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Bush's food stamp plan called ethnic pandering
San Antonio Express-News ^ | January 18th, 2002 | Gary Martin

Posted on 01/18/2002 7:24:06 PM PST by Sabertooth

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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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TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: hughhewitt
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"Surrender here!"

"Bend over and get your red hot Surrender here!"


1 posted on 01/18/2002 7:24:06 PM PST by Sabertooth
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To: CheneyChick; vikingchick; Victoria Delsoul; WIMom; susangirl; one_particular_harbour; kmiller1k...
(((ping))))


2 posted on 01/18/2002 7:24:39 PM PST by Sabertooth
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To: Victoria Delsoul; Pelham; susangirl; janetgreen; harpseal; Travis McGee; Manny Festo; RonDog...
(((ping))))


3 posted on 01/18/2002 7:25:22 PM PST by Sabertooth
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To: Sabertooth
R O T F L M A O !!!!!!
4 posted on 01/18/2002 7:33:32 PM PST by 1 FELLOW FREEPER
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To: Sabertooth
They told us Bush was a conservative.

They lied.

5 posted on 01/18/2002 7:34:43 PM PST by Mulder
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Comment #6 Removed by Moderator

To: Mulder
I always knew Bush was a squish on immigration. But I never expected him to betray his base so cravenly, those of us who stood in the gap for him in November or December of 2000.

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


7 posted on 01/18/2002 7:37:54 PM PST by Sabertooth
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To: Sabertooth
"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.

Earth to Tancredo. Earth to Tancredo. Where have you been living all these years? Over.

*Soon to be larger than the black vote.
8 posted on 01/18/2002 7:39:29 PM PST by aruanan
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To: Sabertooth
Instead of decreasing the welfare program, he's increasing it.

I guess we should be surprised...

9 posted on 01/18/2002 7:42:02 PM PST by CoolGuyVic
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To: CoolGuyVic
Instead of decreasing the welfare program, he's increasing it.

I guess we should be surprised...

If Bush succeeds in leading this Surrender, I won't be voting for him again.

He shouldn't be surprised.


10 posted on 01/18/2002 7:43:55 PM PST by Sabertooth
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To: askel5
More for your thesis.
11 posted on 01/18/2002 7:46:02 PM PST by struwwelpeter
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To: Sabertooth
RUBEN NAVARRETTE

What new welfare debate sounds like in Wonderland

January 17, 2002

DALLAS -- President Bush might think that making it easier for legal immigrants to get food stamps is appropriate fare for a compassionate conservative. But that depends on whether one believes that getting newcomers hooked on government handouts is compassionate or cruel.

I'll take the latter. I still have a hard time swallowing the idea of food stamps and other welfare benefits for native-born Americans, let alone immigrants.

It's not that I think any less of the foreigners. Quite the contrary. Most who come to the United States, legally or otherwise, make incredible sacrifices to get here. And because the price of admission to this country is so high, immigrants come with an ambition that should be preserved at all costs.

What the administration has in mind could spoil that. Acting with either the best of intentions or the worst of political advice, Bush wants to use legislation intended to overhaul farm policy as a means of diving into two controversial issues: welfare and immigration. The president wants to revisit a provision of the 1996 welfare reform act that bars legal immigrants from applying for food stamps until they have lived in the country for 10 years.

That provision had the effect of pushing as many as 800,000 noncitizens off food stamps, claims the administration.

Bush wants to move the threshold to five years, a change that will, the White House claims, restore food stamps to an estimated 363,000 noncitizens by 2006.

That is much more generous than a competing proposal in the Senate supported by many Democrats, which would restore benefits to just 150,000 legal immigrants. Capitol Hill observers say the motivation behind the lower figure comes from Democratic fears that more money for food stamps to immigrants will mean less money for subsidies to farmers.

Did you catch that? After demonizing Republicans with regard to both welfare and immigration, Democrats now have a chance to back up their fear-mongering with votes to give welfare to immigrants. They decline, preferring to take care of a more powerful special interest.

