Safety net: ADA, affordable housing, childcare, FMLA, foster care, SNAP, and unemployment
As with most other critical legislation, MAGA Republicans come down firmly on the side of destroying our safety net, while Democrats and a handful of centrist Republicans work to reinforce our meager defenses.
It's as if Republicans believe they and their children and their parents and their siblings will never be endangered. As if only "slackards" will find themselves with medical bills in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, or disabled in an accident, or their children orphaned, or a parent with dementia who outlives their money.
If you've ever been there, done that, and wish you didn't own the t-shirt, you understand why a social safety net is critical to our survival as a nation. It's really not optional.
When looking for a historical photograph with a trapeze artist and their safety net, I found multiple posts and essays about how ineffective the safety net is for these performers--unless they know how to land properly.
That opens a whole other can of worms!
Proposed legislation:
- August 26, 2025 - October 8, 2025: Childcare and foster care: No legislation. ADA: Meeting regarding work opportunities for disabled Americans. FMLA: Paid FMLA; unpaid leave for miscarriages. Unemployment: Agricultural work training programs; unemployment benefits for striking workers; exclusion of strike benefits from gross income. Affordable housing: First-time homebuyers home loans; affordable rental housing; disabled bets. SNAP: Increase benefits for seniors, veterans, and disabled; exclusion of student loan income; elimination of "thrifty" SNAP plan; No Shame At School Act; exemptions of work requirements for disabled, veterans, and homeless.
- August 9, 2025 - August 25, 2025:
- July 17, 2025 - August 8, 2025: Childcare, FMLA, unemployment-underemployment: No legislation. ADA: ABLE accounts; two good resolutions. Affordable housing: A great deal on both sides, much having to do with allowing low interest rates and grants for construction of more manufactured housing; Appraisal Modernization Act; Eviction Right to Counsel Act; shelters for homeless persons with pets. Also, Tim Scott shenanigans. Foster care: Mentoring programs; maintenance payments for "cottage homes." SNAP: Democratic bill EATS Act of 2025 would enable more low-income college students to qualify; expansion of SNAP to summer programs (all three bills are Democratic, not bipartisan).