Driving the Day
• Taking a stand for victims: This morning, nine Members of Congress join President Donald J. Trump in the Oval Office as he signs the bipartisan Allow Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017.
Learn more about human trafficking.
• Siding with Main Street: Leaders from the retail industry will stop by the White House today to discuss their role in contributing to the President’s economic growth agenda.
• Setting priorities: President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence will dine with Republican Congressional leaders to discuss shared goals for the months ahead.
How President Trump is fixing welfare
The Executive Order on Economic Mobility, which President Trump signed late yesterday, takes the first steps toward real welfare reform in America. The last overhaul of the welfare system came more than two decades ago under the Republican Congress’ “Contract with America,” led by Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.
Welfare enrollment for able-bodied adults is at a record high, despite near-record low unemployment in most parts of the country. For example, there are a record 28 million able-bodied adults on Medicaid today—a figure that has quadrupled since 2000.
Work is the solution. States that have enacted commonsense work requirements are seeing positive results, improving the lives of thousands. Washington can learn from their example: After reforms in Kansas and Maine, individuals who left welfare and returned to work saw their average incomes more than double.
President Trump’s reforms will restore independence and dignity to millions.
‘Prescribed to Death’
Beginning today, the National Park Service is partnering with the nonprofit National Safety Council (NSC) to host “Prescribed to Death,” a temporary memorial depicting the 22,000 people who died from prescription opioid overdose in 2015.
The memorial is being hosted on the Ellipse just below the White House’s South Lawn. Its purpose is to educate visitors on the devastating impact of America’s opioid crisis, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said. “These stories are tough to hear, and this exhibit will be an intensely emotional and somber experience,” she said. “But it’s also a reminder that lives are at stake, and we must take action.”
The memorial will open to the public tomorrow and remain on exhibit until next Wednesday, April 18. It arrives less than one month after President Trump announced an aggressive plan to combat the opioid epidemic in America.
Learn why the NSC is bringing “Prescribed to Death” to the White House.
More:
See President Trump’s plan to stop opioid abuse and cut off the illicit drug supply.
What’s Next
Later this week, Vice President Pence will travel to South America to represent the United States at the eighth Summit of the Americas. The Vice President traveled to four Latin American countries last August: Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Panama.