Free Republic

The Trump administration is considering a policy change that might discourage immigrants who are seeking permanent residency from using government-supported health care, a scenario that is alarming some doctors, hospitals and patient advocates. Under the proposed plan, a lawful immigrant holding a visa could be passed over for getting permanent residency — a green card — if they use Medicaid, a subsidized Obamacare plan, food stamps, tax credits or a list of other non-cash government benefits, according to a draft of the plan published by The Washington Post. Even the use of such benefits by a child who is a...

Almost always, when I point out the difficulties of enacting some social program much desired by the left, I am met with some version of the following rejoinder: “Other countries have managed to do this. We passed Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security and most recently, Obamacare. It is obviously possible to do these sorts of things, even in America. The obstructionism of people like you is the only reason we can’t have nice things.” The obstruction of people like me is, obviously, one of the reasons that we can’t have “nice things.” (Though, just as obviously, we obstruct because...

You are driving through downtown, and you see a homeless woman standing on the corner. You think, "I hope she is getting some help." You drive on. There are two sources for help for that homeless woman: charity and welfare. Let's examine them, how they work, and their effects on her and the rest of us. First, charity. There are many charitable organizations in every locality, taking voluntary donations from private citizens, churches, and businesses and aiding people in need. But let's look at charity on a more personal level. Let's say you, sitting in your car observing the homeless...

For three years, Tovia O'Neal simultaneously received food stamps, cash welfare, and Medicaid benefits in both Texas and New Mexico. Using a relative’s address, she raked in nearly $50,000 in benefits from New Mexico alone, on top of the welfare benefits she received in Texas. An investigation prompted by the Office of Inspector General led to a 2012 indictment and eventual plea agreement. Sadly, stories like O’Neal’s are far too common. Thousands of individuals across the country receive welfare benefits in states they no longer live in, in states they’ve never lived in, or even in multiple states at once....

(CNN) — Sean Hannity is a welfare queen. The controversial performance artist, host of the eponymous unreality TV show, has been revealed by The Guardian as a beneficiary of a federal mortgage guarantee program. The Guardian found that Hannity owns millions of dollars of real estate through more than 20 shell corporations, which shield his identity. The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, The Guardian notes, insured the mortgage loans with which Hannity purchased the properties. Let's be clear: This is a subsidy. This is a benefit. This is big government aiding a very wealthy man. This is welfare.

inland has decided to end its experiment with a universal basic income, in which people are paid an unconditional salary by the state instead of benefits. The idea of a universal basic income has high-profile champions such as Richard Branson, Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. But the Finnish government's enthusiasm for a pilot scheme, a European first which garnered worldwide attention, is petering out. Calls for extra funding for it were rejected and the two year trial will not be extended after next year.

It takes a lot of courage for a president to target almost a quarter of the federal budget for reform in an election year. But this is exactly what President Trump is doing with his executive order, "Reducing Poverty in America by Promoting Opportunity and Economic Mobility." We're now spending more than $700 billion per year on low-income assistance, which is more than we are spending on our national defense. And there are plenty of reasons to believe this spending is inefficient, wasteful and counterproductive. Over the last half-century, some $22 trillion has been spent on anti-poverty programs and yet...

Yesterday, as most Americans are painfully aware, was “Tax Day,” the last day for filing individual income taxes this year. When the smoke clears, Americans will have paid $1.6 trillion in individual income taxes. And contrary to the populist rhetoric of both the Left and the Right, the vast majority of those taxes will have been paid by the rich. The wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, who earn 16 percent of U.S. income, will pay roughly 43 percent of federal income taxes this year. Of course, income taxes are only one component of federal taxes, and for most Americans, it’s...

When President Bill Clinton signed the welfare reform act in 1996, which he negotiated with then-Speaker Newt Gingrich, the left claimed people would starve. They didn't. According to the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, between 1996 and 2000, the employment rate for single mothers increased from 63 percent to 76 percent. In addition, the overall poverty rate has declined over the last half-century. Many able-bodied people who once relied on a government check found jobs and started earning a paycheck. Good news, but the sideshow that has attached itself to so much of the Trump administration has distracted...

Ed. Alan Cooperman writes: --Give a starving African a drink, he will thank you and steal whatever else you brought along. --Turn your back and he will take his machete to your neck, white colonialist. --You HAVE and everything he's been told is that's because YOU and YOUR KIND stole it from him and his tribe... And YES, Mr. Cooperman has been there and seen the over-populated, progressive wasteland which Africa has become, thanks to the self-serving munificence of the global, bleeding-heart left. Read the excerpts below from an article by Kevin Meyers which appeared in “The Irish Independent.” Hat...

