US administration revokes $11B in funding for addiction, mental health care
npr.org
npr.org
FY 2012: The SAMHSA budget authority was $3,386,903,000
FY 2024: The President's Budget Request was $10.8 billion, an increase of $3.3 billion from the 2023 Enacted level.
That's about 9% increase every year. These programs didn't always exist and they have grown considerably over time while addiction and mental health have both gotten considerably worse during that period. I think it's worth re-evaluating to see if these programs are doing anything.
The opioid crisis created a LOT of addicts, the rise of fentanyl is killing a lot of people, and combined with the mental health problems you tend to find in and around addict populations, this is a genuinely huge problem. Without a suitable mental health infrastructure, all you have left are the prisons, streets, and programs like this.
I agree that this is an inefficient way to address the problem and that a major re-evaluation is required, but probably in quite the opposite way you mean it.
This is basically breaking a financial contract that was put in place by the branch of government that is constitutionally in control of financial contracts.
As I said elsewhere, it also is legally and conceptually at odds with declaring a National Emergency over drug traffic.
Again, these programs didn't always exist. Things shouldn't be talked about in relative terms, but absolute. We should spend X on a problem and based on that spending we should see Y. If we don't we should reevaluate. That's how normal accountable programs work and government should not be exempt
It's quite common for goverments that cut spending aggressively getting hated (I have seen in other country where I was born and raised), but that's the only way to do it.
Politicians know that they usually don't get reelected after cutting spending, that's why they usually put in a temporary prime minister for that job.
The plan to attack homelessness was a billion dollars.
The tiny home program is $80M.
They've build 100 homes so far of a planned 500, and are in the process of acquiring land.
In fact there will be 1200 homes built for that $80M, about $70,000 each.
I can't see any way you can know enough about this program that it exists, and yet spin this so horribly. "Billions to build 100 tiny homes in LA". If you knew of the 100 homes, you also know that about 500 have been constructed so far. But hey.
That's what DOGE should lay out in a clear manner. But they don't.
If the executive branch just up and does this as an exercise im dominance, it gives everyone whose metaphorical ox got hired the idea that they, too, can exercise dominance and get what they want.
Destruction at any cost
That's it. It isn't complicated. When you view Trump this way his actions make much more sense.
The right seems to be of the view that a policy closer to Singapore is smarter than that of, say, San Francisco.
In other words, increase penalties/enforcement of drug importation and treat drug dealers harshly, instead of spending lots of money on services for drug users, which arguably just leads to enabling them to continue to lead the life of a drug addict.
From my perspective, there's pros and cons to both approaches, but it's not unreasonable to look at a place like San Francisco and come away with the view that some of this funding is making things worse, not better, even for the addicts themselves.
I work closely with organizations providing these services, and none of them have the resources needed to fully meet the growing community needs. Despite that, they work tirelessly, and the impact of their work is immense.
To put this into perspective: • These proposed cuts represent just 0.5% of the HHS budget ($11B out of $1.7T), yet they target some of our most critical safety net programs.
• Cutting these services is incredibly risky — not just from a human impact perspective, but also economically.
• Addiction and mental health crises drive massive costs to our already overloaded healthcare system. Without these programs, downstream costs to hospitals, law enforcement, and public health will skyrocket.
• Criminal justice and public safety costs will increase. Untreated mental illness and substance use are strongly correlated with higher rates of incarceration, emergency interventions, and violent incidents, including mass shootings, where mental health is often a factor.
These cuts may save dollars now, but they will almost certainly cost us far more down the road. And the human impact will be immeasurable.
The federal budget jumped from $4.4 trillion in 2019 to $6.7 trillion in 2022. These were emergency programs passed when economies were shut down, threatening state governments. We can’t treat these emergency measures as permanent.
For comparison, here's what CNN says:
"These funds were largely used for Covid-19 testing, Covid-19 vaccination and Covid-19 global projects, according to HHS, including for community health workers focused on populations most at risk from Covid-19."
And here's what the Trump administration says:
"The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago"