I have seen in comments posted around the Internet the idea that one strategy of the Obama administration has been to get as many people as possible onto government assistance programs, under the assumption that this foodstamp electorate will then help to vote Obama back into office, lest they lose the assistance.
Is there any truth to this at all? Have there been any polls that have shed light on who government assistance recipients are planning to vote for?
Yes.
cite?
Fox News, talk radio.
Republicans have put more people on food stamps than any Democrat ever even considered.
People are saying is not a credible cite.
To answer the OP’s question there is no evidence the Obama administration is conspiring to make people dependent on food stamps for the purpose of being reelected.
It’s a common bit of BS Republicans attribute to any vaguely left-wing politician. It’s true that Democrats and liberals do tend to help those in need more than the other side, but making people dependent on welfare? It’s crap.
Sorry, I may have muddled my own question.
Setting aside whether the Obama administration is “doing it on purpose,” I’m more interested in evidence that people on foodstamps are more likely to vote for Obama. A separate question would be whether the fact that they vote for Obama actually has anything to do with them being on foodstamps.
The question of whether it’s a deliberate tactic would follow from that, I think.
No it being a deliberate tactic would be a conspiracy theory.
Depends on whether or not they blame him for the fact that they need “food stamps”. If they think that Wall Street Willard will give them their jobs back, they’ll vote for him.
So Republicans don’t have the smart people, they don’t have food stamp people, and they don’t even have enough angry white men. Who do they have left in the big tent?
This chart shows increases and decreases in food stamp rolls are largely unconnected to political party. In fact, they probably follow economic trends: one would expect more people to be on food stamps during a major recession than during a time of prosperity. If the opposite held true, that people were thrown from the rolls, one would expect an increase in poverty instead.
Edit: Also, my google fu is too weak to find any information on how food stamp recipients vote. I either find information about the proposed bill cutting food stamps in Senate or demographics of food stamp recipients.
Apparently, the clever theory in the OP goes like this: On the one hand, people will vote for Obama if the economy gets better, because there will be more jobs. On the other hand, if the economy doesn’t get better, people will vote for Obama because there won’t be more jobs, and they’ll need “food stamps.” So this ingenious plan of Obama’s is sure to win.
I think the clever theory is a bit different. Those who blame the President for the poor state of the economy can use this to justify their opinion, and perhaps even convince others. “See, not only is it his fault, but he’s doing it on purpose, and this is why…”
Only one problem; it’s complete and utter hogwash. Anyone who thinks a sitting president would deliberately tank the economy to improve his re-election chances has no connection to reality.
Unfortunately, I think you need to qualify that as “no Democratic president.” Many in Congress were okay with doing just this, so I don’t see that it has far to go to make it to the presidency.
Sure, people on food stamps, to the extent that they vote, tend to vote Democratic. Sure, Democrats tend to favor government aid to the poor more than Republicans.
The flip side of this token is that Republicans tend to be stronger on funding the military than Democrats, and military members tend to vote Republican. Are these same pundits accusing Republicans of starting wars in an effort to get out the Republican vote?
It honestly would not surprise me.
Is “it” that Republicans might use war or at least hyper-nationalistic frenzy to benefit their electoral chances? (I’d be hard pressed to disagree with you, if so.)
Or is “it” that the same pundits would be pointing this out, an assertion I would find hard to credit.
Thanks, sorry to make everybody else do the legwork. I was feeling lazy yesterday.
I did manage to come up with the chart on page 9 of this document:
http://pewresearch.org/assets/files/trends2005-public.pdf
…which includes information on party affiliation by income level. Somewhat true to the stereotype, it looks like more lower-income people vote Democratic, while more higher-income people vote Republican (to be fair though, for some reason the income levels in this chart cut off at “$75K and up”).
Of course “lower-income” doesn’t necessarily mean “on food stamps.” In fact, as of June of this year 1 in 4 Americans who were eligible for food stamps were not signed up:
That same article might also point to another source of the “food stamp president” meme, which is an effort on the part of Democrats to increase the rolls of food stamp recipients. The reason for this drive is to ease the impact of the recession on lower-income families, but it gave the Republicans a ball to run with, at least for a little while.
But the same article states that the Bush administration had a similar drive, during which it increased the rolls by 63%, so maybe that’s our answer right there, i.e. giving more “handouts” to more people is not a means toward re-election?
I’ve been hunting for figures showing how many people in the US are eligible for food stamps, as opposed to actually using them, but I can’t find anything so far. Anybody?
Most people on food stamps probably don’t vote at all.
