Tag Archives: Food stamps

Newswire : 5 ways Trump’s over-inflated budget hurts Black Folks

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Funding is being slashed for programs many African-Americans rely on.

By Bruce C.T. Wright, Newsone

It’s not a surprise that any political action supported by the president is bound to hurt people of color, but the extent to which his super inflated proposed budget for the 2019 fiscal year affects Black people is impossible to ignore upon closer inspection.
Not only would the budget add $7 trillion to the already ballooning deficit – something Trump made a habit of chiding Obama for – it would slash spending for five programs in particular that have been crucial for Black people and people of color overall.

Housing
Renters receiving public assistance for housing will have their benefits cut by 11 percent, the Associated Press reported. While that news might please Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson, the fact of the matter is that “Forty-eight percent of public housing households are black compared to only 19 percent of all renter households,” according to statistics compiled by HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research. With Black unemployment remaining high despite recent, yet overstated, progress on that front, the plight for Black folks to secure adequate housing could get much tougher in the near future.

Food stamps
Black people have been the disproportionate recipients of food stamps, with nearly 25 percent of African-Americans being sent the public assistance each month. With Trump’s budget cutting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits program by $213 over the next decade, the move will almost certainly be devastating to the Black folks who depend on them. To add insult to injury, Trump has proposed replacing food stamps with a “Blue Apron-style” system that would deliver boxes of food to families, introducing a number of potential cultural, personal and social conflicts.

Law enforcement
The rise of Trump and his White nationalism has likewise meant the rise of Jeff Session, America’s top law enforcement official who has doubled down on his decades-long reign of racist terror against Black people. He just vowed Monday to protect the “Anglo-American heritage of law enforcement,” which is not-so-coded language that could be translated to mean its open season on people of color. Beyond that, Trump’s budget “seeks more than $109 million for crime-fighting efforts,” according to the AP, which only empowers the same police departments that routinely terrorize Black communities.

Education
As if the above wasn’t bad enough, Trump’s budget would also make student loan debt forgiveness by the government a thing of the past. That would be terrible on face value alone, but when you factor in how nearly half of all Black student loan borrowers end up defaulting on what the borrow — never mind the negative implications for Black borrowers’ financial futures because of those loans — enrolling in, let alone graduating from, college becomes an even higher hurdler Black folks to clear than before.

Health Care
Even though just 10 percent of African-Americans depend on Medicare, Trump’s proposed budget cuts would force those senior citizens to pay much more for their prescription drugs, according to the AP. With the health discrepancies between Black people and other races being well documented, expanding, not reducing “health coverage among African Americans is critical,” according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Newswire: Republicans are planning an assault on programs for the poor

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Written By Nigel Roberts, Newsone

House Speaker Paul Ryan wants to cut holes in the social safety net during the 2018 legislative session, taking aim at programs poor people depend on to survive, Fox News reported.
“We’re going to get back at reforming these entitlements. And we’re going to take on welfare reform, which is another big entitlement program, where we’re basically paying people, able-bodied people, not to work and depriving them with all these disincentives from going to the workforce,” he said.
Fresh off passing tax reform legislation in December, the GOP wants to roll that momentum in 2018. The tax overhaul, which mainly benefits corporations and wealthy individuals, adds $1.4 trillion to the deficit. Now, the Republicans are looking for ways slash the debt they created. The solution to them is axing government health care programs and social services spending. “Frankly, it’s the health care entitlements that are the big drivers of our debt, so we spend more time on the health care entitlements — because that’s really where the problem lies, fiscally speaking,” Ryan said on Ross Kaminsky’s talk radio show.

Here’s what to expect:
1. Medicare
Yes, Medicare is on the table, even though the GOP has long feared a backlash from seniors. Ryan has been talking with President Donald Trump about the need to cut the program. “I think the president is understanding that choice and competition works everywhere in health care, especially in Medicare,” the House Speaker said.
their totally unnecessary $1.5 trillion tax cut for the rich the GOP will spend the next ten years saying we must cut Medicare, Medicaid, & Social Security because the deficit is too damn high. Never let the American people forget their tax cuts caused that deficit.

2. Medicaid
In addition to funding cuts, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a federal agency within the Department of Health, has already signaled that changes are coming to the health care program for poor people. The agency, in a departure from President Barack Obama’s approach, is recommending that states establish a work requirement for certain Medicaid beneficiaries.

3. Food stamps
Reigning in the food stamp program is a perennial goal for Republicans. They see an opportunity through the pretext of reducing the budget deficit explosion they created. On top of cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the GOP plans to give states more flexibility in how they administer the program. As with Medicaid, they also want to add a work requirement for receiving food stamps and direct cash assistance to the poor.