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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[Austin Willard Wright]

A moderate eh? Question: What do you find in the middle of the road? Answer: A dead skunk and a yellow line.

[Joe Hadenuf]

Bump*

[Joe Hadenuf]

Bump

It seems these guys spend the the entire first 4 years worrying about how ther going to be re-elected. Food stamps for illegals and amnesty? This is all about being re-elected, to hell with the country

[loliput]

I am sure you'd be able to back up your statement.

You are on record supporting the proposed "guest worker program", that would amnesty illegals.

And I have shown to you that Bush is pushing for amnesty.

Your only defense is claiming ignorance, which I suspect is feigned and is nothing more than your debating technique.

[WRhine]

And the Republican party wonders why those in the middle keep leaving the party in droves...

Could it be because of things like: "Bush's food stamp plan called ethnic pandering"? If they want to keep more of their conservative base then they better stop acting like democrats.

[WRhine]

That's an outright lie. That's two lies you've told today.

What's all this "Lying" stuff? I am seeing this more and more on FR from the wayward libertarian lot and the "Bush can do no wrong" crowd like you. Since when are differences of opinion...LIES? Let's keep the word "lie" in its proper context.

[poet]

Why don't you do what the Govenor of Arkansas did and start your own "tax me more" fund? He started it in November in answer to the libs in his state house who keep crying for more taxes and as usual, they have turned out to be phony as all of us knew. To date the fund has $2,000. Hmmm, it seems you liberals don't really want to contribute on your own. You are totalitarian in your thinking, unfortunately, none of you realize it or don't care.

[Zack Nguyen]

I think Bush make a deal with Kennedy on food stamp for immigrants to get his Education bills pass.

If true, then that is quite misguided. The education bill was a mess, so bad that it should have gained leftist support instantly.

[Zack Nguyen]

I think Bush make a deal with Kennedy on food stamp for immigrants to get his Education bills pass.

If true, then that is quite misguided. The education bill was a mess, so bad that it should have gained leftist support instantly.

[Austin Willard Wright]

True, but Ted knows that if he plays coy he can make the bill even worse! Ted learned this lesson from Dubya's father.

[headsonpikes]

"If you're happy and you know it, Clank your chains..."

[Uncle Bill]

Bush Wants Food Stamps For Some Noncitizens

Click me:

Source
"The welfare reform law of 1996 replaced AFDC with a new program: Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). This reform has been widely acknowledged as a tremendous success leading to dramatic drops in dependence and child poverty, increases in employment, and a slow down in the growth of out-of-wedlock child bearing.

While critics of welfare reform said that it would throw millions of children into poverty, in fact, the opposite has occurred. The poverty rates of black children and children in single mother families are now at the lowest points in our nation's history."

Click me:

[PatrioticAmerican]

And here I thought a federal law prohibited welfare from being spent on illegals. Silly me. What was I thinking? What a greedy American I am.

[screed]

They told us Bush was a conservative.

They lied.

"They" also told us the President was no conservative.

They were castigated and ridiculed for it.

[Clinging Bitterly]

All that I see are people who weigh twice what normal people weigh who buy name-brand products, while many of us "cash" people have to buy generics to get by.

Yeah here too in Oregon a lot.
It used to be, the convenience pre-cooked, ready to eat stuff was all off limits, and a recipient had to prove he had cooking facilities.
This has been relaxed in recent years now, and now it just has to be not still warm.
Heck, you can buy Slurpees and Big Gulps on the "Oregon Trail Benefit Card".
My thinking would be, sorry, those kinds of things are not food.

But your point too is a good one.
We are a one wage earner household with three foster kids. It's a private arrangement - neither the state or either of the kids' parents provide any assistance and that's fine. We love them and will provide for them just fine and I'll thank the state to just keep it's big fat nose out of my business.
But it chaps my posterior when we go to the local supermarket for our week's groceries, and that week's budget is 50 bucks and we get hamburger and potato(e)s and things like that, and the cart ahead in line is lanen with nice steaks and things I'd probably get if I were single with my income, and they whip out that "Oregon Trail Benefit Card".
Yup it chaps my butt alright.

Dave in Eugene

[Clinging Bitterly]

But back to the subject of the article, the end justifies the means I guess. /sarcasm
Really, if there's an interest group that want something (and the immigrant groups do want easier access to food stamps), anything they want that Bush doesn't do gets him called a racist (and this is, I realize, way down thread and maybe already said, but it's worth repeating, seems to me).
This isn't, after all, a giveaway to all immigrants, but a certain subset of them that are, seems to me, marginally more worthy than some of the others. Served in the military, been here five years, hopefully holding jobs.
I'd rather have an unfettered market with plenty of well paying jobs, and we can always hope that this gesture, racial pandering though it may be, serves to take a small amount of the RATS' ammo away, and helps us creep slowly toward that end. You bet it's a teensy sliver of hope, I don't like much of Bush's "accomplisments", but I'll take them over Gore's any day of the week.

This is the sort of thing I expected when voting for Bush - an adminstration slightly to the right of the alternative.
Not perfect or even nearly so, we can all admit.

Dave in Eugene