|
|
||||
Posted on 01/18/2002 7:24:06 PM PST by Sabertooth
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
"Bend over and get your red hot Surrender here!"
They lied.
If this corrupt Food Stamp plan of his goes through, I won't vote for any Republican while Bush holds office.
I guess we should be surprised...
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.
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.
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.
to get his Education bills pass
What! No churros?
Racist!
Bill Would Give Tuition Break to Undocumented Students
Published in the Herald-Republic on Thursday, January 17, 2002
By TOM ROEDER
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC
OLYMPIA -- Some students who are not U.S. citizens may get a big financial boost to attend college under a bill proposed in the state House.
The measure, HB 2330, would give students without U.S. citizenship state resident status for college if they are seeking legal residency, had graduated from high school in Washington and lived here for at least three years.
Now students without U.S. citizenship must obtain a student visa and pay costly out-of-state tuition to attend four-year schools and community colleges in the state.
"The title may scare people off because it says undocumented," said the bill's sponsor, Rep. Phyllis Gutierrez-Kenney, a Seattle Democrat. "But these are people who have lived here and worked here, contributing their taxes and their labors to make our state a better place."
She said the bill substantially cuts the price of college for undocumented students by giving them resident rates and encourages many to attend who now don't possess the paperwork they need to even apply for admission.
For instance, at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, tuition and fees for someone applying as a resident full-time undergraduate is $3,348 a year as opposed to out-of-state tuition costs of $11,085. That equates to a saving of more than $7,700 for a student who applies as a state resident.
The bill doesn't change requirements for state and federal financial aid, which demand recipients to be citizens.
A Wapato native, Gutierrez-Kenney said the measure would spur enrollments from the Yakima Valley, where the Hispanics, including those who entered the country without permission, make up 37 percent of the population.
But Gutierrez-Kenney doesn't know how many potential college students could wind up in state schools under her proposal. The state doesn't track which students in public schools are citizens.
But in the Yakima Valley, numbers aren't needed to show that Gutierrez-Kenney's bill would help students move on to college, said Jim Rigney, coordinator of migrant and bilingual programs at Yakima's Davis High School.
"These are students who are products of our system," Rigney said. "I have watched us produce magnificent kids and waste that resource."
Rigney said a number of Yakima students who have made it through high school with good grades are turned away at college because of citizenship problems.
"These are kids with 3.8 and 3.9 averages," he said. "These kids are never going back to Mexico. They are our kids."
In the past few years, California and Texas have adopted similar changes.
But the change isn't without opponents.
Ephrata's Republican Rep. Joyce Mulliken said citizenship requirements should remain on the books.
"If people want the benefits of the state, they need to be legal," she said. "Education is in the top of my list of priorities but let's take care of citizenship first and college second."
Zillah's Republican Rep. Barb Lisk was warmer to the proposal.
"If these people would be actively seeking legal status while in college, then I would listen to the bill," she said.
Yakima's Rep. Mary Skinner, another Republican, said she was withholding judgment until she gets more details on Gutierrez-Kenney's plan.
"I need to look at all the particulars," she said.
The bill and other legislative information can be found on the Internet at www.leg.wa.gov.
Internet-connected computers can be found at most Central Washington public libraries.
Motor voter Republicans always vote Democrat...
All three times!
There is a conservative reason for doing this. It's a brilliant strategy to reduce government, but the Bush's critics just can't figure out the man's true intentions. Trust him.
I'm sure a GOP apologist will be along shortly to answer your question.
Of course, the Dems are just being coy. They don't really care that this amount of money will be spent; in fact, they are probably having a good snicker at the expense of conservatives who fought long and hard for the mild welfare reform that was passed in '96. I guess the era of big government has returned.
I give Bush good marks for his performance in 2001, but 2002 is getting off to a disasterous start, at least as far as the conservative wing of the party is concerned.
This may not work out so bad.
Gotta get 'em before the Dems do, any way we can!
The dumocraps held the Blacks as slaves for years! Look how hard it was to teach them that and change their minds? We still have to work on it! They still don't see their slave master politicians for what they are.
Double standards are double standards even IF it's with the guy one voted for. (did that make sense?LOL)
No one could ever come close to doing as much harm as the Clintons. Ever.
Earth to Tancredo. Earth to Tancredo. Where have you been living all these years? Over.
*Soon to be larger than the black vote.
Yah thats true isnt it. Dont walk, RUN to America! More free handouts!
You've got to be kidding!! Hellooooo.
It might be better tommarrow if you put that bottle down now.
Wrong. Not by Surrender on Illegals and immigration, and not by retreating on food stamps.
I'll remain in the Republican party, but will withhold my vote from Republicans if Bush does this.
Yeah, just like the sponsors are required to pay for immigrants who can't support themselves.
I'm so glad, we have a Republican in the White House, unlike those evil, welfare state Democrats. No Republican, least of all W, would ever start buying votes with bread and circuses. I'm so glad, we have a Republican in the White House, unlike those evil, welfare state Democrats. No Republican, least of all W, would ever start buying votes with bread and circuses. I'm so glad, we have a Republican in the White House, unlike those evil, welfare state Democrats. No Republican, least of all W, would ever start buying votes with bread and circuses.
It's crystal clear to me.
Though, some around here might not see it that way.
Exactly. There are already serious health problems in Hispanics due to obesity, giving more food stamps doesn't seem to be really a good idea when they need to lose weight to prevent diabetes and heart disease.
Give them a chance to make something of themselves. Get them voting. Get them active.
The big problem I see is the time limit. It has to be nothing more than a political stratigy. Not a life long contract.
We need that vote, and you know it.
I agree with you, but I didn't expect much from them.
I'm extremely disappointed in this move by Bush, and others he's signaled.
Sure, as long as he doles out the windfalls. But come election time, the Dims will do their usual brilliant job of taking the credit, and the illegals and minorities will all vote Democrat.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
