Trump budget dismays supporter
NEW YORK He slept next to his son’s ashes most nights back when Kraig Moss first met Donald Trump.
In a hall packed with Iowa voters, the presidential candidate looked the middle-aged truck driver in the eye and vowed to fight the opioid crisis that killed his only son two years earlier. “He promised me, in honour of my son, that he was going to combat the ongoing heroin epidemic,” Moss said of the January 2016 interaction. “He got me hook, line and sinker.”
Moss, an amateur musician, quickly sold enough possessions to fund a months-long tour of more than 40 Trump rallies, where he serenaded voters with pro-Trump songs. His guitar, and the ashes of his late 24-year-old son, Rob, were always close by.
Trump’s budget released this week would reduce funding for addiction treatment, research and prevention.
The most damaging proposed cut, critics say, is the president’s 10-year plan to shrink spending for Medicaid, which provides coverage to an estimated three in 10 adults with opioid addiction. Members of Congress have said they are unlikely to approve the budget as written.
The blueprint comes weeks after the president celebrated House passage of a Republican health care bill that would dramatically reduce Medicaid coverage, while allowing states to weaken a requirement that private insurance cover addiction treatment. A Congressional Budget Office report on Wednesday said a patient’s cost of substance abuse services could increase by thousands of dollars a year in states that chose to weaken coverage requirements.
Some see the moves as a painful betrayal of Americans whose families have been devastated by addiction and trusted the president’s repeated pledges to make them a priority once in office. Trump’s budget priorities focus on tax cuts, military spending and border security with massive cuts to programs for the poor and disabled.
Those most frustrated include parents who shared their stories with Trump.
“We want to help those who have become so badly addicted,” Trump insisted during a late-March “listening session” on opioid and drug abuse at the White House.
During the roundtable, Trump opened up about his father’s struggle with alcoholism. It was enough to convince skeptics in the room he was serious about an epidemic the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says kills 91 Americans each day.
Trump has tapped New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to lead a task force to combat the opioid crisis. Trump’s budget request, however, raises questions about whether he’s committed to new programs.
In some cases, the budget would maintain funding levels, such as US$1.85 billion for block grants to states that provide addiction treatment for 2.5 million Americans. Funding has been flat for a decade, and advocates say the grants have lost more than $480 million in purchasing power over that time because of inflation.
Trump also would cut funding for addiction research and eliminate support for the training of addiction professionals.
He wants to cut prevention programs by more than 30 per cent, according to one advocacy group’s analysis. Trump would cut millions of dollars of federal support of drug courts, prescription drug monitoring programs and state programs aimed at prescription drug overdoses.
The sense of betrayal is perhaps deeper for Moss, 58, who devoted much of last year to promoting Trump’s candidacy.
He’s back to driving trucks from his home in Owego, N.Y.
“Maybe I felt by combating the heroin epidemic that was going to make me feel complete, as far as losing my son and being able to move on,” Moss said.
“And maybe that’s why it feels like such a letdown he’s not fulfilling his promises.”