The Trump administration is considering letting states require some food stamp recipients be drug tested in order to receive their benefits, The Associated Press reported . The plan would be narrowly targeted and affect mostly those that are "able-bodied," according to an anonymous administration official that spoke with the AP. It would apply to about 5 percent of people in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), according to the source. Along with able-bodied people, the source said the proposal would target people without dependents who are seeking certain specialized jobs, the AP reported. Mandatory drug testing for people in SNAP...

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and to promote economic mobility, strong social networks, and accountability to American taxpayers, it is hereby ordered as follows: Section 1. Purpose. The United States and its Constitution were founded on the principles of freedom and equal opportunity for all. To ensure that all Americans would be able to realize the benefits of those principles, especially during hard times, the Government established programs to help families with basic unmet needs. Unfortunately, many of the programs designed to help families have...

President Trump’s new executive order on welfare reform has laid the groundwork to get more Americans get back to work while protecting and strengthening the safety net for the truly needy. Federal agencies must take advantage of this opportunity to roll back harmful Obama-era policies that have trapped families in dependency and cost taxpayers billions. Right now, America combines near-record-low unemployment with near-record-high welfare dependency — the result of state-level eligibility exemptions, federal loopholes and policies that put work on the back burner. Many of these policies created incentives for able-bodied adults to sit on the sidelines — even though...

President Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order directing federal agencies to strengthen existing work requirements and introduce new ones for low-income Americans receiving Medicaid, food stamps, public housing benefits and welfare as part of a broad overhaul of government assistance programs. The order directs federal agencies to review all policies related to current work requirements as well as exemptions and waivers and report back to the White House with recommendations within 90 days. “Welfare reform is necessary to prosperity and independence,” said Andrew Bremberg, assistant to the president and director of Trump’s domestic policy council.

President Trump signed an executive order Tuesday for a government-wide review of welfare programs, with a goal of putting more people back to work, White House officials said. The order directs all federal agencies involved in providing more than $700 billion in low-income assistance annually to study programs that are “failing Americans,” and to report back in 90 days with recommendations, said White House domestic policy council director Andrew Bremberg. “Our country still struggles from nearly record-high welfare enrollments,” Mr. Bremberg said in a conference call with reporters. “President Trump endorses reforms that ensure those in need receive assistance, while...

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn), deputy chairman of the Democratic National Committee, endorsed the concept of government paying a minimum income to all citizens regardless of whether they work or not. “A lot of things that people do don’t have a market value,” Ellison argued. “For example, as a Muslim, I am obligated to pray five times a day, go on a pilgrimage to Mecca, and wage jihad to spread the faith. As a member of Congress I have a generous salary and a small commitment of time I have to put in to earn this salary. Others aren’t so fortunate.”...

In 1969, two years after the introduction of disability insurance in the Netherlands, 4 percent of the Dutch working age population was receiving benefits. By the late 1980s, that had risen to 12 percent. Prompted by rising costs, the Dutch took a series of steps to reduce benefits, stiffen eligibility requirements, and transfer responsibility to individual employers. In Intergenerational Spillovers in Disability Insurance (NBER Working Paper No. 24296), Gordon Dahl and Anne Gielen exploit the 1993 disability insurance changes to explore how a parent's loss of some or all disability insurance benefits affected their children's future choices and outcomes. They...

Health insurance gets all the headlines, the fierce political battles, the politicians accusing each other of wanting fine, upstanding American citizens to die. But while health insurance may pay your medical bills, it does nothing to protect you from a big risk that all Americans face: that when they get sick, they won’t be able to work, and all the obligations they’ve taken on — the car payments, mortgage, student loans and credit card debt — will send them spiraling into financial catastrophe. What the middle class may need even more than health insurance, in other words, is income insurance:...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has completely scrapped the bidding process previously underway for contracts to manage the Section 8 program, which provides rental assistance to low-income persons, and will start again from scratch. The Washington Free Beacon previously reported on the Section 8 contracts, including allegations from a long-time contractor who claimed bureaucrats in the agency had been purposefully skewing the process.

(Skip) If a wall stopped just 200,000 of those future crossings, Camarota says, it would pay for itself in fiscal savings from welfare, public education, refundable tax credits and other benefits currently given to low-income, illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America. If a wall stopped 50 percent of those expected crossings, he says, it would save American taxpayers a whopping $64 billion — almost four times the wall’s cost — to say nothing of the additional billions in federal savings from reduced federal drug interdiction and border-security enforcement. (Skip) Therefore, illegal border-crossers create an average fiscal burden of more...