Tag: welfare

Brooke Rollins Approves Louisiana SNAP Waiver Eliminating Soda and Candy from Eligible Items

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has approved Louisiana’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) waiver barring individuals from purchasing soda and candy with food stamps and adding rotisserie chicken to the eligible items in an effort to Make America Healthy Again.

“Guess what was in the mail? Got a great postcard from the wonderful Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, my great friend, and this is our SNAP waiver,” Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) said in a video update Tuesday morning.

“Thank you, President Trump. Thank you, Brooke Rollins, for helping make Louisiana healthy again,” he continued, explaining that SNAP beneficiaries are “more likely to have higher rates of obesity that creates a greater risk for chronic diseases.”

“We want to make Louisianans healthy, so you will no longer be able to buy sugary candy, energy drinks, or soft drinks — no more soda pop —  on food stamps,” he said.

However, the governor said they are adding rotisserie chicken, which will now be covered.

“We want all of Louisiana to be healthy, and our welfare programs are supposed to be a hand up, not a candy out,” Landry added, thanking President Trump and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.

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HUD launches nationwide review of illegal immigrants living in public housing: ‘The gravy train is over’

Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Scott Turner announced that the Trump administration ordered a nationwide review of public housing in an attempt to root out illegal immigrants.

The Trump administration notified every public housing authority (PHA) across the country that it will be given 30 days to share the citizenship status of its tenants or potentially face the loss of federal funding.

Every PHA is required to provide HUD with eligibility information, such as citizenship status. However, two anonymous senior HUD officials speaking with the Washington Examiner claimed that a “significant” number have opted to withhold the information from the federal government, or never collected it in the first place.

“I bet Biden HUD didn’t do anything on collecting citizenship info since they support current [regulations] that allow illegals to be in mixed-status housing, so they wouldn’t have wanted to know those numbers in the first place,” one HUD official told the outlet.

The “mixed family” units are defined as households with “one or more individuals who do not contend that they have immigration status.”

The letter, reviewed by the Washington Examiner, gives the PHAs 30 days to identify and provide the names, mailing addresses, and legal immigration status for individuals in mixed family units.

The letter also orders the PHAs to provide a “spreadsheet, analysis, or other prepared or gathered data concerning the number and/or location of tenants with ineligible immigration status in all Public Housing covered programs as well as a “full tenant file” for any tenant who was found to have “misrepresented either his or her citizenship, national, or eligible immigration status.”

Meanwhile, Turner issued a statement, announcing, “No longer will illegal aliens be able to leave citizenship boxes blank or take advantage of HUD-funded housing, riding the coattails of hardworking American citizens.”

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HUD Secretary Scott Turner to BOOT ILLEGAL ALIENS from Section 8 Housing — Proof Of Citizenship Now Required For All Tenants

The Trump administration is putting illegal aliens on notice: taxpayer-funded housing is for AMERICANS, not for those who broke the law to come here.

On Friday, Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Scott Turner announced that all Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) nationwide have 30 days to conduct audits verifying the legal status of every single tenant in Section 8 housing and other HUD-funded programs.

The first housing authority to face scrutiny is Washington, D.C., where Turner confirmed that the DC Housing Authority has already been put on notice, according to Fox News.

More than 3,000 PHAs across the nation are receiving the same marching orders. If they fail to comply, Turner warned, they risk losing federal funding.

Turner revealed that only 1 out of 4 eligible American families currently receives HUD assistance due to past administrations turning a blind eye to illegal alien abuse.

In a blistering letter to every Public Housing Authority (PHA) in America, Turner laid down the law: within 30 days, all housing agencies must provide a full and complete accounting of every tenant living in HUD-funded housing.

That means names, mailing addresses, number of bedrooms, the cost of each unit, and most importantly, proof of American citizenship or legal immigration status.

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Democrats’ Latest ‘Mediscare’ Gambit Is An Empty Threat

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Democrats are claiming Republicans have put the Medicare program in jeopardy. As usual, the allegation amounts to a combination of speculation and an empty threat.

The latest version claims that, because the “big, beautiful” reconciliation bill will increase the deficit, automatic spending reductions will hit Medicare. But in recent years, lawmakers of both parties have moved to cancel the automatic reductions with regularity — and you can bet dollars to donuts they will do so again.

