Republicans Host Anti-Poverty Summit With GOP Presidential Candidates

CBS News: Anti-Poverty Summit “Billed” As A Chance For GOP Candidates To "Discuss Conservative Solutions To The Problems Of The American Poor." Republican party officials and GOP presidential candidates attended the Kemp Forum on Expanding Opportunity on January 9, an anti-poverty summit aimed at discussing “conservative solutions to the problems of the American poor.” Presidential candidates including Mike Huckabee and John Kasich joined House Speaker Paul Ryan and other conservative leaders in “an opportunity to renew Kemp's message for a new generation and demonstrate how [Republican candidates'] policies would address the problem of poverty in America”:

Republican candidates descended on South Carolina Saturday to speak at the Kemp Forum on Expanding Opportunity - an anti-poverty summit hosted by House Speaker Paul Ryan and Sen. Tim Scott.

The summit is being billed as an opportunity for GOP candidates to discuss conservative solutions to the problems of the American poor. It's named after former Congressman Jack Kemp, whom Ryan considers a mentor. Kemp was known as an aggressive crusader for supply-side conservative economics, which argued lower taxes would increase growth. But he was also known for his outreach to minority communities and people living in poverty, and his insistence that the Republican Party should speak to everyone in America, not just the middle class and the well-off.

[...]

The summit was arranged before Ryan became Speaker, but he felt strongly enough about his message that he wasn't going to let his new job scuttle the event.

“This is such a high priority for me, I instantly determined as soon as I became speaker that I'm going to keep this on the schedule,” Ryan told the Wall Street Journal this week.

The forum could give Ryan and the Republican candidates an opportunity to renew Kemp's message for a new generation and demonstrate how their policies would address the problem of poverty in America. And according to the most recent annual data available, that's no insignificant task. [CBS News, 1/9/16]

Morning Joe Hosts Almost Entirely Overlook The Issue Of Poverty During Interviews With Ryan And GOP Candidates

Morning Joe Interview With Gov. Chris Christie Ignores Poverty, Asks About Maine Gov. LePage And World Allies. In a January 9 interview with Gov. Chris Christie at the Kemp Forum, Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski failed to ask Gov. Chris Christie any questions regarding his plans for tackling poverty and raising wages. Instead, Scarborough and Brzezinski questioned Christie over Christie supporter and Maine Governor Paul LePage's racially charged comments about drug traffickers, his feuds with fellow GOP presidential hopefuls, and “the first [world] leader [he]'d call” after being elected. The closest the hosts got to asking about poverty was with their opening question, “where has this Republican Party been in 2016?”:

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: This weekend Joe and I sat down with Governor Chris Christie in Columbia, South Carolina, where Republicans gathered for an important conversation about fighting poverty and expanding opportunity. And we began by asking the New Jersey governor, where has this Republican Party been in 2016? [MSNBC, Morning Joe, 1/9/16]

Morning Joe Interview With Gov. Jeb Bush Revolves Around Polls, Donald Trump. During a January 9 interview at the Kemp Forum, Scarborough and Brzezinski asked Gov. Jeb Bush about primary polling, foreign policy, his campaign strategy in New Hampshire, and Donald Trump -- almost entirely ignoring the topic of poverty, the economy, and jobs. Though the co-hosts did ask Bush “why are you here?” and “what is Jack Kemp's legacy in 2016?” they failed to ask Bush about his own economic policies, and instead they asked a more general question about the lack of dialogue surrounding “important issues like education and welfare reform”:

BRZEZINSKI: Now to our conversation with former Florida governor, Jeb Bush, also one of the candidates at the presidential poverty forum held this weekend in South Carolina. We asked him why we haven't heard more from Republicans about important issues like education and welfare reform during this campaign season. [MSNBC, Morning Joe, 1/9/16]

Morning Joe Interview With Gov. John Kasich Includes A Dig At Obama, No Questions On Poverty. Scarborough and Brzezinski's January 9 interview with Gov. John Kasich at the Kemp Forum featured questions about the Republican candidate's daughters as well as a question that included a jab at President Obama when Scarborough asked, “Can you create personal relationships, unlike this president, with people in the other party?” Notably absent were questions specifically about fighting and addressing poverty, though Kasich on his own brought up tax proposals and mentioned Social Security. [MSNBC, Morning Joe, 1/9/16]

Morning Joe Interview With Gov. Mike Huckabee Revolves Around Iowa Strategy And “Opportunistic” Ted Cruz. Gov. Mike Huckabee was asked several questions about his Iowa strategy and about Sen. Ted Cruz, and a series of other questions about primary polls and Donald Trump during his January 9 Kemp Forum interview. Scarborough and Brzezinski asked Gov. Huckabee no questions about issues relating to poverty and the economy. [MSNBC, Morning Joe, 1/9/16]

Morning Joe Interview With Speaker Paul Ryan Focuses On GOP's Branding And Messaging. During a January 9 interview with House Speaker and host of the Kemp Forum Paul Ryan, Scarborough and Brzezinski focused largely on if the Republican “Party [has] lost its way” and “how much angrier” GOP voters are “today than they were four years ago.” Though the co-hosts did ask Speaker Ryan why “the vision of the Republican Party ... heard on stage sounds so much different than a lot of what we hear coming from the campaign trail,” they failed to ask Ryan on any plans he has as House Speaker to pursue an anti-poverty agenda. [MSNBC, Morning Joe, 1/9/16]