And get this. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who led the charge in Congress for welfare reform in 1996, now says that, in retrospect, denying food stamps to immigrants was a bit much. Calling the ban "wrong," Gingrich now supports Bush's attempt to make it right.

That will cost money, Senate Democrats warn. Some of them are calling Bush's plan financially unsound, and they want to know how the administration is going to pay for the rollback, which the White House says will ring up at $2.1 billion over the next 10 years.

If you're keeping score, we have a Republican president offering welfare to immigrants, Newt Gingrich showing remorse for forcing immigrants off welfare, and Democrats expressing concern about government being fiscally responsible.

This must be what the welfare debate would sound like in Wonderland.

But the strangest thing is that anyone believes the spin. Because many of the noncitizens affected by Bush's proposal happen to be Hispanic, this is about generating Hispanic support for Bush in 2004.

Brilliant. If anyone believes that a significant number of Hispanics will be wooed by efforts to give welfare to immigrants, they need a refresher course about what matters to Hispanics.

The president has no worries on the Hispanic front. For reasons that have less to do with welfare than with war, Bush enjoys an 89 percent approval rating among Hispanics.

If those Hispanics are U.S.-born, chances are they harbor the same ambivalence about welfare giveaways as other Americans do. And if they are immigrants, they may even see government handouts as an insult. Study after study has confirmed that immigrants have a lower rate of participation in welfare programs than the native-born. Even with the 1996 immigrant ban in place, there are still more than 18 million Americans getting food stamps.

The really sad part about the plan to restore food stamps to immigrants is that Bush knows better. During his first year in office, the president has repeatedly praised immigrants for their work ethic and rightly acknowledged them as more benefit than burden. He was on a roll with a string of right answers. Now, he finally got one wrong.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Navarrette is a Dallas Morning News columnist. Contact him via e-mail at rnavarrette@dallasnews.com.

12 posted on 01/18/2002 7:46:21 PM PST by testforecho
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To: Sabertooth
While Bush is passing out food stamps to the foreigners, the American-born citizens will be footing the bill, and be getting turned down for their OWN food stamps.(I'm sure) In Ohio, those who get public assistance and/or food stamps have to work for them. Will these imports have to do the SAME???
13 posted on 01/18/2002 7:47:11 PM PST by mommadooo3
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To: askel5
More for your thesis.
14 posted on 01/18/2002 7:47:34 PM PST by struwwelpeter
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To: Sabertooth
Bush is pandering but it's also a good way to destroy a group of people, getting as many as possible dependent on the government and ruining their image and also self esteem. In this area of the US, hispanics already have a higher illegitimacy rate, school dropout, and welfare dependency than blacks do. Giving more foodstamps just to gain some votes isn't really doing them a favor.
15 posted on 01/18/2002 7:49:01 PM PST by FITZ
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To: Sabertooth
BUSH IS 9/10THS OF THE WAY OF LOSING MY VOTE.
16 posted on 01/18/2002 7:51:18 PM PST by 1 FELLOW FREEPER
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To: FITZ
"Giving more foodstamps just to gain some votes isn't really doing them a favor."

Besides, have you ever seen "thin" people using food stamps?

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.

17 posted on 01/18/2002 7:54:44 PM PST by TonyBanks
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To: Sabertooth
I think Bush make a deal with Kennedy on food stamp for immigrants

to get his Education bills pass

18 posted on 01/18/2002 7:54:46 PM PST by expose
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To: 1 FELLOW FREEPER
Did the pretzel fiasco cause him to lose 8/10ths of your "way" or were you always Bush fan?
19 posted on 01/18/2002 7:56:37 PM PST by zarf
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To: Sabertooth
When it comes to welfare state there is only one political party in Washington.
20 posted on 01/18/2002 7:56:42 PM PST by Revolting cat!
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