‘Order’ pushes work for welfare
Trump in bid to promote ‘common-sense reforms’
WASHINGTON, April 11, (AP): President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday that aims to add and strengthen work requirements for public assistance and other welfare programs.
The order, signed in private, promotes “common-sense reforms” that policy adviser Andrew Bremberg said would reduce dependence on government programs.
“Part of President Trump’s effort to create a booming American economy includes moving Americans from welfare to work and supporting and encouraging others to support commonsense reforms that restore American prosperity and help them reclaim their independence,” he said.
The order focuses on looking for ways to strengthen existing work requirements and exploring new requirements for benefits such as food stamps, cash and housing assistance programs.
Trump has long accused beneficiaries of abusing government assistance programs and has claimed many who have no intention of working make more in benefits than those with jobs.
“I know people that work three jobs and they live next to somebody who doesn’t work at all. And the person who is not working at all and has no intention of working at all is making more money and doing better than the person that’s working his and her ass off,” Trump said in November. During the campaign, he pledged that, under a Trump administration, families “trapped in welfare” would be “provided with jobs and opportunity.”
Most people who use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program,
work for Human Rights in El Paso. “He was wrong then, and he is wrong now.” (AP)
Gov to sign gun restrictions:
Vermont’s Republican governor is set to sign the first significant gun restrictions in the state’s history during a ceremony on Wednesday.
Weather permitting, Gov Phil Scott plans to sign the bills on the Statehouse steps as or SNAP, who are able to hold jobs do work, but they don’t earn enough to pay for food and cover other expenses. According to 2015 data from the Department of Agriculture, 44 percent of the total households using the SNAP program had someone in the family earning money.
The administration has made several moves pushing work for Medicaid recipients and those who use the SNAP program.
In January, officials announced that states would be able to impose work requirements for Medicaid. And they’ve proposed tightening the existing requirement that able-bodied adults who want to receive SNAP benefits for more than three months at a time must work in some capacity.
Proposal
The proposal would raise the age limit for recipients who are exempt from the requirement and restrict the ability of states to offer waivers. The Department of Agriculture has been soliciting public comment on the issue.
The administration has also been exploring more stringent work requirements for those who receive assistance under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, as well as minimum weekly work hours for those who receive housing assistance.
The order gives various Cabinet secretaries 90 days to review the programs their agencies offer, and recommend possible changes.
Advocates argue that, while encouraging people to work is fundamentally a good thing, imposing strict requirements on already vulnerable populations,
supporters and opponents of gun control look on.
Scott, a gun owner, said he knows some people will be upset by the new laws, but that they will adjust when they realize the laws will not restrict the rights of law-abiding gun owners.
The three recently-passed bills that Scott is expected to sign would require universal background checks, increase the age to buy particularly when coupled with an aggressive effort to slash funding and shrink public assistance programs, could be disastrous for those in need.
Such requirements could have dire consequences for those already experiencing barriers to finding, and keeping, a job, including single mothers who can’t afford child care, people who lack access to transportation and those who suffer from mental illness.
Rebecca Vallas, vice president of the Poverty to Prosperity Program at the Center for American Progress, said Trump’s executive order served to reinforce myths about poverty in the US.
“By using dog-whistle terms like ‘welfare,’ Trump’s trying to paint people who turn to Medicaid, SNAP, and other public programs as Reagan’s mythical ‘welfare queen’ — so we don’t notice that he’s coming after the entire working and middle class,” Vallas tweeted.
The White House had once identified overhauling the welfare system as one of its top two legislative priorities for 2018, along with a major investment in infrastructure. But GOP leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, told the president there was little chance of passing anything that needs Democrats’ votes.
Trump appeared to agree as he huddled with GOP leaders at the Camp David presidential retreat in January.
“It’s a subject that’s very dear to our heart,” Trump said then. “We’ll try and do something in a bipartisan way. Otherwise, we’ll be holding it for a little bit later.”
firearms from 18 to 21 and ban high-capacity magazines and rapid-fire devices known as bump stocks.
Two other pieces of legislation would make it easier to take guns from people who are believed to pose a threat to themselves and others and take guns from suspects in cases of domestic violence.
Vermont’s push for gun restrictions came after a Poultney teenager was arrested and charged with planning to kill as many people as possible at Fair Haven Union High School. (AP)
Bill targets money laundering:
The government would take modest steps toward hindering money laundering by human traffickers under legislation approved Tuesday by the House as lawmakers found a widely popular cause to tackle in a mostly discordant election year.
The bipartisan bill would require an existing presidential task force to recommend how Congress can better thwart money laundering by traffickers. Another federal council would suggest improvements in how US agencies train investigators to pursue such cases.
The State Department would also have to factor money laundering into its annual rating of how well countries combat human trafficking.
The House approved the bill, 408-2. It now goes to the Senate.
Estimates of human trafficking victims vary, but recent reports put the number at tens of millions of people globally. It generally includes coerced sexual exploitation, prostitution, military service, labor and even organ donation. (AP)