SOURCE: AP/Ross D. Franklin

Grecia Lima, left, cheers as Maria Durand, second from left, brings her early voting ballot and joins members of Promise Arizona in Action in announcing their voter registration drive with Latino youth. Latinos overwhelmingly voted for President Obama's re-election last week.

In the wake of last Tuesday’s presidential election, the entire political establishment is analyzing and dissecting the sleeping giant that awoke: the more than 12 million Latinos who voted and helped propel President Barack Obama to victory in key battleground states. Republicans are fretting—and rightly so—over their dismal support among this demographic but continue to show a lack of understanding, arguing that the reason Latinos rejected their agenda was a communication problem rather than a substance problem.

They are wrong. If Republicans want the support of the Latino community, they need to fundamentally change their party’s policy and evolve on a range of issues.

The leaders of the party and many of its rank-and-file members are right to be worried. President Obama garnered 71 percent of the Latino vote nationwide, compared to Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s 27 percent. In fact, Gov. Romney’s showing among Latinos in 2012 was the worst for a Republican candidate since former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole won just 21 percent of the Latino vote in 1996. When President George W. Bush won in 2000, he received 44 percent of the Latino vote; in 2008 Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) received only 31 percent of the Latino vote. This is not a reassuring record to have with the nation’s fastest-growing demography, which is projected to double in size by 2050.

To be sure, the immigration platform that Gov. Romney embraced does explain in large measure the profound dislike Latinos have for the Republican brand. Various polls show that the majority of Latinos—more than 77 percent—support a path to legalization for our nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants. Even more Latinos—91 percent—support the DREAM Act, legislation that would provide a pathway to permanent legal status for approximately 2.1 million undocumented youth currently living in the United States.

Gov. Romney’s stance of “self-deportation,” however, is the complete opposite. And no wonder—self deportation means making one’s life so miserable here that one would choose to leave the country rather than stay.

Some Republicans argue that they simply need to change their tone and explain their policies better. But the concept of making someone’s life so unbearable that he or she will be forced to leave cannot be massaged and sugarcoated. After all, 90 percent of Latinos in the United States have an immigrant parent or grandparent, 60 percent of Latino voters know an undocumented immigrant, and one-quarter know someone who is either facing deportation or has been deported. Immigration is a very personal issue to the Latino community, and the “self-deportation” alternative Gov. Romney put forth this year offended many Latinos. It simply is a nonstarter.

But the problem goes far beyond immigration. Republicans would do well to read the various polls to understand the dissonance between their ideas and Latinos’ values and aspirations. Polls on various issues show that by and large, Latinos agree with the values President Obama embraces and his policy agenda on the issues that matter most to them: the economy, jobs, education, health care, and immigration.

Take the election-eve poll conducted by Impremedia/LatinoDecisions, for example, which found that:

• 66 percent of Latino voters believe the federal government should ensure that all people have access to health insurance.
• 61 percent of Latino voters believe that the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, should stand as law.
• 42 percent of Latino voters support a “combination of higher taxes and spending cuts” to reduce the deficit, while 35 percent said that we needed to raise taxes on the wealthy.

A national Fox News Latino poll earlier this year also showed that 62 percent of Latinos approve of the overall job President Obama did with health care, including the Affordable Care Act. On jobs and the economy, a Univision poll found that 55 percent of Latinos said the government should invest resources in federal projects to stimulate the economy. Again, these viewpoints are more in line with President Obama’s approach on the economy and tax fairness than those of Gov. Romney.

As an overall brand, Republicans don’t fare much better. According to the ImpreMedia/LatinoDecisions poll, 61 percent of Latinos say they trust the Democrats and President Obama to make the right decisions and improve the country’s economic conditions, while the same percentage said that the Democratic Party has shown more concern toward them as a community. Latino registered voters also express a strong affinity for the Democratic Party in their political party identification. According to a poll by the Pew Forum, 70 percent of Latino registered voters identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, while only 22 percent identify with or lean toward the Republican Party.

There is also yet another significant problem for Republicans within the Latino community: women. Latinas represent 6 percent of the electorate—slightly higher than Latino men—and supported President Obama by a margin of more than 10 points compared to their male counterparts: 76 percent versus 65 percent. According to LatinoDecisions polling, 78 percent of Latinas trust Democrats to make better decisions for women than Republicans. And only 20 percent of Latinas have a favorable view of Republicans in Congress.

Now let’s take a look at social issues, which Republicans argue is their saving grace when it comes to this group. While it is true that Latinos historically poll as more socially conservative, recent polling suggests that the longer they live in the United States, the more tolerant they become on social issues such as abortion and gay and transgender rights, including marriage equality.

A recent survey by Lake Research Partners shows that 74 percent of Latino registered voters agree that a woman has a right to make her own personal private decisions about abortion without politicians interfering. The same poll showed that 73 percent of Latino registered voters agree that we should not judge someone who feels they are not ready to be a parent.

On marriage equality the trend is the same: The Pew Hispanic Center last month released a poll confirming that a majority of Latinos support marriage equality for same-sex couples. Fifty-two percent of Latinos favor affording same-sex couples the rights and responsibilities of marriage, with 34 percent opposed. Six years ago Latino attitudes on the issue were virtually flipped.

Moreover, most religious Latinos support the president. A Pew Forum poll in October found that three-quarters of Latino Catholics supported President Obama’s re-election. Evangelical Latinos, who account for 15 percent of all Latino registered voters, tend to be more conservative, yet half of them still preferred President Obama to Gov. Romney in the presidential race.

Young Latinos also helped fuel the youth vote for President Obama. The president won every age group under 40, including young Latino voters (ages 18 to 29), who backed him by a margin of 74 percent to 23 percent. Among Hispanic college graduates, 62 percent voted for President Obama, while 35 percent supported Gov. Romney.

There are two ways that Republicans can show that they want to do right by this community and begin improving their record in the short term. One is by supporting a path to legalization for our nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants. Some party leaders and press pundits on the right are already seeing the light, as is the case with talk-show host Sean Hannity, who shocked the political establishment last week by announcing that he had “evolved” on immigration, and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal categorizing his party’s position on immigration and other issues as “stupid.” The Republican Party needs more of this self-evaluation and evolution if they want to be competitive with this demographic.

But a more immediate and tangible way to show Latinos that Republicans care about them is to vote the right way on the upcoming fiscal cliff. The package of expiring tax cuts and automatic spending cuts includes deep cuts to social programs on education and training such as special education programs, work study, and Title I programs that provide federal funding to low-income school districts, as well as entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which are often a lifeline for Latinos.

Polls are a snapshot of time, and while there is no guarantee that the Democratic Party inclinations of Latinos are a long-term trend, Republicans undoubtedly have their work cut out for them.  Without fundamentally changing their policies and actually being for something rather than against everything, it is hard to tell how they will appeal to the growing Latino community.  The sleeping giant is wide awake—when the Latino community looks at the Republican agenda today, they don’t like what they see.

Vanessa Cárdenas is the Director of Progress 2050 Action at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

SOURCE: AP/ Jerome Delay

Supporters of President Barack Obama react to favorable media projections at the McCormick Place during an election night watch party in Chicago on election night.

For someone who looks at our nation’s changing demographics as her bread and butter, the 2012 election should have been the jackpot. Suddenly everyone is talking about how the nation’s demography re-elected President Barack Obama and accounted for unexpected Democratic gains in the U.S. Senate. And of equal interest is how the changing face of America could also signal the decline of the GOP. Even though the census has been telling us for a few years that we’re quickly approaching the day when there is no longer any clear racial or ethnic majority in the United States, the election now has people paying attention.

But simply attributing the president’s victory to demographics really misses the point and the deeper question: Why did certain groups of voters seem to favor President Obama and his party? Communities of color, women, and youth are not primordially required to vote Democratic—they, like any other voters, vote for the candidates who seem better suited to represent and defend their interests. Democrat and Republican candidates both proposed substantive policies that were informed by ideologies that told voters of color what each party thought of them and their role in our country. And these ideologies clearly suggested distinct visions of what each party wants for our nation. The groups that voted overwhelmingly for the president and his party did so because they agreed with his dream for what this country could be.

Take communities of color. Fully 80 percent of these groups voted for President Obama. They supported the president because Republicans spent the better part of the campaign season using racially coded language to paint communities of color as groups who mooch off of government entitlement programs. Republicans cynically tried to distract voters from paying closer attention to the larger economic woes the majority of the nation was experiencing and attempted to hide the threat that policies of slashing government programs would pose to all of us. Moreover, Republicans tried blaming these economic woes on hard-working immigrants, making promises to make immigrants’ lives so miserable that they would have no other choice but to flee the country—a country, by the way, that was once steeped in the notion of providing immigrants with opportunity.

Or take women. Fifty-five percent of women voted for the president, and this number went up to 67 percent for the unmarried subset. Republicans campaigned on ideas that were fundamentally opposed to the notion that women should have control over their own bodies. They claimed, ironically, to do so in the name of sanctity of life, yet simultaneously proposed policies that made it clear that they only cared about life until it left the woman’s body—once a baby was born, it was survival of the fittest. And that’s not to mention the reprehensible ways that sexual violence were trivialized and even lauded by some members of the GOP.

And don’t forget young people. Millennials showed up in record numbers at the polls this year and voted overwhelmingly (60 percent) in support of the president. It’s no secret that this group is worried about their future—record levels of unemployment, a nation facing serious debt, worries about the legacy that baby boomers will leave their generation, and more. Republicans exacerbated these worries by proposing wildly unrealistic solutions to our fiscal problems, while also cutting programs that especially hurt this group—student debt policies, for instance. This group also embraces ideas about tolerance and diversity not necessarily shared by Republicans. The majority of young people, for example, support expanding rights and equality for gay and transgender people while Republicans not only tried to restrict such civil rights, but tried to eradicate them altogether.

Political candidates aren’t the only ones with ideas—voters have them too. The GOP is in trouble going forward, not because it has to find a way to better market their ideas to more diverse audiences, but because Republicans have to fundamentally change their ideas. If this election taught us anything, it’s that the majority of our country agrees with the ideas behind progressive policies. Americans sided with the candidates in this election who promoted tolerance and inclusion and believed in rebuilding a country that works for all, not just a select few. They also voted into power candidates who believe that this common good relies on important programs based on the premise that we should help people up when they fall.

It’s our good fortune as progressives and as a nation, that the groups with these egalitarian ideas are the ones that are growing the fastest.

Julie Ajinkya is a Policy Analyst for Progress 2050 Action at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

SOURCE: AP/Charlie Neibergall

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama participate in the first 2012 presidential debate at the University of Denver, Wednesday, October 3, 2012.

Debate over immigration reform was absent from last night’s presidential debate in Denver, but the issues that did come up—including the economy and jobs, health care, the role of government, Social Security and Medicare, and education—are top issues for all Americans, Latinos included. In fact, education, jobs, the economy, and health care are often cited as the top three or four issues for Latinos in every poll—most often even above immigration reform.

Of course, practically all Latinos watching the debate or reading about it the next day in the newspapers or online know the two candidates’ positions on immigration. President Barack Obama supports a path to legalization for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in our country, endorses the DREAM Act to enable young unauthorized immigrants in our nation through no fault of their own to go to college and serve in the military as a path to citizenship, and in fact used his executive authority to allow DREAMers to get work permits and lift up the threat of deportation.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s approach is the opposite. He doesn’t support legalizing the undocumented, has promised to veto the DREAM Act, and yesterday his campaign confirmed that he would end the deferred action program for DREAMers if he would become president. Clear as water.

But Latinos care as much or sometimes even more about the other issues in this presidential race. So let’s look at some of those issues.

The economy and jobs

Gov. Romney supports “supply-side economics” to let the rich become job creators. He truly believes that if the wealthy have more income, then they will spend more and invest more, creating jobs as their wealth “trickles down.” The problem with this approach is that it doesn’t work.

Most telling, though, was when the debate moderator asked the candidates how they would close the deficit and balance the federal budget. Gov. Romney said his approach is about spending cuts. President Obama supports a balanced approach where you need cuts as well as income.

A balanced approach makes perfect sense because we need an economy that works for all. Even when families balance their own budget, they don’t just cut on spending (and definitely avoid cutting spending on their health or education), but they also figure out ways to increase their income. That is the approach President Obama wants to follow by ensuring those who make millions pay their fair share of taxes. In contrast, Gov. Romney said three things that merit clarification:

• Gov. Romney said he didn’t have a $5 trillion tax cut in his plan. Yet his economic proposal on his website calls for a 20 percent across-the-board tax cut in all federal income tax rates. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center analysis says this cut would reduce federal revenue $480 billion in 2015. This amounts to $5 trillion over the decade.
• Gov. Romney said there will be no tax cut that adds to the deficit. Yet as the same Tax Policy Center points out, his plan can’t exempt middle-class families from tax cuts and remain revenue neutral. “In order for him to cover the cost of his tax cut without adding to the deficit, he’d have to find a way to raise taxes on middle income people or people making less than $200,000 a year,” the Tax Policy Center found.
• Gov. Romney said he is focused on creating jobs. Yet according to his economic plan, he promises to cut federal government jobs by 10 percent. (How is that a job-creating strategy?) He also does not support investments in infrastructure and local government, sectors that employ Latinos at higher rates.

Health care

Latinos have benefited greatly from Obamacare—it has already made 9 million more Latinos eligible for health coverage and 736,000 Latinos under the age of 26 have gained access to health insurance in the two years since the passage of the Affordable Care Act. Obamacare is also modeled after the health care program that was implemented in Massachusetts while Gov. Romney was governor. Yet here are the views he expressed last night:

• Gov. Romney alleged that Obamacare would cause people to lose their health care or drop coverage—an outlandish assertion that seeks to scare people who have insurance. The Affordable Care Act would actually expand health care coverage to more than 30 million Americans. According to the director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Elmendorf, 3 million or fewer people would leave employer-sponsored health insurance coverage as a result of the law.
• Gov. Romney promises he will repeal Obamacare on “day one.” According to the Congressional Budget Office, repealing the law would increase the federal budget deficit by an estimated $109 billion between 2013 and 2022.
• Gov. Romney said that when he implemented health care in Massachusetts, he didn’t raise taxes. But what he didn’t say is that he raised fees. He also can claim that he didn’t increase taxes because the federal government funded almost half of his reforms.
• Gov. Romney claimed that people with pre-existing conditions would be covered under his current plan. This is not so. Under his plan, only people who are continuously insured would not be discriminated against because they suffer from pre-existing conditions. This protection would not be extended to people who are currently uninsured.

