Brownback hasty, heartless in food stamp decision
Barb ShellyWell, that didn’t take long.
One day Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback says he’ll take a look at a new policy that cuts hundreds of children of illegal immigrants off of food stamp aid. Next day he says, yep, he’s reviewed the formula and he’s good with it.
That’s not much time for a review. Not much time to think about what it must be like to work long hours at low-wage jobs in the state of Kansas and not have enough money to stretch the household budget and now learn that the governor has taken away the couple of hundred dollars you used to get extra each month to buy healthy food at the supermarket. Not much time to think about kids going to school hungry, when all the science says they learn better and will be more productive over a lifetime if they receive nourishment now.
I, like Sister Therese Bangert of the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth, thought Brownback would tell his Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services to fix its new formula, the one that kicks American-born children of undocumented immigrants off of food aid.
After all, as Bangert tells The Star here, Brownback championed food aid for starving peoples in Africa when he was a U.S. Senator. Even people who disagreed with his very conservative fiscal and social positions respected him for that.
It would cost the state of Kansas very little to help low-income U.S. kids whose parents happen to be illegal immigrants. The federal government pays 100 percent of food stamp benefits. All Kansas has to do is split the administrative costs with the feds.
I have no idea what is going on in Brownback’s head. Maybe, as many believe, he thinks a strident anti-immigration position will help him down the road in a run for national office. Maybe he wants to make Kansas this model low-cost state where nobody gets any breaks. Either way, I believe he has miscalculated. Kicking kids off of food aids is no way to burnish your political credentials.
Legislators of both parties say they want to review the policy. Let’s hope they take it more seriously than the governor did, and tell him that denying food to children is not worthy of the character of Kansas.
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Jimmy Horowitz
3 weeks, 6 days agoBrownback: such a good Christian! Let’s take food from some poor immigrant kids so we can 1.save a few bucks, 2. Show how anti-immigrant we are, 3. Have more cash to give tax breaks to the rich and the corporations. I’m sure Jesus would have done exactly the same thing if he were the guv’ner. Now if anyone can just show me the bit in the gospels where Jesus says this, so I can explain this to my bleeding heart liberal friends, it would be sooooooo helpful!
Mark Robertson
3 weeks, 6 days agoShow me in the Gospels where it says that money should be confiscated from one person and given to another. There are many alternatives for children to get food in virtually every community in Kansas. I realize though that this does present a great opportunity for the do-gooders(with other people’s money) to slam Brownback.
Mark Hastert
3 weeks, 6 days ago“Show me in the Gospels where it says that money should be confiscated from one person and given to another.” Read more here: http://voices.kansascity.com/entries/brownback-hasty-heartless-food-stamp-decision/#storylink=cpy
Mark 12:17 Then Jesus said to them, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” And they were amazed at him.
(just aparently as you must be)
Mark Robertson
3 weeks, 5 days agoWhat’s your point? I still ask the same question. Are we to be forced to give money to government so that they would supposedly give it to the poor? Who decides what is Caesar’s money? Money volunteeringly given to private charity or directly helping the poor is what actually works. Thank you. Mark Robertson Independence
Mark Hastert
3 weeks, 5 days ago“What’s your point?”
You asked for the reference. Read the gospel. That will answer the rest.
As Oliver Wendell Holmes jr said “taxes are the price we pay for civilization”
Mark Robertson
3 weeks, 4 days agoWhere in the Gospels does it say that the government is to take care of the poor? The verse you present doesn’t do that. The Catholic Christian teaching of “subsidiarity” essentially says that problems are to be dealt with on a level very close to the problem. Thank you.
Carrie Watts
3 weeks, 1 day ago“We” Kansans can NOT continue to take them all in, as our elected’s choose to do nothing! I’ve read news articles from Atlanta, illegals were leaving once the bill was passed, moving to KS! Where do you think they will go when we can take no more??
I watch them purchase their groceries, they use WIC and Food Stamps, purchase Shrimp, fish, chicken, fresh fruits & Vegetables, things we low income Kansans would love to feed to our kids!
All these kinder gentler do gooders should put their outsourced humanity to American kids, as the monkey is placed on their backs since illegal alien kids aren’t responsible!!
Poverty comes to Johnson County, Kansas, with a growing vengeance
http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/print-edition/2011/06/03/poverty-comes-to-johnson-county.html