AUGUSTA, Maine — How much Maine spends helping poor and unemployed immigrants and whether the state should continue that level of support — including several state-funded welfare programs that exist in only a handful of states — is emerging as a key sticking point in budget negotiations between Republicans and Democrats at the State House.
A top Republican budget writer and one of the four House lawmakers in the minority on the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee said conservatives are looking to cap current spending on the programs.
Rep. Jeff Timberlake, R-Turner, said Republicans are focused on using some of those savings to help disabled and elderly Mainers, including increasing state funding to nursing homes, which in turn would draw down additional federal matching money.
Timberlake said Republicans are especially focused on state and locally funded General Assistance programs and want to deny eligibility for the program to what Timberlake called “legal nonresidents.”
The reforms are part of a two-year budget proposal offered by Gov. Paul LePage. They have been largely rejected by both Democrats and the Legislature’s Republican Senate majority.
Republicans have argued that the proposals align Maine with the federal Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996, which gave asylum-seeking immigrants legal authority to stay in the U.S. while the federal government determines if they should be granted immigrant status with permission to work, a process that can take 18 months or more.
The reforms would essentially keep funding flat but would block new enrollees from a set of state welfare programs for immigrants, including a state-funded Social Security program for elderly and disabled immigrants and state-funded Temporary Assistance to Needy Families and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance programs that Maine created in the late 1990s after the federal law change.
Maine is one of only five states to offer state-funded Social Security Insurance and SNAP programs for immigrants and one of only 19 to offer immigrants TANF.
In 2013, the state spent just more than $2.4 million on the programs combined, according to data available from the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, which administers the programs.
“The biggest sticking point we have in welfare reform is paying General Assistance to legal noncitizens,” Timberlake said. “The biggest issue we have is paying that out and not funding nursing homes.”
Republicans are pushing for about $13 million per year in additional support for nursing homes that care for Medicare patients. They also want to chip further away at waitlists for DHHS services for disabled Mainers, including those with developmental disabilities and brain injuries.
Timberlake and other Republicans have argued the state’s priority should focus first on long-time Maine residents and their families before extending benefits to newly arrived immigrants.
Legislative Democrats contest Timberlake’s claim that the budget supported by a majority of the Appropriations Committee fails to increase funding for nursing homes. They note that the majority budget report includes an additional $14 million in state funding on top of the $200 million nursing homes already receive, which would translate into an even greater increase in nursing home funding when federal matching dollars are added.
Democrats attribute the budget impasse to inequity in how tax cuts would be distributed.
“The biggest sticking point in the budget negotiations is over tax cuts for the wealthy,” said House Speaker Mark Eves, a Democrat from North Berwick. “Who gets the greatest benefit from a tax cut is key for our caucus. We’ve been fighting for the middle class to get a larger benefit because we reject trickle-down economics.”
Central to the Republicans’ case is the fact that state funding for nursing homes receives federal matching funds but the immigrant welfare programs, created by the state as permitted by federal law, do not. Timberlake said.
LePage has made clear that he believes as long as the state continues to cover the expense of caring for asylum-seeking immigrants, the federal government will not step to the plate to share in that expense.
Bolstering the Republican cause is a recent court ruling that said the state was not obligated to pay its share of GA benefits allocated to asylum-seeking immigrants by Portland and Westbrook.
In a news release issued Tuesday, LePage again reiterated his view.
“The people of Maine have spoken out for years against welfare for illegal immigrants, and now the courts have spoken,” he said. “The only people who still support welfare for illegal immigrants are liberal lawmakers in Augusta who are ignoring the Maine people and refusing to include common-sense welfare reforms in the state’s budget.”
While specifics of the negotiations between Republicans and Democrats on the issue have not been fully disclosed, Democratic lawmakers are voicing anxiety that a pending budget deal could end eligibility for GA funding for asylum seekers.
According to Democratic lawmakers, as many as 900 families in Portland alone would be left without the resources they need for housing if the Republican proposal to eliminate GA benefits for what the federal government and the Maine DHHS term “nonqualified aliens” goes forward.
According to DHHS, Portland requested state reimbursement for $3.1 million in benefits paid to nonqualified aliens in 2014, which the state is refusing to pay.
During a recent caucus meeting of House Democrats, Rep. Linda Sanborn, D-Gorham, tried to express her concerns that rejecting support for immigrants, many of whom are escaping political persecution and violence in their homelands, was simply contrary to core liberal principles of compassion and fairness.
Sanborn, serving her second stint on the budget committee, said she and her colleagues have given in on several huge issues within the budget, including lowering the income tax rate for the state’s wealthiest wage earners, but to further punish immigrants — often victims of extraordinarily heart-wrenching circumstances — was simply too much to ask.
While Democrats and Republicans seem to agree the root of the problem rests with the federal government and Congress for not providing support for those seeking asylum in Maine, the parties seem to strongly disagree about what the state’s responsibilities are to support those individuals and families.
Eves said Democrats offered proposals to block GA, TANF and SSI for anyone who is not legally in the country but that Democrats and Republicans have not been able to agree on details. He said that both parties seem to agree in principle that “illegal” immigrants, those who have covertly gained entry to the U.S., should not be eligible for state-funded aid programs.
“People that don’t have papers, that are undocumented, that are here illegally should not get benefits,” Eves said.
Eves also said Democrats see income tax cuts for the wealthy as their biggest sticking point in the negotiations.
“Who gets the greatest benefit from a tax cut is key for our caucus,” Eves said. “We’ve been fighting for the middle class to get a larger benefit because we reject trickle-down economics.”
Eves also said the budget plan supported by Democrats does include an additional $14 million in state funding on top of the $200 million nursing homes already get.
The Democratic plan also includes funding for the state’s Drugs for the Elderly program, which helps low-income seniors cover the cost of prescription medicines, a program Republicans wanted to eliminate, Eves said.
Rep. Ken Fredette, R-Newport, the House minority leader and the top negotiator for House Republicans on the budget this week, refused to elaborate on details when pressed after a news conference he called Wednesday.
“I don’t think it’s helpful for us to negotiate this in the press,” Fredette said. “I think those conversations I consider to be private and ongoing, and I consider that they will continue to be ongoing. It’s not helpful to have different opinions out there about where we are and where we are not.”
Overall, the total portion of the state budget spent on immigrant aid programs represents a tiny sliver of the $6.6 billion proposed spending package now in the hands of party leaders.
But for Republicans, such as Timberlake, and many others in his House caucus, the issue is a matter of principle and priorities.
“Do they qualify for any federal benefits?” Timberlake asked. “The answer is, ‘no — zero.’ They qualify for zero federal benefits.”
Timberlake summarized his position with a bus analogy.
“There are Maine people who want to get on the bus, that want to go to school,” Timberlake said. “And we are not letting them get on the bus. Instead, we are putting asylum seekers and so forth ahead of those wanting to get on the bus who are Mainers — our elderly, our disabled. That’s where we come from.”