41.   Kerrey said he wanted a presidential commission to find ways to attack the mushrooming costs of open-ended federal benefits programs that Congress is required to finance by law.

42.   Many federal benefit programs are administered at the county level, and county officials will have to deal with the consequences if payments are late.

43.   Medicare, welfare and other benefit programs must be financed, regardless of their costs, because their spending formulas are written into law.

44.   Ms. Camp cited three companies in particular for innovative benefits programs.

45.   Moreover, there are complex interactions between welfare and other benefit programs like food stamps and Medicaid, which are often changed by Congress at the same time.

46.   Nor does it affect Medicare, Medicaid, welfare and other benefit programs whose financing is set by permanent laws, rather than by annual appropriations.

47.   Other benefit programs will be lightly affected.

48.   Other work-life benefit programs also have boosted attendance.

49.   Polaroid declined to make a company official available to talk about its employee benefits programs for this article.

50.   Pundits and partisans denounced the Democratic campaign as demagogic and argued that Republicans deserved credit for at least tackling the issue of spending on benefit programs.