Cohen: Trump budget hurts African-Americans

Last year, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump condescendingly said to African-Americans, "You live in your poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs ... What the hell do you have to lose?"

We now know the answer: A lot.

Changes at the Department of Justice (DOJ), alone, are alarming. Instead of serving its traditional role as guardian of civil rights, DOJ is in full retreat. It has reversed course on voting rights, abandoning opposition to a Texas voter-ID law in which a federal court found 600,000 registered voters did not have IDs necessary to vote.

Instead of protecting citizens from police who illegally discriminate against African-Americans, U.S. Atty. Gen. Jefferson Beauregard "Jeff" Sessions III has stated he does not favor the type of consent decrees used in Baltimore and Chicago to remediate conditions.

Sessions also has rolled back former President Barack Obama's efforts to phase out private prisons. African-Americans not only make up a disproportionate share of the U.S. prison population, but appear more likely to be sent to private prisons, where the DOJ Inspector General has warned there are more security incidents than in public prisons.

Sessions has threatened to thwart the will of voters in states that have legalized marijuana. African-Americans are three times more likely than whites are to be arrested for marijuana, despite usage being virtually the same.

New Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos thinks Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) "are the real pioneers when it comes to school choice." This is ignorant of segregation that necessitated the creation of HBCUs. DeVos has an education record that does not bode well for public schools, which have provided a path for African-Americans to achieve the American Dream.

The new HUD Secretary, Dr. Ben Carson, said within days of assuming office that slaves were "immigrants," a comment that bewildered many, including the NAACP. The president's recently released budget proposal cuts $6 billion from this agency that so many rely on.

The outlook for a minimum-wage increase under this administration is nil. President Trump's first pick to head the Department of Labor opposed a raise, despite there not having been one since 2009.

Thirty-five percent of African-American workers would benefit from a minimum-wage increase, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

Critical programs that help the most vulnerable such as Meals on Wheels, heating and energy assistance, and nutrition aid to women and children (WIC) would be drastically cut or eliminated in the President's budget.

In addition, the budget eliminates Community Development Block Grants and HOME programs that provide affordable housing for low-income residents. Legal Services Corporation, which helps those who cannot afford legal representation, and the Minority Business Development Agency, which helps promote minority-owned businesses, would be eliminated. Massive cuts to these vital programs would be devastating to Memphis.

While these cuts would have a disproportional impact on African-Americans, most cuts will affect all those who are economically disadvantaged and in need of government assistance.

Republicans are also rushing a health care plan that takes from low- and middle-income families and gives to the rich.

Twenty-four million more Americans would be uninsured by 2026 under this plan, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Insurance costs for citizens over 50 years of age would increase dramatically, and financial assistance would be drastically cut for those in need. All while millionaires and billionaires receive massive tax breaks.

During Black History Month, Trump showed his ignorance of the African-American experience when he suggested Frederick Douglass was alive. His cabinet is on pace to have the fewest African-Americans of any administration in recent memory.

While some African-Americans have enjoyed prosperity and acceptance, it is undeniable that African-Americans still suffer from vestiges of slavery and Jim Crow. Discrimination and institutional racism have held so many back and left many in need of government relief.

Over the last half century, much of America's progress has been measured by how it has dealt with its original sin of slavery. Civil rights, voting rights, advances in health care, public education, social justice and ladders of opportunity to enter the middle class have been markers by which we have judged presidential administrations. Sadly, this administration is failing on all counts.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen of Memphis represents Tennessee's Ninth Congressional District.