Ending Obamacare would be detrimental for Latinos. As the National Council of La Raza points out, 16 million Latinos who are uninsured and in need of care cannot afford to lose the benefits and protections of Obamacare and wait for 49 states to set up their own plans—as Gov. Romney proposes—putting their health care at risk.

Social Security and Medicare

Another important issue for Latinos is Social Security because Latinos rely on Social Security for more of their retirement income and benefit over a longer period of time than most other population groups because of their longer lifespans. An AARP survey found that more than 70 percent of Hispanics over the age of 50 say the candidates’ positions on Social Security and Medicare will have a bearing on how they cast their votes during the upcoming election. Here’s Gov. Romney’s take on these issues:

• Gov. Romney said that he supports no changes to Medicare for current retirees. Yet by repealing Obamacare, the 16 million seniors now receiving preventive benefits without deductibles or co-pays will see a cost increase. What’s more, the Romney-Ryan economic plan would also significantly lower Medicaid spending beginning next year, shifting federal spending to states and beneficiaries, and increasing costs for the 9 million Medicare recipients who also are dependent on Medicaid.
• Gov. Romney alleges that President Obama cut $716 billion from Medicare, but he bases this inaccurate statement on Obamacare siphoning off $716 billion from Medicare to the detriment of beneficiaries. In fact, that money is saved primarily through reducing overpayments to insurance companies under Medicare Advantage, the program in which the federal government pays private insurers to compete with traditional Medicare, not payments to beneficiaries.

Conclusion

Any voter, Latinos included, looking for substance and policies that are balanced and actually create the infrastructure for the middle class can see the stark differences in the policy positions of the two presidential candidates. What’s more, they can see that our economy is doing better, with 30 straight months of continued job growth in the private sector, unemployment going down, a better housing market, and consumer and business confidence going up. We are not where we need to be but we are moving in the right direction.

President Obama last night made the telling point that budgets reflect choices. The proposed budget and the cuts that Gov. Romney explicitly or implicitly supports are far from what is best for the majority of Americans, particularly for the middle class and low-income workers. Based on public opinion polling, Latinos know this, which is why 70 percent support President Obama.

Vanessa Cardenas is Director of Progress 2050 Action at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

SOURCE: AP/Charles Dharapak

Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks to reporters about the secretly taped video from one of his campaign fundraising events in Costa Mesa, California on Monday, September 17, 2012

I’m beginning to wonder if former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney understands what it takes to become the president of the United States. Given the recent turn of events in his campaign, I could make a credible argument that the Republican presidential candidate simply cannot persuade a majority of voters that he’s in the race to win. Why? Because he can’t explain why he wants to win—a fundamental prerequisite for the job.

Indeed, he’s twisted himself into such a pretzel—largely to appeal to the narrowest slice of the undecided electorate as well as his conservative base—that it’s almost as if he’s stopped actually believing in anything at all. If he loses the election, it will be an affirmation that most Americans don’t embrace the harshest and most extreme brand of conservative ideas, but it will also be a judgment on Gov. Romney’s increasingly apparent lack of commitment to any one overarching ideal beyond personal ambition. This is why he’s having such a hard time trying to persuade voters that even he believes the many different things he’s saying and doing.

Consider, for example, the short list of bungles, mishaps, and discoveries occurring in the span of days following the Republican National Convention, a time when most nominees are basking in the afterglow of a postconvention “bounce” in national polls. Not Gov. Romney, who has spent valuable campaign time batting back self-inflicted, negative news stories:

• The Republican nominee tried and failed to seize the political high ground last week in the wake of a fatal attack on the U.S. embassy in Libya. Without knowing all the facts of the situation, Gov. Romney accused the Obama administration of apologizing for American values as the attacks were unfolding. In fact, the White House had done nothing of the sort, prompting even fellow Republicans to criticize his effort to politicize an international crisis.
• A Politico story detailing finger pointing and in-fighting within the Romney camp rocked the campaign at the start of this week. The story overshadowed the campaign’s effort to jumpstart the campaign with a renewed messaging effort aimed at the middle class.
• Then, as if to dump salt into a gaping wound, the magazine Mother Jones released a video that showed Gov. Romney disparaging nearly half the citizens of the nation he wants to lead. In the discreetly filmed video, the candidate tells a group of very wealthy contributors that 47 percent of the nation will vote for President Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, because those voters are freeloaders who pay no taxes, who don’t assume responsibility for their lives, and who think government should take care of them.

None of this demonstrates a commitment to any single political ideology so much as a series of crass calculations about political expediency.

A despairing right-wing pundit, Laura Ingraham, took to the airwaves of her nationally syndicated show last week to lament what Gov. Romney is doing to the Republican Party.

 If you can’t beat Barack Obama with this record, then shut down the party. Shut it down, start new, with new people. Because this is a gimme election, or at least it should be. Election after election, we hire people who have lost previous campaigns, who have run campaigns that have failed, who have messaged campaigns where the message fell flat, and they keep getting re-hired.

Rush Limbaugh was equally morbid on his show:

If Obama wins, let me tell you what it’s the end of: The Republican Party. There’s gonna be a third party that’s gonna be oriented toward conservatism. . . . And I know if Obama wins, the Republican Party is gonna try to maneuver things so conservatives get blamed.

In a rare confluence of cosmic proportions, I find myself in partial agreement with Ingraham and Limbaugh. An Obama victory in November will compel the Republican Party to reassess itself and its reliance on wing-nut ideology. Otherwise, the Republican Party will die.

My guess is that, regardless of the outcome this year, the extremists within the Republican ranks will be excised and a more centrist conservative movement will emerge by the time the 2016 election rolls around. The lesson of this campaign is becoming clearer as Election Day nears. Appealing to the wild-eyed fanatics in the Tea Party leaves no path for the Republicans to capture the White House. And yet, Gov. Romney will have proven that appealing to the Tea Party and moderate Americans doesn’t work.

Already, the finger pointing at Gov. Romney has begun. But dumping the blame on the candidate is a mistake—one that conservative pundits and activists have yet to comprehend. As blogger Paul Abrams makes clear in a recent posting on Huffington Post, any postelection blame that’s focused exclusively on Gov. Romney’s campaign missteps will be a denial of the changing political world that doesn’t embrace harsh, hard-core conservative ideas.

“For all their absurdities, campaigns have a way of dispelling some illusions, and so Republicans’ bigger problems than Romney’s flaws are their policies coming face-to-face with the world as it is,” Abrams writes of the conservatives who have pushed Gov. Romney to embrace views that are unpalatable to the majority of Americans. “So, the Republican strategists need to lay off Romney. . . . [C']mon boys-and-girls on the Right, at least he was trying to sell your claptrap. And, therein, lay their dilemma.”

“It is not Mitt Romney, flawed as he is,” he argues. “It is in themselves.”

Sam Fulwood III is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.  His work with the Center’s Progress 2050 project examines the impact of policies on the nation when there will be no clear racial or ethnic majority by the year 2050. 

SOURCE: AP/ Jae C. Hong

Delegates react as Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney addresses the crowd at the Republican National Convention.

Now that the Republican and Democratic conventions have come to a close, the contrasts and differences between the two parties could not be starker. The makeup of their delegations, their lineups of speakers, and the planks of their party platforms served to underscore the importance each party places on diversity. During the two weeks of convention hoopla—first in Tampa and then in Charlotte—the demographic contrasts were clearly illuminated as both Republicans and Democrats sought to appeal to the base of their respective parties. The picture that came into clear focus: The GOP remains dominated by predominantly white males while Democrats are consistently driven by people of color and women.

While the cameras zoomed in on the few African American, Latino, and Asian American faces at the Republican national convention, the policies of the GOP leadership and actions of its delegates revealed a party that stubbornly clings to a past identified with institutionalized discrimination and misogyny. Republicans can march out as many tokens of diversity on stage at their national convention as they want, but that doesn’t negate the fact that their party platform hurts women and communities of color nor does it diminish the hateful acts that a few of their delegates committed on the floor. Among the most egregious incidents was two white male delegates throwing peanuts at an CNN camera operator, who was African American, and taunting her by saying “this is how we feed the animals.” The two were later removed from the floor, but the camera operator still said that she was not at all surprised by their behavior.

Just as offensive was when a female Puerto Rican GOP official was shouted down with chants of “USA! USA!” by white delegates who were described as forming a “sea of bowties and cowboy hats” when she tried to speak at which point party chair Reince Priebus had to finally intervene, gaveling down the shouters and calling for order and respect. (Later, additional context and video footage revealed the possibility that the disruption was due to Ron Paul supporters protesting their treatment by the Republican National Committee, but the perception of racism from the white crowd directed towards the Latina on the stage was already spreading throughout the media.) And then there was the white Pennsylvania delegate Mark Harris who blogged that he found it offensive that a person of Mexican descent was working in the American Adventure Pavilion at the Epcot Center.

Equally disturbing was the soft bigotry and condescension coming from many of the convention speakers themselves, alienating their target audiences and further revealing the racial discord and misogyny behind the party’s façade of diversity.

Ann Romney, for example, addressed a group of Latinos by saying, “You’d better really look at your future and figure out who’s going to be the guy that’s going to make it better for you and your children,” as if to suggest that Latinos would not carefully or thoughtfully weigh their political decisions. Opinion polling suggests that an overwhelming majority of Latino voters have indeed examined the party platforms and found the Republican position wanting. Mrs. Romney also suggested that by voting for the Democratic party Latinos were showing their political naivety if not outright biasness saying, “It [the GOP platform] really is a message that would resonate well if they [Latinos] could just get past some of their biases that have been there from the Democratic machines that have made us look like we don’t care about this community.”

Ann Romney’s statement begs the question: How would a political party show that it cares about communities of color? Certainly, the GOP’s status quo of giving a nod to Latinos by giving speeches with stirring immigrant rags-to-riches stories while flaunting a legislative agenda that denies that same success to their and other communities of color, isn’t proving successful for the party. Besides legislative agendas, Gov. Mitt Romney’s own words are shrill to the ears of Latinos who hear his policies, grounded in self-deportation, myopic enforcement, and laudatory of draconian anti-immigrant state laws, like Arizona’s S.B. 1070. The Republicans’ position on immigration rejects a pathway to legal status for undocumented immigrants, including the Obama administration’s popular Deferred Action program, which starting in August began granting qualifying and deserving undocumented youth reprieve from deportation and work authorization.

Republican talking points made from the stage amplified a message of immigrant bootstrap American exceptionalism but GOP-sponsored legislation would crush those aspirations, and instead enact conditions so harsh that undocumented immigrants would “self-deport.” From Ted Cruz to Marco Rubio to Nikki Haley—their immigrant journey speeches highlighted their families’ hard work and struggle while their party platform yanks up the ladder to success behind them. The trio’s message seems to say that “achieving the American Dream is for us and not for anyone else.” Likewise, New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, who introduced the vice presidential nominee, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), at the convention, spoke glowingly about her family during her speech but avoided the issue of immigration entirely. This granddaughter of undocumented immigrants, like most in her party, takes a hard line against other undocumented families.

Perhaps given the overwhelming whiteness of the audience—less than 2 percent of RNC delegates are African American and some state GOP officials refused to give any Latino or Asian American delegate counts—the message of caring about communities of color just doesn’t resonate with the Grand Old Party.

Unfortunately, the hypocrisy doesn’t stop at immigration. Gov. Romney’s acceptance speech was full of positive stories about women, but a Romney administration would actually be disastrous for women. When Romney bragged about employing a woman lieutenant governor and chief of staff in Massachusetts and about how much more important he thought motherhood was as a career compared to his own, he neglected to mention that he refuses to take a position on the Paycheck Fairness Act (an act that would ensure women get equal pay for equal work to men), and opposes expanding health care for women. What’s more, his crusade against public-sector employment would devastate women who dominate the civil-servant labor force as teachers and other government workers.

The Republican National Convention was to be a showcase for the party and an introduction to their presidential ticket, but despite the multiculturalism displayed at the podium, the GOP’s real racial politics shone through. The thin showing of women and people of color they paraded on stage in a cheap attempt to highlight the diversity of their party does not mesh with the reality that the GOP’s leadership and vision are anything but diverse. It doesn’t take much digging into their policies to uncover draconian ideas that will harm women and people of color.

In stark contrast, the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina was multiracial in the crafting of its platform, in the composition of its delegates, and at the podium. More than 40 percent of the party’s delegates were people of color and fully half of all the delegates were women. Officials of the Democratic National Committee estimated that 13 percent of all the delegates were Latino and nearly 5 percent were Asian American Another 486 delegates, or 8 percent, were gay, lesbian or transgender. And on the second night of the convention, Benita Veliz, the 27-year old who was valedictorian of her high school at age 16, was the first openly undocumented immigrant to address the audience at a convention.

The diversity shown on the Democratic convention stage is not mere window-dressing either. Veliz is now safe from deportation thanks to President Barack Obama’s new Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy. President Obama addressed the issue of immigration directly in his acceptance speech, saying, “You’re the reason a young immigrant who grew up here and went to school here and pledged allegiance to our flag will no longer be deported from the only country she’s ever called home.”

In contrast to the Republican convention, where the audience of delegates seemed unsure of how much they should cheer for Condoleezza Rice, the first African American woman to serve as U.S. Secretary of State, when she spoke about compassionate immigration policy, the Democratic convention audience erupted in applause when Veliz, First Lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, President Bill Clinton, and President Obama spoke about immigration.

From the First Lady to Sandra Fluke, the young law student who conservative radio commentators called a slut for standing up for women’s right to contraception, to the mothers whose children benefited from the Affordable Care Act—women from all walks of life echoed how they felt steadfastly supported by Democratic platform positions and policies. Instead of accusing an ethnic group of being biased in their voting, the First Lady spoke about how much she and the president still owed on their student loans when they were first married and how President Obama’s support for education funding and Pell Grants would alleviate this type of student debt.

For her part, Fluke spoke of how women would be affected if Republicans won in November:

“Your new president could be a man who stands by when a public figure tries to silence a private citizen with hateful slurs… It would be an America in which you have a new vice president who co-sponsored a bill that would allow pregnant women to die preventable deaths in our emergency rooms. An America in which states humiliate women by forcing us to endure invasive ultrasounds that we don’t want and our doctors say we don’t need. An America in which access to birth control is controlled by people who will never use it; an America in which politicians redefine rape so survivors are victimized all over again; in which someone decides which domestic violence victims deserve access to services, and which don’t.”

