The Trump Presidency Is Going Great

The Trump administration has discovered a bold new frontier in cruelty: charging disabled people rent for existing in their parents’ homes. Under a draft rule quietly cooking at the Social Security Administration and the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency (yes, that’s a real thing, not a Veep joke), SSI benefits for disabled adults and indigent seniors would be cut by up to a third if they dare to sleep in a bedroom under the same roof as family members who are themselves poor enough to qualify for food stamps.

For people like 22-year-old Shy’tyra Burton, who survives on $994 a month and lives with her dad, that’s about a $330 monthly hit because the government has decided her tiny room is a luxury suite. Up to 400,000 disabled and elderly poor people could see their benefits slashed or vaporized, all because the Trump team wants to pretend that anyone not paying full market rent to their own family has a secret benefactor. The fact that SNAP has already verified these households are broke? Irrelevant. The new plan is to endlessly recalculate the "value" of your bed and your mom’s checking account and then dock your check accordingly.

Religious conservatives who actually read the parts of the Bible about caring for the vulnerable are, predictably, horrified. Galen Carey of the National Association of Evangelicals is out here quoting judgment-of-the-faithful theology while Trump’s budget guy Russell Vought and Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano try to turn SSI into a paywall for family affection. Dozens of Down syndrome organizations have begged the administration not to do this, which in Trump World mostly serves as proof they’re on the right track.

When ProPublica asked the White House about any of this, OMB communications director Rachel Cauley called the story “trash” and “false,” then heroically failed to identify a single incorrect fact. The SSA, meanwhile, insists Bisignano is "committed" to serving “America’s most vulnerable” while actively drafting rules to yank their lifeline if they’re not sufficiently alone and miserable. Family values, Trump edition: you can love your disabled kid, or you can help them eat — just don’t try both under the same roof.