Interesting read

[stevenash]

To begin with, I’d like to remind you all that Trump is still not my guy. That said, the absolute losing-of-minds I see on Facebook about his budget is beginning to make me crazy, so I would like to clear a few things up for you, especially since some of these “cuts,” and “slashes” to federal welfare programs have been proposed by both Democrats and Republicans over the years. More below.

First, this is your friendly reminder that ALL presidential budgets are ALWAYS dead on arrival in Congress. I have fond memories of watching the Democrat-controlled Senate unanimously voting down Obama’s budget proposal. So you can probably stop freaking out; Trump’s budget will never become reality.

But I would like to address this idea that Trump’s budget “cuts,” “slashes,” or “decimates” social welfare programs. This claim is, in fact, not the whole truth. What some people call “cuts,” nonpartisan number crunchers like the Congressional Budget Office call “savings.” Quite a difference in vernacular, isn’t it? Let me explain.

Take Trump’s proposal to save $72 billion from the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program. He proposes a number of changes to this program which ESSENTIALLY has been untouched by Congress in a meaningful way in decades. SSDI is a safety-net program for individuals who cannot work. But the way the program defines work (that is, what jobs are in the workforce, etc) hasn’t been updated since the 1970’s. A few things, like the ability to work from home or running an Air B&B or driving for Uber, have changed since then, right? Right. So hopefully you can agree with me that this program AT THE VERY LEAST needs to be updated. Especially since it’s forecasted to be insolvent in the next five years. Yes – FIVE.

So if you go to the Office of Budget and Management’s (OMB’s) website, take a look at the policy proposals document (linked below), and go to page 110, you can see what he’s proposed for SSDI. If you are dedicated to fact-checking, you can spend a lot of time googling to see that most of his proposed changes to SSDI are not new ideas. In fact, ***AT LEAST ONE OF THEM APPEARED IN OBAMA’S BUDGETS*** Yes, my friends, President Obama, proposed to “cut,” “slash,” and “decimate” benefits for disabled individuals who also draw unemployment. In order to be legally qualified for SSDI, you must be unable to work. But to be legally qualified for unemployment benefits, you must be searching for work. It doesn’t make sense that you can be drawing benefits from both programs, but under current law, a disabled individual can also be searching for work and drawing unemployment. If SSDI is for the most vulnerable people who can’t work, letting people who CAN work on the program is diverting dollars from people who need it to people who don’t. Getting rid of this overlap is not "cutting" benefits to people who need them. It's saving benefits for people who do to the tune of $5.7 billion over ten years. (Why has this simple reform not been enacted? That’s a different rant for another day, but feel free to ask)

Now, all that being said, I don’t remember any apoplectic headlines or facebook posts when Obama’s budgets came out screaming that he was “cutting,” “slashing,” or “decimating” Social Security. So if you weren’t freaking out back then, perhaps you don’t need to freak out right now.

 

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