Membership Messages

Fahe Advocacy update: Farm Bill and opioid legislation; Trump Administration proposes substantial government reorganization

The Latest

  • Different Farm Bills pass House and Senate
  • House passes bipartisan legislation on opioids

Longer Term

  • In Depth: The Trump Administration proposes major government reorganization

The Latest

Two weeks ago, the Farm Bill was passed 213 to 211 by the House of Representatives. The House Farm Bill includes the concerning stringent work-monitoring system that does not work well for many retail and service jobs and could take around $40-50 million out of the economy in our region. However, the Senate also passed a bipartisan $428 billion farm bill 86 to 11 last Thursday, and the concerning changes to investment in our region through SNAP were not included. We encourage Members to contact the elected leaders and support the Senate’s Farm Bill!

Last Friday, the House voted 396 to 14 to send the Senate more than 50 bills geared towards fighting the opioid crisis including a $4 billion spending bill. Packaged together, these bills are known as the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act (H.R. 6). These bills include “Jessie’s Law”, which is intended to establish practices for hospitals to make doctors aware of a patient’s addiction history, and the IMD CARE Act, which would give state Medicaid programs the power to cover up to 30 days of care for eligible individuals with an opioid use disorder.

Other legislation within the Opioid package attempts to expand Medicaid coverage for opioid use disorder by adding methadone clinics to the Medicaid program, give greater access to former foster youth and people transitioning form incarceration, and increasing money for states to fund more Medicaid providers and improve reimbursement rates. While this is definitely a good start to combat the opioid crises in America, the need and the scale of responses to other large public health threats that were successful in the past suggest that more response is needed. We hope to see that soon.

 

Longer Term

The Trump Administration issued wide-ranging recommendations to change the structural organization of the executive branch in the name of greater efficiency. The most relevant recommendation to Fahe Members is one that moves USDA’s Rural Housing Service to HUD. USDA and HUD programs differ in eligibility requirements, assistance levels, delivery and oversight structures, and other program features. These programs have different requirements for a reason – the areas in question are different and different expertise is needed for each area. This particular type of proposal has been suggested unsuccessfully on and off for years, and we do not believe this time will be different. We will continue our advocacy efforts to ensure that small towns and rural areas can receive the housing investments they require.

Our friends at Enterprise take a close look at another feature of the reorganization, dealing with the housing finance entities. This proposal “calls for ending the conservatorship (and charters) of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, creating a paid-for guarantee of catastrophic risk on mortgage-backed securities, and establishing other fully private guarantors.” Enterprise believes the proposal “is largely in line with the mainstream, bipartisan consensus that there is an appropriate role for a paid-for government backstop that would limit investor losses on mortgage-backed securities without guaranteeing the entities issuing them.” They note however that “the proposal is entirely silent on the future of rental housing finance and the GSEs’ multifamily business lines, and makes a critical mistake in assuming that affordable housing objectives and traditional underwriting are mutually exclusive and therefore would shift primary responsibility for serving low- and moderate-income borrowers to HUD and FHA.” On this last point, Fahe wants to ensure that the GSEs continue to pay attention to the areas where the housing market and the economy more generally do not function as they do in our metro areas. Fahe works with national intermediaries like Enterprise to monitor national housing policy, and we will keep vigilant and let our voice be heard on our priorities if some of these proposed changes move forward. Changes to the housing finance system are much more likely than RHS being moved to HUD, so we will be engaged here.

More general recommendations in the Administration’s plan include the creation of a Council on Public Assistance. This council would be comprised of stakeholders from the USDA, center for Medicare and Medicaid, HUD, and other agencies. If formed, the council would have the statutory authority to, “set cross-program policies…across all agencies that provide public benefits.” Although this could increase efficiency, many worry that it would be a run-around to allow an administration agency to reduce investments without Congressional action. Thus, the change could negatively impact our region. The Administration also has proposed renaming Department of Health and Human Services to the Department of Health and Human Welfare. Many commenters have noted that the long-stigmatized language of “welfare” could be fuel to cut away support and reduce investments that families use to take care of themselves and pay for food, medical care, housing, and other building blocks of a good life.

While the discussed changes are really just a policy document outlining the Administration’s thoughts, and the vast majority are not at all likely to become reality, we want think about what this means. We would rather use this moment as an opportunity to encourage a focus on the important investments that the government and private actors can make in the region to properly resource local leaders to build the American Dream of prosperity for all. If people are thinking about change, let’s seize this opportunity to think about the changes that can help move people forward.