The racial diversity that the Democrats showed and that the Republicans lacked at their conventions also points to the future of the ethnic makeup of the United States in the future. Demographers predict that by the year 2050, the United States will be majority people of color nation. If this is the election year that Republicans will try to win by capturing at least 61 percent of white voters, it will be their last attempt. Democrats, on the other hand, seem to have understood the significance of this trend and are campaigning accordingly. What remains to be seen is whether Republicans will, in the future, try to repair the damage that their peanut-throwing, tokenism driven, tone-deaf convention has caused their party.

Anh Phan is the Anti-Hate Table Manager at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

SOURCE: AP/Matt Rourke

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus listens to a speaker during a news conference, Thursday, July 19, 2012, in Philadelphia.

For some terribly naïve people, the election four years ago of the nation’s first black president signaled the end of divisive race consciousness in American life. Yeah, right.

By now, as the 2012 presidential campaign enters the home stretch, that willfully deceptive notion has been laid completely to rest. And, as if to drive a stake through its heart, Donald R. Kinder and Allison Dale-Riddle, a pair of Michigan University political scientists, point out in their new book The End of Race? Obama, 2008, and Racial Politics in America that racism was very much a factor in that historic campaign and election.

Their analysis of the 2008 primary and general election led them to conclude that “if not for racism, Barack Obama would have won in a landslide.” But that’s not all. Kinder, a professor of psychology and political science, and Dale-Riddle, a doctoral candidate in political science, carry their argument several, surprising steps farther, suggesting that “racial resentment—a modern form of racism that has superseded the old-fashioned biological variety—is a potent political force.”

In other words, race still matters in politics and some politicians (or their operatives) aren’t about to swear off a tactic that they believe works to their advantage. But they are reluctant to confess to it.

So who’s playing the race card?

If MSNBC’s talk show host Chris Matthews is correct, then it’s the Republican party. In an unprecedented verbal attack during Monday’s “Morning Joe,” Matthews accused Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and the Romney campaign of subtle use of racial fears to appeal to white voters. As evidence, he criticized the Romney campaign ad that inaccurately claims President Barack Obama ended work requirements in the welfare reform law.

But Matthews really went after the campaign aide for “giggling” over a birther joke that presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney made during a campaign stop last week in Michigan. “That cheap shot … was awful,” he said. “It is an embarrassment to your party to play that card … you are playing that ethnic card there.”

Not to be outdone, the Republicans fired back. In what might be considered a jiu-jitsu move, the Republican governor of Mississippi, Haley Barbour, said Democrats are making a show of his party’s campaign issues in a reverse-racist effort to urge reluctant black and Latino voters to support the president. “Name a campaign in the last 25 years where the Dems didn’t play the race card,” Gov. Barbour told the website BuzzFeed. “They feel this unbelievable need to turn out their base.”

Gov. Barbour, who knows what he’s talking about, is accurately describing how and why conservative politicians employ negative and coded racist appeals. It’s a dog-whistle, a signal or sound that appeals to the ears of those who are inclined to hear its message. And it allows the person making such appeals a fig leaf to clothe their nakedness—including counter-charges of playing the race card.

We’ve seen this movie before: When President Ronald Reagan talked about welfare queens, or President George H. W. Bush promoted a scary Willie Horton, or former Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) showed the unemployed white hands as a victim of affirmative action, the coded message was clearly understood by their base of conservative, white, older, and largely male voters. In short, it was an arrow to the heart of the Republican base.

Gov. Barbour, however, is wrong to equate their transparent strategy with what the Democrats are doing. Scan the faces in the crowd at this week’s Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida. Then, compare the pictures that will come from the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte the following week. You will see why immediately.

Thomas F. Schaller, a political science professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and author of Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win without the South, makes just this point in a recent Salon.com article:

It’s Republican National Convention time again, a quadrennial televised spectacle during which the national party rounds up and then trots out as many minorities and women as possible in an attempt to convince viewers that Republicans have achieved a level of racial and gender diversity that, in fact, exist only during such showcase moments. At conventions past, this charade meant giving Lt. Gov. Michael Steele or Defense Secretary Colin Powell key speaking duties, or deploying Liddy Dole with a microphone in hand to work the aisles of the convention floor, while off-screen the Tom DeLays and Jim DeMints host pricey, off-stage cocktail parties.

Given the demographic changes sweeping our nation, conservative activists are fighting mightily against social changes that they can’t reverse. But don’t take my word for this. Consider former Vice President Dan Quayle, who recently told The New York Times’s Adam Nagourney that Republicans must be broader and more inclusive to survive in the future, which means getting away from dog-whistle racism. But hear the conservative Quayle fully:

The Republican Party needs to re-establish its philosophy of the big tent with principles. The philosophy you hear from time to time, which is unfortunate, is one of exclusion rather than inclusion. You have to be expanding the base, expanding the party, because compared to the Democratic Party, the Republican Party is a minority party.

Race baiting to appeal to a dying base is the futile refuge for a politician who has no place else to turn.

Sam Fulwood III is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

SOURCE: AP/ Steven Senne

In spite of all of the evidence that points to the struggles communities of color are facing,
both Gov. Mitt Romney and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) continue advocating for cuts to essential programs that are a lifeline for communities of color.

For more facts on Gov. Romney’s plans for America, a Center for American Progress Action Fund series entitled “Romney University,” click here.

Download this issue brief (pdf)

In various speeches this election season, including at the NAACP Annual Conference and the Latino Coalition Annual Economic Summit, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has been making the case that when it comes to people of color, his economic policies are the answer to their economic wellbeing.

Yet closer analyses of his stated positions on key issues that matter to these communities do not bear this out.

As has already been widely reported, communities of color have suffered and continue suffering the brunt of the effects of the Great Recession. African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and subgroups within the Asian American community continue to lag far behind their white counterparts on key economic indicators. And while it is true that these communities have historically faced significant economic challenges, the Great Recession pushed them even lower on the ladder of opportunity and farther from the American Dream.

How communities of color fare today and down the road matters greatly, not just for their own sake, but also because they are the future of our nation. Today the majority of children under one year old are kids of color and in 10 states people of color make up the majority of the population. The U.S. Census Bureau projects that by the year 2042 there won’t be an ethnic majority in our nation. It is therefore urgent that our next president not only understands the depth of the challenges communities of color face, but even more importantly that he puts forth policy solutions that match the urgency of the moment.

Unfortunately, Gov. Romney and his newly picked running mate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) have thus far shown a deep disregard for these communities’ economic struggles. By embracing and promoting a “cut at all costs” approach, they threaten to push further down those individuals and families who are already barely holding on and worsen the economic outlook of the next generations of Americans.

This brief takes a closer look at the positions of the Romney-Ryan ticket on essential programs that benefit all Americans, but especially communities of color, and provides an analysis on what would happen if their ideas where to be implemented.

Gov. Romney’s approach to solving the economic problems of communities of color

Earlier this year Rep. Ryan, chair of the House Budget Committee and now republican vice presidential nominee, forwarded a budget proposal for fiscal year 2013 that would significantly cut discretionary government spending. Ryan’s budget groups education, training, employment, and social services into one budget function that would be cut by about 20 percent. It would privatize Medicare while slashing nutrition assistance and health spending. According to calculations from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, two-thirds of Ryan’s cuts target programs that serve low-income Americans.

Gov. Romney supports this budget and called it “a bold step toward putting our nation back on the track to fiscal sanity.”

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee has not only embraced Ryan’s budget but has gone even further. His “Believe in America” plan would slash vital programs for the poor and middle classes, repeal the Affordable Care Act, and gut Medicare and Social Security.

By embracing these policies, Gov. Romney and Rep. Ryan have demonstrated that they do not grasp the impact these cuts would have on people who are struggling to make ends meet, especially the impact on people of color.

In the following section we lay out how these policies would affect essential programs for communities of color.

Jobs

Communities of color suffer from chronic high unemployment and the Great Recession and subsequent anemic recovery has worsened this situation, particularly among youth of color. The need for good jobs in key sectors as well as job-training programs, particularly for youth and the long-term unemployed, is more evident than ever.

Key employment sectors for communities of color include the public sector and the construction and food industries. According to the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Labor and Research, “The public sector is a key source of employment for African Americans. Blacks are 30 percent more likely to be employed in the public sector and at wage levels more equal to whites than in any other sector.”

For their part, Hispanics comprise a large part of the low-skilled labor market, making up more than 20 percent of workers in the construction and food industry.

Gov. Romney, however, opposes efforts to provide aid to states to prevent public-sector layoffs. In fact, he wants to dramatically reduce the size of government—which means eliminating jobs.

In addition, the Ryan plan, which Gov. Romney has repeatedly indicated that he supports, eliminates jobs in sectors that disproportionately employ Latinos, like construction. The Ryan plan disinvests in transportation infrastructure investment and under his proposed cuts, investments in construction projects to improve and repair the nation’s interstate highway system, public transportation, and railroads will be cut.

Rep. Ryan’s plan also proposes $133.5 billion in cuts over 10 years to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which not only helps families keep food on the table, but is a job creator as well, particularly in the food industry, which includes grocers, truckers, and agricultural workers. Even cuts of 10 percent would translate into nearly 96,000 jobs lost—job losses that disproportionately impact the food-processing industry, which employs many Latinos.

Moreover, one of Romney’s actual “jobs policies” is reducing the federal workforce by 10 percent, an idea that was also included in Ryan’s budget. Ironically, Romney’s 59-point jobs agenda would actually result in 360,000 fewer jobs in 2013. Six of his proposals would directly eliminate jobs from the U.S. economy by undermining growth-focused investments and by eliminating jobs in the public sector.

Job training

Another set of programs on the chopping block under both Gov. Romney’s and Rep. Ryan’s plans would be job-training programs. High youth-unemployment rates and disproportionate rates of long-term unemployment among communities of color make job-training programs a key bridge to the future for these workers. As governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney vetoed $11 million in job-training funds. As a presidential candidate he has proposed significant job-training cuts, which fall in line with House Republicans, who in 2011 passed a shortsighted and potentially devastating bill

(H.R. 1) to cut more than $4 billion from job-training programs, including:

• Eliminating $3 billion for Workforce Investment Act employment and training programs
• Eliminating $100 million to educate and train at-risk youth
• Eliminating $100 million to educate and train ex-offenders
• Rescinding $300 million from Job Corps

In addition, this past June House Republicans pushed through committee the Workforce Investment Act (H.R. 4297), which includes cuts to popular programs such as YouthBuild and the Job Corps, which as figures 1 and 2 show, serve a substantial number of young people of color. This legislation cuts these programs in the pursuit of consolidating workforce and job-training programs, an integral feature of Ryan’s proposed budget to reduce federal spending.

In light of high unemployment rates among people of color in general and specifically for Latino and African American young people (19.2 percent and 25.8 percent, respectively), it is particularly concerning that the Romney-Ryan ticket would pursue and support policies that reduce opportunities in employment, education, and training.

Taxes

Mitt Romney has not been forthcoming with concrete plans on jobs or the economy. He has stated that he will repeal some of President Obama’s tax cuts for working families, extend the Bush-era taxes, and enact massive tax cuts benefitting high-income households. As figure 3 shows, under Romney’s plan 3.7 million Hispanic and 2.2 million African American families would receive a tax increase from the loss of tax credits from the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit.

But millionaires would receive a tax cut averaging $250,000 in 2015. It’s important to note that Gov. Romney has not specified what middle-class tax benefits he would eliminate in order to pay for the tax breaks for the rich and thus these figures do not show the full impact of the tax increases on working families resulting from Gov. Romney’s plan.

Unions

Unions bolster opportunities for all workers in our country, but unions and the benefits they offer are especially important for communities of color. In 2008 people of color made up 30 percent of union membership. Unions provide workers with collective leverage and competitive benefits, protecting workers of color from falling further down the wage scale. As figure 4 shows, workers’ mean weekly earnings across the board are greater when they are union members; but this difference is especially significant for African Americans and Hispanics.

Yet Gov. Romney has cast himself as one of the staunchest antiunion candidates in recent history. He has promised to undo President Obama’s union-friendly executive orders while encouraging states to adopt laws prohibiting union/ employer agreements concerning union membership. If elected president, the former governor of Massachusetts has vowed to promote a robust antiunion agenda, including:

• Supporting states pursuing so-called “right-to-work” laws, which undermine the resources that help workers bargain for better wages and benefits
• Amending the National Labor Relations Act to guarantee secret ballots in union elections, a proposal that unions oppose
• Reversing an executive order from President Obama requiring federal agencies to use union labor on some government projects

Instead of offering solutions that will ensure that workers have good jobs with decent wages, Gov. Romney proposes to undermine their economic security by making it more difficult for workers to organize in spite of the fact that unions are key to their economic mobility.

Housing

Communities of color were most affected by the implosion of our housing market. The foreclosure rate in 2011 for Latinos and African Americans was nearly double that of whites—11.9 percent for Latinos and 9.8 percent for African Americans, compared to 5 percent for whites. The foreclosure rate for Asians was 6.6 percent. (see figure 5) In addition, approximately 25 percent of all Latino and African-American borrowers have lost their homes to foreclosure or are seriously delinquent, compared to just under than 12 percent for white borrowers. The same can be said about subprime loans where predatory lending practices contributed to the high foreclosure rates among people of color. African American and Latino borrowers are more than twice as likely to get a subprime loan than whites. What’s more, Asian borrowers are seven times more likely to receive a subprime loan. (see figure 6) This type of financial discrimination made it harder for people of color to pay their loans and thus contributed to the high numbers of foreclosures in those communities.

Moreover, African Americans and Latinos pay 3 percent more than white homebuyers for their homes, according to a study conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research that looked at 2 million home sales in four cities. Further, the study found that the higher prices were not tied to income, wealth, or credit rating, suggesting discrimination may be a factor.

According to the Center for Responsible Lending, in addition to the 2.5 million foreclosures already completed, there are an estimated 5.7 million borrowers at imminent risk of foreclosure. Independent analysts have projected that between 10 million and 13 million foreclosures will have occurred by the time the housing crisis finally ends. The Center for Responsible Lending further asserts that “as a share of the population of homeowners as of 2006, we estimate that 17 percent of Latino homeowners, 11 percent of African American homeowners, and 7 percent of non-Hispanic white homeowners already have lost or are at imminent risk of losing their home.”

