Bishop Shirley Stanfill with Paul Ryan
Play C-SPANWHENEVER A PERSON COMES AND WE GIVE THEM A PERSONAL DESCRIPTION AND THAT IS WHAT CREATES A PROBLEM TO MAKE IT BIGGER WE WANT TO THROW THEM INTO THE POT BUT PEOPLE ARE UNIQUE AND DIFFERENCES YOU HAVE TO FIND A UNIQUE AND DIFFERENT APPROACH WE TAKE REPRESENTATIVE -- RAPIST TO PEDOPHILES BUT I NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD DO BUT GOD SAID IF YOU DON'T HELP FOR STOP THEM WHO WILL? SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO TAKE THE HARD CASES EVEN IF YOU DON'T WANT TO DO SO WHO WILL? WE ARE IN THE BUSINESS OF DOING WHAT OTHER PEOPLE DON'T LIKE TO DO OR PEOPLE THEY DON'T WANT TO HELP. WE HAVE TO FORGIVE AND FORGET AND RELEASE AND RELINQUISH IF YOU DON'T YOU WILL HOLD THEM WHERE THEY ARE IN THERE WILL NEVER GO WHERE THEY CAN GO. WE ONLY SEE WHAT THEY'RE GOING TO DO NOT WHAT THEY HAVE DONE AND WE KEEP PREACHING THAT BUT OF COURSE, THOSE ARE JUST WORDS YOU HAVE TO HAVE BEHAVIOR AND ACTION. WE PUT THEM IN A PROGRAM TO GIVE THEM AN OPPORTUNITY TO GROW SLOW. GOALS THAT ARE NOT EASILY MANIPULATED BUT ATTAINABLE. MOST PLAYERS KNOW HOW TO PLAY THE GAME SO THEY HAVE TO CHANGE THE RULES SO THEY CANNOT GET ADAPTED THAT CAUSES THEM TO GIVE BIN. WE HAVE A ROLLOUT YOUR SLEEVES GIT DOWN UNDER THE MINISTRY I LOVE THAT I WOULD NOT TREATED FOR ANYTHING IN THE WORLD I HAVE SEEN PEDOPHILE'S CHANGE AS A YEAR IN MY PROGRAM FOR SIX YEARS THEY ADAPT TO ANY RULES OR REGULATIONS OR DRUG ADDICTS IN A PROGRAM 17 YEARS SUBMIT TO A URINE TESTS LIKE THIS NOW THERE ARE ENTREPRENEURS THEY HAVE DEPLOYED THEMSELVES FROM THEIR EGO VICTORY CANNOT COME AND TELL YOUR EGO GOES WHEREVER THAT IS IT WILL KEEP YOU IN BONDAGE BUT IF YOU WHOLE YOURSELF AND HAVE NOTHING TO HIDE YOU ARE WHAT YOU ARE AND ONCE YOU DO THAT GUY AND SAYS I WILL EXALT SO WE. Host: TO BE HUMBLE FIRST YOURSELF BUT FIRST TO GUIDE WITH OVER 60,000 FERMIS OVER THE LAST TWO MONTHS EVERYBODY IS DOWN HE SAID WHAT IS NEXT I WANT YOU TO READ DEVELOP YOUR MIND THEY'RE NOT JUST FISHING BUT THE BLOND DAUGHTERS. FIRST TO FISH THAT FOR THEM AND FEED THEM MENTES THEM HOW TO FISH THE BE THE OWNERS OF THE PONTIFF IS WHOLE DIFFERENT MIND-SET SO FOR THE NEXT 90 DAYS I AM CHICHI IN THE OF PEOPLE THAT ARE HELPING YOU NOW ALL OF THE POND.
The poverty plan released last week by a House GOP task force begins not with a summary of poverty and wage trends, but with an overview of what it calls “the welfare system.” Entitled “A Better Way,” the 39-page plan repeats the word “welfare” some 60 times. Yet, it contains no mention of the minimum wage, paid medical and family leave, and Social Security. For the task force, it seems, the pressing question isn’t how to fix the economy to reduce poverty and promote shared prosperity—it’s more to the tune of: “What should we do about welfare?”
This focus is misplaced. To compound that, the task force uses the label “welfare” in a strange way. Traditionally, the term “welfare” has been understood to mean the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, which provided income assistance up until 1996, and to some extent its successor, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). But the task force employs the term “welfare” in a much broader way—any program that has a means test or targets funds to low-income areas receives such a label. Medicaid, Pell Grants, the Earned Income Tax Credit, child care assistance, and job training are all “welfare.” So are Single-Family Rural Housing Loans, the Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection program, and a long list of other programs.
At the same time, the task force’s skewed definition of welfare excludes many of the benefits and services that make up the so-called welfare state, which includes Social Security, Medicare, and a long list of subsidies provided to individuals. Many of these benefits accrue to wealthy people—for example, tax subsidies such as the home mortgage interest deduction, the largest housing program in the United States, provides substantial cash benefits to well-off homeowners. Similarly, employer-provided health insurance, and particularly the employer-provided health insurance provided to high-income people, is massively subsidized through the tax code.
So why does “A Better Way” focus so much on “welfare,” and why does it define it in such an unusual way?
One likely answer comes from political scientist Martin Gilens’ book, Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media, and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy. Reviewing public opinion polls, Gilens noted that most Americans opposed spending more on “welfare,” but strongly supported concrete policies that help struggling families—just as long as they’re not tagged as “welfare.” Gilens concluded that opposition to “welfare” is driven largely by racial stereotypes, and fed by “racial distortions in the media’s coverage of poverty.” In particular, black Americans are over-represented in unsympathetic media portrayals of poverty, and in ways that reinforced the stereotyping of them as lazy. Similarly, as Professor Sanford Schram has noted, “welfare” did not become “a political epithet” in the United States until it was associated with African-Americans in the decades following the civil rights revolution.
Is the House task force intentionally using “welfare” as a racial dog whistle—that is, to make a coded appeal to whites in order to increase racial resentment and diminish support for anti-poverty programs? We can’t say for sure. But the term’s racially charged history, coupled with the task force’s novel use of it to apply to all means-tested services and benefits—but not to forms of welfare that disproportionately benefit the relatively affluent—doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.
Earlier this year, House Speaker Paul Ryan disavowed his use of the word “takers.” In the same speech he said: “I was callous and I oversimplified and castigated people with a broad brush. There is a lot of that happening in America today.” Yes, Speaker Ryan, indeed there is, and the task force’s report on “welfare” is the most recent example.