Blah people? Santorum’s blunder reveals bigotry
What is it that Rick Santorum doesn’t understand about preserving a social safety net for those who have lost jobs and the healthcare that came with them? And what has he got against food stamps?
One would think he might have learned from the unfortunate remarks he made in Iowa: “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money and provide for themselves and their families.”
He tried to cover that by saying he was “misheard” and that what he really said was “blah people.” Say, what?
What is a blah person anyway? I’ve never heard that expression used in any context. To most of us, blah means boring or uninteresting, not a reference to poverty or to skin color.
Since that offensive blunder, Santorum has made the same assertions but substituted “minority communities” for blah people. But connecting minorities with food stamps shows a lack of understanding on his part. The percentage of people receiving food stamps is overwhelmingly white. In Iowa it is 84 percent, with African Americans at only nine percent and Hispanics even less.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, about 20.5 million people are in deep poverty, with food stamps increasingly replacing cash aid as the safety net of last resort. More than 45 million people get food stamps, an increase of 64 percent since January of 2008. And according to census data, food stamps lifted 3.9 million people above the poverty line.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that every $1 in food stamps generates $1.84 in economic activity. This makes food stamps one of the most effective forms of economic stimulus because lower-income individuals tend to spend extra funds quickly to meet their basic needs.
Santorum’s opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal listed a 10-point plan to boost the economy.
“Obamanomics,” he wrote, “has left one in six Americans in poverty and one in four children on food stamps.”
In a column rife with buzz words such as “class warfare” and “job-killing regulations” Santorum proposes his Economic Freedom Agenda, which includes “pro-growth and pro-family” tax policy that would “triple personal deductions for children and eliminate the marriage tax penalty.” According to tax experts, his plan would increase the deficit by trillions of dollars without indicating how to fund any of it, and commensurate spending cuts would decimate government services.
He also proposes cutting “means-tested” entitlement programs by 10 percent across the board, freezing them for four years and “block grant them to the states, as I did as the author of welfare reform in 1996.” Though food stamps are funded primarily by the federal government, which sets rules of eligibility and benefit levels, states make a number of important decisions regarding application, reporting and recertification procedures that impact program accessibility.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly the Food Stamp Program, now part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) provides $20 billion, mostly to increase benefits by more than 13 percent, helping more than 31 million Americans, half of whom are children.
There are probably more ways to cut the federal budget deficit, including subsidies and tax loopholes, but picking on programs that actually combat poverty and hunger seems counterproductive.
Food stamps are designed to enable low-income families to buy the food they need. Changes made in 2002 gave the states increased flexibility to administer the program and replace the flat household deduction used in benefit calculations with a reduction scaled to family size.
The average benefit was $215 per recipient (in 2007). The gross annual income limit was $21,588. The maximum benefit for a family of three was $408 a month.
Somewhere along the way the food stamps were replaced with a credit card of sorts that is swiped at grocery checkout. This automatically keeps track of expenditures and would seem to reduce the stigma attached to the original vouchers.
Santorum refers to this as “other people’s money” but if we calculate the cost of malnutrition in healthcare and education, taxpayers are getting a bargain.
Those who bemoan government programs for the poor say those needs should be met by Christian charity. It’s been my experience that charity is not limited to Christians. But what they and Santorum fail to understand is that in a down economy, charities are hurting too. Just about every food bank is overwhelmed by the need. And some people who used to volunteer are now on the other side of the counter. All it takes is a job loss, an accident or illness and the donor becomes a recipient.
It’s time for Santorum and his opponents to show compassion for those who are struggling. Perhaps a Clintonesque feel for our pain.