And what is Gov. Romney’s answer to communities of color losing their homes in unprecedented numbers? In an October 2011 interview Gov. Romney, speaking about the housing crisis, stated, “Don’t try to stop the foreclosure process, let it run its course and hit the bottom.” Gov. Romney doubled down on this position during a Republican presidential debate on October 18, when he said that the right thing to do is to let the markets work, while condemning the idea of the federal government interceding to help families avoid foreclosure.

Gov. Romney has also promised to repeal the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, a move that would eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is key to protecting consumers, particularly consumers of color, from the financial abuses of the past because its mission is to enforce the laws regulating credit cards, mortgages, student loans, payday loans, and other kinds of financial products and services. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is also charged with enforcing federal fair-lending laws that protect consumers from discriminatory lending practices.

Immigration

Mitt Romney has not only made it clear that he would do nothing to fix our dysfunctional immigration system, he has even gone so far as call for a policy of “self-deportation” for undocumented immigrants. By “self-deportation,” he means that the federal government would need to make life as miserable as possible for the undocumented in an effort to drive them to leave the United States voluntarily. Consistent with that agenda, Gov. Romney would support Arizona-style “papers please” laws in more states.

Rep. Ryan, who this past April defended Gov. Romney’s extreme stance on immigration, voted, in 2005, in favor of the infamous Sensenbrenner bill, the most anti-immigrant bill to pass the House in the history of our country. With his vote Ryan showed support for turning every undocumented immigrant into a felon based solely on their lack of legal status.

And while Gov. Romney continues to dodge questions about whether or not he would repeal the president’s June 15 announcement to grant deferred action to DREAM Act-eligible youth, he has been very clear on the fact that he would veto the DREAM Act if it landed on his desk. On this issue too, there is no daylight between the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and his vice presidential pick. In December 2010 Rep. Ryan voted against passage of the DREAM Act in the House of Representatives.

Social Security

Social Security is an essential program for low-income communities of color. Research shows that people of color are more likely to rely on Social Security as their source of income, primarily because these communities tend to be in lower-wage jobs that do not offer retirement and or pension plans. Currently more than 25 percent of blacks and Latinos rely on these benefits for more than 90 percent of their family income. Among beneficiaries aged 65 and older, Social Security represents 90 percent or more of income for 25 percent of whites, 34 percent of blacks, and 33 percent of Hispanics.

Given that families of color have also been hit disproportionately by the Great Recession in terms of job loss and stagnating wages, there is less economic security in these families—in fact, an estimated 9 out of 10 senior households of color do not have enough economic security to sustain themselves throughout their projected lifetimes.

Gov. Romney’s plan to raise the retirement age for Social Security eligibility would have a disproportionately negative impact on Latinos and African Americans because Social Security is the primary or only income source in retirement for these communities. African American and Latino workers as they age tend to be in worse health than their white counterparts, tend to have lower life expectancies, and tend to have less retirement wealth outside of Social Security. Raising the retirement age is an across-the-board benefit cut that especially impacts communities of color who already disproportionately depend on Social Security.

Medicare

Medicare is another essential program that has a large impact on the health of communities of color. In 2010, for instance, 23 percent of seniors of color relied on Medicare as their only source of health care coverage.

Gov. Romney has proposed raising the eligibility age for Medicare, similar to his Social Security proposal—starting in 2022 the age for Medicare eligibility would rise by one month each year, which would shift costs to seniors. Some seniors who would no longer be eligible for Medicare would pick up employer coverage, but would end up paying more in premiums and cost sharing. He has also proposed giving individuals the option to stay on traditional Medicare or purchase health insurance from private companies through vouchers.

The governor’s running mate has also proposed dismantling this important safety net for communities of color. Under Rep. Ryan’s budget, tens of thousands of seniors could lose their coverage in the next 10 years, and most of the remaining beneficiaries would see their premiums increase.

Besides the above-mentioned problems of raising the eligibility age for certain communities of color, converting Medicare into a voucher program would aggravate the economic insecurity of seniors of color. For instance, studies show that more than one-third of African American and Latino senior households (34 percent and 39 percent) are financially at risk based on their current health expenses.

Health care

As stated earlier, racial and ethnic disparities in health and health care in the United States are persistent and well documented. Communities of color fare far worse than their white counterparts across a range of health indicators—life expectancy, infant mortality, prevalence of chronic diseases, self-rated health status, insurance coverage, and many others. And in 2010, 20.8 percent of African Americans and 30.7 percent of Latinos did not have health insurance compared to 11.7 percent of whites. One in five Asian Americans between the ages of 18 and 64 report having no health insurance or being uninsured during some portion of the past year.

Yet Gov. Romney has promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which includes numerous provisions that are explicitly intended to reduce health disparities and improve the health of racially and ethnically diverse populations, including expanding coverage to those who currently have no health insurance and providing financial assistance to help those with lower incomes purchase coverage. In addition, Obamacare has already benefited more than a million young people of color by allowing them to access health care through their parents’ insurance.

Another key feature of the Affordable Care Act is that it increases funding for community health centers. Obamacare provides an additional $9.5 billion in operating costs and $1.5 billion for new construction for community health centers. With this additional funding community health centers will be able to double the number of patients they serve to up to 40 million annually by 2015.

Community health centers serve vulnerable populations such as low-income people, the uninsured, migrant and seasonal farm workers, individuals and families experiencing homelessness, and people living in public housing. In fact, more than two-thirds of the patients who receive care at community health centers are people of color. Community health care centers also provide needed economic activity in the communities they serve. Studies demonstrate that increased funding to community health centers creates additional economic stimulus both within the center and beyond. The nearly $2 billion investment from the stimulus act, for example, generated $3.2 billion of economic activity, and in 2009, health centers generated approximately $20 billion in economic activity for their local communities. By intent, these health centers are located in lower-income, medically underserved communities mostly in rural and inner-city neighborhoods. In addition, studies find these are the same areas with the highest rates of unemployment and the highest rates of the uninsured.

Pell Grants

There aren’t many other programs that are as vital as the federal Pell Grant program in terms of opening the doors of higher education to students from low-income families. It is a key rung in the ladder of opportunity and has been enormously successful in leveling the playing field by providing access to higher education. As the following chart shows, Pell Grants are especially important for Hispanic and African American students who often come from low-income families, making the program key to their graduation prospects, their future economic success, and U.S. competitiveness.

One standout feature of the Romney-endorsed Ryan budget is that it would deliver the biggest reductions to funding of Pell Grants in program history. It would cut the Pell Grant program by $200 billion, which could “ultimately knock more than 1 million students off ” the program over the next 10 years and would reduce the number of low-income students receiving bachelor’s degrees each year by as much as 61,000.

Head Start

The Head Start program was created to promote school readiness for preschool children. Today Head Start serves thousands of children of color. (See figure 10) According to James Heckman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, “Every dollar invested in Head Start yields between $7 and $9 as the program’s alumni enter the work force and start contributing to the economy.”

While he was governor of Massachusetts, Romney cut funding for the Head Start program: In 2005 he cut the state’s Head Start program by $1.3 million and the next year he cut $1 million from the program.

The Romney-approved Ryan budget could cut programs like Head Start by 20 percent. An analysis by the National Education Association estimated that close to 200,000 children would lose Head Start classroom slots by 2014 under the Ryan budget. More alarmingly, over the next decade this would amount to 2 million children who would not be able to attend Head Start. According to the National Education Association the numbers breakdown like this: Cuts to Head Start in fiscal year 2013 would cause the loss of more than 61,000 slots for low-income children in the program and more than 22,000 jobs; and, in fiscal year 2014, the Romney-approved Ryan plan would cut an additional $1.6 billion from Head Start resulting in the loss of more than 191,000 slots for poor children and more than 79,000 jobs.

Quality early-childhood education is a key predictor of a child’s future educational achievement and emotional development. Slashing early childhood education is shortsighted and will ultimately hinder the nation’s economic recovery and dim its long-term economic prospects.

Conclusion

In spite of all of the evidence that points to the struggles communities of color are facing, both Romney and Ryan continue advocating for cuts to essential programs that are a lifeline for communities of color. Meanwhile, Romney’s platform offers $2.24 trillion in tax cuts for the top 1 percent of earners over 10 years.

The 2012 election affords us the opportunity to make choices that will have long-term impacts on our collective economic wellbeing. We need national leaders committed to ensuring that the economic ladder ascending to the middle class remains sturdy and available for the next generation of Americans. The economic plans of the Romney-Ryan ticket fall far short of delivering that.

Vanessa Cárdenas is Director for Progress 2050 Action at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Download this issue brief (pdf)

For more facts on Gov. Romney’s plans for America, a Center for American Progress Action Fund series entitled “Romney University,” click here.

SOURCE: AP/Jason E. Miczek

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, left, and his vice-presidential running mate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) arrive at a campaign rally Sunday, August 12, 2012, in Mooresville, North Carolina at the NASCAR Technical Institute.

For more facts on Gov. Romney’s plans for America, a Center for American Progress Action Fund series entitled “Romney University,” click here.

Download this issue brief (pdf)

Endnotes are available in the PDF version of this issue brief.

It is probably safe to assume that not many Latinos had heard of or knew much about Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) before GOP presidential nominee and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney announced that he was choosing Rep. Ryan as his running mate. Yet now that he is the Republican vice presidential nominee, his budget proposal—along with Gov. Romney’s—will be scrutinized by the Latino community.

When Latinos look closely, they will find that the policies that both candidates embrace are in direct contradiction to the policies that most Latinos support. As a 2011 LatinoDecision/Impremedia poll shows, 55 percent of Latinos believe that the government should make investments to stimulate the economy, 72 percent oppose cutting Medicare, and 60 percent believe that government should ensure that everyone has access to health care, among other findings.

Below we provide the facts on where Gov. Romney and Rep. Ryan stand on the key issues Latinos care about.

Health care

• Under the Affordable Care Act, an estimated 5.4 million Latinos will gain health care coverage.
• 736,000 Latino young adults between ages 19 and 25 now have coverage under their parent’s employer-sponsored or individually purchased health plan, thanks to the Affordable Care Act.
• Both Gov. Romney and Rep. Ryan have committed to repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act.

Pell Grants

• According to a Student Aid Policy Analysis report, from 2007 to 2008 Latino students were 13.7 percent of Pell Grant recipients. The federal Pell Grant program provides need-based grants to low-income undergraduate and certain postbaccalaureate students to promote access to postsecondary education.
• Rep. Ryan’s budget would cut the Pell Grant program by $200 billion, which could “ultimately knock more than one million students off” the program over the next 10 years.
• Gov. Romney plans to “simplify” (i.e., cut) federal higher education spending, which will make it much more difficult for students to receive financial support for school. He also plans to “refocus” education spending, which would result in increasing the requirements of receiving a Pell Grant.

Head Start

• In 2010, 34 percent of children in Head Start were of Hispanic origin. Head Start is a federal program that promotes the school readiness of children from birth to 5 years old from low-income families.
• The Ryan budget would cut $430.3 million from Head Start programs nationally, eliminating 61,612 slots for children and 22,640 jobs in fiscal year 2013 alone.
• Gov. Romney, as governor of Massachusetts, cut money from Head Start; in 2005 he cut Head Start by $1.3 million, and in 2006 he cut $1 million from the program.

Housing

• Latinos have a foreclosure rate about double that of whites—9.8 percent, compared to 5 percent for whites.
• Gov. Romney advocates a hands-off approach to the housing crisis, letting it run its course and hit rock bottom.
• Gov. Romney supports the elimination of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was established to enforce federal fair-lending laws that protect consumers from discriminatory lending practices. According to the Center for Responsible Lending, Latino borrowers were 30 percent more likely to get a subprime loan than were whites.

Jobs and job training

• Hispanics comprise a large part of the low-skilled labor market, making up more than 20 percent of workers in the construction and food industry.
• Under the Ryan budget plan, investments to improve and repair the nation’s interstate highway system, public transportation, and railroads will be cut, which would eliminate jobs for Latinos.
• If the Ryan budget were adopted into law, funding for federal job-training programs would be virtually eliminated. According to the Campaign to Invest in America’s Workforce, the Ryan budget would reduce the budget line that funds job-training programs by more than $16 billion, or 22 percent.
• The Ryan budget would cut programs such as YouthBuild and JobCorps, which serve a substantial number of Latinos.
• As governor of Massachusetts, Romney vetoed $11 million in job-training funds. As a presidential candidate, he has proposed big job-training cuts, as well.

Taxes

• Gov. Romney plans to increase taxes for millions of families and children of color by cutting the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit, which reduces families’ income taxes for all dependent children and supplements the wages of low-income families, respectively.
• 3.7 million Hispanic families with 8 million Hispanic children would receive a tax increase from the loss of tax credits from the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit.

Immigration

• Gov. Romney supports a policy of “self-deportation,” which aims to make the lives of the undocumented so difficult that they would choose to leave the country voluntarily.
• Gov. Romney also supports Arizona’s “papers please” law, which requires that law enforcement officers demand proof of legal status from anyone they suspect is undocumented.
• Rep. Ryan voted for the infamous Sensenbrenner bill (H.R. 4437) back in 2005, which made it a felony to be in the country without immigration status.
• Gov. Romney has promised to veto the DREAM Act, which would provide kids who lack immigration status and came to the United States as children the opportunity to earn citizenship by going to college or serving the country through military service.
• Rep. Ryan voted against the DREAM Act in 2010.

Poverty

• The Hispanic poverty rate increased from 25.3 percent in 2009 to 26.6 percent in 2010. Thirteen million Latinos were considered poor in 2010, representing an increase of 893,000 since 2009.
• More Latino children are living in poverty—6.1 million in 2010—than children of any other racial or ethnic group.
• Rep. Ryan gets 62 percent of his budget cuts from programs for lower-income Americans. His budget would kick millions off of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and would gut the Women, Infants, and Children nutrition program. Nineteen percent of nutrition assistance participants are Hispanic, and Hispanics represent the largest racial or ethnic group in the Women, Infants, and Children program.
• Gov. Romney’s budget plans could kick 13 million people off of food stamps.

Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program

• In 2009, 27 percent of Hispanic Americans—13 million people, including 9 million children—were covered by Medicaid.
• According to the National Council of La Raza, Latinos are about two times more likely than whites to have coverage through Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program; nearly half (49.3 percent) of Latino children have Medicaid or are covered by the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
• Rep. Ryan proposed ending the Medicaid entitlement, instead providing fixed-dollar- amount funding to states through block grants that would reduce funding for the program, thus jeopardizing the coverage and protections currently guaranteed for children and other vulnerable populations.
• The Ryan budget would dramatically reduce funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program by cutting nearly $29 billion in two years alone.

