Kathleen Parker November 30, 2013

If you peruse the news on any given day, the farm bill/food stamp debate produces two general impressions: Republicans are heartless turkeythieves; Democrats are spendthrift welfare caterers. If only neitherwere a little bit right.

As with tabloid stories, there’s always a smidgen of truth in theheadlines. Yet surely, too, there is some middle ground between suchharshly ideological views. But no. We have grown fond of the facile andhave wandered far from any willingness to meet halfway, especially whenyou get more bucks for your bang with hyperbolic indictments of theother side.

The holiday season provides new corridors of shame. Last week, Gene Sperling, a White House economic adviser, put a Thanksgiving spin on the GOP’s efforts to extract the federalfood stamp funding from the farm bill. “At a time when people are aboutto sit around the table with their families to celebrate a meal,”Sperling intoned, “it hardly seems the right time to be pulling food off the table for millions of our neighbors.”

Mission accomplished.Imprinted on the collective mind is a craftily placed message:Republicans don’t care about poor people. Distilling further, given that Republicans are mostly white — and the welfare model is associated with the Ronald Reagan-generated, African American “welfare queen” — the inference can be made that Republicans don’t care about non-whites. Ergo, Republicans are selfish, greedy “haters.”

Never underestimate the subliminal power of a holiday message. What bettertime to tap into the emotions of a populace in the midst ofturkey-induced somnambulism?

While the foregoing is not reallytrue in any significant way (racists exist but don’t define the GOP anymore than a few welfare scammers define the vast majority of food-stamprecipients, and in any event most welfare recipients are white),Republicans are nothing if not committed to executing their party’soperating principle — cut spending at all costs — no matter the consequences or political repercussions. While Senate Democrats want to reduce food-stamp spending by $4.5 billion over 10 years, House Republicans want to cut $39 billion, primarily by getting tougher on qualifications.

Republicans seem equally committed to handing their plates to President Obama forsecond and third helpings of scorn and ridicule, even as their fortunecookie reads: “You’re winning. Shut up!”

Whether Republicans are correct on the economic merits ofspending cuts is politically less significant than the more urgentreality of perception. What could seem more heartless than cuttingnutrition aid for 47 million poor people, including 210,000 children whose school meals likely would be eliminated or reduced, in the midst of an anemicrecovery from recession, a still-lousy job market and, as Sperlingpointed out, the holiday season? Forget optics; this is the visceralequivalent of puppy mills.

Here’s the proper GOP message: “Ourentire entitlement system needs reform, but now is not the time to cutfood stamps. This is because people still can’t find work thanks to asluggish economy that this administration’s policies have failed toimprove and the Affordable Care Act is merely making worse.”

Oh, stop, it’s not THAT brilliant, then again . . .

While the health-care law continues to dog Democrats and thepresident continues to use his executive power to usurp Congress’s rolein amending it, Republicans could seek ways to help poor people eatbetter food, perhaps by tying nutrition education to food-stampsubsidies. Wait, the previous farm bill did just that through educationand nutrition incentives. Instead, Republicans want to cut nutritioneducation, though they do want to make certain types of unhealthy foodsoff-limits to food-stamp users.

This seems not so much heartlessas brainless. The party that wants to teach a man to fish, whose mostrecent presidential nominee advocated “self-deportation” of illegalimmigrants and that has mocked New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’snannification of food choices doesn’t seem much bothered by limitingindividual choice when it comes to poor folk.

Wouldn’t nutritioneducation illuminating smart choices be a wiser, more conservative paththan just saying no? When it comes to health care, reducing obesity, the second leading cause of preventable death behind smoking, should be a bipartisan, national imperative.

Thus, wise Republicans should meet Democrats in the middle on this one. Notonly is keeping nutrition aid and education in place the right thing todo but more people needing help merely underscores the conservative view that Democratic policies, especially the Affordable Care Act, aremaking the job market worse and more people hungry.

When your opponent is headed into a perfect storm, why follow him?

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