House Republicans are sketching out a piecemeal program of safety net reforms.
They will introduce a reauthorization of the federal cash welfare program next week meant to refocus it on promoting work, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said Thursday.
The legislation would tighten work requirements, set new metrics for states on work, and limit states’ ability to shift funding into other safety net programs.
“We think there are some awfully talented men and women on the sidelines in our welfare system, that — we need them. We need them back at work,” Brady said.
Also next week, the House is expected to vote on the Farm Bill, which would tighten work requirements for food stamps, which are administered by the Department of Agriculture. The legislation also would boost state funding for jobs programs.
“The concept is really simple: If you are capable of work, you should work to get benefits,” House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said Thursday. “If you can’t find work, we’ll guarantee a spot in a job training program. That is how you get people off the sidelines, out of poverty, into the workforce, into the careers, on the escalator of life.”
The Farm Bill is likely to stall in the Senate, thanks to Democratic opposition to the work requirements for food stamps, which benefited about 42 million people last year.
Passing a GOP overhaul of the cash welfare system, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, is also a tall order given the possibility of a Senate Democratic filibuster, although Brady said Thursday that he thought the bill should attract Democrats’ support.
Republicans might have better luck with an effort to change the way rents are calculated for federally subsidized housing.
Last month, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and Rep. Dennis Ross, R-Fla., separately introduced bills meant to promote work by housing aid beneficiaries.
The Republican bills are meant to move away from the practice of calculating rent as 30 percent of renters’ income each year, and to allow for beneficiaries to earn more without having to pay higher rent. Carson’s legislation would allow housing authorities to experiment with work requirements.
The broad outlines of the changes have support from local housing authorities. And on Thursday, a key Democratic lawmaker suggested that he was open to working with Republicans.
“There are some very good parts to the legislation,” Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., said of Carson’s legislation. Cleaver, the ranking Democrat on the housing subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee, met with Carson this week and was encouraged, but cautioned that he has to review the proposal.
Any path to legislative success for GOP rent reform, though, would have to circumvent liberal Democratic opposition.
On Thursday, Rep. Maxine Waters of California, the top Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, introduced a resolution to affirm the commitment to capping rents at 30 percent of income and issued a statement calling Carson’s proposal “deeply cruel.”
