Nailed it.
Once again, Republicans are using their budget proposal to shortchange the most vulnerable in order to save money. The House GOP's budget aims to reduce spending on food stamps—aka the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—and Medicaid by giving a fixed amount of money to states to spend on the programs. Only problem is, if there's suddenly a rough year and more people are in need than usual, then the states are just left to deal with the shortfall on their own.
Bryce Covert has the details on how this part of their plan helps them cut $5.5 trillion from the budget overall:
Republicans plan to do this in part with something called block granting, which significantly changes the way programs are funded. But as past experience with block granting shows, the poor will suffer if these programs are reformed this way.
Currently, Medicaid and SNAP are cost-sharing partnerships between states and the federal government. If need and enrollment increase for these programs — say, during a severe financial crisis where more families struggle to afford food and need food stamps to get by — then the government shares that increased cost. If these programs were to be block-granted, on the other hand, it would mean the federal government would give states a fixed amount of money to pay for them that wouldn’t change even if demand changed. In return, states are promised more flexibility in how they implement the programs.
Basically, this is just a way of outsourcing the hardest budget decisions to the states, which have less money overall and less wiggle room if the economy takes a hit. We all know this ends in shortfall years—in their greatest hour of need, the needy just get nothing because GOP governors are never gonna pick up the slack.
Block-granting is a familiar trick that Republicans like Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin have proposed before. Here's some estimates on the scheme's effects based on some of his previous budget plans.
Ryan’s Medicaid plan would have meant federal spending on the program would get cut by $810 billion, or 22 percent, over a decade, dropping between 14 million and 27 million from the rolls by 2021. It would also slash SNAP by $137 billion, or 18 percent, over a decade, kicking millions of people out of the program.
Expect more of the same from Senate Republicans on Wednesday.