Latest news with #socialsafety
The Independent
3 hours ago
- Business
- The Independent
Musk sends Republicans into chaos as he shreds Trump's ‘big beautiful bill' — ‘He doesn't get to vote'
Senate Republicans were in their luncheon as they begin the process to take up President Donald Trump's ' One Big, Beautiful Bill ' when Elon Musk blasted the legislation as an ' outrageous, pork-filled, disgusting abomination.' version of the massive domestic legislation bill that includes extending the 2017 tax cuts Trump signed, beefed up spending at the U.S.-Mexico border and oil drilling as well as massive changes to the social safety net in the United States. But just before Senate Majority Leader John Thune and the rest Republican leadership were about to begin their press conference, Musk, the just-departed head of Trump's Department of Government Efficiency, raged against the bill on X. 'I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore,' he posted. 'This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.' Some Republicans sought to ignore it. Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa — who recently came under criticism for dismissing constituents concerned over Medicaid cuts at a local town hall with her response, ' Well, we're all going to die ' — brushed off a question from The Independent as she exited the Capitol and got into her car. Sen. Rick Scott said he had not read the Musk tweet, a common refrain from politicians not wishing to discuss a hot topic. When The Independent offered to show it to him, he brushed it off. 'I want to get the tax cuts permanent, the border money, the military, but we've got to get spending under control,' Scott, an ally of Trump, told The Independent. 'So I'm going to continue to work to bring down the deficit, to hopefully balance the budget the next three years.' Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin has in the past called for steeper cuts in the bill and praised Musk's comments, saying it 'bolsters' the points he made. "The only way I know how to do this is lay out the facts and figures and win the argument," Johnson told The Independent. Others, such as Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Katie Britt of Alabama, both members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, told The Independent they had not seen the tweet. Alabama's other Republican senator — Tommy Tuberville, a staunch ally of Trump — brushed off Musk's criticism. 'I ain't got any thoughts on that,' Tuberville said of the Musk posting. 'We got a lot of work to do. He doesn't get to vote.' House Speaker Mike Johnson, who spent weeks corralling various factions within the House GOP conference before he passed it in the wee hours of the morning last month before the House broke for recess, pushed back on Musk's criticism. 'It's very disappointing,' Johnson told reporters. 'With all due respect, my friend Elon is terribly wrong about the One Big, Beautiful Bill.' Other Republican senators made jokes about Musk's remarks. 'Does that mean he likes it?' Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio told The Independent. 'I think he's probably buying into the CBO scoring model, but look, ultimately, we haven't even gotten the bill yet right so we're gonna make it better.' The Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan body in Congress that scores how much legislation costs, estimated that extending the tax cuts in the bill would raise the debt by $3.8 trillion. But Republicans have pushed back on the estimate. Republicans have only 53 Senate seats, which is below the 60-seat threshold needed to overcome a filibuster. As a result, they hope to pass the bill through a process reconciliation, which allows them to pass legislation with a simple majority as long it relates to the budget. Musk recently exited the Trump administration after a months-long tenure at DOGE, where he slashed federal spending at numerous government agencies, including the US Agency for International Development. Other Republicans said they would work to improve the bill. 'He's certainly entitled his opinion,' Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who faces a tough primary challenge in Texas. 'And we're trying to make the bill better.' The bill is not the first time that Musk has wielded his significant following on X, the site then-known as Twitter that he purchased in 2022, to intervene in congressional affairs. In late 2024, he killed a bipartisan spending deal to keep the government open and said that the government should remain closed until Trump's swearing in. Musk pledged he would challenge any Republicans who voted for the bill. 'In November next year, we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people,' he said. Even Republicans who criticized the bill seemed to balk at Musk's intervention. When Musk tweeted 'Congress is making America bankrupt,' Paul tweeted 'Some of us are trying to stop that.' But when The Independent asked if Paul had seen Musk's first tweet, he said 'I haven't seen it' as he exited and got into an elevator.
