Greenstein: “America’s concern for the poor is about to be tested”

With the 115^th Congress convening today, CBPP President Robert Greenstein’s Washington Post op-ed explains that GOP leaders will likely pursue radical changes in core safety net programs this year and shrink other important programs for low- and moderate-income people. Here’s the opening:

Poor Americans are facing the gravest threat to the federal safety net in decades as President-elect Donald Trump takes office accompanied by a Republican-controlled Congress. The risks to essential benefits for tens of millions of low- and moderate-income Americans include losing coverage extended to them by the Affordable Care Act, threats to the fundamental structure of the Medicaid health-insurance program for the poor and further reduction of already squeezed funding for scores of other important programs serving the most vulnerable Americans.

Click here for the full op-ed.