Pelosi: GOP Budget Takes Food Away from People of Color

It’s never to early to play the race card in an election year for former House Speaker, Democrat Nancy Pelosi.

Today Pelosi took to Twitter to do that very thing using a Pew Research Center survey to make her point.

Over 50% of food stamp recipients are people of color. The #GOPbudget takes food out of their mouths: http://t.co/ErhMxv6ykH

— Nancy Pelosi (@NancyPelosi) April 22, 2014

Forget that fewer Blacks might need Food Stamps were they more supportive of Republican job creating ways. Pelosi wants people to focus in on one finding so she can attempt to label the Republican Party and its policies as racist. Truth be told, that’s a revolting type of politics. Unfortunately, it’s the very type of politics Pelosi and her fellow Democrats rely upon so heavily.

Beyond politics, equally large or larger gaps emerge in the participation rates of many core social and demographic groups. For example, women were about twice as likely as men (23% vs. 12%) to have received food stamps at some point in their lives. Blacks are about twice as likely as whites to have used this benefit during their lives (31% vs. 15%). Among Hispanics, about 22% say they have collected food stamps.

Minority women in particular are far more likely than their male counterparts to have used food stamps. About four-in-ten black women (39%) have gotten help compared with 21% of black men. The gender-race participation gap is also wide among Hispanics: 31% of Hispanic women but 14% of Hispanic men received assistance.

There’s nothing insightful behind Pelosi’s tactic. It’s demagogy at it’s worse. Unfortunately, it’s often effective enough at fooling just enough low information voters of all races and colors to be somewhat effective for the Democrat Party.