Welfare & Entitlements News

The Daily Signal covers welfare and entitlements with conservative reporting on SNAP and food stamp programs, Medicaid expansion, work requirement battles, poverty reduction strategies, fraud prevention, and the ongoing debate between compassionate reform and perpetual government dependency.
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  • news

    Why Carly Fiorina Has Yet to Tackle Entitlement Reform
    Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina says she won’t tackle entitlement reform until the federal government can get its act together. “The government has to get its house in order before it goes to the American people and takes something away from them,” Fiorina told The Daily Signal in an interview at the annual RedState Gathering event…
    David Brody
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  • news

    Chris Christie: Export-Import Bank Is Corporate Welfare ‘We Can’t Afford’
    New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says the Export-Import Bank should be finally laid to rest. “I believe it’s time for it to go,” Christie explained to The Daily Signal at the recent RedState Gathering in Atlanta. “My view is that it is the type of corporate welfare and subsidies that we can’t afford and that we’re…
    David Brody
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  • news

    Ohio Lawmakers Push to Drug-Test Welfare Recipients
    Ohio lawmakers are expected to formally introduce legislation Wednesday that will require welfare recipients to pass a drug test before receiving benefits. Republican State Representatives Tim Schaffer and Rob Maag are sponsoring the bill that, if passed, will implement a two-year pilot program in three counties within the Ohio Works First (OWF) cash assistance program….
    Chelsea Scism
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  • opinion

    How Welfare Spending Hurts the People It’s Supposed to Help
    Federal and state governments spent $1.02 trillion on welfare in 2014—an increase of $274 billion, or 36 percent, since 2003 after adjusting for inflation. At the federal level, the welfare bureaucracy spans numerous agencies and includes more than 80 different means-tested aid programs that provide cash, food, housing, medical care and social services to poor…
    Paul Winfree
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  • opinion

    GOP Leadership Prioritizes Corporate Welfare Over Defunding Planned Parenthood
    It’s hard to believe what happened in Washington this weekend. The U.S. Senate attached an amendment resurrecting a dead corporate welfare program to the highway bill while refusing to even allow a vote to end taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood. Conservatives have been fighting to stop the Export-Import Bank, which is a taxpayer-financed bank that…
    Jim DeMint
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  • opinion

    Don’t Be Fooled by Promises of Entitlement Savings
    Medicare is in serious need of fundamental reform. The old way in which Medicare reimbursed physician services was broken and needed to be scrapped. It was understandable that Congress wanted to find a permanent solution to the Medicare “Doc Fix” rather than relying on another short-term patch. The “Doc Fix” that was enacted in March…
    Paul Winfree
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  • opinion

    A Spotlight on Government Waste and Corporate Welfare
    While it is no surprise to most Americans that government tends to operate less efficiently than the private sector, the amount of money that is lost or mishandled is often much higher than many people imagine. The United States Postal Service (USPS), for example, faced losses of approximately $2 billion per quarter in the 2014…
    Amber Athey
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  • opinion

    Obama Once Called This a Fund for Corporate Welfare. Now Congress Could Kill It.
    Congress does two things well: nothing and overreact. Well, I have some good news: Doing nothing when it comes to the Export-Import Bank is exactly what we need right now. That’s because the charter for the Export-Import Bank, which provides taxpayer-backed loans to foreign countries and companies to pay for U.S. products, is set to…
    Ed Feulner
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  • opinion

    Senator Rand Paul Cracks Down on Government Waste and Corporate Welfare
    This afternoon, the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Federal Spending Oversight and Emergency Management will hold a hearing on “Wasteful Spending in the Federal Government.” Romina Boccia, the Grover M. Hermann Research Fellow in Federal Budgetary Affairs and Research Manager at The Heritage Foundation, will testify on eliminating wasteful government spending by cutting corporate welfare. Corporate welfare, one form of crony capitalism, redistributes taxpayer resources to well-connected interest groups, rather…
    Amber Athey
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  • news

    In New Hampshire, Chris Christie Shares His Plan for Entitlement Reform
    GOFFSTOWN, N.H.—Speaking at a town hall meeting tonight, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie promised to work towards entitlement reform should he become president. “Folks will tell you in politics, ‘don’t talk about that subject,’” Christie said at the event in New Hampshire. “They call it the third rail of American politics. They say, ‘don’t touch…
    Kate Scanlon
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  • opinion