Implications of Reconciliation

The most recent claim came via a letter from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), requested by several senior congressional Democrats. CBO noted that, because the new law will increase the deficit by roughly $3.4 trillion in the coming decade, the measure could trigger an automatic sequester under the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) law enacted in 2010.

PAYGO requires Congress to offset tax cuts or spending increases with commensurate spending reductions or revenue increases, to avoid further increases in federal deficits and debt. If, by the end of the year, lawmakers do not enact offsetting tax increases or spending reductions to “pay for” the estimated $3.4 trillion deficit increase caused by the reconciliation measure, then automatic spending reductions (i.e., the sequester) will kick in under Statutory PAYGO. (The sequester exempts Social Security and certain other programs; Medicare spending is subject to a maximum 4 percent reduction under this sequester.) 

Arcane Congressional Rules

Lawmakers can always waive or otherwise change the sequester requirement under Statutory PAYGO. However, they cannot do so under budget reconciliation, for reasons related to congressional procedure. The reconciliation process occurs when the House and Senate Budget Committees instruct other congressional committees (e.g., House Ways and Means, Senate Finance, etc.) to make changes to programs within their jurisdiction to accomplish budgetary goals (e.g., raise or lower revenue, raise the debt limit, etc.). 

But Statutory PAYGO lies under the jurisdiction of the House and Senate Budget Committees. And the House and Senate Budget Committees cannot give reconciliation instructions to themselves, meaning that any waiver of, or change to, Statutory PAYGO cannot occur via the reconciliation process.

In other words, while Republicans passed their agenda bill on a party-line via reconciliation, which is not subject to a filibuster, they will need 60 votes, and therefore Democrat support, to modify or waive PAYGO. That gives Democrats leverage in theory, but it hasn’t worked out that way in practice.

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Big Beautiful Bill Will Save Taxpayers From Paying Millions To Fund Medicaid For Dead People

When it comes to potential fraud in government health care programs, the hits just keep on coming. Thankfully, Congress has (finally) done something about it.

Two new reports illustrate why Congress needed to act to boost program integrity efforts in the Obamacare exchanges and in Medicaid. After four years where the Biden administration prioritized enrolling people in government-funded health coverage over any other priority, taxpayers may finally get a dose of some sanity.

Exchange ‘Ghost Enrollees?‘

The first data point came via the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which released data from exchange insurers’ risk adjustment submissions. The spreadsheet contains enough numbers to make one’s head spin, but two sets of numbers — lines 4 and 7 of the spreadsheet — stand out. Those two lines show that the percentage of enrollees in Bronze and heavily subsidized Silver plans without claims rose from roughly one-quarter (29 percent and 23 percent, respectively) in 2019 to 40 percent last year.

To some, that change may not seem like a big deal — after all, isn’t it a good thing when people don’t make claims on their health coverage? But it suggests that, after four years of Biden administration policies, a growing number of individuals were being auto-enrolled (and/or automatically reenrolled) into taxpayer-funded “free” health coverage that they did not want, need, or use.

It also means that insurers had a slew of enrollees on their hands for whom they received premium payments — funded by taxpayers, of course — and yet didn’t have to pay out a single cent in claims. (Think about it: Will 40 percent of Americans not go to the doctor at all, or pick up a single prescription, this year? I doubt it.) For all Democrats’ tough talk about insurance companies, the last four years look like a gravy train for insurers on the exchanges.

As an article on the release noted, the data have some drawbacks. The spreadsheet shows over 33 million enrollees on insurance exchanges last year — definitely an overestimate — in part because it double-counts enrollees who switched plans mid-year.

But the spreadsheet also shows the biggest percentage of zero-claims enrollees in states like Florida and Texas. Other data points also show those states as potentially having large numbers of individuals who lied about their income to receive “free” taxpayer-funded coverage, meaning that the CMS spreadsheet merely provides confirmation of existing trends.

Thankfully, help is on the way. On Dec. 31, the enhanced subsidies that allow so many individuals to qualify for “free” zero-dollar benchmark coverage will expire, sharply reducing the incentive for fraud. The additional verification provisions mandated in the recently passed reconciliation bill will also ensure that only individuals with a documented need for assistance will receive it.

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14 Million Illegals in 2023: The Cost to Our Nation

Illegal immigration in the United States surged to a record 14 million in 2023, according to a Pew Research Center report. That figure marked a sharp increase from 11.8 million in 2022 and broke the previous high of 12.2 million set in 2007. Numbers rose further in 2024 under Biden’s policies, then began to decline in 2025 under Trump, though the total remains above 14 million.

California, Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois had the largest concentrations of illegal immigrants, with Texas rapidly catching up to California. Pew estimated that 9.7 million were part of the U.S. workforce in 2023, about 5.6% of all workers, with Nevada, Florida, New Jersey, and Texas recording the highest shares.

The economic impact of illegal immigration is staggering. According to a 2023 study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the gross annual cost of illegal immigration, the total before factoring in taxes paid by illegal aliens, has risen to $182 billion.

Taxes paid by illegal immigrants cover only about 17.2 percent of these costs, leaving American taxpayers with a net burden of $150.7 billion per year. That amounts to $8,776 annually for each illegal immigrant or U.S.-born child of illegal immigrants. On a per-taxpayer basis, illegal immigration costs $1,156 a year, or $957 after accounting for taxes paid by illegal aliens.

These costs have grown sharply. The 2022 totals represented a 30 percent increase over just five years. A previous FAIR study in 2017 estimated the net annual cost at $116 billion, underscoring how quickly the burden has escalated.

The local impact of illegal immigration is especially visible in law enforcement statistics. In Los Angeles County, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide are for illegal aliens, and as many as two-thirds of all fugitive warrants in the county involve illegal aliens.

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New Study Raises Concerns Over Universal Basic Income Plans

In my forthcoming book, Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution, I explore how the American republic can survive in the 21st Century given unprecedented economic, technological, and political changes.

The book addresses the increasing calls for a universal basic income (UBI). Various Democratic cities are already implementing UBI systems.

Now, a new study finds (as did some prior studies) that UBI systems have not achieved significant improvements and may actually have some negative consequences for recipients.

A working paper with the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that UBI recipients did indeed spend more money, including a 13 percent increase on child-related expenses. There was also a slight increase in parental supervision of children.

However, there was no improved school performance and a slight increase in reported developmental and stress-related problems with children.

Stanford’s Basic Income Lab is tracking more than 160 UBI projects in the U.S..

So far, the results are at best mixed.

One study in Compton showed that many recipients of the $500 monthly payment quit working part-time jobs.

Likewise, reports indicate that “a $400 monthly payment in Chelsea, Massachusetts, increased food spending and did not measurably reduce work, but it failed to produce results for the research team’s “primary downstream outcomes”—namely self-reported health and child school attendance.”

This follows earlier reports about the OpenResearch Unconditional Income Study (ORUS), an experiment in which lower-income Americans were given $1,000 a month for three years.

The result was a reduction in work and an increase in leisure activities.

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Boston Democrats Opened Housing to Illegals Who Can’t Pay the Rent

The state of Massachusetts resettled thousands of migrant families into apartments at the expense of $30,000 per family to the taxpayers, but now many of the migrants cannot afford to pay their rent.

Starting in 2023, the state began pushing migrants into apartment complexes as an adjunct to the state’s emergency assistance shelter program and at least 5,000 families have been the recipients of the program, according to the Boston Globe. But little thought seems to have been given to the sustainability of the housing.

The paper noted that many of the migrants have used up their $30,000 allotment before even being able to begin paying rent regularly on their own. The money went for moving, furniture, security deposits, and other living start-up costs. And for many migrants, that left them without enough time to gain legal employment that could allow them to afford rent payments.

The cash shortage sent many of the migrants to move right back out of their new apartments before they were able to stabilize their income. According to the program, the migrants are not required to pay the entirety of the rent on their own. The state’s HomeBASE program only requires them to fork over 30 percent of their income for rent with the rest being pulled from the program’s initial $30,000 stipend.

The problem is, many of these families have been unable to gain jobs that can bring in enough cash to make paying rent sustainable. That means their $30,000 allotment runs out quickly as the fund pays most if not all of the monthly rent fees. And soon enough, that $30,000 allotment is eaten up and the families have to move right back out of their apartments in a matter of only a few months.

State officials have hailed the HomeBASE program because they can use it to show that migrants have been moving out of the controversial free shelter system. Officials try to use that to show they are successfully putting migrants into jobs and homes. But the reality seems to be that the “homes” are short term, leaving many migrants out in the street when their $30,000 funding dries up.

