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Senate Finance Chair Says GOP Push for Medicaid Cuts Spotlights 'Real Trump Agenda'
"The votes are tallied and Trump is headed back to the White House, so his campaign trail populism is over and done with," said Sen. Ron Wyden.
Nov 19, 2024
The Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee said Monday that GOP plans to target Medicaid and federal nutrition assistance to help offset the huge cost of their tax agenda encapsulates the economic agenda of the incoming Republican trifecta led by President-elect Donald Trump, who postured as a working-class champion during the 2024 race.
"You couldn't come up with a better distillation of the real Trump agenda than paying for tax breaks for the rich by gutting Medicaid and increasing child hunger," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said in a statement after a Washington Postreport detailed internal Republican discussions on a possible Medicaid work requirement, cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and other potential changes to the programs that provide health insurance and food aid to tens of millions of Americans.
"Following through on this plan would cause real hardship and increase the cost of living for millions of working families, but the votes are tallied and Trump is headed back to the White House, so his campaign trail populism is over and done with," said Wyden. "Ultra-wealthy political donors want their massive tax handouts, and as far as Trump and Republicans are concerned, everybody else can go pound sand."
The Trump-led Republican Party has made clear that a new round of tax cuts is at the top of its agenda as it prepares to take control of the House, Senate, and White House in January. In recent weeks, the GOP has discussed using the filibuster-immune reconciliation process to ram tax legislation through Congress before individual provisions of the party's 2017 tax cuts expire at the end of next year.
Trump also campaigned on slashing the corporate tax rate, even as he appealed to working-class voters who aren't reaping the benefits of record corporate profits.
Such tax cuts would likely add trillions to the U.S. deficit, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, leading the GOP to seek out offsets in programs they've long demonized.
"Trump wants to strip healthcare from poor people and increase grocery bills."
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) suggested to reporters last week that Republicans could aim to transform Medicaid's funding structure by instituting block grants—a change that analysts say would likely result in devastating cuts.
Edwin Park, research professor at Georgetown University's Center for Children and Families, wrote Monday that under a block-grant structure, states would "either have to dramatically raise taxes and drastically cut other parts of their budget including K-12 education or, as is far more likely, institute deep, damaging cuts to Medicaid eligibility, benefits, and provider and plan payment rates."
"That includes not just dropping the Medicaid expansion, which covers nearly 20 million newly eligible parents and other adults," Park wrote, "but gutting the rest of state Medicaid programs that serve tens of millions of low-income children, parents, people with disabilities, and seniors."
The Post reported that Republicans are also looking to curb SNAP benefits in the face of a nationwide hunger crisis. According to the latest federal data, 75% of households receiving SNAP benefits live at or below the poverty line and nearly 80% include either a child, an elderly person, or a person with a disability.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote on social media Monday that members of her party "must unite and fight back" against the GOP's push for draconian cuts to SNAP and Medicaid.
"Trump wants to strip healthcare from poor people and increase grocery bills," Warren wrote. "Here's the new Republican plan to pass tax giveaways for Trump's billionaire backers and giant corporations on the backs of struggling Americans."
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) added that "making it even more difficult for people to get healthcare or afford food in order to give tax cuts to the same greedy companies that are driving up healthcare and food costs is disgusting."
"We were elected to serve the American people," wrote Markey, "not feed corporate America's bottom line."
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Violent Conflicts Trap World's Poorest as 1.1 Billion Face Acute Poverty
"We need resources and access for specialized development and early recovery interventions to help break the cycle of poverty and crisis," said one U.N. expert
Oct 17, 2024
Violent conflicts have contributed to pushing nearly half a billion people across the globe into acute poverty, and have made it harder for people to find their way out of extreme deprivation, according to a new United Nations report released on Thursday, the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.
The U.N. Development Program (UNDP) joined the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) in publishing the latest update of the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), which measures acute poverty in 112 countries that are home to 6.3 billion people—a majority of the global population.
Researchers determined that 1.1 billion people are living in poverty, and 455 million of them are struggling to afford basic necessities while "living in the shadow of conflict."
"Conflicts have intensified and multiplied in recent years, reaching new highs in casualties, displacing record millions of people, and causing widespread disruption to lives and livelihoods," said Achim Steiner, administrator of UNDP.
The new research, he said, "shows that of the 1.1 billion people living in multidimensional poverty, almost half a billion live in countries exposed to violent conflict. We must accelerate action to support them. We need resources and access for specialized development and early recovery interventions to help break the cycle of poverty and crisis."
The communities studied by the groups face persistent deprivation of adequate housing, sanitation, electricity, cooking fuel, nutrition, and education, with well over half of the 1.1 billion poor people in the study facing undernourishment or living with someone who is malnourished.
UNDP and OPHI did find that countries have been able to significantly cut down on poverty in recent years, with 74 countries significantly reducing the incidence of poverty through investment in policies like cash transfer programs, child benefits, and nutritional services.
The index released Thursday showed that roughly 584 people under 18 are now experiencing extreme poverty, accounting for nearly 28% of children worldwide. Comparatively, about 13.5% of adults are living in acute poverty.
"Poverty reduction is slower in conflict settings—so the poor in conflict settings are being left behind."
"Ending child poverty is a policy choice," said the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). "Countries that have made this choice have drastically reduced the number of children growing up in poverty."
