The Trump administration has a new argument to dismantle the social safety net: it worked.



[ad_1]

Republicans for years have proclaimed the failure of the federal government, decades old.

"Americans are not better off than they were before the war against poverty in 1964". R-Wis.) Wrote in his 2016 plan to significantly reduce the federal safety net.

Now, the Trump administration is launching a new message on anti-poverty programs, saying that Republicans' reputedly ineffective efforts had already worked.

The White House in a report this week declared the war on poverty "largely over and successful," arguing that few Americans are really poor – only about 3% of the population – and that the # 39 booming economy is the best way forward Over the past 54 years, since President Lyndon B. Johnson declared war on poverty, federal spending on social assistance programs aimed at low-income households have increased dramatically, contributing writing the Council of Economic Advisers of the White House, claiming that poverty had dropped by 90% since the beginning of the programs

"None of these statistics have to deny the way millions of people have lost their lives. "Americans sometimes struggle to make ends meet", wrote the economic advisors, but "the vast majority of Americans are able to satisfy their basic human needs. The report is the latest in a series of Trump administration efforts. is a problem that is decreasing in the United States. US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said last month that no more than 250,000 Americans were in "extreme poverty," denouncing a UN report saying that 18.5 Millions of Americans suffer from extreme impoverishment. rhetoric, party veterans say.

"We talked about dollar figures and whether people should work or not, we never argued that we had a problem," said Jane Calderwood, who served as chief from cabinet to Olympia Snowe when the Maine Republican was in Congress. "I do not remember the Republicans ever saying," We've overcome poverty and can just move on now.

The New Message Comes to the White House and Republicans in Congress pursue their long-standing goal for recipients of Good Foods, Medicaid and Housing Grants.Republicans say that House officials White and other Republicans massively downplay American poverty Estimates of US poverty vary widely, and experts have a series of measures to assess who is considered poor.

The most recent census data indicates that in 2016, 12.7% of Americans – about 41 million people – were in poverty compared to 19% in 1964. A separate census measure, known as the "extra" poverty rate, takes into account 39 Federal assistance to households and regional differences in the cost of living According to this measure, about 14% of Americans live in poverty. [19659010] Rather than measuring the resources that enter households, conservative researchers prefer to use "consumption" statistics based on surveys. According to Robert Rector, a researcher at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, poverty is closer to the figure of 3%. Census Bureau data show that poverty remains relatively flat.

Some moderate Republicans view the Trump administration's new message as a blink of an eye to the role played by social programs in reducing poverty and a concession to government realities.

"When you really have to govern, you are much more willing to acknowledge that some government efforts have been successful," said Robert Doar, a scholar from the conservative American Enterprise Institute who was a commissioner. for social service agencies under the leadership of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. "It's different from the previous rhetoric that says all the government's efforts to reduce poverty have been a failure, and I think it's closer to reality and more reasonable."

Some conservatives note in some areas, remains consistent with the orthodox GOP to have more Americans working rather than depending on the government's help. The report says that gains from the expanded welfare state "came at the cost of discouraging self-sufficiency."

Critics are skeptical of the new rhetoric of the administration on poverty and remain opposed to the plans of the Republicans to tackle it. It's an opportunistic framework to try to move in the same direction, "said Suzanne Mettler, a political scientist at Cornell University whose new book examines Americans' experiences with federal social policies. "It's ironic. For centuries, they said it was a failure, and suddenly they try to proclaim victory and give up everything.

Critics say that the demands of work place additional barriers to care and food for those who need it. And they accuse the administration of underestimating the difficulty of getting out of poverty, even in a robust economy.

Most of the people who can work are already working or looking for a job, say critics, adding that the problem is that jobs In May, the Federal Reserve released a report that 4 out of 10 adults, s & # 39; they were faced with an unexpected expense of $ 400, would not be able to cover or cover According to Melissa Boteach, Vice-President of the Poverty to Prosperity Program of the Left Center, about 70% of Americans are turning to a federal program based about resources at some point in their lives. for American progress.

Anti-poverty advocates cite the lack of health insurance for more than 25 million Americans as evidence that many more people are suffering from material deprivation. They also cite a study by Angus Deaton, an economist at Princeton University, that 5.3 million Americans would live on less than $ 4 a day, including government assistance.

In the midst of the debate over American poverty, the White House and Republicans began

Trump signed in April a decree ordering federal agencies to develop recommendations on how to expand working conditions for low-income Americans who receive government assistance.

this month, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson proposed to triple the rents of the poorest households receiving federal housing subsidies and to facilitate the work of local landowners and landowners. Article 8

"Every year, it takes more money, millions of dollars more, to serve the same number of households," Carson said at the time. "It is clear from a budgetary point of view and from a human point of view that the current system is unsustainable."

The Trump administration has already approved for the first time new work requirements for Medicaid. Until now, the administration has approved the work requirements for four states – Arkansas, New Hampshire, Indiana and Kentucky – although the Kentucky proposal was rejected. by a judge last month. Seven other states have also asked the administration for permission to impose work requirements.

The House of Representatives passed a Farm Bill in June that provides additional requirements for the food stamp program. But the provisions, which require most adults to work part-time or enroll in vocational training as a condition for receiving benefits, are unlikely to bring the Senate into a compromise bill [19659024] window.addEventListener ("DOMContentLoaded", function () {});
window.addEventListener ("load", function () {var isEUUser = wp_pb.StaticMethods.isEUUser () || false, applyTwitter () function {try {var $ tweetAuthors = $ (". tweet-authors"); var $ tweetTimelines = $ (". twitter-timeline"); if (($ $ tweetAuthors.length || !! $ tweetTimelines.length) && (! window.twttr ||! twttr.widgets)) $. ajax ({dataType: " script ", cache: true, url:" // platform.twitter.com/widgets.js",success:function(data){if(!!$tweetAuthors.length)$tweetAuthors.find(".pb-twitter – follow.unprocessed "). removeClass (" untreated ")}})} catch (e) {}} if (wp_pb.StaticMethods.isPageHydrated ()) applyTwitter ();
__e = window .__ e || []; __ e.push ([“shamble:end”,function(){applyTwitter()}]); wp_import (pbThirdPartyScripts) .always (function () {document.dispatchEvent (new CustomEvent ("pb-r-third-party-js"))}}); if (! isEUUser) try {$ ("body"). append ( x3cimg src x3d "https://amplifypixel.outbrain.com/pixel?midx3d00bb70a80ee8f020d9011cbcef307fe64d" x3e ")} catch (e) {} if (! isEUUser) {! function (f, b, e, v, n, t, s) {if (f.fbq) returns; n = f.fbq = function () {n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply (n, arguments): n.queue. push (arguments);; if (! f._fbq) f._fbq = n; n.push =
not; n = load =! 0; n.version = "2.0"; n.queue = []; t = b.createElement (e); t.async =! 0; t.src = v; s = b .getElementsByTagName (e) [0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore (t, s)} (window, document, "script", "https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js"); fbq ("init", "1063176057035408"); fbq ("track", "PageView")}}); [ad_2]
Source link