Patrick T. Brown

Fellow

Patrick T. Brown is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where his work with the Life and Family Initiative focuses on developing a robust pro-family economic agenda and supporting families as the cornerstone of a healthy and flourishing society.

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Patrick T. Brown is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where his work focuses on developing a robust pro-family economic agenda and supporting families as the cornerstone of a healthy and flourishing society.

His writing has been published in The New York Times, National Review, Politico, The Washington Post, and USA Today, and he has spoken on college campuses and Capitol Hill on topics from welfare reform to child care and education policy.

He has published reports on paid leave and family policy with the Institute for Family Studies, and edited an essay series featuring working-class voices for American Compass. He is an advisory board member of Humanity Forward and the Center on Child and Family Policy, and a contributing editor to Public Discourse.

Prior to joining EPPC, Patrick served as a Senior Policy Advisor to Congress’ Joint Economic Committee (JEC). There, he helped lead research about how to make it more affordable to raise a family and more effectively invest in youth and young adults. He also previously worked a government relations staffer for Catholic Charities USA.

Patrick graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a degree in political science and economics. He also holds a Master’s in Public Affairs from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He and his wife Jessica have three young children and live in Columbia, S.C.

 

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Biden once supported work requirements for social benefits. Why he should do so again

Patrick T. Brown

A debt ceiling endgame could be in sight, even if an agreement is far from a sure thing. And part of the deal in helping America avoid default may be tightening work requirements on safety-net programs.

Articles

CNN / May 17, 2023

What conservatives can learn from Major League Baseball’s pitch clock

Patrick T. Brown

Baseball fans have always prided the game as being outside of time, and the introduction of a leaguewide pitch clock in Major League Baseball this offseason rubbed traditionalists the wrong way.

Articles

Deseret News / May 14, 2023

Bipartisan Legislation on Kids and Tech Gains Momentum in Congress

Patrick T. Brown

If “Power to the People” captured the raucous spirit of the 1970s, perhaps a slogan updated for the energy being felt in state legislatures might be “Power to the Parents.”

Articles

The border surge is Biden’s problem to solve

Patrick T. Brown

There’s a line from conservative columnist and CNN political commentator Jonah Goldberg that gets at many Americans’ views toward the border: “My preferred immigration policy is that we have one.”

Articles

CNN / May 4, 2023

If Kevin McCarthy’s tightrope act works, Democrats would face an agonizing choice

Patrick T. Brown

Congress is facing a ticking time bomb, as the political drama in Washington, DC, continues to underscore the need to find a solution to the debt limit. And as each tick on the clock grows louder, the negotiations will increasingly overshadow anything else happening on Capitol Hill.

Articles

CNN / April 21, 2023

DeSantis’s abortion bill is brave

Patrick T. Brown

It demonstrates that Republicans needn’t fear pushing pro-life policy

Articles

The Spectator World / April 18, 2023

Don’t count DeSantis out yet; the GOP’s 2024 race is far from over

Patrick T. Brown

Brown explains why the 2024 race is only beginning and how DeSantis is a likely candidate over the former President Donald Trump.

Articles

CNN / April 11, 2023

I’m Pro-Life. I Worry That the Abortion-Pill Ruling Could Backfire.

Patrick T. Brown

A Texas judge’s ruling on mifepristone is at best a precarious win for the anti-abortion movement.

Articles

The Atlantic / April 8, 2023

Wanted: A More Parent-Friendly Workplace

Patrick T. Brown

The conversation among many on the political right has recently focused on the need for a pro-worker, pro-parent agenda. But how many of these conversations have focused on improving the lives of working parents? 

Articles

Institute for Family Studies / March 22, 2023

Opinion: If Republicans want to beat Biden, they can’t ignore this reality

Patrick T. Brown

“To muster an effective response, Republicans need not and should not be afraid to counter with their own proactive agenda.”

Articles

CNN / March 10, 2023

What Republican Parents Really Want

Patrick T. Brown

A pro-family agenda coupled with cultural and economic populism also has appeal to liberals.

Articles

The New York Times / March 6, 2023

With CHIPs Implementation, White House Betrays ‘Supply-Side Progressivism’

Patrick T. Brown

Brown and O’Brien go into detail on how the supply-side progressivism is failing to be invested in high-tech industries and R&D as before promised.

Articles

Newsweek / March 3, 2023

A debt ceiling endgame could be in sight, even if an agreement is far from a sure thing. And part of the deal in helping America avoid default may be tightening work requirements on safety-net programs.