Forbes
5 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
How The Big Beautiful Bill Hurts Black America
US Capitol. This morning, somewhere in America, a single mother rises before the sun. She takes two buses to a job that barely covers her rent. After a long day, she comes home just long enough to change clothes and help her ten-year-old with his homework before heading out to a second shift at a fast-food restaurant across town. Her son's inhaler is covered by Medicaid. Most months, her SNAP benefits run out about 10 days early. When that happens, she stretches the grits, waters down the milk, and prays that her son never has to carry the weight of his hunger or what it represents. This is her life. Day after day. Month after month. Year after year. And now, she's at risk of losing even the vital benefits that help her make ends meet. They call it the 'Big Beautiful Bill', though the name is a cruel contradiction. At a time when many families are struggling to keep their heads above water, it's hard to reconcile a proposal that slashes support for low-income households while expanding tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. This bill would remove the social safety net for millions of Americans – Black, Brown, white, urban, rural, Republican, Democrat – by making President Trump's tax cuts for the wealthy permanent, but at a devastating cost: The GOP has long argued for entitlement reform under the guise of fiscal responsibility, but the party has never been blunter and more unapologetic in its position on who deserves help (the wealthy and influential) and who doesn't (working-class Americans scraping by in hopes of one day making a better life for themselves and their families). You have to ask: is cruelty the point? The GOP knows this bill will disproportionately punish the populations least equipped to handle such a fundamental disruption. Approximately 30% of Black Americans rely on Medicaid, despite representing about 14% of the population. One in five Black families rely on SNAP. Now, if this bill is signed into law, these students may decide to delay their academic plans while they take on a second job to pay for their education without the help of subsidized financial aid. Sadly, with this policy, some may never enroll in the first place. Black borrowers already carry more student debt than any other group, so the elimination of subsidized loans is a huge blow to Black students pursing post-secondary education, many of whom are the first in their families to do so. Meanwhile, those who stand to benefit the most from this bill - the top 1% - are sheltered from the hard choices and harm inherent to it. They don't have to choose between rent and medicine. Their children will never know the pain of going to bed on an empty stomach or putting off college because they can't afford the cost of attendance. Their wealth will continue to rise, while ours will stagnate. It's a familiar story: the rich get richer, and Black America is handed the crumbs – and the bill. The GOP will sell the bill as a return to 'fiscal discipline,' and that its passage is necessary to 'make America great again.' Despite their best efforts to hide the ball, their intent is crystal clear by what they prioritize in the bill and what they choose to cut. Proposals that shield the fortunes of billionaires are deemed non-negotiable, while programs that serve single mothers, Black children, and first-generation college students are dismissed as waste, fraud, and abuse. Black America has heard this story before. After the Civil Rights Act, Nixon's 'New Federalism,' often left urban, predominately Black communities susceptible to prolonged underinvestment and discrimination. Then came Reagan's 'welfare queen,' a not-so-subtle dog whistle designed to sway public opinion and justify the gutting of public assistance programs. Years later, Clinton, signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act , which replaced direct welfare assistance with TANF block grants. 'Personal responsibility,' sounds good in a headline, but TANF's rigid provisions made it harder for poor, Black families to get the support they once had a right to. And when the 2008 financial crisis hit, the federal government moved swiftly to rescue banks deemed 'too big to fail.' Meanwhile, Black homeowners – many targeted by predatory lenders – were left to fend for themselves. No bailouts. No safety net. Just lost homes, depleted savings, and shattered dignity. And unfortunately, Black homeownership never rebounded as data shows today. The decisions made in Capitol Hill in the coming weeks could deal the final blow to Black Americans already stretched thin and barely holding on. Will the single mother I mentioned earlier have to skip meals to cover her son's inhaler co-pay? Will a young Black student still see college as a realistic goal, or will subsidized student loans be eliminated before he even has a chance to apply? These families may never meet