I do not have much time to look into the details but overall you know my view... The Feds should get out of the Welfare and Medicaid business and return it to the States and Charities... No sense having the Feds collect the money just so they can give it to the States.
CNN Money Trump Budget
VOX Trump Relies on Magic Growth
VOX Trump Cut Medicaid Funding in Half
VOX Cuts Explained
FOX News Puts Tax Payers First
FOX News GOP Wary of Cuts
Market Watch Cuts Bloat that is Strangling Us
CNBC Red States would be Hit Hard
NPR Deep Cuts
CNN Money Trump Budget
VOX Trump Relies on Magic Growth
VOX Trump Cut Medicaid Funding in Half
VOX Cuts Explained
FOX News Puts Tax Payers First
FOX News GOP Wary of Cuts
Market Watch Cuts Bloat that is Strangling Us
CNBC Red States would be Hit Hard
NPR Deep Cuts
23 comments:
Thanks for the extensive link list. If you read all of those you have a lot of information. I've only seen a list of programs to be eliminated or phased out, and the names tell me only two things: 1) the government is a vast bureaucracy with too much power, waste and duplication, and 2) There are particular programs that liberals will scream about "cutting," but that anybody with sense knows need to be cut.
Two examples: the food stamp program is KNOWN to be fraudulent by about 4% (it would not be a surprise to find it higher), and the new work requirement should reduce recipients voluntarily by up to 20%. SSD is only technically a "cut to Social Security," but the reason it can be cut is because many people put themselves on it during the Obama jobless epidemic. Putting people back to work should eliminate the need for that expenditure.
I am fine with cutting, eliminating redundancy, improving effectiveness, etc. However your painting this as some form of free will exercise always amuses me also...
"the new work requirement should reduce recipients voluntarily by up to 20%."
Why is it so important to you that you avoid acknowledging that you love to use sticks & carrots?
Most estimates of actual food stamp fraud nowadays show the rate at being around 1% (a rate which is lower than what most private sector companies experience).
Who needs these things called sources anyway... Everyone should just believe what ever is written... :-(
CBPP SNAP Info
Even in this Liberal source it looks like Fed administrative costs, admin errors and fraud do add up to about 10%... With fraud being only ~1 %.
Now for my question what does one call taking SNAP and other payments instead of getting busy learning and working? I mean it is not fraud technically, and yet it is a negative consequence of the safety hammock.
GAO SNAP Report
"Over the last 10 years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has reported
that improper payment rates for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
(SNAP) have ranged from an estimated 5.8 percent to 3.2 percent of all
payments, likely reflecting, in part, certain policy changes and calculation
methods. Many factors affect low-income households’ eligibility for SNAP and
the amount of benefits they receive, creating multiple opportunities for errors in
the eligibility determination process conducted by states. However, GAO found
that certain state or federal program changes can affect the likelihood of these
errors. For example, when states adopted available policy flexibilities that
simplified or lessened participant reporting requirements, these changes reduced
the opportunity for error and led to a decline in the improper payment rate,
according to a USDA study. Conversely, other changes may have led to an
increase in the improper payment rate. USDA cited the change from only
counting errors over $50 in the rate to counting all errors over $37 as a key factor
in an increase in the rate in fiscal year 2014. "
So back to my normal question... Why do we need the FED involved in all these transactions at all? Why isn't this handled by each state?
If a State does a terrible job, the poor move to States who will take better care of them. And those States get a bunch of low cost labor for their businesses. Everybody wins except the cheap State who loses their labor pool.
Let's for the moment assume I am the CEO of a huge nationwide drug company. For someone reason, the operations of the company are centralized. What sense does this make? Why not divide up the company into 50 local companies, each with it's own infrastructure. Think of the advantages of such a corporate structure. Each local company could serve as it's own laboratory for change. Each local company could craft it's local versions of drugs. Medical conditions may very well vary from state to state, the local companies can respond more effectively to local versions of disease. If executives on the scene felt some medical conditions should not be treated for whatever reason, by the products of the company, they can simply decide not to offer them. Anyone who has those conditions will be told to move to a state where the local company does offer those products. If the local company as a whole, can't succeed, it can just be closed.
Is this a management model drub companies, or for example car companies, typically use? Should they?
--Hiram
"Even in this Liberal source it looks like Fed administrative costs, admin errors and fraud do add up to about 10%... With fraud being only ~1 %."
I said fraud was about 1%, and it's about 1%. Yes, other types of payment errors occur, but those are not fraud.
"Now for my question what does one call taking SNAP and other payments instead of getting busy learning and working?"
SNAP has work requirements. And nearly 60% of working-age SNAP recipients who are non-elderly and non-disabled have a job. (Two-thirds of SNAP recipients are either elderly, disabled, or children).
Hiram,
Yes there is a case for economies of scale... However in SNAP and the other welfare systems, it seems like the Feds mostly provide money and rules... And the States run the programs. It seems like unnecessary admin cost.
Sean,
You know me... I just like when people back up their statements.
Here is an interesting discussion with some views I find questionable.
Here are some snippets.
"On January 23, 2017, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker announced a new pilot program to require the state’s food stamp recipients who have children to work 80 hours per month for those benefits. The change would require approval from the Trump Administration, since federal policy currently prohibits states from imposing additional requirements on food stamp recipients. Unlike the Obama administration, which utilized those policies to protect and expand access to this and other programs, President Trump has signaled his intention to weaken those guidelines or eliminate them completely."
