Bush's food stamp plan called ethnic pandering

San Antonio Express-News ^ | January 18th, 2002 | Gary Martin

[Sabertooth]

Metro and State
Bush's food stamp plan called ethnic pandering

By Gary Martin
Express-News Washington Bureau

Web Posted : 01/18/2002 12:00 AM

WASHINGTON Ñ A Bush administration proposal to restore food stamps to legal immigrants is being attacked by conservatives who accused the president of trying to buy votes from traditional Democratic groups in an election year.

"It's plain to see that the president has chosen to steal a page from the Democrats' playbook," said Rep. Tom Tancredo, chairman of the House Immigration Reform Caucus.

"His attempt to expand our political base through surrendering to the Hispanic vote is usually the Democrats' job. Votes can't be bought with welfare," said Tancredo, R-Colo.

Congress banned legal immigrants from receiving food stamps in a sweeping welfare reform bill in 1996.

President Clinton supported that bill, causing a furor within the Democratic Party and an outcry from minority-rights groups.

The administration plans to restore food stamps to legal immigrants who've served in the U.S. military, or those who have been in the country for at least five years.

"This is election year pandering to ethnic voting blocs, plain and simple," charged Dan Stein, executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates strict limits on legal immigration.

"The sensible political thing to do is to cut immigration levels and change the immigration policies that allow far too many people to settle here who lack the skills necessary to make it on their own," Stein said.

Bush is proposing to restore the food stamp benefit to legal immigrants in his budget for fiscal year 2003, which begins Oct. 1, said Jean Daniel, spokeswoman with the Food and Nutrition Service, the agency that runs the food stamp program.

The Bush proposal is expected to cost $2.1 billion over 10 years, and provide food stamps to more than 363,000 immigrants who are in the country legally and meet the criteria of the program but aren't citizens.

The president called the restoration of benefits the right thing to do, and now the right time to do it, Daniel said.

A similar proposal, one that would lower the eligibility to those who have been in the country for four years, is under consideration by the Senate, which must still pass an agriculture bill that authorizes spending for this fiscal year.

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, said lowering the eligibility requirements in the 1996 welfare reform bill would trigger a provision that he tucked into an immigration reform bill that year that requires a sponsor of a legal immigrant to pay for public benefits, such as food stamps.

gmartin@express-news.net

01/18/2002

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[marajade]

Child Protective Services cases are confidential in nature by law.

[PuNcH]

EWWW I Found something on American starvation, but it turned out to be a prehistoric native american villiage :(

[PuNcH]

Child Protective Services cases are confidential in nature by law. = marajade full of crap.

[sarcasm]

As I said, you don't want to admit that you were and are wrong.

[Republican Wildcat]

LOL. And you wonder why no one takes you seriously!

[MissAmericanPie]

And this "no one", you speak of may also wonder why you attack me instead of the facts. But who cares what "no one" thinks right? Thanks so much for your contribution to the discussion, I'm sure "no one" will take your comments much more seriously than mine.

[SBeck]

My point is watch your wallet.

[rockfish59]

ditto here!

la raza HATES whitey!

[RnMomof7]

sounds right to me....

[poet]

I agree with you about Bush. He is most assuredly not conservative, but, he is a masterful politician and as such, he is not to be trusted along with any other two faced politician. He's playing to the muslims, the gays, illegal aliens, political correctness and much more.
The repubs are different than the dems in name only. At least the dems are up front about wanting big government and high taxes while the repubs do the same thing "piece meal".

Since I won't vote for a lib dem, I might sit the next one out.
Bottom line, it's the power brokers and powerful families that give us our choice between frick or frack.
Oops, my tin foil hat just fell off my head.

[MissAmericanPie]

I am not going to allow this to discourage me enough to stay home from the polls, I'll just write in a candidate, perhaps Ron Paul or someone more conservative than Bush.

[poet]

That sounds like a plan that I'll adopt.

FReegards

[marajade]

Did you hear his inaugural speech? In it he stated that he was elected to represent all people. He's keeping his word, how is that defined as untrustworthy?

[WRhine]

If this corrupt Food Stamp plan of his goes through, I won't vote for any Republican while Bush holds office.

That is the way I am going to play it too. Especially he Bush goes through with that Amnesty Deal.

[WRhine]

Nope. I'm with Bush. These are legal immigrants. They're here. There's nothing you can do about that. They are citizens

They are NOT citizens until they BECOME citizens. It's people like you that DEBASE the whole notion of citizenship.

[WRhine]

We need that vote, and you know it.

Oh great, political power over principles. You are a prime example of what's wrong with the GOP. Why not just call the Republican Party the "Socialist Party" and out-bid the Democratic Party for the welfare votes that you and Bush see as the keys to re-election. We conservatives meanwhile will take our votes and money elsewhere.

[Austin Willard Wright]

Of course, FS is welfare even by the government's own definition because it means-tested. If FS isn't "welfare," what is?

[WRhine]

Now wake up and smell the coffee. If the dumocraps catch that vote, we're out of the game. Libertarians can certanly kiss their party good bye.

Doing what the democrats do only makes the republican party more like the socialist democratic party. BTW, most the people you are referring to as "libertarians" are in fact "conservatives" who are tired of seeing our government encourage massive 3rd world immigration that is swelling the welfare class in America and debasing our Culture in the process. Yes, wake up and smell the coffee!

[CharlieDarwin]

The cost of this is less than 10 cents a year per American. Get a life.

[WRhine]

You're either with the Food Stamp program or you're with the Terrorists, according to concerned about politics.

Like a typical GOPer concerned about politics is really more concerned about power wherever that leads. To make such an outrageous statement only shows how some in the GOP thirst for that power. And it looks like the GOP has learned a few dirty propaganda tricks from the DemocRATS also.