James Quintero - Policy Director, Texas Public Policy Foundation Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm going a month into this and so far nobody's blinking.
But now that the snap benefits are on the line,
and we're getting more and more problems day by data
nation's airports, from air traffic controllers who are calling in sick,
and we're having all these canceled and or delayed flights.
I'm sure the pressure is going to get even heavier

(00:20):
than what it is right now. But I think it's rich.
The California Governor Gavin Newsom is invoking biblical teachings to
criticize Republicans for the government shutdown of talking about the
impact on food assistants. That's on them. I'm sorry, that's
on them. James quin Terrell joins US policy director of
the Texas Public Policy Foundation. I know that a lot

(00:42):
of these Democrats don't think Americans are blaming them for
the shutdown, but the polling data tells us something different.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yeah, I think the good morning, Jimmy, and Yeah, I
think you're right. The polling data very much bends against
the Democrats in this instance. Most people recognize that the
Schumer shut down is at the feet of Senate Democrats
who have voted against reopening the government on more than
a dozen occasions now, and because they've done that, a

(01:13):
lot of Americans and a lot of people are getting
ready to see their food stamp assistance begin to turn
off on Saturday. Now. States some states are saying that
they're going to step up and use state funding to
maybe close the gap a little bit, but without federal aid,

(01:33):
a lot of these programs are in danger now. From
there's really two problems here, I think from my vantage point,
one is the policy problem, and that really gets into
who's receiving these food stamps and why. But there's also
a cultural crisis that this brings to light. And what

(01:54):
I mean is that what you're seeing throughout is really
this sense of entitlement from people, and there's some really
troubling threats of violence that are beginning to emerge from
people saying that, you know what, if and when these
food stamps go away, we're going to just march into

(02:17):
stores and take what we want because we're entitled to
these things. And so I think there's really two big
problems to emerge from from Senate Democrats refusal to reopen
the government.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
You know, I've been kind of wondering out loud all
this week James Guintero whether or not this is an
opportunity for Republicans to really get tough on reform when
it comes to these government agencies. There are forty two
million Americans, over forty two million Americans who are on
the food stamp program that are getting snap benefits. It

(02:49):
seems to me that this is the perfect opportunity to
tighten that up. You can't tell me that there are
forty two million people in this country that need to
have these benefits in order to be able to feed
their families.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yeah, you're right, you know there are forty two million
people receiving food stamp benefits. It's unclear to me exactly
how many non citizens are included in that figure, but
some of the latest data we have suggests that they're
at least one point five million non citizens who receive

(03:20):
food stamp assistance in twenty twenty two.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
Why why do we allow Why do we allow non
citizens to get food stamps? How is that? How did
that become a benefit for people who are not citizens
of this country. They may be here legally, but they're
not a citizen.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yeah, it's because we've allowed our welfare programs to expand
far beyond what they were intended for. And then we
have some progressive activists in Congress who've then expanded the
reach of those programs to everyone and anyone. And you know,
I mean it's with today's Democrats, it's not hard to

(03:56):
see how that these programs have gotten so far out
of control. These are the very same people who want
to single payer healthcare provided to everyone and anyone in
our country. And so, you know, we have to revisit
this these programs in full and really do a comprehensive

(04:19):
analysis of who's getting the benefits and why. By the way,
those one point five million non citizens cost American taxpayers
four point two billion dollars again in twenty twenty two.
So this is you know, this is substantial aid that's
being taken away from the American people.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
Yeah. Well, like I said, this would be seems to
me to be a great opportunity. The Democrats seem to
think they have leverage. What about the leverage Republicans potentially
have for changing some of these programs. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
You know, one of the things that's really disheartening about
this whole thing is Republicans control almost all the leavers
of power in the federal government, and yet we still
cannot get welfare spending under control. And it's taken a
government shut down to really empower the Trump administration in
a unique way to finally put the brakes on a

(05:10):
lot of this spending. So, you know, I'm not it's
not entirely encouraging that that this is the way we
have to go about attacking the problem. But here we are,
and so you know, perhaps there there is some silver
lining to the government shutdown, which is we get to
call attention to all of this waste, fraud, and abuse

(05:31):
and speak up on behalf of the American tax payer.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
Yeah, James, always good to have you, Thank you, sir, appreciate.
The policy director at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, James Quintero,