Poor Disproportionately Hit by Economic Crisis

Notice that it was the Democratic administration of Clinton not the Republicans who ended welfare as an entitlement program and replaced it by temporary aid. It is not likely that Obama will focus on poverty. The US withdrew any troops fighting the war on poverty long ago it would seem. The fight is left to private charity who do not have the resources to deal with mounting problems and increasing poverty. In fact they will have more difficulty with increasing donations during these recessionary times. The late Milton Friedman once said that deficits were not all bad since they provided opportunities to cut government entitlement programs. It is easy enough to use the deficit as a justification for cutting entitlements after claiming they are unsustainable. Of course military expenditures do not fall into the same category or bailouts of large financial institutions.

Poor Disproportionately Hit By Economic Crisis [Analysis] Daniel Schorr National Public Radio


In times of economic distress, bankers get bailouts and the middle class gets a stimulus. And the poor? In this recession, the social safety net that was to be the ultimate protection of the unfortunate lies in tatters.

In time of economic distress, bankers get bailouts and the middle class gets stimulus. And the poor? In this recession, the social safety net that was to be the ultimate protection of the unfortunate lies in tatters.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of people classified as living in extreme poverty has risen since the year 2000 by more than a third to 17.1 million. A government report spoke of almost 50 million Americans living with "food insecurity." More than 36 million are on food stamps. So whatever happened to welfare, which has always been considered the last resort for someone down on his luck?

Welfare as a federal program was initiated by President Franklin Roosevelt as aid to dependent children. In 1996, with the rolls peaking at more than 4 million, President Clinton undertook to "end welfare as we know it." And he surely did.

Aid for Families with Dependent Children was replaced by Temporary assistance for Needy Families, ending the basic entitlement to financial assistance. A five-year lifetime limit on aid was imposed.

Peter Edelman resigned from the Department Health and Human Services in 1996 in protest of Clinton's welfare reform. Today he recalls that the draconian program removed many from the rolls who could not find jobs. A number of states cut their welfare rolls by almost 90 percent.

It took a recession to reveal the full effects of the welfare restrictions. It's hard to get people to go from "welfare to work" when there is no work.

Edelman and Barbara Ehrenreich wrote in The Washington Post that the Clinton welfare overhaul was based on reckless assumptions about perpetual prosperity. They say what is urgently needed now is a massive emergency relief package to repair the safety net.

President Obama is concentrating his attention on creating jobs — itself a worthy endeavor. But that will not address the problem of the hungry and homeless, who have no welfare rolls to turn to in their emergency

Bush budget plan cuts verteran's health care.

This is from.. This story doesn't seem to have been widely disseminated as yet. It seems that veterans medical care is one of the entitlement's that Bush intends to trim. It will not a popular move if he actually does it.


Bush budget plan cuts veterans health care

Cutbacks aimed to take effect after next president is in office

By Andrew Taylor THE ASSOCIATED PRESS





WASHINGTON— The Bush administration plans to cut funding for veterans’ health care two years from now — even as badly wounded troops returning from Iraq could overwhelm the system.

Bush is using the cuts, critics say, to help fulfill his pledge to balance the budget by 2012.

After an increase sought for next year, the Bush budget would turn current trends on their head. Even though the cost of providing medical care to veterans has been growing rapidly — by more than 10 percent in many years — White House budget documents assume consecutive cutbacks in 2009 and 2010 and a freeze thereafter.


The proposed cuts are unrealistic in light of recent VA budget trends — its medical care budget has risen every year for two decades and 83 percent in the six years since Bush took office — sowing suspicion that the White House is simply making them up to make its long-term deficit figures look better.

“Either the administration is willingly proposing massive cuts in VA health care,” said U.S. Rep. Thomas C. Edwards, D-Texas, chairman of the panel overseeing the VA’s budget. “Or its promise of a balanced budget by 2012 is based on completely unrealistic assumptions.”

Edwards said that a more realistic estimate of veterans costs is $16 billion higher than the Bush estimate for 2012.

In fact, even the White House doesn’t seem serious about the numbers. It says the long-term budget numbers don’t represent actual administration policies. Similar cuts assumed in earlier budgets have been reversed.

The veterans cuts, said White House budget office spokesman Sean Kevelighan, “don’t reflect any policy decisions. We’ll revisit them when we do the (future) budgets.”

The number of veterans coming into the VA health care system has been rising by about 5 percent a year as the number of people returning from Iraq with illnesses or injuries keep rising. Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans represent almost 5 percent of the VA’s patient caseload, and many are returning from battle with grievous injuries requiring costly care, such as traumatic brain injuries.

All told, the VA expects to treat about 5.8 million patients next year, including 263,000 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The White House budget office, however, assumes that the veterans’ medical services budget — up 83 percent since Bush took office and winning a big increase in Bush’s proposed 2008 budget — can absorb a 2 percent cut the following year and remain essentially frozen for three years in a row after that.

“It’s implausible,” U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said of the budget projections.

The White House made virtually identical assumptions last year — a big increase in the first year of the budget and cuts for every year thereafter to veterans medical care. Now, the White House estimate for 2008 is more than $4 billion higher than Bush figured last year.