Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Law
Against The ‘Safety Net’, Matthew Lawrence
Against The ‘Safety Net’, Matthew Lawrence
Matthew B. Lawrence
Jack Kemp and Ronald Reagan originated the ‘safety net’ conception of United States health and welfare laws in the late 1970s and early 1980s, defending proposed cuts to New Deal and Great Society programs by asserting that such cuts would not take away the “social safety net of programs” for those with “true need.” Legal scholars have adopted their metaphor widely and uncritically. This Essay deconstructs the ‘safety net’ metaphor and counsels against its use in understanding health and welfare laws. The metaphor is descriptively confusing because it means different things to different audiences. Some understand the ‘safety net’ as …
Disappropriation, Matthew Lawrence
Disappropriation, Matthew Lawrence
Matthew B. Lawrence
In recent years Congress has repeatedly failed to appropriate funds necessary to honor legal commitments (aka entitlements) that are themselves enacted in permanent law. The Appropriations Clause has forced the government to defy legislative command and break such commitments, with destructive results for recipients and the rule of law. This Article is the first to address this poorly-understood phenomenon, which it labels a form of “disappropriation.”
The Article theorizes recent high-profile disappropriations as one probabilistic consequence of Congress’s decision to create permanent legislative payment commitments that the government cannot honor without periodic, temporary appropriations. Such partially-temporary programs include Medicaid and …