To offer some perspective on the rhetoric currently inflaming the debate over welfare reform, it is instructive to go back a few months to re-examine similar rhetoric over the treatment of congressional committee employees. To set the scene, remember: Republicans had just become the majority party in both houses of Congress for the first time in 40 years. Bill Clinton had been rudely shoved to the sidelines by voters and his own party, and congressional Democrats had no clear idea of what their agenda should be. Only one thought linked the White House and Democrats on Capitol Hill: Vilify as mean-spirited Republicans in general and criticize Newt Gingrich in particular.

While this strategy was devoid of any intellectual merit or governing principle, Democrats in Washington viewed it as their best political bet. American voters have always been suspicious of Republican motives, in part because the vocabulary of conservatism contains few touchy-feely terms, and Democrats hoped to exploit this suspicion by deriding Republicans at every opportunity as "mean-spirited, cruel and favoring the rich."

One of the first times this strategy was rolled out post-election was when the leaders of the new Republican majority announced they would be making cuts in the operating staff of the Congress itself. While this action was uniformly favored across the country, congressional Democrats faulted the announcement as, you guessed it, cruel and mean-spirited towards those Capitol Hill employees who would lose their jobs. The yet-to-be-sworn-in speaker of the House became, in Democratic parlance, "the Gingrich who stole Christmas."

"Apparently, Scrooge is back, in the form of the Republican transition team," Maryland Rep. Albert Wynn said at the time. "Their vision of Christmas is to lay off people... I think it's cold-hearted."

Television and other national media repeated the message over and over. Scrooge, cold-hearted, mean-spirited.

That would be the end of this story, except for one thing. The Associated Press conducted a computer analysis of what actually happened to these "needy" congressional staffers in the month before Republicans took over. The wire service reported on its study last week.

"In the final month before they relinquished control to Republicans, House Democrats handed out hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra pay to employees being squeezed out of work."The recipients ranged from clerical workers and junior staff members who got an extra $500 apiece to senior aides who walked away with lump sums as high as $12,000."Among the beneficiaries was Rhoda Glickman, wife of defeated Kansas Rep. Dan Glickman, who has been nominated to be agriculture secretary. She got an extra $1,962 for her last month of work at the Congressional Arts Caucus, an advisory panel eliminated by Republicans. She has joined the Clinton administration as a spokeswoman for the National Park Service."Rep. Charlie Rose, North Carolina Democrat, who authorized $153,054 in extra December pay for his staff on the House Administration Committee, said the payments did not cost taxpayers extra money."'The money was available in the appropriations to do it,' he said.

"Topping the list of bonus-recipients were two of Rose's communication staffers, Carole T. Roberts, who got an extra $12,458 in December, and Ellen McCarthy, who received $12,271."Former D.C. Committee staff director Broderick Johnson said pay increases on his panel were given out of 'concern about what was happening to people' and 'to say thank you to those who had worked for so long.'"But personnel records show that some of the beneficiaries served the committee less than four months, and at least two of the eight staff members suffered no significant lapse in employment."

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Were these Democratic chairmen "compassionate" in giving hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonuses to their committee staff, some who had been with them for less than four months? Absolutely. Who can't be compassionate when giving away somebody else's money? But were they responsible? No. Contrary to what chairman Rose said, his actions did cost American taxpayers.

And that's the problem in the current debate over welfare reform. Compassion defined by Democrats and much of the media is how much of somebody else's money the government spends on a program. Whether the money is needed or well-spent -- or even if the program works -- becomes secondary.

Republicans have taken the lead in fixing a system that everybody in Washington agrees is broken. Their central philosophy is to send as much of the current program as possible to the states, where innovation can blossom and funds can be more efficiently utilized. While their new program doesn't spend as much as President Clinton wants to spend, it does increase current amounts of funding. Does this make Republicans mean-spirited?

"No," says Republican Rep. Bob Livingston, "We're only trying to bring fiscal sanity to the federal government while making welfare work for Americans instead of against them."

The Republican welfare plan is far from perfect. But it is dramatically better than the current system. Democrats should join the GOP in making their reform plan better, instead of merely throwing hand grenades from the sidelines.

Jon K. Rust is a Washington-based writer for the Southeast Missourian.