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GOP should stick a fork in it

EDITORIAL | Editorial | FOOD-STAMP ASSAULT

THIS STORY APPEARED IN

January 30, 2012

IN SOUTH Carolina, Newt Gingrich received a standing ovation for calling Barack Obama the “food-stamp president,’’ while Mitt Romney was applauded for saying Obama is turning America into an “entitlement society.’’ South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint lamented that “Many Americans are sick of seeing the guy in front of them in the grocery line using food stamps to buy steaks.’’

It’s hard to know what point they’re trying to make — and that’s probably deliberate. That the program is riddled with fraud? (It’s not.) That families receiving benefits don’t need them? (The cut-off is $21,356 for a family of four.) That Obama has expanded the program unnecessarily? (Actually, it grew just as fast under George W. Bush, and Obama’s increase, through the stimulus bill, was based on the sensible idea that every dollar spent on food is immediately reinjected into the economy, while also serving to boost health and nutrition.) Then again, Obama did acknowledge that his mother, trying to raise two children on her own, was once a beneficiary. So the attacks on the program carry a particularly sour resonance.

Now known as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), the program serves about 46 million people. They use ATM-style cards that ensure only household food is purchased. The cards cannot be used for restaurants, alcohol, tobacco, household supplies, or even hot food in supermarkets. Eric Bost, who administered the program under Bush, told The New York Times, “I assure you, food stamps is not welfare.’’

Still, there remains in some quarters a political association between social-welfare programs and African-Americans, which might explain why the GOP attacks picked up steam once the campaign headed south. But the share of SNAP going to white families has risen during the Great Recession, while that of African-Americans declined. The state with the highest participation in 2010 was Oregon, where 74 percent of recipients were white. Among the states with the largest one-year increases was Idaho, where 81 percent of recipients were white.

Keeping any family out of poverty, and any child free of hunger, in the midst of a dismal economy, should be hailed as an accomplishment. The Republican attacks are unseemly.