signs the draconian new legislation, and he shows every indication of doing so since he's the one who got the "welfare-reform" ball rolling, it will be up to the states to decide how to administer welfare. The federal government is letting go of its end of the safety net. It will no longer uphold any minimal standard of humanity. There will be no assurance that poor people and their children won't simply starve.

How did we become such a mean-spirited nation? Democrats and Republicans alike have been hyping the idea of welfare reform for years, picking at festering resentments of the black "underclass" and unmarried women with babies. Politicians and the pundits who swim in Washington's think-tanks have promoted the theory of "compassion fatigue" - that the poor are a nuisance and a drain on the well-off, that welfare creates poverty, and that what the homeless and hungry need is a swift kick in the pants. Now that theory is being put into practice.

The Democrats, and most of all President Clinton, find themselves helping the Republicans dismantle welfare because they are afraid that if they don't go along, they'll be accused of being obstructionist, or worse, soft.

"Face it," one White House official told The Washington Post, explaining why Clinton is willing to give in to the Republicans on welfare. "We lost the election. It's something or nothing. He wants something."

The Democrats in Congress are little better. Only eleven Democrats opposed the Senate bill. Standing on principle with Senator Moseley-Braun were Daniel Akaka of Hawaii, Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, Bill Bradley and Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Paul Sarbanes of Maryland, Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, Paul Simon of Illinois, and Paul Wellstone of Minnesota. Lauch Faircloth, Republican of North Carolina, also voted against the bill.

Among those voting for it were several from whom we might have expected more, including Tom Harkin of Iowa, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein of California, Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, and Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin.

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