'A failed experiment': Dem senator shuts down Trump's budget nominee to his face
January 22, 2025
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) shut down Trump Office of Management and Budget nominee Russell Vought on Wednesday when he tried to defend right-wing economic policies on Medicaid work requirements and taxes.
During the confirmation hearing for Vought, who was also a leading architect for the controversial Project 2025, Merkley zeroed in on his past support for making having a job a prerequisite for being on the federal government's Medicaid program.
"You have been a big advocate of work requirements and encourage states to adopt waivers that would allow them to do that for Medicaid," he said. "One state tried it, Arkansas. It produced no increase in the hours worked, no increase in employment. It failed. Why did it fail? Because the way the people are able to work is when they are healthy, and when they can't access health care and you cut it off, they are really trapped in poverty... now that your idea failed so miserably, are you going to advocate for it again?"
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Vought responded that he and other Republicans had seen success in the 1990s with forcing welfare recipients to find employment as a precondition for government assistance, but Merkley shot back that having access to basic health care is often a prerequisite to being healthy enough to work in the first place.
"You believe cutting off health care encourages people to work when they need to get better health in order to work?" he asked incredulously. "It doesn't make any sense. It is a failed experiment."
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