document: PRESIDENT Bill Clinton yesterday promised to name a task-force within the next 10 days to reform the US social safety net of welfare programmes . He told the National Governors ' Association that he was committed to ` ending welfare as we know it ' with measures to finance expanded job training for the unemployed , matched by a requirement that people must do some kind of work for their welfare cheque . The president said he would focus on better implementation of the Family Support Act , a 1988 welfare reform based on the work of an NGA task-force which he , as governor of Arkansas , co-chaired . ` The bill that is on the books will work , given the right economy and the right support systems , ' Mr Clinton said . Advocates of welfare reform had been discouraged about the new administration 's intentions , fearing that the centrist Democratic emphasis on requiring welfare recipients to work or enroll for training might fall prey to left-wing advocacy groups concentrating on greater funding of existing programmes . These suspicions were enhanced when Ms Donna Shalala , new secretary of health and human services , last month devoted only one sentence to welfare reform in a five-page statement of goals . With the onset of the recession , state revenues have been constrained while the number of welfare recipients has grown by 30 per cent . As a result , few states have been able to implement in full the act 's requirement that welfare recipients take part in some form of education or training . Mr Clinton promised yesterday his reforms would be based on the principle that ` welfare should be a second chance , not a way of life ' . There must be ' a certain time beyond which people do n't draw a cheque for doing nothing , ' he said . But at the same time people must be helped out of the welfare trap by providing them with continued health coverage , child care , and expanded earned income tax credits when they took jobs . Many states have already embarked on far-reaching welfare reform programmes , such as Michigan 's 21-point plan to strengthen families or New Jersey 's family development programme . Mr Clinton said he would let states experiment with such programmes , even when he disagreed with them .
extractive_keyphrases: welfare reform bill clinton family support act social safety net
abstractive_keyphrases: welfare programs president clinton