The 'Magical Thinking' Behind The GOP Plan To Cut Programs For The Poor

[applegrove]

The 'Magical Thinking' Behind The GOP Plan To Cut Programs For The Poor

by Bryce Covert at Think Progress

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/03/18/3634322/republican-budgets-block-grants/

"SNIP................


The aim is to save the federal government money while still serving the needs of the poor. Overall, the House budget purports to save $5.5 trillion in spending while still “ensur[ing] assistance is provided to those in need.” But Republicans plan to do this in part with something called block granting, which significantly changes the way programs are funded. But as past experience with block granting shows, the poor will suffer if these programs are reformed this way.

Currently, Medicaid and SNAP are cost-sharing partnerships between states and the federal government. If need and enrollment increase for these programs — say, during a severe financial crisis where more families struggle to afford food and need food stamps to get by — then the government shares that increased cost. If these programs were to be block-granted, on the other hand, it would mean the federal government would give states a fixed amount of money to pay for them that wouldn’t change even if demand changed. In return, states are promised more flexibility in how they implement the programs.

This relies on “some magical thinking that states know how to [run these programs] and no one is letting them,” said Mark Schmitt of the New America Foundation. The House budget document says that when it comes to food stamps, “the core challenge is that while states have the responsibility of administering the program, they have little flexibility to ensure it is well run,” but that block-granting it would give them the room to “administer the program in ways that … achieve better results.” Of Medicaid, Republicans claim the change would “give states greater freedom to build the most effective programs for their communities … to better cut down on waste, fraud, and abuse.”

.........

The last major anti-poverty program that was block granted was welfare in 1996, at the time called Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and now called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The government froze the amount of money it gives to states to run their welfare programs, which was $16.5 billion at the time of reform and hasn’t been increased or updated since, therefore losing 28 percent of its value over time. The number of people served has at the same time decreased dramatically, falling from a peak of 5.1 million people to just 1.9 million by 2010 and today reaching just 26 percent of the low-income families who are typically eligible, compared to 72 percent in the 1990s. States are incentivized to reduce their roles, not reduce poverty.

................SNIP"

[ND-Dem]

1. kr. never worked before, won't work now. and i've seen about enough of anti-poverty

programs that are, in reality, subsidies to private corporations and businesses.

It's become pretty blatant. Get private business out of the poverty business. The government does a much better job, cheaper, with less self-interest.

And I hate to say it, but the people working for the government are smarter, kinder, and better educated than the morons working in private anti-poverty agencies. Plus the morons do NOTHING for you, not a frigging thing.

[seveneyes]

2. "The Poor"

[Newest Reality]

3. "The Rich"

A companion to that video:

[seveneyes]

4. A reply with the rich man and poor man

[daredtowork]

5. The local response is usually to try to hide the poor

Last edited Thu Mar 19, 2015, 12:37 AM - Edit history (1)

"Out of sight, out of mind."

Avoid guilt/unpleasant feelings/unaesthetic views, and better yet push the poor onto some other town and some other dime.

While it seems like local approaches would be more efficient and knowledgeable and even compassionate, the truth is that it's at the local level where you see just how far people will twist themselves into knots to find a non-asshole excuse to get poor people out of their sight rather than taking on a community responsibility for poverty.

I was at a Berkeley City Council meeting last night where one of the council members had made a considerable effort to dig up old and obscure laws that could be used to sweep the poor out of sight. The repeated reason was the "behavior" of the poor, such as defecating on the sidewalk. At the same time the Council noted there weren't enough public bathrooms, the current bathrooms weren't maintained, and they were locked at night. A couple business owners described negative confrontations with homeless people (perhaps they were trying to get to bathrooms?). These stories baffled me. I have never felt unsafe downtown, and I don't feel the problem has gotten "worse" lately. Though it wouldn't surprise me if there were more homeless people around: services and programs have been drastically cut. Where are they supposed to go?

Anyway, they rest of the laws were about hiding the homeless during the day. This would be a boon to the big property developers showing off their condos, but it would also alleviate the conscience of the community in a way that would prevent necessary conversations about poverty from taking place. Panhandlers would be replaced by a discreet box that most people wouldn't bother to donate to themselves, but they would figure it was covering any duty for "charity". Btw, those donations were being routed to the least effective "food and shelter" organization in Berkeley - away from the "radical" organizations that actually help the poor, starting with opposing criminalizing them (arrests block them from getting the services they need).

A further by-product of these ridiculous new laws is they interfere with the "right to rest" of the elderly and the disabled. The people of Berkeley recognized this and came out strong to oppose the resurrection of these laws. But after hearing from the community, the City Council showed they were basically in the pocket of big property developers. Who knows- perhaps they are even investors. They slipped those laws - which had literally been VOTED DOWN by the community 2 years ago on to the City Manager to study "how to implement". (Along with some "help the homeless" amendments to "study" as a sop to the crowd - but we all know which is on track for implementation).

I noticed something else at that City Council meeting. Last month the Mayor gave a State of the City talk. Tickets were supposedly offered online, and I tried to get one since the talk was in my neighborhood. But the tickets were "sold out". Since the event was almost across the street from me, I spied on who came out. They were all well dressed rich-looking people, and a few people from city commissions. There were not that many people, so I doubt the Mayor's talk was actually sold out. It seems more like it was a VIP event. The point is the people I saw that night were different from the people I see at City Council meetings. Were those the City Council's real stakeholder's? Perhaps the "leveraged buyout of ideas" has already taken place, and the city Council meetings are just for show, to pretend the Council represents the community instead of the big property developers.