FYI: President Bush used a high-profile White House ceremony yesterday to declare his newly hardened stance on the welfare reauthorization bill. Standing with a former welfare recipient who has found work (albeit, for the Ohio governor’s wife), Bush urged Congress to pass his original slate of proposed changes to the program, some of which he had backed off of in negotiations with the formerly Democratically-controlled Senate. Bush wants to boost the work requirement from 30 to 40 hours a week, marriage-promotion policies, and more flexibility for states in how they spend their money. Democrats immediately renewed complaints that the president’s plan would amount to dramatically reduced child care subsidies–$1 billion a year less than that available even in the House version passed last year. Read or listen to the president’s speech on the White House website. [1/15]