Unfortunately, for many years, Republicans have been on the “losing” end of the poverty debate. Democrats have taken the spotlight with talking points pertaining to income inequality, the shrinking middle class, and programs for the poor — but conservatives have just as much to say about reducing poverty.
On Thursday, I had the opportunity to speak with Whitney Munro, the Vice President of Communications for the Foundation for Government Accountability, a conservative-leaning public policy organization focused on “using work to lift people out of dependency … and to empower them to take control of their futures,” according to their official website.
In part one of this interview (which you can read here), Munro discussed the messaging issues plaguing the Republican Party when it comes to poverty, why progressives seem to hold all the cards in the debate, and what policies conservatives can advance.
In part two below, Munro speaks about misleading claims against their proposals, the pervasiveness of welfare abuse, workforce issues, student loan debt, and more.
DW: There’s a Vox article that claims the FGA is trying to push over three million people off of food stamps. What is your response to those types of pieces from left-leaning sources?
MUNRO: You’ve gotta love Vox. So, when we hear things like that — the reality is yes, if our reforms are passed, some able-bodied, working age adults would be removed from the food stamp rolls if they chose not to work, train, or volunteer for 20 hours a week. We’re not asking for the world. We’re saying, “Hey, if you are able-bodied, you are working age, you don’t have young children at home, you’re not taking care of an elderly parent, you don’t have a disability, you need to be trying to work, train, or volunteer 20 hours a week.” If you do that, you can keep your benefits. It’s very common that when people hear that, they’re like, “Wait, you’re not actually just taking people randomly off food stamps? You’re just saying, here’s a requirement for able-bodied, working age people who should, in theory, also have this goal for themselves in mind?” [This is a] requirement that Congress passed in 1996 and Bill Clinton signed and around 80 percent of Americans support but just isn’t being enforced.
DW: Can you talk about how pervasive welfare abuse is?
MUNRO: One of the things we hear from people on a regular basis is that welfare fraud doesn’t exist. We’ve done studies, and almost every single state – looked at asset requirements, looked at income requirement – we’ve found people who are getting food stamp benefits, as well and other types of welfare programs, who have won the lottery, who have assets of more than a million dollars in the bank, who are taking their food stamps and EBT cards and selling them on the streets.
One of the law enforcement officers that we worked with in the past actually went undercover for six months in Jacksonville, Florida, and was on a street corner pretending to be homeless to document people selling their EBT cards for drugs.
190 people in that town alone were busted because of welfare fraud, waste, and abuse in the drug trade, and then exchanging it for beer or different things at grocery stores. We find it everywhere. If you go on Craigslist, there’s story after story of people posting, “Hey, I have an EBT card. I’ll trade you for this, or this, or cash.” It’s everywhere, and some of the reforms that we work on put in place stopgaps for that.
Even if state systems just talk to one another. For example, if someone wins the lottery, the state knows that database should be crosschecked with people who are getting public benefits to make sure that no one who has won the lottery is still receiving food stamps years after the fact when they have those assets in the bank.
Rob Undersander was a Minnesota millionaire who was volunteering with elderly populations in his community, helping them navigate state aid programs, when he realized that there was not an asset test for food stamp enrollment. So he thought, “Well, gosh! I’m going to see if I can qualify.” He had more than a million dollars in real estate assets, and he did, and he collected them, and then he went to the state and said, “Hey, I shouldn’t be allowed to collect food stamps, but under your law, I am allowed to.” So, he’s also been trying to raise the awareness that that’s not fraud; that’s what the law is allowing people to do because there are not systems in place to check those things.
DW: Is there anything that we haven’t touched on in the interview that you’d want our readership to know?
MUNRO: FGA founder Tarren Bragdon started this organization eight years ago really around the idea that there are a lot of opportunities out there for people to better their lives and take a step up from where they are. It’s some of the things that we’ve discussed — the work requirement for benefits, because we actually believe, and unlike what the Left would tell you, that those safety nets need to be there for the truly needy, and they need to be there for the disabled, for those who are unable to help themselves, for poor children, for the elderly, for people who find themselves in temporary periods of hardship. When we are allowing millions and millions of able-bodied, working age adults to collect benefits, that means those programs are not serving the people that they were truly intended for.
We’ve covered things like the Medicaid waiting list where there are people who should qualify for Medicaid benefits, but Medicaid expansion has crowded them out and provided benefits to working age adults who are capable of working.
We say that the power and dignity of work is the number one way for people to improve their lives.
On the flip side, we’ve also done a lot of work in workforce issues. So we’re looking at what barriers are in place preventing people from working. We’ve worked on occupational licensing reform. We had a fresh start initiative to help people who come out of jail to be able to get licenses to work if they were a nonviolent offender who maybe just wants to be a barber, or a cosmetologist, or a massage therapist. What can we do to make sure that they are in the workforce and not in dependency or, even worse, back in jail or prison.
We’ve looked at lobbying boards and the type of cronyism that exists to stop people who are new to a profession — veteran, veteran spouses, young people. We really do focus on that aspect of things as well. It’s not just looking at entitlement programs, it’s looking at those barriers to work that exist for people once they are active and getting them back into the workforce, and other ways that licensing laws just don’t make any sense.
On the health care front — how can we help people get access to affordable yet quality health care? We’ve worked on association health plans, and short-term plans. We are involved in Telemedicine and direct medical care — ways to open the market up so that people have choices and opportunities, and the cost of health care isn’t the thing that’s restricting their opportunities.
How is student loan debt and this problem affecting millions of Americans, and what are the actual solutions? Because the solution to the student loan debt problem is not, “Let’s forgive everyone’s debt” or “Let’s make college free for everyone to attend.” That’s actually a really bad band-aid that would bankrupt the country and not hit the problem at the core of where it lives, and so we’re currently looking for those solutions. We know this is hurting a generation. No, we don’t want this problem to continue, but we also know the solutions on the table aren’t the ones that we need.
So how do we provide transparency and accountability so that students make the right choices, so we can extend access to vocational education, and career and technology education, and really promote alternatives to that four-year-college set goal for those who can’t afford it [and] don’t want to go there, and then that, in turn, would help prevent some of the dependency that we see occur.
That’s a long-winded answer to kind of tell you, we’re looking at this from all sides. We’re trying to think from different perspectives, and outside the box. We believe that these solutions actually exist and that they’re powerful and that they work. We’re always looking for that next opportunity to help people.
I’d like to thank Ms. Munro for speaking with me about such a vital issue. For more information about the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) and their policy ideas, you can visit their official website here.