India is home to the largest number of people in extreme poverty, affecting 234 million of its population of 1.4 billion people. Nearly half of the world's 1.1 billion poor people live in India, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Steiner emphasized that many countries in the Global South are being suffocated by debt repayments to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, hindering efforts to reduce or eradicate poverty.
"Onerous debt burdens continue to impede progress on tackling poverty in many developing countries," said Steiner. "On average, low-income countries allocate more than twice as much funding to servicing net interest payments as they do to pay for health or education services."
Without accelerating poverty reduction efforts, fewer than 3-in-10 countries are expected to be able to halve poverty rates by the end of the decade.
With nearly half of the world's acute poverty affecting people in conflict zones or countries with "low peacefulness," OPHI director Sabina Alkire warned, "We cannot end poverty without investing in peace."
In countries and territories with protracted conflicts, like South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Yemen, and Gaza, "poverty is not their only struggle," said Alkire.
"In countries at war, over one in three people are poor (34.8 percent) whereas in non-conflict-affected countries it's one in nine (10.9 percent) according to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program," Alkire added. "And sadly, poverty reduction is slower in conflict settings—so the poor in conflict settings are being left behind. These numbers compel a response."
Communities in places with violent conflicts experience "markedly more severe" disparities in nutrition, electricity access, and access to clean water and sanitation, said OPHI.
The index was published as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a global authority on food insecurity, found that 41% of Palestinians in Gaza will face "catastrophic" levels of hunger in the coming months. Independent U.N. experts have already determined that Israel's yearlong assault on Gaza has pushed the enclave into famine.
Famine was declared in a refugee camp in North Darfur, Sudan in August, after more than a year of a civil war that has displaced 10 million people and blocked aid deliveries.
Steiner said that on the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, the U.N. is calling for the consideration of "a neglected dimension of poverty: the social and institutional maltreatment faced by people living in poverty augmented by conflict and lack of peace."
"Whether experienced through negative attitudes, stigma, discrimination, or through the structural violence embedded in institutions, it represents a denial of fundamental human rights," said Steiner. "From unequal access to education, healthcare, social protection, jobs, or legal identity, prejudicial policies that exclude those living in poverty further perpetuate cycles of inequality and exclusion."
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'Should Shame the World': Famine Takes Hold in Gaza as Israel Cuts Off Food Imports
"The disturbing worst-case scenario for an entire population is all but certain without an immediate cease-fire," said one aid group.
Oct 17, 2024
The Israeli government has reportedly cut off commercial food imports to the Gaza Strip, a move that was revealed Thursday as new data showed that the besieged enclave's entire population is facing emergency-level hunger as famine conditions take hold.
Reutersreported that the far-right Israeli government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has "stopped processing requests from traders to import food to Gaza, according to 12 people involved in the trade, choking off a track that for the past six months supplied more than half of the besieged Palestinian territory's provisions."
"Since October 11, Gaza-based traders who were importing food from Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank have lost access to a system introduced in spring by COGAT, the Israeli government body that oversees aid and commercial shipments, and have received no reply to attempts to contact the agency," Reuters continued. "The shift has driven the flow of goods arriving in Gaza to its lowest level since the start of the war."
Israel's obstruction of humanitarian assistance and repeated attacks on aid convoys have sparked catastrophe in the Palestinian enclave. According to an updated analysis published Thursday by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), "the whole territory is classified in IPC Phase 4 (Emergency)" and "given the recent surge in hostilities, there are growing concerns that this worst-case scenario may materialize."
"September saw the lowest volume of commercial and humanitarian supplies entering Gaza since March 2024," said the IPC. "This sharp decline will profoundly limit food availability and the ability of families to feed themselves and access services in the next few months. The upcoming winter season is expected to bring colder temperatures along with rain and potential flooding. Seasonal diseases and increasingly limited access to water and health services are likely to worsen acute malnutrition, especially in densely populated areas, where the risk of epidemics is already high."
"Every time a mission is impeded, the lives of people in need and humanitarians on the ground are put at even greater risk."
IPC projected that the number of people in Gaza classified in IPC Phase 5—defined as "extreme critical levels of acute malnutrition and mortality"—is set to "nearly triple" in the coming months.
Tjada D'Oyen McKenna, CEO of the aid group Mercy Corps, said in a statement that the new IPC findings "come as no surprise given the unrelenting bombardment, continued decimation of what little infrastructure remains, and the insufficient humanitarian aid flowing into Gaza."
"Whether officially declared or not, famine is an imminent, devastating reality that should shame the world," said McKenna. "The disturbing worst-case scenario for an entire population is all but certain without an immediate cease-fire, healthcare support for those already extremely malnourished, and the dramatic scale-up of aid."
The IPC figures were released days after the Biden administration belatedly threatened to suspend U.S. military aid to Israel if it continues to block humanitarian aid deliveries.
Days after the administration issued its warning—which took the form of a letter to Israel's defense minister and minister of strategic affairs—Israel allowed dozens of humanitarian aid trucks to enter northern Gaza for the first time in weeks.
Joyce Msuya, the United Nations' acting under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, described the fresh aid delivery as a mere "trickle" that did not change the fact that "all essential supplies for survival are running out."
"Throughout Gaza, less than a third of the 286 humanitarian missions coordinated with Israeli authorities in the first two weeks of October were facilitated without major incidents or delays," Msuya told members of the U.N. Security Council earlier this week. "Every time a mission is impeded, the lives of people in need and humanitarians on the ground are put at even greater risk."
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