Trump’s budget plan would follow through on a bill passed by House Republicans to cut more than $800 billion over 10 years.
.. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that this could cut off Medicaid benefits for about 10 million people over the next decade.
.. The White House also will call for giving states more flexibility to impose work requirements for people in different kinds of anti-poverty programs
.. Numerous social-welfare programs grew after the financial crisis, leading to complaints from many Republicans that more should be done to shift people out of these programs and back into the workforce. Shortly after he was sworn in, Trump said, “We want to get our people off welfare and back to work. . . . It’s out of control.”
.. In that budget, he sought a big increase in military and border spending combined with major cuts to housing, environmental protection, foreign aid, research and development.
.. The White House also is expected to propose changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, though precise details couldn’t be learned. SNAP is the modern version of food stamps, and it swelled following the financial crisis
.. As the economy has improved, enrollment in the program hasn’t changed as much as many had forecast.
.. An average of 44 million people received SNAP benefits in 2016, down from a peak of 47 million in 2013. Just 28 million people received the benefits in 2008.
.. SNAP already has a work requirement, which typically cuts benefits for most able-bodied adults who don’t have children. But states were given more flexibility during the recent economic downturn to extend the benefits for a longer period
.. the U.S. government spends between $680 billion and $800 billion a year on anti-poverty programs, and considering wholesale changes to many of these initiatives is worthwhile, given questions about the effectiveness of how the money is spent.
.. it could pave the way for states to pursue even stricter restrictions, such as drug tests, that courts have often rejected.
.. In March, the White House signaled that it wanted to eliminate money for a range of other programs that are funded each year by Congress. This included federal funding for Habitat for Humanity, subsidized school lunches and the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness
.. a change in the funding for Social Security’s Supplemental Security Income program, which provide cash benefits for the poor and disabled.
.. budget director, former South Carolina congressman Mick Mulvaney
.. A key element of the budget plan will be the assumption that huge tax cuts will result in an unprecedented level of economic growth.
.. these tax cuts would end up creating trillions of dollars in new revenue, something budget experts from both parties have disputed.
.. The tax cuts would particularly benefit the wealthiest Americans, as Trump has proposing cutting the estate tax, capital gains and business tax rates.
.. Robin-Hood-in-reverse
.. there has been a deficit in the United States every year since the end of the Clinton administration
.. “People think government is cheaper than it is because we’ve allowed ourselves to borrow money for a long period of time and not worry about paying it back.”
.. Its premise is that the creation of more wealth will help all Americans succeed, and the Trump administration believes that some anti-poverty programs have created a culture of dependency that prevents people from re-entering the workforce.
.. “I don’t think the Republicans on the Hill are going to feel a strong compulsion to follow the president,” Haskins said. “They are not afraid of him.”
.. the White House is expected to call for $200 billion for infrastructure projects and an additional $25 billion over 10 years for a new program designed by Ivanka Trump that would create six weeks of parental leave benefits.
No easy answers: why left-wing economics is not the answer to right-wing populism
Democrats, in other words, would only be able to defeat Trump and others like him if they adopted an anti-corporate, unabashedly left-wing policy agenda. The answer to Trump’s right-wing populism, Sanders argued, was for the left to develop a populism of its own.
.. center-left parties must shift further to the left in order to fight off right-wing populists such as Trump and France’s Marine Le Pen. Supporters of these leaders, they argue, are motivated by a sense of economic insecurity in an increasingly unequal world; promise them a stronger welfare state, one better equipped to address their fundamental needs, and they will flock to the left.