the architects of this bill, but make no mistake, they are deciding what parts of their lives matter and what parts are expendable all in the name of tax breaks for those who already have more than enough. The Civil Rights Act promised a level playing field. This bill flips that promise on its head. It treats fairness as a privilege, extended only to those who already have a seat at the table. That's how we find ourselves here, sixty years later, debating whether policy should expect children to outgrow hunger. It isn't just unjust. It's immoral. Our elected officials have two jobs: to run the government well, and more importantly, protect the most vulnerable among us from harm. With this bill, the House GOP has abandoned both. They'll hit the Sunday shows and, without a hint of irony, tell the American people this is responsible reform. But the only thing this bill responsibly protects is the stranglehold the wealthy have on working people just trying to survive. Don't fall for it. This bill isn't about fiscal responsibility or economic stability. And don't let them gaslight you into believing these were hard choices. They weren't. They were easy, calculated decisions made at the expense of people with the least power to push back. To them, the lives of those who will suffer the most simply don't matter. The single mother juggling two jobs to keep the lights on? She's dismissed as lazy. A burden. She should bootstrap harder. It's a familiar narrative – used for decades to justify cruelty in the name of policy. What other explanation could there be? GOP leaders lined up to gut programs that feed children, house seniors, and keep the sick alive. And for what? All to give more tax breaks to the ultra-wealthy, who already have more than enough. That's not a government tightening its belt. That's a government tightening its grip around the necks of working people. Any American - elected or otherwise - who dares to call that 'beautiful' is showing us exactly what – and who – they value. And it's not us.
The Guardian
27-05-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
She compared motherhood in four countries. The US isn't looking good
When Abigail Leonard saw the news that the Trump administration was considering handing out $5,000 'baby bonuses' to new mothers, she realized that she had already received one. A longtime international reporter, Leonard gave birth to three children while living in Japan, which offers a year of parental leave, publicly run daycare, and lump-sum grants to new parents that amount to thousands of US dollars. But it was not until moving back to the US in 2023 that Leonard grasped just how robust Japan's social safety net for families is – and, in comparison, just how paltry the US net feels. Not only is the US the only rich country on the planet without any form of national paid leave, but an uncomplicated birth covered by private insurance tends to cost families about $3,000, which, Leonard discovered, is far more than in most other nations. The federal government also spends a fraction of what most other wealthy countries spend on early education and childcare, as federally subsidized childcare is primarily available only to the lowest earners. Middle-class families are iced out. Leonard traces the effects of policies and disparities like these in her new book, Four Mothers, which follows the pregnancy and early childrearing experiences of four urban, middle-class women living in Japan, Kenya, Finland and the US. Published earlier this month, Four Mothers provides a deeply personal window into how policy shapes parents' lives. And it has emerged as an increasingly rightwing US seems poised to embrace the ideology of pronatalism and policies aimed at convincing people to have more kids. Pronatalism is deeply controversial, in no small part because its critics say pronatalists are more concerned with pushing women to have kids than with ensuring women have the support required to raise them. 'Being 'pronatal' – designing policy to increase the birthrate – is not the same thing as being pro-woman,' Leonard notes in Four Mothers' introduction. A $5,000 check would not have been enough to help any of the moms profiled in the book. Instead, the women relied on – or longed for, in the case of the US – extensive external support, such as affordable maternity care, parental leave and access to childcare. 'The book is an implicit comparison of the rest of the world to the US, and parenthood is so much harder here in many ways,' Leonard said in a phone interview with the Guardian. 