Reproductive rights

• Latina women experience unintended pregnancies at double the rate of white women. In addition, the abortion rate among Latina women is double the rate among white women.
• Gov. Romney has pledged to “get rid of” Planned Parenthood and to end funding for our nation’s family planning program. Rep. Ryan has voted to deny federal funding for both. They also have also supported legislation that would allow employers to take away no-cost contraceptive coverage from employees.
• Both Gov. Romney and Rep. Ryan have supported “personhood” amendments that would ban abortion in all circumstances with no exceptions whatsoever and would criminalize certain forms of birth control and fertility treatments.
• Eliminating the Title X Family Planning Program, which serves more than 5 million people with family planning services each year, would disproportionately hurt Latina women. In 2011, 29 percent of Title X clients were identified as Latina—many of whom have no other health care access.

Vanessa Cárdenas is the Director of Progress 2050 Action, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Download this issue brief (pdf)

Endnotes are available in the PDF version of this issue brief.

For more facts on Gov. Romney’s plans for America, a Center for American Progress Action Fund series entitled “Romney University,” click here.

SOURCE: AP/ Paul Sancya

Regardless of who wins the GOP nomination, the Republican candidate will rely on either the economy stopping its current positive trend or turning to social issues that have lost traction among the American public.

For a Republican candidate (pick any; for the sake of this argument it doesn’t really matter) to win the White House this fall, one of two things must happen, and neither of them are good for the GOP or the nation.

First, the prime conservative argument against re-electing President Barack Obama is that he’s responsible for the lack of jobs and high unemployment. For conservatives to make that argument stick, though, they’ll have to bet against prosperity.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) previewed the conservative argument in a critique of the White House budget proposals. “The president offered a collection of rehashes, gimmicks, and tax increases that will make our economy worse,” Boehner said.

But as of late, the economy seems to be turning around, not getting worse. Indeed, that argument hit a snag last week, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the January unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent, down from 8.5 percent in December and 9.1 percent back in August.

The January figure continues a trend of good news. The December figure was surprisingly revised upward to 203,000 new jobs from the previously reported 200,000, and November’s figure was revised upward to 157,000 from 100,000. Altogether, it’s a promising sign that things are beginning to look up. Or, as The New York Times reported, "the recovery seems finally to be reaching American workers."

If—and it’s a huge “if”—the job creation pace continues as it has in recent months, then the economic argument against President Obama loses its luster. Regardless, few economists predict the unemployment rate will return to the double-digit figure of late 2009, and many are crossing their fingers that it might fall a few tenths of a percentage lower. That’s good news for the nation, but not so cheery for a Republican presidential nominee.

That brings us to the second line of attack the forthcoming GOP nominee is likely to fall back on to win. For lack of a better name, let’s call it a return to divisive culture wars. This gambit is an attempt to rally hard-right conservative voters by attacking immigrants, gay and transgender Americans, and women’s health rights.

Once again, the conservative approach is drilling into a dry well.

Despite the evidence that suggests most Americans support immigration, the leading Republican presidential hopefuls have taken a hard, unwelcoming approach to the issue. In particular, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has reversed his erstwhile tacit support of immigration reform to court conservative presidential primary voters with a tougher stand. His flip-flop on the issue prompted Ann Garcia and Philip E. Wolgin, who track immigration issues for the Center for American Progress, to compare Romney’s mutable position to that of failed GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) of Arizona.

“Ultimately, Mitt has nothing to gain and everything to lose with his anti-immigrant strategy,” Garcia and Wolgin wrote. “Just ask Sen. McCain.”

And as my colleague Ruy Teixeira noted recently, young people are especially immigrant friendly, suggesting that conservatives ”are on the wrong side of Latino public opinion.”

Similarly, gay marriage isn’t a cutting-edge issue with growing numbers of voters. A series of polls conducted last year demonstrated that a majority of Americans support full marriage equality for same-sex couples, a marked reversal from years prior that showed clear majorities in opposition.

Yet GOP hopeful Rick Santorum met earlier this week with opponents of a new law in Washington State that legalized same-sex marriage and promised to stand with them. “I told them to keep up this fight, that this is an important issue for our families,” Santorum said of his meeting with more than 100 conservative pastors and other so-called “values voters” on Monday in Olympia, Washington.

On women’s health, it’s true that President Obama may have inadvertently given his future opponent an opening with the decision to require employers to offer contraceptive care in health insurance policies. This drew the ire of Catholic and other religious leaders who argued that it would require them to pay for something they’re morally opposed to providing. Predictably, the GOP candidates seized on the issue and criticized President Obama as “anti-religion.”

But is this really an issue with legs long enough to run to victory? I don’t think so. According to a poll this month by Public Religion Research Institute, a majority of Americans (55 percent) agree that “employers should be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception and birth control at no cost.” Roughly 6 in 10 Catholics polled (58 percent) agreed with that statement.

The firestorm of criticism pushed the administration late last week to offer a compromise that calls for insurance companies to provide contraceptives to women who work for employers unwilling to provide the benefit. “Some folks in Washington may want to treat this as another political wedge issue, but it shouldn’t be,” the president said in offering the compromise.

Of course they do. What else do they have to offer voters?

Sam Fulwood III is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

SOURCE: AP/Eric Gay

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's economic plans would include cuts to programs that help many Latinos.

In the race to win the Republican presidential nomination and capture a sizable portion of the Latino vote, Mitt Romney’s campaign is hoping to shift the emphasis from his extreme anti-immigration rhetoric to his economic plans to make the argument that when it comes to Latinos’ economic well-being, Romney is their man. But a closer analysis of his plans shows that the policies he embraces are out of step with the interests of the Latino community and in fact would hurt more than help.

Gov. Romney is right that the economy is the most important issue for Latino voters. A new national survey released by Pew Hispanic Center last week showed that a majority of Latinos (54 percent) believe that the economic downturn has been harder on them than any other group. According to the study, 59 percent of Hispanics report that they or someone in their household has been out of work in the past year, 75 percent say that their personal finances are in "only fair" or "poor" shape, and 28 percent of Latino homeowners say that they are underwater on their mortgages.

So what are Gov. Romney’s plans to fix these problems?

First of all, he supports Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) plans that would cut Medicaid spending by $770 billion over 10 years, reduce food stamps by $127 billion, and cut in half the funding of Pell Grants. Gov. Romney’s own budget plans seek to impose a cap on overall annual federal spending at 20 percent of the nation’s GDP, which would necessarily slash vital programs for the poor and middle class such as Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and Pell Grants. He also signed the Cut, Cap and Balance pledge promoted by a number of conservative and Tea Party groups.

His proposal to fund Medicaid through block grants to the states would result in deep cuts to a program that is at the crux of Latinos’ access to health care. In fact, according to the National Council of La Raza, in 2009, Medicaid and its sister program, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, covered more than one in four Latinos and nearly half (49.8 percent) of all Hispanics under age 18—representing 8.5 million children.

Social Security and Medicare are also of particular importance to Hispanics: Over three-fourths of senior citizens rely on Social Security for at least half of their income, and overall, Medicare serves approximately 3.5 million Hispanics. Gov. Romney’s plan to raise the retirement age for eligibility for Social Security would have a negative impact on Latinos because it would amount to an additional 13 percent across-the-board benefit cut. This would be especially unfair to low-income workers who are more likely to have significant health problems, and work in physically demanding jobs. It would also affect the elderly, who have a much harder time finding new work after being laid off.

Gov. Romney has also indicated that he would repeal the Affordable Care Act, which would insure 9 million Hispanics that currently lack health insurance, a position supported by only 29 percent of Latinos.

Finally, while Hispanics routinely cite education as a key issue and strongly support our public schools and access to college, Gov. Romney’s pledge to cut the budget would require cutting funds for Pell Grants—a program that benefits 12.1 percent of Latino undergraduate students.

Yet, while Gov. Romney’s seeks to cut these opportunity programs that are helping many stay afloat or help access higher education, he offers $2.24 trillion in tax cuts to the top 1 percent of earners. No wonder leading economists have stated that these plans fail to address the main problems with the economy, and would actually create deficits in the long run.

Unlike what Gov. Romney and others in the GOP argue, programs like Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, are part of a limited number of entitlements set up by the federal government to provide basic needs for those that need it the most at a time when many Americans, Latino included, have lost their economic foothold and are working hard to regain it.

Yes, the economy and real economic solutions are important for Latinos, but just like on immigration, Gov. Romney has embraced the wrong approach. As the primary season runs its course, Latino voters will learn even more about these proposals. Based on what we know so far, Romney will have a very hard time making his case to them.

Vanessa Cárdenas is Director of Progress 2050 at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

See also:

• The Real Ingredients in Class Warfare by Melissa Boteach

SOURCE: AP/ Charles Krupa

By 2050 the United States will have no racial majority and the uneven racial and ethnic population growth of the future could very well reshape the course of presidential politics for generations to come.

To keep myself interested while waiting for the GOP to complete its circular firing squad, I’ve begun to look down the road to the campaigns to come. No, I’m not talking about the November general election. Rather, I’m fascinated by what it will take to be president in the decades to come, when the United States will be a much-changed nation from what it is today.

I’m not alone in envisioning such progressive, future-forward politics. Stefan Hankin, president of Lincoln Park Strategies, a Washington-based public opinion research firm that advises progressive organizations and Democratic politicians, told me recently that “[t]he future for progressive policies is not about 2012 or the next election in two years. It’s about growing the future and seeing where the path leads us.”

The path that Hankin referred to is the fact that within the next 40 years, possibly sooner, the nation will no longer have a majority white population. In a study that his firm released late last year, Hankin noted that the U.S. population will grow by 19 percent over the next two decades, but such growth will not be spread evenly over all racial groups. Whites will increase almost 4 percent, which pales in comparison to the 63 percent growth rates of Latinos, 55 percent growth of Asians, and the 27 percent increase in the number of blacks. By 2050 the Census Bureau estimates that white Americans will be a statistical minority in the nation, with no racial group comprising more than 50 percent of the population.

To be sure, demography isn’t destiny. But the uneven racial and ethnic population growth of the future could very well reshape the course of presidential politics for generations to come.

To test this hypothesis the Lincoln Park report undertook a speculative, albeit credible, racial analysis of projected state-by-state voting patterns. Presidential elections are determined by Electoral College votes—not the popular vote—meaning state-aggregated tallies carry significant weight in choosing which party wins the White House. With the clustering of minority voters in “Blue” Democratic-leaning states and the concentration of white voters in “Red” Republican-leaning states, the Lincoln Park study hints at how future population shifts may affect the race for 270 Electoral College votes needed to elect a president.

They looked at five different scenarios. In Scenario One, which is based on voting results from the 2008 presidential elections, Democrats may enter the 2012 Election Day assured of 165 electoral votes in solid Blue states and another 86 in states that lean Blue. With 91 electoral votes in swing states, winning in Ohio and Virginia (and picking up Red-leaning North Carolina) were the keys to President Obama’s 2008 victory.

Assuming this pattern holds through to 2024 and 2032, the changing demographic profile strongly favors Democratic candidates. Indeed, by 2032 a generic Democratic nominee has enough to get elected just by appealing to the base and leaning Democratic states alone.

In Scenario 2 researchers speculated what would happen if Democratic support among Latino voters dropped by an arbitrary 10 points from 2008 levels. The race would tighten somewhat. But over time the tremendous support of Latino voters for Democrats greatly disadvantages Republicans. Once again, the core base and leaning Democratic states nearly carry the day by themselves.

In Scenarios 3 and 4 the researchers wondered what might happen with increased white support for Democrats. It’s interesting to note here that no Democratic presidential candidate has garnered the majority of white voters since President Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 landslide victory over Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona. But it doesn’t require a majority of the white vote to give Democrats an insurmountable edge.

In Scenario 3 (no chart) all a Democratic candidate needs is a mere 2 percent gain nationally among white voters, along with continued minority support, to create another landslide situation.

“The result of the model with constant Hispanic/Latino support and increased white support was so overwhelming that it does not merit a detailed exploration,” the report stated in dismissing the need to chart Scenario 3. “Base Democratic states alone were projected to account for 240 electoral votes in 2024 and 254 votes in 2032, while combined Base and Lean Republican states account for only 153 and 141 votes respectively.”

In Scenario 4 a 2 percent gain in white voters for Democrats combined with a 10 percent Latino decline offers what the researchers termed “an interesting electoral choice” for Democrats. The increase of white voters boosts the short-term viability for a Democratic candidate, but has negative long-term consequences. Specifically, this choice would have Democrats relying heavily on Rust Belt states, which aren’t growing as fast as the rest of the country.

Finally, Scenario 5 explains what would happen if Republicans increase support among Latinos by 10 percent, blacks by 10 percent, and white voters by 2 percent. “If Republicans can achieve these gains across racial/ethnic groups, the Electoral College map becomes much more manageable” for Republican presidential aspirants, the report said.

Hankin is more blunt about it. “It’s not about the Republicans winning a majority of any of these (racial and ethnic) groups’ votes,” he told me. “They just have to cut into the majorities that Democrats enjoy. If they can get 10 to 20 percent, then they’re back in the game.”

My colleagues Ruy Teixeira and John Halpin believe the demographic struggle is already shaping presidential politics. In a fascinating paper, "The Path to 270: Demographics versus Economics in the 2012 Presidential Election," they argue that the outcome of the current election will reflect the demographic changes buffeting the nation.

On the one side is the growing and Democratic-favoring “communities of color, single and highly educated women, Millennial generation voters [defined by Pew as those adults born 1981 or after], secular voters and educated whites living in more urbanized states or more urbanized parts of states.”

And on the opposing side, they write, is the shrinking and Republican-supporting “coalition of older, whiter, more rural and evangelical voters . . . [who are] becoming more geographically concentrated and less important to the overall political landscape of the country.”

Of course, I have no clue about the personalities or issues that will be in play in the presidential campaigns of 2024 or 2032. But I’m convinced whoever is running is unlikely to engage in the nasty, race-baiting tactics that some of the conservative wannabes are currently employing. I feel fairly certain about this because the inevitable march of demographic change that’s ongoing in the United States suggests that the future electorate won’t reward a candidate who sows racial animosity in an increasingly diverse America.

If I’m right then it raises a question that bears asking today of the Republican establishment that so desperately wants to win back the White House: If sweeping racial and demographic change is washing over the nation, why do you tolerate your leading candidates’ backward-looking, divisive, and race-baiting campaigns? Don’t you realize that such behavior threatens the future survival of the GOP?

