A
soon-to-be released report will recommend combining safety-net programs under
HHS while also recommending big changes at other agencies.
06/06/2018
03:26 PM EDT
The Trump
administration is preparing to release a sweeping plan for reorganizing the
federal government that includes a major consolidation of welfare programs —
and a renaming of the Health and Human Services Department.
The
report, set to be released in the coming weeks by the White House Office of
Management and Budget, seeks to move safety-net programs,
including food stamps, into HHS, two sources with knowledge of the plan told
POLITICO. The plan would also propose changing the name of the sprawling
department, while separately seeking cuts at the U.S. Agency for International
Development and the State Department.
The $70
billion food stamp program, formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program, is run by the Agriculture Department and makes up the vast
majority of the department’s budget. The program helps more than 40 million
low-income Americans buy groceries each month.
“You have
low-income assistance in a bunch of different shops without one point of
oversight and without a whole lot of communication,” said one of the people
with knowledge of the plan. “Why not have one federal agency responsible for
execution?”
The
report, which is expected to recommend big changes at many federal agencies, is
almost complete and is expected to be introduced this month, according to one
administration official. Sources in and outside the government have been told
the rollout will happen in late June. The plan is still being finalized and
some of the details could change, but one of the people familiar with the
report said the proposal to reorganize HHS has widespread buy-in at OMB.
OMB
spokesman Jacob Wood declined to comment on the plan.
The
biggest changes outlined by the White House are unlikely to be implemented
because moving multibillion-dollar programs and renaming federal departments
generally requires congressional action. But the plan, like the president’s
annual budget, demonstrates the administration’s thinking on a range of
domestic policy issues. It also offers a strong political selling point for the
Trump White House as it tries to burnish an image of an administration
dedicated to conservative principles and smaller government.
“The administration already put a lot of stuff
out in this year’s budget related to cuts, but that was the easy stuff,” the
administration official said. “This [report] is the harder stuff.”
It’s
unclear exactly how HHS would be reshuffled, but sources said its new name
would emphasize programs that provide assistance to low-income Americans, potentially
restoring the term “welfare” to the title of the department. HHS — a sprawling
Cabinet-level agency that spends roughly $1 trillion annually —already oversees
the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, which provides cash
assistance to low-income people, as well as Medicaid, the health coverage
program for the poor that insures more than 70 million Americans.
Although
“welfare” is often used to describe many programs that provide aid to
low-income people, the vast majority of services provided by HHS are
technically considered entitlement programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid,
which serve broad swaths of the public. TANF, however, is a welfare program
providing cash assistance to some 1.6 million households.
HHS and
USDA referred press inquiries to OMB.
White
House officials have been working on their bid to reorganize the government for
months — all while keeping an unusually tight lid on the plan. The effort stems
from an executive order President
Donald Trump signed in March of last year directing OMB to come up with a plan
to overhaul the government to make it more efficient. Only recently have some
of the ideas begun to circulate outside OMB.
The plan
appears to draw, at least in part, from recommendations made last year by The
Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that has deeply influenced
Trump’s agenda in his first year and a half in office.
Heritage
recommended that all nutrition functions at USDA — including food stamps,
nutrition education and school meal programs that serve some 30 million
children each day — be transferred to HHS.
“[T]he
USDA has veered off of its mission by working extensively on issues unrelated
to agriculture. This is mostly due to the nutrition programs,” Heritage wrote
in last year’s report about reorganizing the government. “By moving this
welfare function to HHS, the USDA will be better able to work on agricultural
issues impacting all Americans.”
Moving
nutrition out of USDA, where it makes up roughly three-quarters of the
department’s budget, would be regarded as a big blow to the profile of the
department.
Conservatives
are likely to support moving food stamps over to HHS, in part because HHS has
been out front on instituting first-ever work requirements in the Medicaid
program. Already, HHS has approved work requirements for Medicaid enrollees in
four states.
"Generally
speaking, we're in favor of the idea," said Kristina Rasmussen, vice
president of federal affairs at the Foundation for Government Accountability, a
conservative group that's grown increasingly influential among GOP leaders
seeking to spend less on welfare programs. "HHS has been doing some pretty
exciting things on the work requirements front for able-bodied adults."
Nancy Cook, Rachana Pradhan and Lorraine
Woellert contributed to this report.
No comments:
Post a Comment