'People are so accepting that things can be privatized and that government can be torn down and that there won't be any repercussions to that. We don't think about how integral government policy is to our lives, and for that reason can't imagine how much more beneficial it could be.' In the US, resistance to increasing government aid in childrearing has long gone hand in hand with a commitment to upholding a white, traditional view of the American family. At virtually every juncture, rightwing groups have been galvanized to stop sporadic efforts at expanding support. During the second world war, Congress allocated $20m to a universal childcare program that could help women work while men fought in the war effort. The program was so popular that people protested in the streets to keep it even after the war ended, according to Leonard. But the program was dismantled after political disputes over how to run the program, as southern states demanded that the daycares be segregated. In 1971, Congress passed the Comprehensive Child Development Act, which would have created a national system of federally subsidized daycare centers. Inflamed by the idea that the bill would encouraged women to work outside the home, church groups organized letter-writing campaigns against the bill. Rightwing pundits, meanwhile, claimed the bill was 'a plan to Sovietize our youth'. Richard Nixon ultimately vetoed the bill, calling it 'the most radical piece of legislation' to ever cross his desk. Today, Leonard writes, corporations have an entrenched interest in keeping childcare from becoming a public good in the US. Private equity is heavily invested in childcare companies. Wealthy corporations, especially big tech companies, can also use their generous paid leave policies to lure in the best talent. 'I talked to a congressman who was telling me he was trying to get some of these companies on board to back a national paid leave policy, and they were saying: 'We don't want to do paid leave because then we give up our own competitive advantage.' It's so cynical,' Leonard said. 'These are companies that have been able to create this image around themselves of being feminist and pro-family. Like: 'They're great places to work for women. They help fund fertility treatments!'' She continued: 'They've feminist-washed themselves. They're working against a national policy that would benefit everyone and that ultimately would benefit our democracy, because you wouldn't have this huge inequality of benefits and lifestyles.' The US has become far more accepting of women's careerist ambitions over the last 50 years – especially as it has become more difficult for US families to sustain themselves on a single income – but balancing work and family life is still often treated as a matter of personal responsibility (or, frequently, as a personal failing). To improve mothers' lives, Leonard found, a commitment to flexible gender norms – in the home and at work – must be coupled with a robust social safety net. Each of the women in Four Mothers struggled with male partners who, in various ways and for assorted reasons, failed to provide as much childcare as the mothers. Sarah, a teacher in Utah, was married to an Amazon delivery driver who got zero parental leave. Sarah was entitled to three months of leave, at partial pay, but only because her union advocated for it. Although Sarah and her husband chose to leave the Mormon church, she found herself longing for the community that the church provided because it offered some form of support and acknowledgement of motherhood. Finland perhaps fares the best in Leonard's book. The country, which gives parents about a year of paid leave, invests heavily in its maternal care system and has some of the lowest infant and maternal mortality rates in the world; it even offers mothers prenatal counseling where they can discuss their own childhoods and how to break cycles of intergenerational trauma. (The US, by contrast, has the highest maternal mortality rate of any wealthy country.) Finland is also the only industrialized nation on the planet where fathers spend more time with their children than mothers do. (The difference is about eight minutes, 'about as even as it can be', Leonard wrote in Four Mothers.) Parents are also happier than non-parents in Finland – which is routinely ranked as the happiest country in the world – while the inverse is true in the US. Still, the birth rate is on the decline in Finland, just as it is in Japan and the US. It is not clear what kinds of pronatalist policies, if any, induce people to have kids. Nearly 60% of Americans under 50 who say they're unlikely to have children say that's because 'they just don't want to'. 'The pronatal argument here – that's really focused on people who make the choice not to have children. That is not only cruel and mean, but it's also ineffective, because people who don't want to have kids probably aren't going to have kids and none of this stuff is going to make a difference,' Leonard said. That said, had she been building her family in the US rather than Japan, Leonard doesn't know if she would have had three children. Given the cost of US childcare, 'it would have been more of a grind'. 'I just think it's harder and more expensive here. So it was somewhat easier to have that third child there,' Leonard said. 'It's not because they gave me a $5,000 baby bonus.'
