Tag: Patrick McHenry

Tom Brenner for The New York Times WASHINGTON — The Trump administration announced on Thursday that it would seek to put in place more stringent work requirements for adults who rely on food stamps, even as the president signed a sweeping farm bill in which lawmakers had rejected stricter rules. By moving to limit the ability of states to issue waivers to people who say they cannot make ends meet under the requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the Agriculture Department found another route to create restrictions, bypassing Congress and drawing immediate criticism that the proposed rule was sure to harm Americans below the poverty line. The administration, which along with conservatives had fought to include stricter work requirements in the farm bill, continued to argue that food stamps were never meant to be a way of life and that able-bodied adults should be able to find jobs in a healthy economy. “Long-term reliance on government assistance has never been part of the American dream,” Sonny Perdue, the agriculture secretary, said in a statement. The Trump administration is planning to make it harder for some food stamp recipients to obtain waivers of the program’s work requirements. “I think a fresh view from the Department of Agriculture at that process and at that data is a healthy and good thing,” he said. “Was it a partisan move when the Obama administration expanded the waivers?” Representative K. Michael Conaway, Republican of Texas and the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, praised the department’s move. In campaign rallies, Mr. Trump has used exaggerated terms to describe the reduction, which began before he took office. In September, individuals with SNAP benefits received an average benefit of $123 a month, compared with $245 for families, according to the most recently available government data. With the new rules, the Agriculture Department is focusing on able-bodied adults without dependents, who can access SNAP for only three months in a three-year period unless they are working at least 80 hours a month.

WASHINGTON — He felt stung by the politics that helped define his life — and resolved to keep a distance. But in death, the Rev. Some 30 family members are accompanying Graham’s casket to Washington, where he befriended presidents of both parties and counseled others over seven decades. Graham is lying in honor beneath the iconic dome Wednesday, before a funeral Friday near his home in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Rotunda entrances were draped with black fabric and set up for lawmakers and family members to stand around the casket, ringed by the Rotunda’s paintings of the nation’s founders. Graham’s casket will rest on a black-draped catafalque beneath the soaring ceiling and its painting, the “Apotheosis of Washington.” “If there is any American whose life and life’s work deserves to be honored by laying in honor in the U.S. Capitol, it’s Billy Graham,” Ryan said. Graham counseled him as Arkansas governor, and later as president in the White House itself. “In that little room, he was the same person I saw when I was 11 on that football field,” Clinton said Tuesday after viewing the casket at Graham’s home. Former President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, also visited Graham’s home on Tuesday. Trump met Graham at the pastor’s 95th birthday party in 2013, but is closer to Franklin Graham Jr. On Friday, Trump was to attend Graham’s funeral near his library in Charlotte, North Carolina.