Celebrating record-low unemployment by making poor peoples’ lives more miserable
Most Kansans consider record low unemployment to be fantastic news.
For Senate President Ty Masterson, it’s just another opportunity to punish the poor and attack the governor.
Here’s what he wrote in a response to Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of Senate Substitute for House Bill 2448, a bill designed to make it harder for poor Kansans to get federal food assistance:
“It is hard to comprehend that during a time in which Kansas is experiencing record unemployment, the governor would veto a bill aimed at getting able-bodied adults back into the workforce . . .”
Say what?
An aide to the senator clarified: “Of course, usually when we talk about record unemployment, it’s in the context of it being ‘high’ – so I understand the confusion of the wording there, absent the qualifier ‘low,’” said Michael Pirner.
Unemployment in Kansas is 2.5%. That’s the lowest rate going all the way back to 1976, the oldest data the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes online.
It’s cause for celebration, not starvation.
I’ll spare you the rest of Masterson’s missive, more of the usual “war on work” and “Biden/Pelosi playbook” nonsense we’ve all heard before.
But while we’re here, let’s talk about the bill.
It’s another piece of cut-and-paste legislation walked into the Statehouse by the Opportunity Solutions Project, a shadowy Florida-based think tank that pretty much exists to make poor people’s lives more miserable and make it harder for the average citizen to vote.
They’re the same folks behind efforts to get rid of the three-day grace period for the U.S. Postal Service to deliver ballots that are mailed on or just before Election Day. They’re also the force behind the effort to get rid of drop boxes that voters can use to turn in mail ballots when it’s most convenient for them.
The group doesn’t disclose its donors, so the public has no idea who’s really driving this train.
Their captive Kansas legislators won’t reveal who’s behind the Opportunity Solutions curtain and worse, they won’t even allow such questions to be asked.
At a Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee hearing last month, state Sen. Pat Pettey asked Opportunity Solutions fellow Sam Adolphsen where he lives — it’s Maine, where he testified from on Webex.
He said he has been to Kansas before but appeared to struggle when Pettey asked when.
The committee chairman, state Sen. Richard Hilderbrand, shut her down with the admonition: “Let’s not give a litmus test to every conferee that comes up.”
Opportunity Solutions Project was the only supporter.
Arrayed against the bill were the Kansas Department for Children and Families and 31 statewide and community food banks, health organizations, churches and charities fighting food insecurity in Kansas every blessed day.
Guess who the Legislature listened to.
The bill passed the Senate 28-11 and the House 70-46.
It was done as a “gut and go” bill by a Hiderbrand’s committee, a sneaky procedure of moving legislation from its original bill to a “shell” bill to bypass the usual legislative scrutiny.
HB 2448 purports to require able-bodied food-assistance recipients to prove they’re working, or in job training, to get benefits. In theory, that sounds fine.
In practice, it would create a $2.7 million-a-year state bureaucracy to hand out about $5.5 million in federal food stamps. The average benefit, received by about 13,600 affected Kansans, is a little over $8 a week.
Obviously, the underlying motive is to make the benefit more trouble to get than it’s worth.
Kelly was absolutely right to veto it. Here’s hoping the Legislature can’t assemble enough votes to override her in the wrap-up session.
The bill is expensive, sadistic and poorly thought-out, but immensely pleasing to some anonymous donor from who knows where.
In other words, it’s right in the Kansas Legislature’s wheelhouse.
Who’s got power at the Statehouse?
The following is a list of organizations that testified for and against Senate Substitute for House Bill 2448, which was approved by the Legislature and vetoed by the governor.
For HB2448
Opportunity Solutions Project
Against HB2448
Harvesters Community Food Network
Kansas Food Bank
Second Harvest Community Food Bank
American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network
KanCare Advocates Network
Kansas Action for Children
Kansas Appleseed Center for Law and Justice
Kansas Children’s Service League
Kansas Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence
Kansas Hospital Association
Kansas Interfaith Action
American Heart Association
East Topeka Senior Center
Fredonia Food Bank
Genesis-Thomas County
Kansas Council on Developmental Disabilities
Kansas Food and Farm Coalition
Kansas Head Start Association
Kansas National Education Association
Lecompton United Methodist Church Food Pantry
Marion County Food Bank
Oral Health Kansas
Park City Pride Food Pantry
Passageways
Project Hope
Reach Out Food Pantry
St. Joseph Food Pantry and Diaper Closet
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church of Clay Center
Udall Food Bank
Wallace County Ministerial Alliance Food Pantry
Westside Good Neighbor Center.
This story was originally published April 20, 2022 at 4:34 AM.