    How Congress Can Put a Stop to Cronyism and Corporate Welfare
    This month will mark the end of an 80-year-old Washington institution that promotes cronyism and corporate welfare. On June 30, Congress appears prepared to let the Export-Import Bank’s charter expire—ending a government favor factory that began during the FDR administration. This new video from The Heritage Foundation showcases some of the bank’s most notorious deeds.
    Ben Howe
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  • opinion

    The Founders’ Model of Welfare Actually Reduced Poverty
    Which approach to welfare policy is better for the poor: that of the Founders or that of today’s welfare state? The more we spend on the poor, the harder it seems for them to attain decent, productive lives in loving families. The federal government has spent $22 trillion on anti-poverty programs since the beginning of…
    Thomas West
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  • news

    Why Donald Trump Won’t Touch Your Entitlements
    DES MOINES, Iowa—Donald Trump says if he runs for president he’ll make sure entitlement programs aren’t touched. “I’m not going to cut Social Security like every other Republican and I’m not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid,” Trump told The Daily Signal. “Every other Republican is going to cut, and even if they wouldn’t, they…
    David Brody
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  • news

    As Presidential Contender, Ben Carson Vows to Fix Economy Before Entitlement Programs
    Now that retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson has officially thrown his hat into the ring as a Republican candidate for president in 2016, he is rolling out his policy proposals. In an interview at his West Palm Beach, Fla., home last November, Carson said entitlement programs don’t need to be touched until the economy is back on the…
    David Brody
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  • news

    Missouri Welfare Reform Bill Would Ban Buying Lobster, Steak With Food Stamps
    A bill introduced in the Missouri legislature would limit the types of food that recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits would be able to purchase. House Bill 813, introduced by Republican state Rep. Rick Brattin, would prohibit a recipient of SNAP benefits to use the funds for “cookies, chips, energy drinks, soft drinks, seafood,…
    Kate Scanlon
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  • news

    Ben Carson Tells CPAC Crowd He Wants to ‘Get Rid of Dependency,’ Not Welfare Programs
    Ben Carson, the celebrated neurosurgeon who has excited many grassroots conservatives, said today that if he were president he would not be an enemy of welfare programs but of “dependency” on government. “I’m not interested in getting rid of the safety net; I’m interested in getting rid of dependency,” said Carson, the lead-off prospective candidate…
    Ken McIntyre
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  • opinion

    How the Welfare State Penalizes Parents Who Marry
    Fifty-one years ago, President Lyndon B. Johnson launched the War on Poverty. Since then, taxpayers have spent more than $22 trillion fighting Johnson’s war, three times the cost of all military wars in U.S. history. Last year, taxpayers spent more than $920 billion on 80 different anti-poverty programs. Despite this spending, the percentage of Americans…
    Robert Rector
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  • news

    Government Audit Finds Welfare Fraud, Lack of Oversight
    LINCOLN, Neb. — Nebraska’s state auditor has unearthed a variety of problems with the way Nebraska doles out welfare and monitors the program, including $11,000 in payments for six months’ worth of cab rides, even though the welfare recipient owned a car. Even though the problems were found during audits that are still in progress,…
    Deena Winter
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  • opinion

    Omnibus Bill Keeps Welfare Spending at Massive Levels
    This year marks the 50th anniversary of the War on Poverty. Since that time, annual means-tested welfare spending has increased by 16-fold, now costing taxpayers nearly $1 trillion a year. And the omnibus bill keeps spending at this sky-high level. The means-tested welfare system is massive and is the fastest growing part of government spending. The…
    Rachel Sheffield
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  • opinion

    Omnibus Prolongs Corporate Welfare for Travel Industry
    The omnibus appropriations bill the House will take up Thursday includes a measure to reauthorize Brand USA, the troubled corporation created by Congress to promote international visits to the U.S. The charter for Brand USA is due to expire at the end of 2015, but the House has proposed reauthorizing it through 2020 and adding…
    Katie Tubb
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