GOP's “Destructive” Poverty Proposals Denounced By Experts For Making Poverty Worse 

CBPP's Robert Greenstein: Some GOP Candidates “Advanced Proposals That Would Likely Increase Poverty And Hardship Rather Than Reduce Them.” Robert Greenstein, founder and president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), explained that while it's “encouraging that six Republican presidential candidates” discussed poverty in a public forum, and that some of their proposals were positive, “unfortunately, the candidates also said much that was disappointing.” He continued:

Unfortunately, the candidates also said much that was disappointing.  They sometimes misrepresented basic facts and research about poverty and anti-poverty programs.  Some candidates advanced proposals that would likely increase poverty and hardship, rather than reduce them. Some advanced proposals that would likely increase poverty and hardship rather than reduce them.  While various candidates and Speaker Ryan talked about “results” and “impacts,” and Ryan has elsewhere called for “evidence-based policymaking,” some speakers advocated ending programs that have been shown to be successful -- such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps) -- and offered proposals that conflict with the evidence.

[...]

The candidates who spoke and the event's organizers deserve credit for putting a spotlight on poverty.  If candidates are serious about reducing poverty in the world's wealthiest nation, however, they will need to do better than they did at today's forum. [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 1/9/16]

Rebecca Vallas: GOP Poverty Policies “Remain Nothing Short Of A Blueprint For Exacerbating Poverty, Inequality, And Wage Stagnation.” Rebecca Vallas, director of policy of the Poverty to Prosperity Program at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, wrote January 7 for Huffington Post that while “Republicans' sudden concern for struggling families is no doubt newsworthy,” “unfortunately their policies remain nothing short of a blueprint for exacerbating poverty, inequality, and wage stagnation.” Vallas noted that “Ryan has voted against raising the minimum wage at least 10 times,” “has consistently opposed legislation that would help families access paid family and medical leave,” and has proposed cutting “critical programs that help keep struggling families afloat -- such as nutrition assistance, housing assistance, and Medicaid -- all to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations”:          

Republicans' sudden concern for struggling families is no doubt newsworthy, particularly in the wake of Mitt Romney's radioactive remarks about “the 47 percent.” Ryan in particular has received no shortage of praise as a supposed anti-poverty crusader. But as we marvel at Republicans' seeming about-face on poverty and inequality, we must not lose sight of the other half of the story -- their policies. While Ryan and his colleagues' newfound talking points may be pitch-perfect, unfortunately their policies remain nothing short of a blueprint for exacerbating poverty, inequality, and wage stagnation.

For example, while the refrain of Ryan's first big policy speech as Speaker -- “Push wages up. Push the cost of living down. Get people off the sidelines.” -- sounded more like the slogan for one of the Democratic presidential campaigns than the grand finale to a policy speech by a Republican Speaker of the House, you could drive a truck through the gap between his rhetoric and the reality of his policies.

For starters, Ryan has voted against raising the minimum wage at least 10 times since taking office. It's pretty hard to “push wages up” while maintaining a poverty-level federal wage floor.

And let's not forget Ryan's budget proposals. Year after year as chair of the House Budget Committee, Ryan's budgets got two-thirds of their cuts from critical programs that help keep struggling families afloat -- such as nutrition assistance, housing assistance, and Medicaid -- all to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.

While Ryan made headlines this past fall for extolling the importance of balancing work and family while weighing the notion of picking up the Speaker's gavel, he has consistently opposed legislation that would help families access paid family and medical leave.

And Ryan's big antipoverty plan? Despite being billed as bold and new, it amounted to little more than the same tired policies Republicans have been pushing for years: block granting and slashing funding for effective programs and sending them to the states.

It will take more than shiny new talking points to tackle poverty and inequality in America. The upcoming anti-poverty summit offers a test of whether Ryan and his GOP colleagues mean what they say on these issues -- by abandoning their failed policies of the past. [Huffington Post, 1/7/16] 

Jared Bernstein: Republican Idea To Block Grant SNAP Is “Destructive.” Jared Bernstein, former chief economist to Vice President Biden, in a Washington Post article, called Ryan and Jeb Bush's proposal to block grant the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) “one of the most destructive ideas in poverty policy”:

One of the most destructive ideas in poverty policy is what supporters, such as House Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, call “opportunity grants” and what the rest of us call block grants.

The idea is to take a set of programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), housing vouchers, child care, and more, and turn them into a consolidated block grant, which means providing states with a fixed amount of funding to run the programs. When Bush claims that he'll end food stamps, this is what he's talking about. Because welfare reform turned cash assistance to poor families into a block grant in the mid-1990s, we have a reference point whereby to judge the effects.

The main reason this idea is so destructive is that it undermines the essence of the safety net, or its countercyclical function. The figure above makes the case (as the figure's a bit gnarly, I pasted in the data below). It shows that when the last downturn hit, SNAP caseloads quickly responded to the loss of income among low-income households, while Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) hardly responded at all. The opportunity grant threatens to turn SNAP into TANF, killing the former's countercyclical aspect in the same way block grants killed it for TANF.

[...]

[B]ack off Jeb! et al. SNAP works. In fact, it doesn't just work for a day. It works for a lifetime, as research tracking children who received nutritional support when they were kids finds a spate of positive outcomes in adulthood. ...

I sincerely welcome input from all sides of the aisle as to how we can amp up our policies' anti-poverty effectiveness. This block granting idea, however, pushes hard the other way. [The Washington Post, PostEverything, 1/11/16]