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Senator Patty Murray, D-Wash

Bush, who campaigned as a less-government-is-good-government Republican, is so convinced of this that he is pressing Congress to add money to promote marriage in a bill that reauthorizes the 1996 Welfare Reform Act. The legislation, already approved by the House, is expected to be voted on by the Senate before the current law expires at the end of this month.

Bush wants to spend 0 million a year to hawk the value of marriage to welfare mothers. Counseling couples on the virtues of marriage isn't a bad idea -- as long as their participation isn't coerced in any way.

But that's just what opponents of the president's ''marriage incentives'' program believe will happen if it becomes law. They fear that other states will follow West Virginia's lead and offer to put more money in a mother's welfare check if she marries the father of her dependent children.

They're expected to argue this point today during a Capitol Hill news conference. The event was called to drum up support for a Senate amendment that would redirect Bush's marriage-incentives money to other programs that ''strengthen protections for the most disadvantaged families,'' such as teen parents and those who care for disabled children.

''The amendment targets scarce federal resources to where they will work best,'' said its author, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.

Connections between abuse, welfare

There's a real danger in offering poor women a financial incentive to marry. Many of them have gone on welfare to escape a violent relationship, according to a report being released today by the National Organization for Women Legal Defense and Education Fund. It concludes that abuse victims are less likely to find and keep a job or pursue the education they need to get off welfare.

Faced with the choice of leaving an abusive, unloving partner or getting additional public assistance to care for their children in return for marrying their tormentor, some women might opt to take the money. That's an enticement the federal government shouldn't allow states to dangle before these women.

''Simply providing financial incentives for marriage is not what the Bush marriage-incentive program is about,'' said Wade Horn, the assistant Health and Human Services secretary who oversees welfare programs. Instead, he said, Bush's emphasis is on counseling, educational and mentoring programs that will help married couples stay together.

That's a departure from what Horn advocated in a 2001 Brookings Institution article written while he still was president of the National Fatherhood Initiative. Then, he said that while reauthorizing the welfare-reform act, Congress ''could require states to follow West Virginia's lead and provide a cash bonus to single mothers on welfare who marry the child's biological father.''

A better idea would be for Congress to expressly prohibit states from doing that.

(Agencies)