Work Requirements Just Won’t Die
The debt-ceiling deal rests on a cruel and ineffective policy.
Republicans and Democrats have reached a debt-ceiling deal. Republicans will agree not to blow up the global economy if Democrats trim federal spending over the next two years, claw back money from the Internal Revenue Service, speed up the country’s energy-permitting process, and impose new work requirements on the food-stamp and welfare programs, among other changes.
Perhaps this is the best deal the two sides could have reached. Perhaps it is not that big a . But Congress got the deal by selling out some of America’s poorest and most vulnerable families. And it did so by expanding the use of a policy mechanism so janky, ineffective, and cruel that it should not
