Obama Administration Defends Change to Welfare-to-Work Program Amid recent criticism by Republicans, the Obama administration has released further details of its move to give states greater flexibility in managing their federally funded welfare-to-work programs. In a letter dated Wednesday and signed by Kathleen Sebelius, the Health and Human Services secretary, the agency called its proposal one that "strengthens the law's purpose to move people off of welfare and into jobs by utilizing state-based innovation." "Our goal is to accelerate job placement by moving more Americans from welfare to work, and no policy which undercuts that goal or waters down work requirements will be considered or approved by the department," the letter read. The letter has been sent to Representative Dave Camp of Michigan and Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, Republican lawmakers who last week called the department's policy "deeply flawed." At issue is a directive released last week that would enable states to experiment with changes to their welfare-to-work programs, primarily as a means to bypass burdensome paperwork and reporting requirements. The letter to Mr. Camp and Mr. Hatch clarified that waivers would only be granted if states aimed to increase work placement by 20 percent, and waivers would be rescinded unless states demonstrated "clear progress toward that goal" within the first year. Some Republicans have publicly questioned the motives behind the directive, including Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, who called the policy "completely misdirected." The Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group, wrote in an article posted to its Web site last week that waivers would "gut" welfare and allow states to circumvent work requirements. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Jay Carney, White House press secretary, maintained that the "administration opposes any effort to undermine those requirements" and called Republican opposition "hypocritical." The debate has stirred latent hostilities left over from 1996, when Congress overhauled welfare by refashioning it as a block grant to states and adding work requirements to its distribution scheme. The latter change was viewed as a significant victory for conservatives. But, since then, a nontrivial number of Republicans have supported waivers for states to tailor their welfare-to-work programs. In 2005, Republican governors penned a letter to Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, backing waivers for states. Last year, five states, including two - Utah and Nevada - with Republican governors, urged the health and human services department to consider allowing waivers.