.. countries with more robust welfare states tend to have stronger far-right movements. Providing white voters with higher levels of economic security does not tamp down their anxieties about race and immigration.. “Illegal immigrant households receive far more in federal welfare benefits than native American households,” Trump wrote in a 2016 Facebook post. “I will fix it.”.. The 10 countries with the lowest poverty rates in the world are all in Europe (the US ranks 34 out of 35 total countries in the OECD, an organization of wealthy countries). Researchers have also found clear correlations between the size of a country’s welfare state and social mobility, indicating that countries that provide citizens with extensive benefits, like Norway and Denmark, can help them better provide for themselves down the road... the European left is the victim of its own success.. economic issues receded in importance at the same time as Europe was experiencing a massive, unprecedented wave of nonwhite, non-Christian immigration... the Front National (FN). It was a populist party, one that argued that ordinary people were being exploited by a corrupt class of cosmopolitan elites. They were also authoritarian, constantly warning of the dangers of crime and the need for a harsh state response... In 1984, the FN had an electoral breakthrough, winning about 11 percent of the French national vote in the European Parliament elections. It had done so through a pioneering strategy of attacking nonwhite immigration without overtly making arguments for white Christian superiority — a kind of racism-without-racism — that appealed to voters’ fears about cultural change (and, later, terrorism) without making the kind of nakedly racist arguments that had been delegitimized by the Nazis... This was the birth of the modern far right — a continent-wide political movement that reinvented white identity politics for the post-Hitler age... These parties had no unified economic message. Some, like the FN, developed something called “welfare chauvinism” — an economic platform fairly similar to that of social democrats, but paired with an idea that immigrants should be excluded from receiving these benefits... the stronger the welfare state, the bigger the gains for far-right parties among the working class... Right-wing populists typically have gotten their best results in wealthier areas of countries — that is, with voters who experience the least amounts of economic insecurity... The far right has pulled in some working-class voters, butmost of its supporters are petty bourgeoisie (like shopkeepers) or low-educated, fairly high-income people (like successful plumbers). Swaying these voters through economic proposals will be difficult... a significant part of that electorate is deeply nativist.. Helle Thorning-Schmidt promised to deny benefits to asylum seekers if they were unemployed. The right-wing bloc won the election, and went on to pass a law that allowed Danish police to seize assets worth more than $1,450 from asylum seekers who enter the country... which included, among other things, renationalizing Britain’s railroads, abolishing tuition for British universities, and imposing rent controls to deal with Britain’s affordable housing problem. He’s even suggested reopening the coal mines that used to be a big part of Britain’s economy... Corbyn’s year-plus of Labour leadership has been something of a test case for this theory. So far, it has failed utterly... what Brexit voters said were the “most important” issues facing the UK. More than 40 percent said immigration; a scant 5 percent said “poverty and inequality.”.. The kind of voter who’s attracted to the far right just doesn’t care a whole lot about inequality and redistribution, Corbyn’s signature issues. Tacking left to win them over, as Corbyn has, is “a bad idea,”.. “The working class of this country is being decimated. That’s why Donald Trump won,” Bernie Sanders said in his Boston speech. “We need all of those candidates and public officials to have the guts to stand up to the oligarchy. That is the fight of today.”
.. In two Midwestern states, Wisconsin and Ohio, Democrats ran Sanders-esque populists — former Sen. Russ Feingold and Gov. Ted Strickland, respectively. Both lost by a wider margin than Hillary Clinton did in their state. By contrast, the Democratic candidates who most outperformed Clinton’s statewide results — Missouri’s Jason Kander and Indiana’s Evan Bayh — ran as economic centrists.
.. the higher the percentage of black residents in a state, the less its government spent on welfare payments.
.. Poverty, in the minds of many white Americans, is associated with blackness. Redistribution is seen through a racial lens as a result. The debate over welfare and taxes isn’t just about money, for these voters, but rather whether white money should be spent on nonwhites.
.. a significant shift to the left on economic policy issues might fail to attract white Trump supporters, even in the working class. It could even plausibly hurt the Democrats politically by reminding whites just how little they want their dollars to go to “those people.”
.. this kind of politics — not-so-subtly manipulating racial grievances to undercut support for social spending — has been practiced by Republicans and conservative Democrats for decades. Ronald Reagan, for example, famously used the specter of the “welfare queen” — an (implied) black woman who lived lavishly by manipulating the welfare system — as a rationale for his budget cuts.
.. tacking to the left on economics won’t give Democrats a silver bullet to use against the racial resentment powering Trump’s success. It could actually wind up giving Trump an even bigger gun. If Democrats really want to stop right-wing populists like Trump, they need a strategy that blunts the true drivers of their appeal — and that means focusing on more than economics.
Steve Bannon Isn’t a Genius
He believes that Western civilization is locked in an existential battle with the barbarians at the gates, that nationalists must wrest control from the aloof and corrupt globalist elite, and that America is a once great nation shackled by welfare for both the poor and the wealthy.
