Getting the Numbers Right on Social Assistance

The 2012 campaign cycle has felt extraordinary for the sheer volume of lies and distortions that have been allowed to filter, unchallenged, through the mainstream media and into the national debate. So I was happy to see presidential hopeful Mitt Romney receive a harsh rebuttal yesterday from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities for claiming, during Sunday’s GOP debate, that the majority of federal funding for assistance programs for the poor—like Medicaid and food stamps—is wasted on administrative costs:

“What unfortunately happens is with all the multiplicity of federal programs, you have massive overhead, with government bureaucrats in Washington administering all these programs, very little of the money that’s actually needed by those that really need help, those that can’t care for themselves, actually reaches them.”

This is categorically untrue. Thankfully, Robert Greenstein and his staff at CBPP took the time to rebut Romney’s claim—the latest in a series of misleading attacks intended to persuade Americans to eliminate federal assistance for low-income families.

The fact is, these administrative expenses range from less than 1 percent to just 8 percent of total program costs, a far cry from the “massive overhead” that Romney believes is being siphoned off by government bureaucrats. In 2010, the last year in which full data are available, 90 to 99 percent of combined federal and state spending went straight to program beneficiaries.

Still, all evidence to the contrary, the conviction behind Romney’s comment is widely-held among conservatives. Last night, Senator Jim DeMint stopped by The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to discuss his new book, “Now or Never: Saving America from Economic Collapse.” When Stewart pressed him to differentiate “between money that is squandered and invested,” DeMint replied,

“The problem we have is from the federal level, it’s very hard to do things well. I mean, you don’t find too many federal programs that are working. When we politically manage the programs, the money is not distributed well.”

Unfortunately, until Democrats become better at promoting the incredible success (and low overhead) of these programs, such misconceptions will continue to hold sway with the electorate. With more than 15 percent, or 46.2 million Americans, below the poverty line in 2010, proud support for Medicaid, food stamps, and other federal assistance ought to be a winning strategy.

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