O'Reilly used phony stats to
claim "staggering increase" in spending on food stamps, housing
assistance
Media Matters
February 18, 2005
FOX News host Bill O'Reilly falsely claimed that "housing
assistance is up 1,400 percent" from former President Clinton's
final budget to President Bush's recent 2006 budget proposal. In
fact, the increase is a more modest 22 percent. O'Reilly also
insisted that "there's been an 82 percent increase in federal
spending on food and nutrition assistance" over the same period.
The actual figure is 67 percent, but even this figure is
misleading; the federal government's main food assistance
programs are mandatory entitlement programs, which means that
spending is not subject to the annual appropriations process in
which the White House and Congress decide how much to devote to
discretionary programs. Rather, spending on food stamps
automatically increases as more Americans become eligible. The
large increase in spending on food stamps since Bush took office
is primarily the result of an increase in the number of Americans
poor enough to be eligible for the program.
On the February 16 edition of FOX News' The O'Reilly Factor,
in a discussion with Kathleen Barr, policy advocate for the
National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness,
O'Reilly cited the bogus stats to defend Bush from the charge
that he is not doing enough to address hunger and homelessness.
Barr expressed doubt about O'Reilly's figures, but he insisted
they were accurate:
O'REILLY: Do you know that housing
assistance is up 1,400 percent from Clinton to Bush in 2006?
1,400 percent! I don't think that the folks in America, with all
due respect, Ms. Barr, can give any more money. I think this is
about it. This is tapped out.
BARR: That's an interesting point,
Bill. I'm not quite sure where those numbers are from, but --
O'REILLY: Well, here's -- the numbers
are from the government's proposed budget welfare -- this is from
the government's own budget right here. These are hard
numbers.
According to the White House's own Office of Management and
Budget (OMB), federal outlays for housing assistance were $30.1
billion (Excel document) in fiscal year 2001, the last budget
enacted under Clinton. Bush's proposed FY 2006 budget proposes to
spend $38.4 billion, a 22 percent increase in nominal
dollars.
Barr answered O'Reilly's "hard numbers" by citing a roughly
accurate statistic on the 30-year decline in the budget for the
Department of Housing and Urban Development. O'Reilly insisted,
"it's not true." He was wrong:
BARR: Well, I do know -- what I do
know is that the budget authority for the Department of Housing
and Urban Development is 60 percent less than it was 30 years
ago, showing a clear disinvestment in affordable housing.
O'REILLY: No, it -- on raw dollars,
that's not true. Maybe it's part of the gross national product
you're quoting. It's not raw dollars. These are record raw
dollars, Ms. Barr, in every category through the roof under
President Bush. And that's just a fact.
In fact, HUD's budget in 1976 (Excel document), the earliest
year available from OMB, was $29.2 billion. In current dollars,
that equals $66.9 billion. But Bush's 2006 budget proposes to
spend only $30.4 billion. That's a 55 percent decline in real
value. O'Reilly's reference to "raw dollars" is meaningless,
since inflation has eroded the purchasing power that HUD's budget
wielded in 1976.
Earlier in the discussion, O'Reilly derided the "poverty
industry in this country" and used a misleading statistic on food
assistance to defend Bush from the charge that he has failed to
confront hunger in America:
O'REILLY: All right, but remember,
there's a poverty industry in this country. And they're all going
to say they need more money. ... Now, from 2000, the year 2000,
when Bill Clinton was in office, to the proposed budget of 2006,
there's been an 82 percent increase in federal spending on food
and nutrition assistance. Did you know that? 82 percent.
President Bush is the biggest-spending Republican president in
history. Do you think that's not enough?
BARR: Well, what I do know is that the
2006 budget proposed last week called for a $1 billion cut in the
food stamp program, which would cut over a quarter of a million
families off of the food stamp program.
O'REILLY: OK. Well, here's my stat. I
got -- this is food stamps, school lunches, women, infants
assistance in food. 2006 proposed budget: $51 billion, up from
$28 billion under Clinton's last year in office. Madam, that is a
staggering, staggering increase.
As noted above, Clinton's final budget before leaving office
was the FY 2001 budget, not 2000, as O'Reilly suggested. Outlays
for food and nutrition assistance in 2001 totaled $34.1 billion
(Excel document), according to OMB. Bush's 2006 budget proposes
$56.9 billion, a 67 percent increase. But this increase is not
the result of a decision by the White House or Congress. Food
stamps and school meals -- which account for $50.4 billion of the
$56.9 billion proposed for food programs in 2006 -- are mandatory
programs. That means spending rises automatically as more
Americans become eligible, unless Congress specifically enacts
changes to the program.
In fact, eligibility for food stamps has increased. Some 25.1
million Americans received food stamps in November 2004, the
latest month for which data is available from the Department of
Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service. By contrast, average
monthly participation for FY 2001 was 17.3 million; that's an
increase of 45 percent. A likely explanation for this increase is
that only about 31.1 million Americans lived in poverty in 2000
compared to 35.9 million in 2003, the latest year for which the
Census Bureau has released data. Indeed, the program's website
notes that "[p]articipation generally peaks in periods of high
unemployment, inflation and recession."
Barr's reference to Bush's plan to cut food stamps was
accurate. Bush's 2006 budget included a proposal to cut spending
on food stamps by $1.1 billion over ten years by limiting
eligibility [see p. 177; PDF p. 181].
Near the end of the segment, O'Reilly suggested that the
increase in hunger detailed in a recent survey by Barr's
organization was the fault of poor people themselves:
O'REILLY: But how much more money can
the U.S. taxpayer -- I mean, I'm just giving you the stats. Every
category of assistance to the poor under President Bush has gone
up incredibly. How much more money do we have to put in there? I
just -- if you're spending $50 billion on assistance, food stamps
and school lunches, that is enormous. There's only 300 billion
[sic] people in the country.
BARR: Well, I can't speculate on
exactly how much we would need eventually. What I can speculate
on is that our study found that there are people out there who
aren't receiving food assistance, who aren't able to find
shelter.
O'REILLY: Well, I wonder whose fault
that is, because the taxpayer is certainly paying enough
money.
— G.W.
tator.
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