Clarion-Ledger - White House Says GOP Budget Plan Bad for Mississippi

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By Deborah Barfield Berry

Thousands of low-income Mississippians could lose access to health care coverage, Head Start and help buying food under a Republican budget plan, the White House said this week.

The White House released state figures Tuesday outlining cuts under the GOP's spending blueprint for fiscal 2016. Many of the cuts would affect programs serving low-income Americans.

"The Republican approach is not focused on the middle class or people at the bottom, it's focused on people at the top," said White House spokesman Josh Earnest, referring to GOP proposals to cut taxes for the wealthy.

Under the GOP plan, 99,000 Mississippi college students could see cuts in their Pell Grant money, and 840 children would be unable to enroll in Head Start, the White House said. The plan also would cut $11.4 billion over 10 years in Medicaid funding to Mississippi, administration officials said.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, would be cut $1.4 billion over five years, affecting aid to 657,000 Mississippians, the White House said.

The House was considering several GOP plans Wednesday that aim to reduce federal spending and repeal the Affordable Care Act. The Senate is expected to take up a plan today. Lawmakers must work out differences and craft a joint budget resolution by April 15.

Republican Sen. Thad Cochran, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said reducing spending is necessary to balance the budget.

"I don't like to vote for budget cuts -- it's no fun at all," Cochran said Tuesday. "It's a lot easier and more acceptable to have a state like Mississippi getting news that they had a program that's very popular expanded, and it can grow. That's just a budget factor of life right now. You're just not going to get any spending increases approved."

Cochran said it's too early to know what funding will be reduced or programs cut.

"It's hard to say which ones are going to survive or which ones are going to be close to where they are now," he said.

Meanwhile, Gulf Coast lawmakers have criticized President Barack Obama's fiscal 2016 budget, released in February, for proposing to "redirect" millions in oil and gas revenue the region is expecting to receive under the 2006 Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act.

The administration said the money should help fund national priorities, including conservation efforts.

"Offshore oil and gas leasing revenues from federal waters belong to the nation as a whole," the administration said.

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