Sam Fulwood III is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

An experienced politician and strategist who was Speaker of the House during the contentious period of welfare reform, he knows all too well where the racial landmines lie, making it obvious that he has been purposely stepping into them. This clear political strategy to gain a certain group of white voters always presents a Catch-22 for the black community and progressives.

Read more here.

SOURCE: AP/Jim Cole

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich talks to his staff during a campaign stop in Manchester, New Hampshire, Monday, January 9, 2012.

Years ago when I started my professional life as a newspaper journalist, I believed sincerely that when people consumed a daily diet of facts along with their morning coffee, they were inclined to make better civic-minded decisions. Now some three decades later, I’m no longer a reporter covering a beat, and I suspect that my youth may have been misspent.

Writing this week in The Wall Street Journal, columnist Carl Bialik noted that voters “have strong opinions about policy issues shaping the presidential campaign, from immigration to Social Security.” But for many of them, their understanding of the facts supporting their views "can be tenuous." He pointed to studies that repeatedly demonstrate that Americans vastly overestimate the percentage of citizens in the country who are foreign-born by a factor of more than two. Worse, they overestimate the percentage of those who are living here in the shadows as undocumented residents by a factor of six or seven. If those voters have bad facts, it’s nearly impossible for them to reach rational and reasonable conclusions about immigration policies.

Even if these voters have the right facts, however, it may not make a difference. Political scientists John Sides of George Washington University and Jack Citrin of the University of California at Berkeley found just that to be the case. In a paper presented at the 2007 annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association in Chicago, the two scholars tested whether giving the public accurate information changed their attitudes toward immigration policies. Sadly it did not. “On average, then, providing correct information does not change attitudes toward immigration,” they wrote.

To give another example: Large numbers of Americans tell politicians they want foreign aid cut. But when pressed to disclose how much the nation should spend abroad, they cite figures that The Christian Science Monitor estimated at 10 times what the nation now spends.

There’s one way to explain such discrepancies: Facts just don’t matter to some people. And to be sure, that’s why unscrupulous politicians engage in the Big Lie. As a propaganda technique, repeating a falsehood over and over emboldens those inclined to believe it to heartily support anyone who tells them what they already know to be true—even if it is not.

Witness, for example, the despicable spectacle of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich campaigning for votes among conservative white voters in New Hampshire by talking tough about black people on welfare. “I’m prepared, if the NAACP invites me, I’ll go to their convention and talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps,” Gingrich said last week.

That widely reported comment prompted broad criticism of Gingrich’s easy lapse into racial stereotyping. The fact that he said it isn’t debatable. He did say it. But this week he told a black man at a political rally that he didn’t.

As reported by my Think Progress colleagues Alex Seitz-Wald and Travis Waldron, Yvan Lamothe, a 59-year-old former New Hampshire state employee and small-business owner, seized the opportunity at a town hall event Sunday to tell Gingrich that he was offended by the comments. “I didn’t say that,” Gingrich declared, presumably with a straight face. Rather, Gingrich said he was the one who should be offended. “I just want to say that frankly this makes me very irritated. The Democratic National Committee took totally out of context half of the sentence, OK?”

Gingrich’s denial brings to mind the old routine by comedian Richard Pryor, when a cheating spouse is caught in the act by his wife. “Who you gonna believe?” the man says in all earnestness. “Me or your lying eyes?”

Unfortunately, far too many Americans seem willing to trust politicians who tell them something completely contrary to what they see, hear, and ought to know to be the factual opposite. And it seems there’s an ample supply of political demagogues willing to tell them just what they want to hear.

Just look at Rick Santorum saying at a New Hampshire campaign event last week, “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money.” Then, when criticized for sounding like a bigot, he claimed he never said it.

Or look at some conservative activists that insist on demonizing Medicaid, arguing that it’s a government giveaway to poor people. In fact, it’s very much a middle-class program as well.

For me, as someone who fondly remembers being a young and idealistic journalist, the idea that some Americans will cling to erroneous beliefs in the face of demonstrated facts is a bitter brew to swallow. The only thing worse is my late-life awareness that there are those who know better but still serve up lies for their own political purposes.

Sam Fulwood III is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and Director of the CAP Leadership Institute. His work with the Center’s Progress 2050 project examines the impact of policies on the nation when there will be no clear racial or ethnic majority by the year 2050.

SOURCE: AP/Patrick Semansky

Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain speaks at the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, Friday, June 17, 2011.

Could it really happen? Could the 2012 presidential ballot feature a top-line, smack-down, pizza-making executive Herman Cain as the Republican Party challenger against President Barack Obama, the Democratic incumbent?

As I write this, Cain is the statistical leader in a crowded field of Republican candidates. If the election were held today—daring to believe an NBC-Wall Street Journal poll released last week—Cain would be his party’s nominee. The poll conducted by the usually reliable and bipartisan polling tandem of Democratic Peter D. Hart and Republican Bill McInturff revealed Cain as the front-running choice of 27 percent of likely Republican voters, followed by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s 23 percent, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s 16 percent.

Such numbers mean nothing at this stage of the game. Or do they? Well, I think the poll figures are significant, but not because they paint a path for Cain toward the White House. Rather, I find it noteworthy—inspiring, in fact—that a black man is the darling of the Republican presidential field. What’s more, his support is anchored by Tea Party radicals who are widely demonized as a racist fringe of the Republican Party.

Is that progress or not? In a perverse way, I believe it is.

What Cain’s thus-far successful campaign tells us is that there’s no solitary way to be a black American. If we care to listen and learn, Cain is telling the nation and world that black people are as varied and unique as white snowflakes. Political opportunism—in Cain’s case his publicly espousing views privately shared by a few conservative blacks and consequently finding an embrace among many conservative whites—like ideology and political leanings, knows no racial boundaries.

For sure, Cain’s extreme conservatism swivels 180 degrees opposite to almost everything President Obama represents. And that is precisely what makes him popular with the people who desperately want to believe in what Cain represents. So it comes as little surprise that another poll reported this week by FoxNews.com suggests that if the election were held today, Cain would actually beat the president. This poll, conducted by the right-leaning Rasmussen Reports, says such a hypothetical heads-up contest shows Cain collecting 43 percent of the general election vote to Obama’s 41 percent.

Never mind that almost none of those Cain supporters today are black. Cain’s rise to political prominence among right-wing zealots represents the pretzel-like knots that his almost exclusively white supporters must contort themselves into to deny President Obama’s reelection. Cain’s black skin, folksy language, and cocky conservatism shields haters of our president from accusations of racism. To be fair, liberal extremists were similarly overjoyed to cast a ballot for Obama, as if doing so proved that they—indeed, the nation—had entered some imaginary postracial period.

Simply put, if President Obama and Cain find themselves face to face in a series of presidential debates, then both ultra-conservatives and liberal extremists would have to admit on some gut level that they were staring into a funhouse mirror—the similarity of the candidates’ skin contrasted by their very different politics, the latter of which would have put both men on the ballot, couldn’t be any brighter if one candidate was ebony and the other was ivory.

But they’re both black and Americans. For this brief moment they’re standard bearers for their respective political parties. I’d love nothing more than to see them as the last two candidates standing. Perhaps their respective skin tones would cancel out racial concerns during the presidential debates, allowing voters to see only the sharp and distilled clash of governing ideologies.

Imagine the mind-blowing experience that would produce all across our nation, especially across Dixie. Would white and black voters alike flip coins to decide which lever to pull? Or would they just vote for one of the black men based on what they say on the campaign trail and be done with it?

About four years ago I pooh-poohed the idea of a black guy with a Muslim name getting elected president. Today, again, I’m wishing and hoping for something my heart wants to see but my head tells me is impossible. Could political lightning strike America once again, short-circuiting our tired notions about race and voting? Can the Republican Party establishment link arms with the Tea Party enthusiasts to unite behind the only candidate that Fox News says can beat President Obama?

The Atlantic‘s Chris Good labeled Cain “the Alternate-Reality Candidate” and speculated he could very well be the Republican Party’s flag bearer come next fall. Either Cain will make Romney appear “more real by comparison” and deliver the nomination to the former governor, says Good, or “Cain will win the nomination, at which point a portal will open connecting us to a parallel world ruled by charismatic antipoliticians with simple and catchy tax plans.”

Goodness, I hope so. As improbable as it seems, I can’t help myself from cheering Cain on to the nomination. Just the idea of him standing cheek-by-jowl with Obama in the run-up to the election—the two of them leading their respective parties, with almost nothing in common save their black skins—thrills me like nothing else in the strange, strange world of politics.

Sam Fulwood III is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

SOURCE: AP/Alex Brandon

Donald Trump's run for president has so far consisted of appealing to birthers and making insensitive comments about African Americans.

Just what is Donald Trump trying to prove? Is he seriously considering a run to be the Republican presidential nominee? Or is he merely playing the huckster for his entertainment-business interests? Or maybe it’s both, as I suggested in this space last week.

Regardless, I have absolute faith that Trump won’t ever get elected president of a backwater town council, let alone president of the United States. Still, it pains me to see him parade through the media and blogosphere as if his antics were something real, which they’re most assuredly not. It hurts because his attention-seeking act has crossed a line from masturbatory sideshow into public racial demagoguery.

By now, more than two years into the current administration, only an ineffective number of tin-foil hat wearers cling to the widely discredited notion that President Barack Obama isn’t qualified by birth or intellect to sit in the Oval Office. Even Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN), the darling of the Tea Party and a potential GOP presidential hopeful, has called off the dogs and wants to move away from birtherism nonsense.

But not The Donald. He shouts foolish and ridiculous arguments because he’s convinced that’s the ticket to success. Perhaps he’s persuaded by The New York Times/CBS News poll that found 45 percent of self-identified GOP voters doubt the president is a U.S. citizen. But more likely, he just adores the media spotlight.

So off goes Trump, hither and there, from one microphone to another, declaring he will get to the bottom of the story about the president’s birth. “I’ll tell you, people love this issue especially in the Republican Party,” Trump said, in a revealing burst of candor.

Yes, right there is the smoking gun. Trump knows that despite all the talk of big tents and such, whipping up racial animosity has a long history among some uberconservative voters. But tapping into the birther foolishness won’t get Trump elected president because there aren’t enough crazy people who vote to do that. Indeed, that New York Times/CBS poll also noted that a majority of Americans (57 percent) are satisfied that President Obama is a U.S. citizen.

Still, Trump is a national menace because racial feelings in America are always in a delicate state. Fanning the flames of base and vile attitudes guarantees Trump, the Hamlet-like candidate, a soupcon of short-term attention. But it will also dump bucket loads of toxins into our national conversation on race, fraying the fragile fabric of comity that binds us together.

I’m not convinced that Donald Trump understands what he’s doing. His megalomania prevents him from seeing himself as the rest of the sane world sees him. How else to explain his head-slapping comment about “the blacks.”

Earlier this month, he told New York Post reporter and radio show host Fred Dickler that black support for President Obama is “frightening,” but that if he ran against him he would peel off a fair share of African-American voters. “I have a great relationship with the blacks,” he said. That comment was creepily reminiscent of the “some of my best friends are …” comment that sensitive white people stopped saying, oh, a quarter-century ago.

But not The Donald. The sad—maybe even tragic—irony is that a great many black people actually admire Trump’s brassy public persona. Politico‘s Ben Smith astutely noted recently that Trump’s act as host of NBC’s "Celebrity Apprentice" is must-see television for large segments of black viewers, partly because the show routinely features black cast members.

What’s more, a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, conducted before Trump went birther, suggests that Latinos and African Americans were inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt as a presidential candidate. The poll showed that the groups with the most favorable opinion of Trump were Latinos (33 percent positive to 23 percent negative) and African Americans (27 percent positive to 22 percent negative). Overall, survey respondents had a 26 percent favorable opinion and 29 percent negative opinion.

Trump is tossing away his potential goodwill for the lure of fool’s gold. For sure, even in his hair-challenged brain, The Donald knows he’s unlikely to displace President Obama. But what I can’t figure out is why he’s turning himself into the biggest loser by appealing to the relatively few idiots and racists who lurk among us?

Sam Fulwood III is a Senior Fellow at American Progress. His work with the Center’s Progress 2050 examines the impact of policies on the nation when there will be no clear racial or ethnic majority by the year 2050.

SOURCE: AP/Rob Carr

Latinos are the second-largest population in the United States and the fastest-growing segment in our nation. As such, their concerns and interests should matter to those seeking their votes.

Latinos will head to the polls in less than two weeks to decide who gets their vote. On the issues they care about—the economy, education, health care, and immigration—conservatives have not supported key legislation and have often stood in the way of progress.

Moreover, on September 23, House Republicans issued their “Pledge to America,” a 48-page document that outlines their governing philosophy should they win the majority in the upcoming elections. The pledge was the result of a “listening tour” across the country and based on ideas solicited from the American people. Yet upon closer inspection it seems that the needs and concerns of Americans of Latino heritage were not included.

Is the conservative agenda really in line with the Hispanic community’s needs? Based on an analysis of conservative positions on issues that matter to them the answer is a resounding “no.”

The economy

The Republican “Pledge to America” strikes Latino communities from multiple economic fronts. It generates higher unemployment while cutting or even eliminating programs that help those out of work. Moreover, the Republicans’ tax policies would ultimately increase our federal budget deficit by $200 billion by 2020 and increase growth in federal debt while providing very few benefits to most Americans. And their calls to repeal Wall Street reform will once again make Latinos a favored target of predatory lenders.

Cuts across the board that would increase unemployment

The pledge calls for a return to “pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels” of spending. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities states that achieving this goal would require a 20 percent across-the-board spending cut throughout government agencies. Such spending cuts during a weak economy would cause a large contraction in demand, which could push the economy into a second recession.

Data show that recessions are particularly hard on communities of color. They also create disproportionately higher levels of unemployment for these communities, Latinos included. Drastic cuts in spending would only increase the already high rate of unemployment in the Latino community—12.4 percent compared to a national unemployment rate of 9.5 percent.

Eliminating emergency programs

Cuts would likely need to be made to important emergency programs to meet the pledge’s goal of cutting $100 billion in spending. These programs are keeping the economy afloat and providing necessary assistance to the Latino community.

For instance, substantial cuts or outright elimination of the Emergency Unemployment Compensation program would need to be made. This program boosts demand by providing benefits to individuals who have been out of work for longer than 26 weeks and have exhausted their regular state-provided unemployment insurance or UI benefits.

