Gingrich’s Jobs vs. Food Stamps slur
Newt Gingrich claims that a choice between him and Obama comes down to a choice between a “jobs” President and a “food stamps” President. It’s simple enough to see why this slur would appeal to somebody who thinks he’s as clever as Gingrich fancies himself. After all, it combines a number of themes. It hits how much Gingrich cares about jobs and exhibits his disdain for anybody who doesn’t have one. It’s also a dog whistle to the hard working Americans who are concerned that the the blah people are living high and queenly off on food stamps, while they’re stuck working some dead end job they hate. And for anybody still stuck in the cold war, Gingrich has taken a stand against the red menace of modestly redistributive policies. And, most importantly, Gingrich thinks he’s right.
Is Gingrich Right?
A little bit. Our country is plagued by systemic inequality. Programs like SNAP, the EITC, and TANF blunt some of the harshest symptoms of poverty. But they don’t end it. Poverty is about both a lack of power and a lack of money. While programs that alleviate the symptoms of poverty are important, they are not sufficient to to bring about the societal changes necessary to eradicate poverty.
Food stamps are to the war on poverty what bandages are to a traditional war. They are certainly important—and you’re in trouble if you don’t have them. But they aren’t sufficient to win a war. Proposals to eliminate food stamps to encourage people to find better paying jobs are akin to eliminating bandages to encourage soldiers not to get shot.
So Newt is right, to the extent that we would all prefer an increase in wages to an increase in food stamp eligibility. Nobody wants to be poor. But Newt’s economic plans work out to lowering taxes on rich people, lowering taxes on corporations (so they can give more dividends to rich people), and eliminating the estate tax to ensure that affluence and opportunity remain hereditary. Newt has found a backhanded way to identify an actual problem that his proposed “solutions” would only exacerbate. At the same time, he wants to make poverty more miserable than it already is, presumably hoping that if we treat the poor like lab rats in a pressure cooker, they’ll find some way to solve the problems we’re too lazy to take seriously.