It may not be an obvious play. The biggest drivers of our federal deficits are entitlement spending on Social Security and Medicare. Prime-age labor force participation rates are at their highest in the past 15 years. And the potential consequences of default far outweigh domestic policy disagreements.
Yet Republicans have leverage in these debt ceiling negotiations, whether the Biden White House wishes to acknowledge it or not, and safety-net reform has emerged as a place of some consensus on the right. According to Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy now sees work requirements as a “red line” in any potential deal.

Done right, a debt ceiling deal that improved work requirements in some social welfare programs could be a political winner for the president and Republicans. Of course, that caveat — “done right” — may be tricky to accomplish.

Republicans have talked about a wide range of work requirements, ranging from food assistance (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps), health coverage for low-income Americans through Medicaid, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the successor to the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, which was the main source of cash welfare for most of the 20th century. Today, the TANF program provides states funds for job training, child care, work support and some direct cash assistance.

Not all of these work requirement proposals are created equal. Medicaid, in particular, is a bad fit. When Arkansas piloted Medicaid work requirements in 2017, their implementation was plagued by inaccurately kicking eligible individuals off of coverage and a website that proved “nearly impossible” to navigate. Significantly, a major study found no impact on employment, but higher rates of medical debt and delayed medical care.
And, on a more theoretical level, the logic breaks down. The point of work requirements is that people should work in order to receive public benefits. But if they are suffering from conditions that make it difficult to work without health care, taking away their coverage will make them less, rather than more likely, to work. Even the conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation has argued employment or job training requirements in Medicaid “won’t work,” since emergency rooms have an obligation to provide treatment even to uninsured patients.

On SNAP, however, Republicans are on more solid ground. Work requirements already do exist for access to food assistance, on paper. Currently, able-bodied adults without dependents ages 18 to 49 must work or volunteer 80 hours per month to receive food assistance. Those requirements were suspended for Covid-19, but as the American Enterprise Institute’s Kevin Corinth explored, a number of waivers and loopholes means these work requirements are not scheduled to take full effect. A congressional fix to restore that expectation, especially in a tight labor market, seems like an appropriate area of focus.

Lastly, the TANF program is likely due for a rethink as well. As Semafor’s Joseph Zeballos-Roig reported, progressives are nervous about putting TANF on the table in debt ceiling talks. TANF already includes some work requirements, but, more importantly, it has had its funding set at $16.5 billion each year since 1996 (and the funding has not been adjusted for inflation). As a result, only 1.1 million households received TANF at some point during 2020, down from over 4 million in the mid-1990s.

Democrats may not like this starve-the-beast approach to safety-net spending, but taking a firm stand against tightening already-existing work requirements seems like the wrong hill to die on. For instance, as Matt Weidinger, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, has noted, according to the Congressional Research Service, California pays SNAP participants $10 a month so they can be counted as “working.” This artificially inflates the state’s metrics on getting aid recipients employed. Republicans seek to rein that practice in, and addressing their concerns could help lay the groundwork for more productive conversations around how to improve TANF when default isn’t looming.

For his part, President Joe Biden has worried progressive members of his caucus with his openness to discussing additional work requirements. In 1996, Biden, then a US Senator from Delaware, spoke about the importance of replacing the “culture of welfare” with the “culture of work.” And with an eye toward reelection, the White House is aware that opposing “work for welfare” may make it harder to appeal to mainstream voters.
Biden has ruled out work requirements for Medicaid, per remarks he made to the press Wednesday morning. But coming to the table on SNAP and TANF work requirements could see the president position himself as the voice of moderation between House Republicans and progressive Democrats, shoring up Biden’s perceived centrist bona fides.

Even if the implementation of those efforts can sometimes be shaky, Republicans know Americans like the idea of encouraging work for safety net benefits. A 2017 Politico/Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health poll found 74% of US adults said they supported work requirements for able-bodied adults without young children in order to receive SNAP benefits.

And research indicates that work plays an essential role in stable communities and strong families. Especially in the case of non-disabled adults without dependents, the idea of asking for a tangible connection to the workforce in exchange for public aid has a commonsense appeal.

The challenge is whether work requirements could establish those connections without leaving out the disabled or those with children at home. Picking the right spots to inject a stronger connection to work could be politically powerful, so long as it is done with care. Pursuing those opportunities could lead to better safety net politics and, more importantly, avoid a catastrophic default.

Patrick T. Brown is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where his work with the Life and Family Initiative focuses on developing a robust pro-family economic agenda and supporting families as the cornerstone of a healthy and flourishing society.

Picture from CNN