Forbes
22-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Why Europe Struggles To Build The Next Silicon Valley
The next Silicon Valley? getty Europe's slower pace in tech innovation compared to the United States and other global economies is no secret. A recent Wall Street Journal feature captured the frustrations of European founders who left the continent after encountering layers of bureaucratic and structural challenges. While the usual culprits are often cited—limited access to growth capital, fragmented markets, and slow-moving regulators—there are deeper, often less discussed dynamics that shape the region's innovation ecosystem. Some of these are cultural, others institutional, and together they create a landscape where risk-taking and rapid experimentation are harder to sustain. The social safety net is one such factor. In Europe, strong welfare programs offer citizens greater stability and security. Germany, for instance, provides up to 60% of a worker's previous salary for a full year if they lose their job. In the United States, unemployment benefits are far less generous. In Florida, a recipient may receive just $275 per week, capped at 12 weeks. In Massachusetts, the top benefit is around $1,033 per week for 30 weeks. Healthcare access further highlights this contrast. While nearly half of Americans depend on employer-sponsored insurance, European residents enjoy universal coverage as the norm. Parental leave and tuition benefits follow similar trends. For aspiring entrepreneurs, this safety net can be a double-edged sword. In the U.S., the absence of such security often pushes individuals to pursue wealth creation more aggressively. The American economic system rewards outsized ambition, in part because the downside risk is already uncomfortably high. In Europe, the trade-off between comfort and risk-taking is more pronounced. Starting a company can feel unnecessary or even irrational when basic needs are already met through public programs. Beyond the social safety net, European innovation also contends with deeply entrenched legacy systems. These are not merely technical holdovers but are embedded in daily life and behavior. In Germany, more than half of all transactions are still made in cash. In Spain, nearly two-thirds of point-of-sale payments rely on physical currency. This does not mean innovation is absent—it simply moves slower. Regulatory conservatism, consumer caution, and cultural emphasis on stability over disruption all contribute to a climate where fintech adoption lags behind. Public trust in institutions is generally higher across Europe than in the U.S., which has its advantages. But that trust also creates resistance to new systems that challenge the status quo. Entrepreneurship thrives in environments where failure is tolerated, if not celebrated. In many parts of Europe, failure still carries stigma. The perception that building something from scratch is inherently risky and possibly irresponsible remains common, especially among older generations. Immigration is another critical, and often overlooked, driver of tech innovation. The United States has long benefited from being a magnet for global talent. Many of its most iconic companies were built by immigrants or their children. Europe has yet to fully embrace this dynamic. This is especially critical for the EU, given its aging population and growing labor gap. Europe continues to lag the US in immigraiton. getty While immigration numbers have increased, integration remains difficult, both culturally and bureaucratically. In Germany, for example, a 2017 survey revealed that a minority of citizens viewed immigration as having positive effects. The growing influence of right-wing political parties has only reinforced anti-immigrant sentiment, further complicating efforts to create a more inclusive and diverse startup culture. Spotify is a European success story. getty Still, there are reasons to be optimistic. Spotify, founded in Sweden, and Revolut, born in the UK, have emerged as global category leaders. Revolut alone has ambitions to reach 100 million users by 2030. These companies, though exceptions, show what is possible. And despite headwinds, venture capital funding in Europe totaled €55 billion in 2024. That is not insignificant. Europe's innovation potential is far from tapped out. The U.S. gained a generational head start thanks to developments in the 1960s and 70s that laid the groundwork for Silicon Valley. But the European market is rich in talent, ideas, and ambition. What it lacks in momentum, it can make up for in rethinking the systems that currently hold its innovators back. The next chapter of global tech leadership does not have to be written exclusively in California. It just might require Europe to turn the page a little faster.