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Cloward-Piven Strategy: How Mamdani and Other Socialists Could Overload the Welfare System Until the Country Collapses

During her failed bid for the U.S. presidency, Kamala Harris made free-market economists and freedom-loving Americans cringe when she said, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” This fundamental Marxist slogan openly signals that if Kamala or her socialist-leaning allies were elected, those who work harder or earn more would be forced to subsidize those who refuse to work, or people who spend their days protesting, or make unsustainable life choices.

Kamala is gone, but Zohran Mamdani and several others in government are taking up the socialist banner. Among the self-proclaimed democratic socialists currently in Congress are Bernie Sanders, who serves in the U.S. Senate; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a former DSA; Summer Lee, a DSA member serving in the House; and Greg Casar, also a DSA member in the House.

Some recent changes in the landscape include Jamaal Bowman losing his Democratic primary in June 2024, and Cori Bush losing hers in August 2024. Rashida Tlaib continues to serve, though her DSA membership status is currently unclear. Meanwhile, New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani openly pushes socialist policies, with what appears to be the intent of destroying New York City through economic collapse, following a strategy reminiscent of Cloward-Piven.

Policies like state-owned grocery stores, government seizure of rental properties, rent control, universal basic income, debt forgiveness, and arbitrary wealth taxes are classic tools of socialism that ultimately break the economy. These and similar proposals have been pushed by various DSA politicians, including Mamdani.

All of these tools are part of the Cloward-Piven strategy, a Marxist framework designed to trigger economic collapse and usher in radical political change and authoritarian control. The concept originated in the 1960s with sociologists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, who advocated for expanding the welfare state by lowering eligibility criteria to enroll more people. They believed that overwhelming the system would force a crisis, ultimately leading to reforms like guaranteed income and a universal social safety net.

This idea of dismantling the current system, rather than encouraging individuals to thrive within a free-market society, is rooted in Marxism, which centers on the conflict between the working class (proletariat) and the owning class (bourgeoisie). Marx believed capitalism would inevitably exploit workers to such a degree that they would revolt, overthrow the ruling class, and establish a classless society.

While Marxists claim their goal is to improve life for citizens, the real outcome of the Cloward-Piven strategy is to flood entitlement programs, welfare, unemployment, and more, until the system becomes financially unsustainable. The resulting collapse would spark widespread chaos, including violence and unrest, creating an opportunity for radical leftists to seize power and impose authoritarian rule under the pretext of “martial law.”

Open border policies can be used to accelerate systemic collapse by overwhelming public services. The system is further strained by the influx of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers who receive government-funded benefits without paying income taxes. At the same time, the creation of a large illegal workforce drives down wages and reduces job opportunities for Americans, pushing more citizens onto welfare rolls and increasing the burden on public assistance programs.

Socialism, supported by propaganda, often gains ground by identifying real problems and offering government solutions. For example, high rents are a genuine concern for many, making proposals like rent control or government-owned housing appear attractive. However, imposing rent control reduces the supply of available apartments while increasing demand, worsening the housing shortage.

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Origins of Medical Harm

The level of compensation doctors receive from Medicare is currently under renewed scrutiny; these standards are mirrored by health insurers. The quantity of reimbursement weighted to specialists is likely to shift towards primary care physicians. Reconfiguration of doctors’ fees is overdue, although they are determined by a secretive American Medical Association committee. 

Analysis and debate about the ongoing healthcare crisis emphasize misdirected funding rather than considering how to revitalize the ethics of medicine. The Hippocratic Oath clarifies the priorities essential for the mindset of a physician. Despite its primary warning, first, do no harm, damage done to patients is rampant. Resolution of this tragic dynamic appears insoluble. 

When decisions are made by any medical organization with financial interests, the primary impetus of the Oath is lost; the AMA’s control over payment schedules reinforces and exemplifies a corrupt institutional flaw. The harm done by the business of medicine needs to be evaluated and controlled.

The seemingly intractable conflict of interest undermining medical care is directly tied to a profit-oriented model in mitigating human suffering. Dispensing treatments with earnings in mind is a form of profitable planned obsolescence and ultimately a methodology that degrades patient autonomy and vitality. 

Although there is often consensus among critics of the healthcare system about its numerous faults, approaching the central issue of profiting from illness is virtually avoided. 

In an attempt to broach the topic of money and medicine, the AMA’s Journal of Ethics presents a self-justifying analysis. The following excerpt exposes how this inherently conflicted view of healthcare depends on the illness of the nation. 

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