Saturday, March 25, 2017

Trump’s ‘draconian’ budget devastates rural communities already hanging by a thread

https://thinkprogress.org/trumps-budget-leaves-rural-america-behind-28d24564b8e7#.q1rijze9j
"President Donald Trump’s proposal for the federal budget, released on Thursday, targets a number of agencies and programs for elimination that benefit the rural poor. These 19 independent agencies provide, among other things: job training for low-income seniors, after-school programs for kids in high-poverty areas, and housing assistance to low-income families. These cuts would be particularly harmful if they came along with the end of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion, which the House Republican health care reform proposal would eliminate. Health care is often more expensive in rural areas, but Trumpcare does not account for geographical price disparities. Even without Medicaid cuts, however, advocates say that rural communities could be devastated by provisions of the Trump budget proposal. “This budget is draconian when it come to the needs of rural places,” said Robert Mahaffey, executive director of the Rural School and Community Trust."