The Senate EARN Act Would Expand the Welfare State

Romina BocciaTheEnhancing American Retirement Now (EARN) Act includes a troubling provision that has received very little media coverage.An ABLE account amendmentwould increase spending on means-tested welfare programs by circumventing federal asset tests.When the original ABLE Act emerged back in 2014, my then-colleague at the Heritage Foundation, Robert Rector, and Iwrote:While the upfront cost of the ABLE Act is not enormous by Washington standards, the precedent of weakened asset limits in multiple welfare programs may well lead to huge costs in the future. Welfare spending did not balloon to nearly $1 trillion dollars annually overnight. It slowly grew via small, incremental expansions of benefits and eligibility like those contained in the ABLE Act.And here we are, eight years later, and the ABLE Act may be undergoing a major expansion. Just like we predicted.Many federal means-tested programs (including Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, and Section 8 housing) have asset tests, limiting individuals with other financial resources from becoming eligible for benefits.The purpose of asset tests is to ensure that individuals use their own resources before relying on taxpayers for support. This is only fair. Working-class American families should not be subsidizing more affluent individuals who can afford to pay their own bills. In the case of the ABLE Act, a National D...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs