Obama's Mandate to Help the Poor

(The Root) -- President Obama's landslide victory on Nov. 6 was won amid a culture war between the haves and have-nots. Republican candidate Mitt Romney openly admitted that he wasn't "concerned about the very poor," and he privately derided the "47 percent" of Americans who don't pay federal income taxes, claiming they should learn to take responsibility and "care for their lives.” His running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, earned Tea Party bona fides by designing a budget plan that slashes billions from the social-safety net -- cutting funding from programs such as SNAP (food stamps), housing assistance, Medicaid, Pell Grants and student loans.

The president's $787 billion stimulus package included several expansions to existing antipoverty programs, including the Earned Income Tax Credit, SNAP and the Child Tax Credit. Obama expanded unemployment benefits to assist the long-term unemployed, and the Making Work Pay tax credit kept 6.9 million people above the poverty line in 2010 and lessened poverty for 32 million more.
President Obama's Affordable Care Act increases Medicaid coverage to all adults with incomes up to 133 percent of the poverty level and will cover an additional 16 million people by 2019 -- all of whom would have never qualified for Medicaid previously. Obama's administration has also invested in education programs benefiting poor and low-income families by expanding the Head Start initiative to reach an additional 64,000 children, and doubled funding for Federal Pell Grants to college students.

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