In former Republican Rep. Ron Paul’s world, a place that apparently does not include America, Black people need food stamps so much that they fake their position on war.
Sounds illogical, yes. But that’s what the father of Rand Paul said on a radio program discussing sanctions.
“I was always annoyed with it in Congress because we had an anti-war unofficial group, a few libertarian Republicans and generally the (Congressional) Black Caucus and others did not—they are really against war because they want all of that money to go to food stamps for people here.”
And there is a push for Ron Paul to run for office again. Seriously.
Just in case Paul did not know, there are more white people on food stamps than Black people, according to SNAP, the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program. It reports that it provides food stamps for almost 47 million Americans. Of those 47 million people, 43 percent of them are white and 33 percent are Black. Approximately 19 percent are Hispanic, 2 percent are Asian and the rest are Native American.
Since Black people make up 13 percent of the U.S. with whites covering 70 percent, according to the census, a disproportionate number of African-Americans do receive food stamps, relative to the nation’s overall demographic composition. But nearly half of them are children. The annual report from the Department of Agriculture showed that about 45 percent of food stamp benefits went to children under 18, totaling about 20 million youngsters. Nine percent of recipients were age 60 or older, and nearly 10 percent were disabled adults who were under 60.
So that population of recipients is clearly some of the neediest people in the country.
And if Rand was implying that food stamps hurt the economy more than spending billions on war (and losing American lives), Moody’s economist Mark Zandy said food stamps actually generate money, not waste it.
People who receive benefits have a bit more money to spend on other expenses. “For every dollar spent on that program $1.73 is generated throughout the economy,” Zandy said.
Paul is not alone in his disparagement of Black people and food stamps. Former presidential candidate Newt Gingrich called Obama “the food stamp president” and once said, “If the NAACP invites me, I’ll go to their convention and talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps.”
And this was the wisdom imparted by former presidential candidate Rick Santorum: “I don’t want to make Black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money.”
