House Budget Committee Report Targets Anti-Poverty Programs Including Medicaid
The House Budget Committee last week released a report titled “The War on Poverty: 50 Years Later,” features analysis of eight areas of federal policy: cash aid, education and job training, energy, food aid, health care, housing, social services, and veterans affairs. Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R—WI) said the report is a prelude to the House Republican’s budget, which will be unveiled later this month, and a preemptive rebuttal to the president’s budget, released last Tuesday.
Most sections begin with a glance at the state of federal anti-poverty programs 50 years ago, when President Lyndon B. Johnson launched a “war on poverty,” and chart their evolution and expansion. The report spends nine pages on Medicaid, although it doesn’t address long term supports and services provided through Medicaid funding. Food stamps, low-income housing, and a number of other social service programs and tax credits are also targeted in the report. Ryan has stated that Republicans will soon offer specific prescriptions to the problems described in the report.
FMI: The report is available at http://budget.house.gov/uploadedfiles/war_on_poverty.pdf.