Public Policy Analysis of Texas
Recent reports suggest that the situation of social services in Texas is pretty grim. While the freshly approved state budget had decreased the spending pertaining to social services by approximately 17 percent, which eventually resulted in a budge of just $54 billion. However, the ones who had formerly ensured the safety and security for the susceptible inhabitants are feeling a little relieved. Also, many people are of the feeling that the situation would have been worse. The funding for the mental health offered out of the general revenue was refurbished back to the existing amounts. Child Protective Services remained untouched and unaltered to a large extent. More cuts were spared for nursing homes. Despite all these various measures, the situation of social service within Texas continues to be hardly healthy, as claimed by economist and experts.
Leon Evans, the CEO of the Center for Health Care Services explains that they receive only 40% of the total budget that is allocated to them from the general revenue while quite a few of the other funding sources also having been cut. Center for Health Care services offers mental healthcare for the low-income and impecunious populace of San Antonio. Evans also states that the financial or the funding situation is going to be even lesser in the coming future. Reports also state that, irrespective of the Bexar County in San Antonio developing and growing extensively in the last decade or so, many of the social service organizations in Texas continue to possess extremely low levels of per-capital funding, and thus most of them on a system of rationing.
As a measure to tackle the tax cuts, the Center for Healthcare Services started placing people not having Medicaid on a waiting list. According to the 2008 reports, Texas was the last state in the United States to have spent the least amount of money on social services. As per the statements made by Robin Peyson, the President of the Texas Chapter of the National Alliance of Mental Illness, Texas is literally bare to the bone and the state would not experience any further additional cuts, the reason being there is nothing being left to be cut.
Texas SNAP and TANF
TANF is one of the support services for the families living in Texas. TANF stands for Texas Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). This was formerly popular by the name Aid to Families with Children (ADFC). The primary objective of this particular support service program of Texas is to offer financial aid along with medical assistance to the needy and dependent children and also to their guardians, be it their parents or relatives, with whom they live together. All households that are eligible under TANF are offered cash and Medicaid benefits on a monthly basis. TANF makes use of the funds provided by the state government to offer the financial assistance to all families with two parents “who both receive benefits with children deprived of parental support because of the unemployment or underemployment of a parent.”
Likewise, SNAP – Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is yet another social welfare program that offers nutrition assistance to millions of the American citizens, specifically to all the low-income level populace who are eligible to receive the aid under this program. SNAP is essentially the largest program that falls under the national hunger safety net. The various agencies that work in union with the State agencies, nutritionists, and the Food and Nutrition services to make sure that all the eligible people for the nutrition assistance can take cognizant decisions with regard to presenting their application for this program in order to avail the various benefits that are offered under this program.
It is so happening in the recent times that, both policymakers as well as the public alike, are show increasing inclination in the idea of substituting Social Security with a private scheme of individual accounts. It is rather quick and rapid to state if the current levels of curiosity will result in majority acceptance to this idea, but it is already clear that most of the citizens of the United States are thinking about private substitutes to Social Security, probably for the first time in the history of American social service and governance.
The primary aim of social welfare programs offered by the government is to work towards the improvement and well-being of the needy and vulnerable citizens of the nation. Though it is widely recognized fact that the government, be it at the state level or at the national level, spends massive amounts of money to fund such social welfare programs, the motive behind the state government in funding and implementing such programs is hardly clear. The federal government has long played a crucial role in counterbalancing the fiscal disparities existing amidst the different states. Irrespective of this enduring effort by the federal government, latest alterations in the several of the federal grant programs seem to have possibly affected the needy, low-income populace and the rich states in a variety of ways.
Works Cited
Benefits.gov. Texas Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF. 2013. 30 November 2014. <http://www.benefits.gov/benefits/benefit-details/1679>.
Burtless, Barry P. Bosworth & Gary. "Privatizing Social Security: The Troubling Trade-Offs." March 1997. Brookings. 30 November 2014. <http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/1997/03/saving-burtless>.
Stoeltje, Melissa Fletcher. Social services situation in Texas still is grim. 16 June 2011. 30 November 2014. <http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/New-budget-has-bright-spots-as-well-as-downsides-1426466.php>.
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). 11 November 2014. 30 November 2014. <http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-snap>.
