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As part of a sweeping reorganization to make the federal government leaner, the White House proposed Thursday to move all major public-assistance programs including food stamps into HHS and renaming the bulked-up agency the Department of Health and Public Welfare. The plan, spearheaded by Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney, also would create a new Council on Public Assistance, overseen by the renamed HHS, to restructure and coordinate welfare and workforce issues across all federal agencies. (Meyer, 6/21)

Conservative groups who have pushed the plan, including the Heritage Foundation, say HHS is better equipped to make major reforms to SNAP than the Agriculture Department. They also argue the consolidation will help administrators better track how much money low-income families receive in benefits — a potential precursor to paring back those programs. (Dewey, 6/21)

A new Council on Public Assistance would then oversee programs gathered in one place, including food stamps and Medicaid, and have the power to impose uniform work requirements in those programs, a move strongly opposed by Democrats. The reorganization plan faces tough odds in Congress, where even aside from the dispute over work requirements, any reorganization faces opposition from congressional committees that could lose power if their jurisdictions change. (Sullivan, 6/21)

The government's current structure, with food-oriented benefits administered by the Department of Agriculture but cash benefits regulated by HHS, "actually creates burdens for the states and frankly takes away resources that should be going to needy families,” Margaret Weichert, the deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, told reporters. (Ferguson and McIntire, 6/21)

Whether these changes are a good idea lies at the core of a deep philosophical divide about the proper size of government and its role for people who live in poverty or close to it. “The federal government is bloated, opaque, bureaucratic and inefficient,” Mick Mulvaney, director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, said Thursday in unveiling the proposal, much of which would require Congress’s approval. Robert Rector, a senior research fellow for domestic policy studies at the Heritage Society, who has advised Trump administration officials on ideas for safety-net programs that he has advanced for a decade, said, “You have to treat the welfare system holistically.” He said in an interview Thursday that the government could, for instance, align assistance programs to remove financial deterrents to marriage. (Goldstein and Dewey, 6/21)

Critics say restoring the word “welfare” to the agency’s name would give the assistance programs a negative connotation and make them vulnerable to budget cuts. Proponents argue the consolidation would streamline oversight and make things easier for states and consumers. (Hackman, 6/21)

The Trump administration has proposed a fundamental change to the mission of the Food and Drug Administration, one that would transfer most of the responsibility for regulating food safety to the Department of Agriculture and rename the FDA the “Federal Drug Administration. ”The proposal is part of a wide-reaching plan that was released Thursday by the White House and that includes other broader ideas to reform the Department of Health and Human Services. HHS would be renamed the “Department of Health and Public Welfare” and absorb some food assistance programs currently run by the USDA. (Swetlitz, 6/21)