The average length of unemployment is currently 33.6 weeks, so communities with higher rates of unemployment—such as Hispanics—will feel even more pain from these spending cuts. And without these benefits many Latino small business owners—who are already concerned about sales—would see even less business because the unemployed will have no money to spend.

Adding to future deficits

Conservatives’ broader economic ideas on tax policy, for example, aren’t any better. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Republican candidates such as Connecticut’s Linda McMahon have stated that they will only support a tax cut if it includes the top 2 percent of income earners—an income bracket for which Hispanics comprise only 0.9 percent. The cost of tax cuts for this income bracket is $830 billion in future deficits over 10 years.

Most economists agree that tax cuts for wealthy families do not stimulate the economy because these families save their extra money instead of spending it. Proposing such a tax cut is bad policy that benefits the few at the expense of the many.

Taking away protections from predatory lenders

Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) says he wants to repeal the Wall Street reform bill, and California Republican Senatorial Candidate Carly Fiorina has proposed that the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau be entirely defunded.

These aren’t sensible policies. A new study by Professor Douglas Massey of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University shows just how terrible predatory lending was for communities of color before the financial crisis. According to Massey, “predatory lending aimed at racially segregated minority neighborhoods led to mass foreclosures that fueled the U.S. housing crisis.” Massey found that “living in a predominantly African-American area, and to a lesser extent Hispanic area, were ‘powerful predictors of foreclosures’ in the nation.”

Defunding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—which would police consumer abuses in the financial system—would leave communities of color susceptible to continued predatory lending practices.

In short, congressional Republicans offer no meaningful vision for how to address the economic challenges facing the Latino community such as high unemployment and poor job growth. And they want to take away key protections that would put the personal finances of Latino households at risk.

Poverty

Poverty data released by the U.S. Census Bureau in September revealed that in 2009 one in seven Americans—and more than one in four Latinos—lived in poverty last year.

Yet the word “poverty” is noticeably absent in the “Pledge to America.” Communities of color, particularly Latinos, should be very concerned that the pledge lacks a comprehensive plan to reduce poverty. Last year, one in three Latino kids (33.1 percent) lived in poverty, and Latinos overall experienced the largest jump in poverty of any ethnic or racial group, from 23.2 percent to 25.3 percent.

A plan that would increase poverty rates

Not having a plan to tackle poverty is bad enough. But the pledge’s policies would actually exacerbate poverty for everyone, including Latinos.

One of the pledge’s most disturbing ideas is a proposed hard cap on discretionary spending. This would result in massive cuts to programs like nutrition assistance for vulnerable pregnant mothers and newborns, Head Start, and Pell grants. These cuts would hurt all struggling Americans but disproportionately Latinos.

Many of these programs serve Latino children and youth, 92 percent of whom are U.S. citizens and our future workers and taxpayers. For instance, 42.1 percent of all participants in the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program for pregnant women, infants, and children are Latinos. And more than one-third (36 percent) of participants in Head Start—a program that provides comprehensive education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income children and their families—are of Hispanic or Latino origin. Over one-third of Latino undergraduates received Pell grants to help pay for their postsecondary education.

Slashing these programs would do very little to reduce the deficit—and may even add to it over the long term. The Center for American Progress Action Fund’s Half in Ten project recently released a report showing that much of our long-term debt problem is due to “ill-advised tax cuts of the previous decade, which overwhelmingly benefited high-income groups.” These are exactly the tax cuts that the pledge seeks to extend indefinitely.

In contrast, the nondefense discretionary spending conservatives intend to cut has actually declined as a percentage of gross domestic product over the past few decades. This type of short-term spending also can make an enormous dent in child poverty through programs such as nutrition assistance, housing vouchers, and child care subsidies. Not dealing with child poverty has costs: The Half in Ten paper underscores that over the long run child poverty alone costs the U.S. economy more than half a trillion dollars a year in lost productivity and associated health and criminal justice expenditures.

Investments in programs such as WIC, Head Start, and child care represent cost-effective discretionary spending that can help relieve the child poverty disproportionately affecting Latino kids. As noted above, failure to make necessary investments now could actually limit future economic productivity and worsen the fiscal outlook of states and the federal government.

The pledge to slash discretionary spending while racking up $830 billion in more debt from tax breaks to millionaires is bad for low-income families, bad for Latinos, and bad for our economy.

Education

Latino students’ academic achievement rates are persistently low. Consider these dire statistics: Less than 20 percent of Hispanic 4th, 8th, and 12th graders are on grade level in reading. Only 56 percent of Latinos earn a high school diploma. And of these high school completers only 64 percent matriculate to college.

These translate to poor adult outcomes—lower-paying, low-skill jobs and an inability to move into the middle class. If Republicans are serious about improving America’s future then raising Latino students’ academic success rates should be at the top of their to-do list. Again, however, the pledge doesn’t mention education. And education policies that benefit Latino students are few and far between.

Calls to eliminate the Department of Education

Some Republican Senate candidates want to abolish the federal Department of Education, the agency responsible for administering millions of dollars in grants to schools in Latino communities. More than a half dozen Republican Senate candidates, including West Virginia’s John Raese, Kentucky’s Rand Paul, and Nevada’s Sharron Angle have called for eliminating or significantly shrinking the Education Department.

Cuts to Pell grants and DREAM Act opposition

The pledge proposes severe cuts to discretionary spending, including several educational programs that support student success. One of the most detrimental would be a $5 billion decrease in the Pell grant program that allows many low-income Latino students to afford college. Republicans have also managed to stall the DREAM Act—which would have helped 65,000 undocumented students go to college—by refusing to vote in support of a motion that would have brought the act to a vote in the Senate.

This country’s economic future depends on the academic achievement of today’s students—no matter what race or ethnicity. Increasing the number of Latino students ready for college and a career should be part of any policymaker’s agenda. A lack of policy objectives—or worse, policies that hurt Latino students—is unconscionable and undermines America’s economic progress.

Health care

The House Republicans’ plan embodied in the pledge seeks to repeal health care reform. And it will do nothing to address the lack of health insurance, lack of access to preventive and primary care, and language and cultural barriers that Hispanic families face in accessing the care they need.

Hispanics have the highest uninsured rates of any racial or ethnic group within the United States. The percentage of people of Hispanic origin without health insurance coverage also is increasing every year. In 2009, 32.7 percent were uninsured, an increase of 1.26 million people over the previous year. For Hispanics ages 18 to 64 the uninsurance rate was 41.5 percent.

The pledge will not improve access to health insurance coverage for Hispanic Americans

The pledge offers no plans to expand coverage to those who cannot afford health insurance. It seeks to repeal Medicaid expansions, financial help to small businesses struggling with the costs of employee coverage, and the tax subsidies that will help working families purchase coverage through health insurance exchanges.

House Republicans claim that they will make it illegal for an insurance company to deny coverage to someone with prior coverage on the basis of a preexisting condition, eliminate annual and lifetime spending caps, and prevent insurers from dropping coverage just because someone gets sick. But they never mention that all of these protections are already enacted in the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, which they want to repeal.

The Republican “Pledge to America” will not improve access to a primary care provider and usual source of care

Half of Hispanic Americans do not have a regular doctor, compared with only one-fifth of white Americans. Almost half of low-income Hispanics lack a usual source of care. A primary care provider and a facility where a person receives regular care substantially improve health outcomes. The ACA’s emphasis on primary care will particularly benefit people of color, especially those who live in areas that are currently medically underserved.

The pledge seeks to repeal provisions in the ACA that will boost primary care capacity and workforce, establish more school-based clinics and more community health centers targeted to the needs of the communities they serve, and develop and expand the medical home model for Medicare and Medicaid patients. Medical homes—health care settings that provide patients with timely, well-organized care and enhanced access to providers—are associated with a reduction in health care disparities for adults and better access to preventive services.

The pledge will not provide better preventive health services

Older Hispanic Americans have higher incidences of certain chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and arthritis than the rest of the U.S. population. Twenty-one percent of Hispanic elders have diabetes compared to 14.3 percent of non-Hispanic whites. They are also much more likely to be hospitalized for diabetes due to poor diabetes control. And they are far less likely to receive pneumonia or flu shots or participate in cancer screening services.

The pledge will do nothing to improve this. It includes a promise to repeal ACA provisions that will enhance preventive care and remove the co-payments and deductibles for approved preventive services such as immunizations, screening for colorectal cancer and diabetes, and mammograms.

The Affordable Care Act, meanwhile, makes significant advances for Hispanics’ health coverage, quality of care, and access to health care services. It represents an important milestone toward the ultimate goal of eradicating racial and ethnic disparities in health and health care in the United States.

The pledge represents a devastating rollback of much-needed changes to our nation’s health care system—a step backward that will ensure that communities of color continue to receive poorer care and live in poorer health than the rest of the nation.

Immigration

Latinos, like all Americans, are concerned about the economy, jobs, and education. But polling shows that Latino voters are paying close attention to how policymakers discuss immigration and studying their proposals for reform. In fact, recent polling shows that immigration reform is a top priority for this fast-growing demographic of new voters.

Immigration reform has long been a bipartisan issue where clear thinking Republican leaders like John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsay Graham (R-SC), and former President George W. Bush have supported sensible reform.

Unfortunately, in the past year many in the Republican Party—including those who supported reform previously—have abandoned realistic reform aimed at fixing our broken immigration system. Instead, they have adopted a myopic mantra of “enforcement first,” or, worse yet, moved the debate far to the right with support for the infamous draconian immigration law (SB 1070) passed in Arizona last spring amid calls for changing the Constitution to repeal birthright citizenship.

Immigration reform stalled

Sen. Graham had been the sole Republican working with Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) on a bill to reform our nation’s dysfunctional immigrant system. But in late April he withdrew his support for comprehensive immigration reform, citing the need to “prove to the American people we can secure our border.” Since then, Republicans have, in unison, hidden behind the mantra of “border security first” and refused to negotiate a comprehensive solution.

Senate Republicans put the brakes on even modest reform measures

In September Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) tried to secure the votes to begin debate on a defense authorization bill (S 3454). Reid made clear his intention to offer as an amendment to the authorization bill the DREAM Act, a bipartisan measure that offers a discreet number of qualified undocumented students the chance to apply for legal status.

Unfortunately, DREAM and the entire authorization bill fell prey to the unprecedented, uncooperative, and partisan environment in the Senate. The entire Republican caucus and two Senate Democrats blocked consideration of the DREAM Act by refusing to vote against advancing the authorization bill onto the Senate floor.

Dueling immigration bills introduced in September

Lead Republicans like Sens. John Kyl and John McCain (both from Arizona) were once again challenged to stand up for Latinos earlier this month when Sens. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced a comprehensive immigration reform bill (S 3932). The bill includes a set of border security benchmarks that must be met before undocumented immigrants can register, undergo background checks, pay back taxes, learn English, and go to the back of the line to be eligible for permanent residency. This too was met with hostility and the introduction of a counter enforcement-only bill (S 3901) by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT).

Arizona and “anchor babies”

Meanwhile, Republicans at the state and local level like Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and Arizona State Sen. Russell Pearce have put undocumented immigrants in the crosshairs. Efforts are underway in the Grand Canyon State to significantly reduce its undocumented immigrant population using the “attrition through enforcement” strategy and to unconstitutionally deny citizenship to American-born children of undocumented immigrants—who are sometimes derogatorily referred to as “anchor babies.”

The Republican leadership is on board with these proposals despite the Department of Justice’s lawsuit to invalidate the Arizona immigration law and the clear unconstitutionality of denying citizenship to U.S.-born children. In fact, Sens. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and David Vitter (R-LA) tried to block the Obama administration from participating in lawsuits against Arizona’s SB 1070.

“Pledge to America” misses the mark—again

It should come as no surprise that the pledge is no better for Latinos on immigration. It only views immigration through a national security and enforcement lens without offering a serious, comprehensive, bipartisan proposition to a complex problem.

It calls for “operational security of the border,” ignoring the fact that years of enforcement have done little to decrease the levels of illegal immigration. Further, the document promotes Arizona-like measures by calling on state and local officials to enforce immigration laws.

Conclusion

Latinos are the second-largest population in the United States and the fastest-growing segment in our nation. As such, their concerns and interests should matter to those seeking their votes. The conservative agenda and its priorities are out of step when it comes to the key issues for this community. Those aspiring for the Latino vote should take note and offer serious and realistic solutions to tackle the urgent challenges facing our nation.

SOURCE: AP/Julie Jacobson

Nevada Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) greets supporters after speaking at a rally held by members of the Hispanic community on October 16, 2010, in Las Vegas. There are six tight Senate contests in states where Latino voters can influence the outcome: California. Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, and Nevada.

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Event: Courting the Latino Vote

Two years after playing a decisive role in the election of President Barack Obama, Latino voters are poised to play a critical role in the November 2010 contests and in years to come as their population and voting numbers increase.

The key question for Latinos, as with all voters, is whether the general malaise with government will deflate turnout at the polls, or whether frustration with a stalemated Congress will actually fuel election participation to let their voices be heard.

Midterm elections usually draw fewer voters than in presidential election years, but this year of the cranky voter threatens to upset political norms, and the Latino electorate will be a major factor in the post-election analyses.

Whatever the outcomes, there is one dynamic that will not change this November and beyond: Candidates who draw Hispanics to the polls by addressing their top issues such as immigration and the economy will be rewarded with the votes of this ever-expanding segment of the electorate. Those who do not may rue the day they ignored Latinos’ concerns.

Whipping up immigration

Heated gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races are in play in eight states where Latinos make up at least 10 percent of voters: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, and Texas, plus Connecticut and Illinois, which also have growing Latino electorates.

The strength of the Latino voter turnout is also primed to determine the outcome in 17 of the toughest races for seats in the House of Representatives. These are districts where Hispanic voter registration is high enough to sway the outcomes if Latinos maintain past voting trends. The National Council of La Raza has calculated that an additional 700,000 Latino voters will participate in 2010 over the last midterm election in 2006, if previous trends in electoral growth hold.

A recent NALEO Educational Fund poll found that approximately 65 percent of registered Latinos say they support Democratic candidates for Congress in November, compared to 22 percent who say they support Republicans. Still, party loyalty is not a sure bet this year.

Latinos are unhappy over Democrats’ failure to enact comprehensive immigration reform, especially in the midst of the Arizona state legislature’s unduly harsh immigration control measures now being copied in other states. Immigration emerged this election season as Latino voters’ top concern for the first time in recent years of polling, ranking higher or equal to their worries about the sluggish economic recovery.

Yet the Republican Party’s performance has been exceedingly worse than Democrats, according to Latino voter surveys.

