Paul Ryan’s Anti-Poverty Proposal

By John R. Graham,

Congressman Paul Ryan has introduced a proposal, Expanding Opportunity in America, to bring together different federal anti-poverty programs into one. Ryan focuses on the Earned Income Tax Credit, housing and home-energy assistance, education assistance, food stamps (SNAP), and criminal sentencing reform.

Ryan’s proposal hinges on the Opportunity Grant (OG). States would apply for OGs that would roll some or all of this federal money into one lump sum. However, it would not just be turned over to states as a block grant. States, civil-society organizations, and recipients themselves would all be responsible for measuring and achieving outcomes. The OG would have one overriding goal: To facilitate recipients moving out of dependency and into self-reliance.

Ryan is looking back to the success of the 1996 welfare reform, signed by a reluctant President Clinton after a successful campaign by House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Ten years after the reform, it was widely recognized as a significant success. (In 2012, President Obama gutted much of the reform through executive action.)

At a recent briefing at the American Enterprise Institute, Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution pointed out that this proposal should have bipartisan appeal, and if it got to President Obama’s desk he would likely sign it. This explains the appeal of Ryan’s proposals. He doesn’t just throw out wide-eyed ideas designed to attract media attention. He develops them and modifies them until they get enough support from his colleagues that a pathway to success can be identified.

This is what happened to his Medicare reform proposal. The initial version, contained in his Roadmap, proved bait for demagoguery. President Obama accused him of wanting to give seniors “some kind of voucher,” insinuating that it would be about as valuable as a supermarket coupon. Most Republican colleagues were terrified of having to vote for this. Nevertheless, after some watering down, Ryan put it in his budget and convinced his colleagues to vote for it.

Ryan’s Medicare proposal shows that he understands health care. His new anti-poverty plan would benefit greatly from including Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Plan (CHIP).

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