The Independent
22-05-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Work requirements could transform Medicaid and food aid under US budget bill
The U.S. social safety net would be jolted if the budget bill backed by President Donald Trump and passed Thursday by the House of Representatives becomes law. It would require many low-income adults to work to receive Medicaid health insurance coverage and more to work to get food assistance, require hospitals to verify the citizenship status of patients, and cut funding for services like birth control to the nation's biggest abortion provider. Supporters of the bill say the moves will save money, root out waste and encourage personal responsibility. A preliminary estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the proposals would reduce the number of people with health care by 8.6 million over the decade. The measure, which also includes tax cuts, passed the House by one vote and could have provisions reworked again as it heads to the Senate. Here's a look at the potential impact. Work would be required for most people to get Medicaid health insurance Starting next year, many able-bodied Medicaid enrollees will be required to show that they work in exchange for the health insurance coverage. While about 92% of people enrolled now meet the requirement, roughly 5 million would likely lose their coverage, according to previous estimates of an earlier version of the bill provided by the Congressional Budget Office. Even those who aren't required to work may be at risk for losing their coverage once the rule kicks in because of increased eligibility checks and more red tape related to the requirements. Increased eligibility checks and red tape related to work requirements may result in some people wrongly getting booted off, said Eduardo Conrado, the president of Ascension, a health care system that operates hospitals across 10 states. That could spell trouble for rural hospitals, in particular, who will see their small pool of patients go from paying for their emergency care with Medicaid coverage to not paying anything at all. Hospitals could have to eat their costs. 'Adding work requirements is not just a policy change, it's a shift away from the purpose of the program,' Conrado said of the rule. Only Arkansas has had a work requirement that kicks people off for noncompliance. More than 18,000 lost coverage after it kicked in in 2018, and the programs was later blocked by federal courts. Joan Alker, executive director of Georgetown University's Center for Children and Families, said work requirements do not result in more people having jobs — but in fewer people having health insurance. 'If you lose your job going forward, good luck to you,' she said. 'There is a good chance you're going to be uninsured because of this bill.' More people would be required to have jobs to receive food assistance The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, already requires work for some of its roughly 42 million recipients. Adults ages 18-54 who are physically and mentally able and don't have dependents must work, volunteer or participate in training programs for at least 80 hours a month, or else be limited to just three months of benefits in a three-year period. The legislation passed by the House would raise the work requirement to age 65 and also extend it to parents without children younger than age 7. The bill also would limit the ability to waive work requirements in areas with unemployment rates significantly above the national average. The combination of those changes could put 6 million adults at risk of losing SNAP benefits, according to the liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Like work requirements for Medicaid, those for SNAP tend to cause a decrease in participation without increasing employment, according to an April report by the Brookings Institution's Hamilton Project. States that cover immigrants lacking legal status would lose federal funds Under the bill, the federal government would punish states that use their own state dollars to provide Medicaid-covered services to immigrants lacking legal status or to provide subsidies to help them buy health insurance. Some states that provide that sort of coverage extend it only to children. Those states would see federal funding for the Medicaid expansion population — typically low-income adults — drop from 90% to 80%. That could mean states pull back that Medicaid coverage to avoid the federal penalty. 'If that penalty of 10% is imposed, we would expect that states will have to drop that coverage,' said Georgetown's Alker. KFF said the provision could affect 14 states and Washington, D.C., that cover children regardless of their immigration status. This month the Democratic governor of one of them — California's Gavin Newsom — announced a plan to freeze new enrollments in state-funded health care for immigrants who do not have legal status as a budget-balancing measure. The bill could curtail abortion access by barring money for Planned Parenthood Planned Parenthood says a provision barring it from receiving Medicaid funds could lead to about one-third of its health centers closing. The group said about 200 centers are at risk — most of them in states where abortion is legal. In those states, the number of Planned Parenthood centers could be cut in half. Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, also offers other health services, including birth control and cancer screening. Federal money was already barred from paying for abortion, but state Medicaid funds in some states now cover it. 'We're in a fight for survival — not just for Planned Parenthood, but for the ability of everyone to get high-quality, non-judgmental health care,' Planned Parenthood President and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson said in a statement. Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America celebrated the provision, saying 'Congress took a big step toward stopping taxpayer funding of the Big Abortion industry.' Health services for transgender people would be cut Medicaid would stop covering gender-affirming care for people of all ages in 2027 under a provision added in the hours before the bill passed. Further, coverage of the treatments could not be required on insurance plans sold through the exchanges under the Affordable Care Act. Trump has targeted transgender people, who make up around 1% of the U.S. population, since returning to office, including declaring that the U.S. won't spend taxpayer money on gender-affirming medical care for transgender people under 19. The care includes puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgeries. The bill would expand that to all ages, at least when it comes to Medicaid. States now have a mix of policies on the issue with some blocking the coverage and others requiring it. An AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll this month found that about half of U.S. adults oppose government funding for the care for those 19 and over. Olivia Hunt, director of federal policy for Advocates for Trans Equality called gender-affirming care 'one of the most cost-effective public health strategies we've ever found.' ___ Associated Press reporters Devna Bose in Jackson, Mississippi; Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; and Amanda Seitz in Washington contributed to this article.