"In fact, 64% of SNAP recipients are children, elderly, or disabled people who are typically not expected to be working. Another 15% are already required to work because they are able-bodied adults without dependents. The Wisconsin Governor’s changes would target the 21% of participants who are caring for children and thus, under current policies, exempted from the work requirement. Even within this group, however, 62% of SNAP households with children have at least one member working and, in 87% of those households, a family member has been employed at some point during the year. Many of these family members work at extremely low wage jobs where their annual earnings leave them at or below 130% of the federal poverty line (the income eligibility requirement)."
"This is not, as is widely believed, because non-whites are particularly dependent upon government assistance. In fact, food stamp usage closely tracks poverty rates among all racial groups. Yet, since African Americans are heavily concentrated in Milwaukee and other cities with high levels of unemployment, they are overrepresented in SNAP when compared to the population as a whole. Indeed, this is further evidence of the effectiveness of the program in targeting labor-market inefficiencies. It also indicates that restricting access will increase the stark inequalities in poverty levels between Milwaukee and the rest of Wisconsin."
And then there is this... WPR Wisc Worker Shortage Need More Immigrants
So the State needs more workers and yet the people in Milwaukee need welfare because they can not find jobs... Or they do not need to work because they have kids at home...
How does this make sense to anyone?
I have some extended family members and friends who had low paying jobs and kids.
It was not easy or fun but they made do by:
1. Getting Married
2. Having Kid(s)
3. Working Opposite Shifts while the kids were young (or using grandparents)
4. Working Hard and keeping their job so their experience and pay increased
5. Staying Married
What is wrong with folks in all these single Parent households who insist in staying in a place with poor jobs?
How do we use policy to push/pull them to a better lifestyle?
How's a person on SNAP in Milwaukee supposed to be able to afford to move to Chippewa Falls to take a job making $10/hr working part-time on a dairy farm or bussing tables in a restaurant? Who's going to pay for their child care while they are doing that job?
However in SNAP and the other welfare systems, it seems like the Feds mostly provide money and rules... And the States run the programs. It seems like unnecessary admin cost.
So for my drug company, the management structure should be that the central office will provide money and policy and the fifty state offices should administer them? Is the unnecessary administrative cost generate by the central office, or the fifty separate administrative entities? I can't think of a company that voluntarily does business this way.
--Hiram
Sean,
How in the world do people from Mexico and dozens of other countries come here and take on jobs that should be filled by Americans? Stop looking for excuse for these folks.
They are in the country that unfortunate folks from all over the world dream to come to and millions risk their lives to get to... They speak the language... And they can't even move out of the urban centers for a better life...
Hiram,
I can't think of a business where they must have branches in every State. And each of those branches have lots of power and administration costs.
The closest thing I can think of are the health insurance companies who are forced to have businesses in every state. And we know how expensive that is.
Here's an idea. If dairy farmers or rural restaurants are having trouble hiring workers, maybe they should try paying more. Then it will be a lot more attractive for folks to leave Milwaukee. (Just as people didn't start going to work in Minot, ND until the good-paying oil jobs came along.)
It seems they pay plenty to make the immigrants risk their lives. And do you think any of the urban dwellers actually moved to ND?
I guess if we keep starving the rural areas of workers, the wages will increase.
As I keep saying, let's deport all the illegal workers and chop welfare. Then every one may get what they desire.
Of course urban Americans may need to learn what real work is again.
I can't think of a business where they must have branches in every State. And each of those branches have lots of power and administration costs.
Of course, there are a vast number of American companies, large and small that do business in states where they don't have branches. And the branches they do have are designed to minimize administrative costs and duplicative efforts.
"The closest thing I can think of are the health insurance companies who are forced to have businesses in every state."
Historically, insurance companies have always been locally based. That goes back to the 19th century when the law took a very different view of corporations and capitalism. Back then, states and communities were isolated from one another. When it took three days to get from Boston to New York, there was little need for them to have similar business laws. The advent of the railroad changed that. Suddenly capitalism was no longer about delivering boots to the next village over, it was about delivering Pennsylvania oil to California. Local state laws, that were previously irrelevant to trade, became a barrier, and they were changed. That didn't quite happen with insurance, because insurance remains intensely local. But the fact is, the notion that insurance companies do not operate nationally is a fiction that is barely paid attention to anymore. Health insurance policy is set nationally, and simply implemented locally, and that's a good thing. It's one of the ironies of the Republican notion that health insurance should be sold across state lines is their failure to realize that that's already happening in every way that matters.
==Hiram
Actually branches are not there to minimize administrative costs and duplicative efforts, they are there to make it easy for the customers to work with the corporation.
Where as with welfare etc there really is no reason for the customers to work with the corporation since they have local government agencies that can help them directly.
Actually branches are not there to minimize administrative costs and duplicative efforts, they are there to make it easy for the customers to work with the corporation.
I am sure that has something to do with the fact that when I call up the cable company about a problem with my tv service, I end up talking with some guy in India.
--Hiram
And yet when you have a problem, somebody from the local branch needs to come and fix it...
Post a Comment