Is the COVID-19 pandemic over? President Joe Biden has said so for five months, yet he plans to keep the federal public health emergency into May – and he has already extended it a 12th time.
Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress just voted to end the emergency effective immediately. That should have happened a long time ago, because the public health emergency is merely cover for a massive welfare state expansion that will cost Americans for generations.
For at least the past year, the public health emergency has been more about sending checks than saving lives. Washington, D.C., is soaking taxpayers with hundreds of billions of dollars in higher food stamp and Medicaid costs tied to the emergency, while pushing millions of people out of the workforce.
Opinions in your inbox: Get exclusive access to our columnists and the best of our columns throughout the week
Welfare state grew long after COVID emergency ended
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The public health emergency was supposed to help America contain the spread of a little-understood illness. Then, in March 2020, Congress passed a slew of policies making the welfare state more generous and less connected to work while the emergency lasts.
Give it up, Joe:From student loans to masks, why does Biden want to keep us in a perpetual ’emergency’?
Lawmakers surely thought these policies would be temporary, but Democrats discovered they could move toward a permanently larger welfare state by repeatedly extending the emergency.
Consider food stamps. In 2020, the federal government boosted every recipient’s monthly payments to the maximum level, regardless of household income. The Biden administration subsequently added another bump.
These so-called emergency allotments have cost taxpayers more than $90 billion. They’ve also driven many people to work less or not at all, because they can make as much or more from higher food stamp payments than they could from a job.
The spiraling costs and barriers to work are made worse by another policy tied to the emergency: a ban on traditional state food-stamp work requirements.
These requirements, which 28 states have, are designed to move able-bodied adults without dependents from government dependence to financial independence. The ban helps explain why food stamp enrollment soared nearly 20% at the height of the pandemic, and nearly 5 million more people are still on the program.
Massive national debt:If Democrats fail to negotiate with GOP on debt, it’s America’s future that’s held hostage
Remote work reigns:Traditional offices are as outdated as typewriters. Employers need to adapt.
Since COVID-19 first hit, taxpayers have spent roughly $265 billion paying more food stamp recipients not to work, according to our analysis.
The situation in Medicaid is dire, too. Since March 2020, the federal government has bribed states to keep as many people as possible on Medicaid, including those who shouldn’t be on it. States are receiving extra federal Medicaid funding on the condition that they not remove ineligible recipients for the duration of the emergency. The name for that is gross fiscal malpractice, and the consequences were predictable.
Medicaid rolls have swelled from about 75 million people to nearly 100 million, or almost 30% of the country. Yet, more than 21 million are no longer eligible, and as of December, federal and state taxpayers are losing a combined $16 billion a month paying for them. Since the start of the pandemic, the federal government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars more on Medicaid, adding every penny to the national debt.
Workers have less incentive to return to jobs
The economy is reeling from these foolish policies. With food stamps and Medicaid disconnected from and often paying more than work, the labor force participation rate is still well below pre-pandemic levels, and nearly 3 million workers are missing from the workforce.
Republicans won’t touch Medicare:But insolvency looms without changes.
Where’s Kamala?:After all the hoopla and ‘firsts,’ VP isn’t living up to the hype
Job openings are near a record high, while businesses are struggling to find help. And fewer workers mean slower economic growth, which is essential to paying off the massive sums added to the national debt. Americans will pay the price for decades to come.
The only good news is that Congress has ended the higher food stamp payments effective March 1, while slowly rolling back the extra Medicaid spending starting in April.
Yet extraordinary damage has already been done over the past three years, and states are still banned from implementing work requirements.
Even after the Biden administration ends the emergency in May, it could take states more than a year to undo the damage already done – and Biden is even preparing new federal rules that may stop states from restoring common sense to welfare. In other words, a bigger welfare state isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Congressional Republicans were right to vote to end this so-called emergency, and President Biden is wrong to keep it around until May 11. No crisis should be used as cover for pushing people into government dependence – and America into an even deeper fiscal and economic hole.
Tarren Bragdon is CEO of the Foundation for Government Accountability, where Hayden Dublois is data and analytics director.
Story Credit: usatoday.com