For weeks now, the Biden administration has effectively been engaged in hostage negotiations with House Republicans, who have refused to raise the debt limit (i.e., pay down the nation’s already accrued debt) without the president agreeing to drastic spending cuts. And on Wednesday, the NAACP issued a warning to lawmakers about cuts to social spending programs that many Black people rely on.
The open letter from Derrick Johnson, the NAACP’s president and CEO, closed with an unmistakable warning for lawmakers: “The nation, especially Black America, is watching.”
From the letter:
Recent media reports have highlighted deeply disturbing proposals floated in negotiations between Congressional leadership and the Biden Administration that would cap federal discretionary spending on critical programs like Medicaid, Pell grants, SNAP, school lunch programs, income supports, and many more, all of which would disproportionately harm Black communities. Other proposals to change eligibility requirements such as adding new work requirements must be resoundingly rejected. These proposals are designed to play on racist stereoptypes masquerading as sound policy.
That last line seems like a reference to the Reaganesque rhetoric used by Republicans as they push for cuts, relying on insulting and ill-informed claims implying that people helped by social programs lack a desire to work. The fact that many people who receive such benefits do work apparently means nothing to them, nor does the fact that many experts have said for years that adding work requirements to social programs does little to increase participation in the workforce, as my MSNBC colleague Hayes Brown noted in April.
Nonetheless, the White House has seemingly left open the possibility that the president could reach an agreement with House Republicans that includes alterations that would amount to social spending cuts, including to the food stamp program. And Democrats are livid about the prospect.
“We…
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