WASHINGTON -- Key Senate Democrats said Tuesday that President Bush's welfare plan fails to give poor Americans support needed to move out of poverty, does not spend enough on child care and wrongly fails to restore benefits for legal immigrants.

The president is also wrong to call for $300 million to promote marriage among welfare recipients, said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Finance Committee, which will write legislation this year renewing the 1996 welfare overhaul.

"Marriage is a wonderful institution. But it's a personal and private choice, not something the government should interfere with," Baucus told advocates for the poor, who rallied in Washington Tuesday.

Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who voted against the 1996 welfare bill, said that the changes worked out better than he had feared, but welfare programs must now provide needed education, training, child care and drug treatment.

"Luckily, our economy was strong, and there were opportunities for people making the transition from welfare to work," he said Tuesday in a statement. "Now comes the hard part. Our economy is in recession. Those who could move easily into the work force have already done so, and many who took minimum wage or dead-end jobs are realizing they need more skills to move up the economic ladder."

'Proven critics wrong'

Baucus said Bush can't expect Congress to increase work requirements without increasing child care spending, and he argued that reduction of poverty must be a central goal of the welfare system.

"Parents who are working hard to make ends meet shouldn't have to raise their children in poverty," he said.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan responded that "the results of reform have proven such critics wrong" saying the 1996 law "dramatically improved the lives of many Americans."

The critique was far harsher from the advocates who came to Washington to lobby for significant changes to the welfare law.

"Let's call it what it is. It's an attack on poor families with children in America," said Maude Hurd, president of ACORN, an advocacy group for low-income Americans.

Deepak Bhargava, director of the National Campaign for Jobs and Income Support, called the Bush welfare plan "breathtakingly extreme, punitive and unworkable."

"The president apparently believes the safety net is something you use to catch fish off the coast of Kennebunkport," Bhargava said, referring to the Bush family vacation home in Maine.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson also defended the Bush plan. "Welfare reform in America worked, despite the dire warnings six years ago by advocacy groups who opposed our efforts to break the cycle of dependency," Thompson said in a statement.

Responding to Daschle's comments, McClellan said that Bush wants to help poor immigrants "in a way that does not promote dependence or encourage people to come to America seeking welfare." As for child care, he said that current spending is at a historic high and the administration wants to maintain that.

Vowing to fight conservatives in a battle they lost six years ago, Bhargava led other activists Tuesday in protesting at HHS headquarters; the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank; and the Democratic Leadership Council, a moderate group that supports strong work requirements for welfare recipients.

He and others leveled a variety of criticisms of the Bush plan. Among their claims:

--It fails to restore assistance to non-citizens, who have to wait five years before they are eligible for federally funded welfare payments.

--It does not spend enough on child care. Bush is asking Congress for flat funding.

--It toughens work requirements, forcing states to put a large portion of their welfare caseload into jobs, with limited opportunities for education or training.

--It would force states to create public jobs for welfare recipients in order to meet work requirements, but these jobs would not pay workers minimum wage or give them other worker protections.

--It spends up to $300 million in tax dollars on pro-marriage programs that have not been proven effective.

"It seems the administration believes getting a man is more important than getting a job," said Lisa Maatz of the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund. "Unless the government marriage program is called 'How to Marry a Multimillionaire,' the best way to strengthen marriage among the poor is economic security."