.. The travel ban was Mr. Bannon’s first high-profile defeat.
.. Mr. Bannon’s most recent defeat is his removal from the National Security Council.
.. The media has cultivated the reputation of Steve Bannon as chessmaster and puppeteer
.. But there was never much reason to believe Mr. Bannon has the political genius necessary to actually bring his ideas to life. It’s true that much of the ideological underpinning of Mr. Trump’s agenda comes from Mr. Bannon, and it’s also true that he has outsize influence with the president. But as accomplishments go, fomenting xenophobia and manipulating a famously mercurial political neophyte are thin evidence of genius.
.. to believe in Mr. Bannon’s genius is to adopt the president’s belief in a sort of vulgar technocracy — the belief that the “best people” can solve any problem put in front of them, whether they have expertise in that field or not. A newspaper publisher can broker peace in the Middle East and revolutionize the government. A neurosurgeon can run the Department of Housing and Urban Development. A life as a real estate mogul and celebrity businessman is adequate preparation for the presidency.
The Rise of ‘Welfare Chauvinism’
The United States and Europe reveal the contrasting ways in which political systems in advanced democracies cope with factors as diverse as globalization, depressed wages, cultural tension, welfare policy, immigration and nontraditional family structures, along with racial, ethnic and religious division.
In the United States, the besieged two-party system has remained intact, protected by a 200-year-old tradition and an electoral system that cuts short any bid to create a viable third party.
There are two major costs to this stability: recurrent gridlock, which constricts legislative action, and a failure to provide full representation to the most aggrieved constituencies.
.. These parties have adopted a strategy that might seem strange on its face but actually makes sense, according to the logic of their grievances: exclusionary nationalism combined with generous support for safety-net programs available only to legal residents.
.. The traditional European social democratic left and the Democratic Party are both struggling to address the often conflicting interests of a socially liberal elite and an economically pressed lower class.
.. New actors on the far left and far right, as well as astutely positioned conservative and Christian democratic parties, will not hesitate to capitalize on the struggle to craft a clear narrative – however myopic and divisive.
.. These changes, Ford and Goodwin write, “have pushed to the margins a class of voters who we describe as the ‘left behind’: older, working-class white voters with few educational qualifications.”
.. These value shifts have also left older white working-class voters behind, as a worldview which was once seen as mainstream has become regarded as parochial and intolerant by the younger, university-educated, more socially liberal elites who define the political consensus of twenty-first-century Britain.
.. supporters of Marine Le Pen’s right-wing National Front are, in comparison to supporters of other parties, less well educated, employed in manual and blue-collar jobs and live in rural areas.
.. “The Class Basis of Switzerland’s Cleavage Between the New Left and the Populist Right.”
.. small-business owners and workers prefer cultural demarcation and defend national traditions, salaried professionals strongly favor international integration and multi-culturalism.
.. “the more robust the multiparty system, the less likely the main left party will be able to dominate” among liberal-leaning constituencies.
.. the emergence of “a more profound, if nuanced, politics of identify” is fracturing the European left from two directions.
.. On one side, “middle-class progressive-values voters and the younger generation place an ever-increasing importance on a tolerant society and support equality for gays, promote multiculturalism, and express concern for the environment.”
.. the new politics of identity traps progressives on both sides. Whatever political position they adopt is bound to alienate either their working-class voters, who tend to be more conservative with regards to values, or progressive-values voters and the millennial generation, who are turned off by the more nationalistic rhetoric that appeals to the traditional or core voter base.
.. Populist parties on the right are moving beyond their adamant opposition to immigration, the European Union and the welfare state to become proponents of a more lavish, but also more restrictive, domestic social spending regime under a policy European scholars describe as “welfare chauvinism.”
.. parties of the right support health care, housing programs and other benefits with the explicit proviso that only legal residents qualify and that public spending on behalf of illegal immigrants be eliminated.
.. We will ensure that visitors to the U.K., and migrants until they have paid N.I. for five years, have N.H.S.-approved private health insurance as a condition of entry to the U.K.
.. the American two-party system, when it works, forces politicians and the public to submit to a multi-step process requiring competing interests to compromise. The first stage is the building of Democratic and Republican coalitions with the aim of winning elections