Editorial board of @DMRegister slams Scott Walker for demonizing people on food stamps [View all]

[riversedge]

oh oh---Walker is trying to be the Come-back kid in IOWA!


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Jonathan Cohn ‏@CitizenCohn 8m8 minutes ago Ann Arbor, MI

Editorial board of @DMRegister #IOWA slams Scott Walker for demonizing people on food stamps http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/editorials/caucus/2015/09/18/editorial-stop-demonizing-americans-using-food-assistance/32501439/ #p2

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/editorials/caucus/2015/09/18/editorial-stop-demonizing-americans-using-food-assistance/32501439/


Editorial: Stop demonizing Americans using food assistance
The Register's Editorial 12:02 a.m. CDT September 18, 2015


Scott Walker (Photo: Charlie Neibergall)


Although the GOP presidential debates have featured little discussion about poor Americans, politicians have numerous options for helping them. From increasing the minimum wage to tax credits to funding libraries, there’s an action every politician can get behind. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s idea for lending a hand: Make low-income people pee in a cup.

During a recent visit to Iowa, the Republican presidential candidate reiterated his support for making people who apply for food stamps undergo a drug test. The objective, he said, is to ensure they are clean so they can get jobs. He ignores the fact that the majority of able-bodied Americans using the food assistance program do work. In fact, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program has proven effective in supporting work, according to data analyzed by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: More than 80 percent of recipients work in the year before or the year after receiving SNAP.

Yet Walker told The Huffington Post: “It’s not a punitive thing; it’s a progressive thing.”

Actually, it is a not-allowed-by-federal-law thing. It is also a demonize-the-poor thing. But his effort is hardly a surprise.

Republicans have repeatedly advocated drug testing for Americans applying for cash welfare. Courts have repeatedly put a stop to the practice. And the lessons learned from these ordeals contradict the stereotype that people who rely on public benefits are addicted to drugs.

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Yet wasting taxpayer money, evidence and those pesky constitutional rights don’t matter much to those on a mission to portray the poor as scofflaws sponging off the system.

Interestingly, Walker and politicians have not demanded bodily fluids from other Americans who benefit from publicly funded programs. They don’t target seniors on Medicaid, corporate executives enjoying tax incentives, farm subsidy recipients or children eating free lunch at school. We’ve heard no demands for drug tests to receive a Social Security check or Pell grant. But if you’re a financially struggling American seeking a meager amount of federal money in the form of cash welfare or food stamps, these politicians are thirsting for your urine.................