The Republican brand has been seriously damaged in Latino households by a questionable strategy to make immigrants this year’s political scapegoats, even though a strong majority of all voters favor enactment of comprehensive immigration reform that is tough and fair. Some conservatives have disregarded the tinge of discrimination Latinos feel when inflammatory rhetoric is directed at immigrants who are their friends, relatives, or similar in skin color. To counter that, faith and business coalitions have formed to promote comprehensive immigration reform, including one headed by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in partnership with top executives such as News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch.

Still, in this election season, we are seeing some of the strongest anti-immigrant rhetoric and campaign ads in recent years, and even a cynical attempt by a conservative activist in Nevada to reduce Latino voter turnout through a new ad urging Latinos not to vote because Congress failed to enact comprehensive immigration reform.

Political grandstanding on ethnically divisive issues such as immigration, mixed with economic uncertainties that began during the previous presidential administration promise powerful election results.

Political analysts agree that immigration restrictionists have taken most of the air out of any short-term hope the GOP had to win back President George W. Bush’s previously loyal Latino supporters when conservatives allowed them to turn immigrants into a political football. As Bush proved, a Republican cannot win the White House without at least 40 percent of the Latino vote.

Political grandstanding on ethnically divisive issues such as immigration, mixed with economic uncertainties that began during the previous presidential administration promise powerful election results.

Too many voters with too much at stake

The competition for Latino support is fierce this year in the major gubernatorial races in states where Latinos make up at least 10 percent of voter registrations: California, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Florida, New York, and Texas, and also in Illinois where Latinos make up 7.5 percent of registered voters.

The Republican Party has tried to downplay its draconian immigration policies by highlighting the ethnic backgrounds of its Latino candidates in order to attract Latino voters. The Republican gubernatorial candidates in Nevada and New Mexico are Hispanic, as is their senatorial nominee in Florida.

Much is at stake this year. Following in Arizona’s footsteps, some conservativecontrolled state legislatures are primed to wrest control of immigration law enforcement away from the federal government—even as federal courts block that avenue. And comprehensive immigration reform awaits congressional action in Washington, where party control of the House of Representatives hangs in the balance. At least 79 of the House’s 435 districts have a Hispanic population that is at least 25 percent. And 17 of the approximately 60 most competitive congressional races this year have strong Latino influences. (see “Elections to Watch” section below)

There are six tight Senate contests in states where Latino voters can influence the outcome: California. Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois and Nevada. The most high-profile Senate battle this year is in Nevada, where Majority Leader Harry Reid is seeking reelection against Republican challenger Sharron Angle. Latinos make up more than 12 percent of the electorate in Nevada and a high Latino voter turnout will tilt the race in Reid’s favor.

Rising Latino voters across the United States

The power of the Latino vote rises with each election cycle.

Latino voters in the 2008 election of President Obama showed the promise and the threat of their growing numbers and political strength. Huge increases in the number of Hispanic voters that year were crucial to President Obama’s wins in numerous states, especially Colorado, Florida, Nevada, and New Mexico. The total Latino turnout was 9.7 million, a significant jump from the 7.5 million who cast ballots in the previous presidential election in 2004.

The Hispanic voter turnout has also increased steadily in midterm and presidential elections going back decades, according to a recent compilation of U.S. Census Bureau data by the National Council of La Raza. In 2008, 85 percent of Latino voters were concentrated in 10 states. In order of the number of Latino voters in each, these are: California, Texas, Florida, New York, Arizona, New Jersey, Illinois, New Mexico, Colorado and Pennsylvania.

Besides net voter increases in these traditional gateway states, migration to other parts of the country is causing Latino political influence to be seen and heard in states such as Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina.

Immigrants to the United States are assimilating at high rates, most notably by becoming citizens and homeowners in the first 18 years of residency, according to a report recently released by the Center for American Progress. The findings, based on U.S. Census Bureau data, show that 14 states now have foreign-born populations above the national average of 12.5 percent.10

And much of the Latino population is young, suggesting that there will be an exponential growth in the Hispanic electorate in years to come.

The electorate’s fastest-growing voting bloc is “New Americans”—naturalized immigrants, mostly Hispanics and the U.S.-born children of immigrants since 1965. The registration rate for “New Americans” skyrocketed by almost 101.5 percent from 1996 to 2008 while the number of voter registrations nationwide rose only 9.2 percent, according to the Immigration Policy Center. With that increase, “New Americans” accounted for 1 in 10 registered voters in the United States in 2008.

This segment also shows signs of being more independent of either major political party as the number of Latino voters expands across generational, social and political interests.

Independent Latino voters

Naturalized citizens of Latino descent make up more than 40 percent of the Latino voter population and are a “swing” constituency, especially among Spanish-dominant voters—that is, voters who are more proficient in Spanish than in English.

Spanish-language outreach with an emphasis on Republicans’ social values was critical in President George W. Bush’s wins in the 2000 and 2004 elections. As NDN reported, “In Florida, during the 2000 presidential election, then-Gov. Bush dramatically outspent then-Vice President Al Gore on Spanish-language media, a move that was critical to Bush winning the presidency. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s son, George, himself of Mexican descent, was a prominent figure in the ads.”

The Bush strategy paid dividends, and Spanish-dominant voters supported John Kerry in 2004 by only a narrow margin—52 percent to 48 percent, according to an analysis by America’s Voice.

Republicans purposely turned away from the Bush strategy in 2006 when they adopted a strong anti-immigration stance in Congress and in political campaigns. The party’s outreach to Hispanics is now minimal and even embarrassing, as noticed last fall when the Republican National Committee issued an error-filled Spanish translation of a press release honoring Hispanic Heritage Month.

President Obama defeated Republican nominee John McCain in 2008 by garnering 67 percent of the Latino vote, compared to 31 percent for McCain— far below the 40 percent needed for a Republican to capture the White House.

The 2008 presidential contest for the Democratic nomination saw a similar trend, with Hillary Clinton’s solid support from Latinos prolonging the battle between her and Barack Obama. As Obama captured the nomination, he worked hard to win the confidence of Latino voters. And he won the White House with their support, which included a significant increase in the total number of ballots cast by Latinos.

President Obama defeated Republican nominee John McCain in 2008 by garnering 67 percent of the Latino vote, compared to 31 percent for McCain—far below the 40 percent needed for a Republican to capture the White House. President Obama won a much larger share of the Spanish-dominant electorate—those who are more proficient in Spanish than in English and are typically “swing” voters— in that election, by a huge margin of 75 percent to 25 percent.

2010 and beyond

President Obama has not fulfilled his commitment to win comprehensive immigration reform, causing his support among Latino voters to slip at times in the polls.18 But this segment of the electorate appears to give Democrats credit for at least trying to resolve an issue that helps Latinos decide who is on their side. The challenge for Democrats is that their candidates in swing states or House districts are playing defense on immigration against Republicans’ hard-charging rhetoric. The big question for Democrats in 2012 will be whether just trying on immigration will be enough, or whether their fear to act on the issue will hurt them with Latino voters until that task is done.

Majority Leader Reid’s work for legal immigration reform has come under vicious attacks by Angle, his GOP opponent, who released an “us-vs.-them” ad that falsely claims Reid works on behalf of illegal immigrants while showing images of darkskinned people sneaking past a chain-link fence. A similar mailer followed the ad, which also was used by Republican Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana. The tactic was criticized by the head of the Nevada Republican Hispanic Caucus, and the Reid campaign said it was typical of Angle’s divisive campaign.

Even Republicans who are spending millions to court the Latino vote, such as gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman in California and Senate nominee Marco Rubio in Florida, have faced criticism—especially in the Spanish-language media—for broadcasting different messages to voters, depending on the language being spoken.

The upcoming election will speak volumes about messaging that works and fails with Latino voters. One thing is clear: Their voices will be increasingly louder in years to come as their voting strength rises.

The outreach continues growing. This year, major candidates in both parties are spending millions on Spanish-language advertising, not just in the traditional states, but in growing Latino voter markets like Massachusetts and Connecticut.

The upcoming election will speak volumes about messaging that works and fails with Latino voters. One thing is clear: Their voices will be increasingly louder in years to come as their voting strength rises.

There are nine states where Latinos’ growing population numbers have resulted in higher Latino voter turnout in recent elections. In 2010, the Hispanic voter performance will be closely watched in 10 states featuring nine gubernatorial races, six elections for U.S. Senate seats, and 17 for seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. All of these will be decided in part by the strength of the Latino vote.

Elections to watch

Arizona: 14.8 percent Latino voters

Governor
Jan Brewer (R-incumbent) vs. Terry Goddard (D)

U.S. House
District 1: Anne Kirkpatrick (D-incumbent) vs. Paul Gosar (R)
District 5: Harry Mitchell (D-incumbent) vs. David Schweikert (R)
District 7: Raul Grijalva, (D-incumbent) vs. Ruth McClung (R)
District 8: Gabrielle Giffords (D-incumbent) vs. Jesse Kelley (R)

California: 21 percent Latino voters

Governor
Jerry Brown (D) vs. Meg Whitman (R) (open seat)

U.S. Senate
Barbara Boxer (D-incumbent) vs. Carly Fiorina (R)

U.S. House
District 11: Jerry McNerney (D-incumbent) vs. David Harmer (R)
District 20: Jim Costa (D-incumbent) vs. Andy Vidak (R)
District 47: Loretta Sanchez (D-incumbent) vs. Van Tran (R)

Colorado: 10 percent Latino voters

Governor
John Hickenlooper (D) vs. Dan Maes (R) vs. Tom Tancredo (American Constitution) (open seat)

U.S. Senate
Michael Bennet (D-incumbent) vs. Ken Buck (R)

U.S. House
District 3: John Salazar (D-incumbent) vs. Scott Tipton (R)

Connecticut: 8 percent Latino voters

U.S. Senate
Richard Blumenthal (D) vs. Linda McMahon (R) (open seat)

U.S. House
District 4: Jim Himes (D-incumbent) vs. Dan Debicella (R)

Florida: 12.8 percent Latino voters

Governor
Alex Sink (D) vs. Rick Scott (R) (open seat)

U.S. Senate
Kendrick Meek (D) vs. Marco Rubio (R) vs. Charlie Crist (Independent)

Illinois: 7.5 percent Latino voters

Governor
Patrick J. Quinn (D-incumbent) vs. Bill Brady (R)

U.S. Senate
Alexi Giannoulias (D) vs. Mark Steven Kirk (R)

U.S. House
District 11: Debbie Halvorson (D) vs. Adam Kinzinger
District 14: Bill Foster (D) vs. Randy Hultgren (R)

Nevada: 12.4 percent Latino voters

Governor
Rory Reid (D) vs. Brian Sandoval (R) (Gov. Jim Gibbons defeated in GOP primary)

U.S. Senate
Harry Reid (D-incumbent) vs. Sharron Angle (R)

U.S. House
District 3: Dina Titus (D-incumbent) vs. Joe Heck (R)

New Mexico: 32.6 percent Latino voters

Governor
Diane Denish (D) vs. Susana Martinez (R)

U.S. House
District 1: Martin Heinrich (D-incumbent) vs. Jonathan Barela (R)
District 2: Harry Teague (D-incumbent) vs. Steve Pearce (R)

New York: 10.9 percent Latino voters

Governor
Andrew Cuomo (D) vs. Carl Paladino (R)

U.S. House
District 13: Mike McMahon (D-incumbent) vs. Michael Grimm (R)

Texas: 21.7 percent Latino voters

Governor
Rick Perry (R-incumbent) vs. Bill White (D)

U.S. House
District 23: Ciro Rodriguez (D-incumbent) vs. Francisco Canseco (R)
District 27: Solomon Ortiz (D-incumbent) vs. Black Farenthold (R)

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Event: Courting the Latino Vote

Angela Kelley is Vice President for Immigration Policy and Gebe Martinez is a Senior Writer and Policy Analyst at American Progress.

 

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“A place at the table isn’t the goal—it’s a prerequisite to the goal,” said Cecilia Muñoz, deputy assistant to the president for intergovernmental affairs, during a keynote address at an event sponsored by the Half in Ten campaign, the National Council of La Raza, and the Center for American Progress Action Fund this week on improving the economic well-being of Latino children.

Muñoz was referring to advocacy organizations’ concerted efforts to bring Latinos’ concerns to bear in forming and modifying public policy. One of these concerns—and a big one—is that more than one in five children in the United States, and approximately one in three Latino children, lived in poverty last year. A policy brief released at the event provided background on Latino child poverty, including demographic information, state-by-state differences in the data, and policy solutions to reduce poverty and close racial and ethnic disparities.

Clearly, our country cannot fully address child poverty without considering the particular challenges Latino families face. A large and growing proportion of children in the United States are Latino and 92 percent of them are U.S. citizens.

Muñoz argued that even though much has been done to address Latino child poverty, successful programs and policies need to be extended or expanded to ensure the well-being of Latino children going forward.

She noted that many current programs—namely, the Earned Income Tax Credit, or EITC; the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps; the Child Tax Credit, or CTC; and the American Opportunity Tax Credit—are all vital tools in combating poverty in general and poverty among Latino families and children specifically. She also stressed the importance of job creation, accessible health care, and education to alleviate child poverty.

Muñoz pointed out that at least 100,000 jobs are at risk as a result of the TANF Emergency Contingency Fund, or TANF ECF’s expiration. She reaffirmed the administration’s commitment to this important job-creation engine. Muñoz also drew from her experience working with state and local governments and emphasized the need for federal, state, and local governments and advocacy organizations to work together to address this critical issue.

Following Muñoz’s remarks a panel of experts discussed child poverty statistics and further elaborated on the policy changes needed to deal with child poverty. Patricia Foxen, associate director of research for the National Council of La Raza, kicked off by presenting NCLR’s 2008 Latino children’s databook. She highlighted that Latino child poverty has increased from 30.6 percent in 2008 to 33.1 percent in 2009. This makes the 2009 figure the highest since 1997. She also noted that 59 percent of Latino children live below 200 percent of the poverty line.

Moreover, a high concentration of Latino children live in low-wage households, lack adequate access to the social safety net, and face cultural and linguistic barriers that exacerbate these problems even further.

A panel discussion followed Foxen’s presentation. Representatives of NCLR, Mary’s Center, and the Half in Ten campaign participated. Maria Gomez, the president and CEO of Mary’s Center, a local service agency in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, elaborated on some of the best practices needed to combat these trends. Gomez stressed the importance of fostering communities capable of lifting children out of poverty through supportive services like quality day care centers, school lunch and breakfast programs, and a strong public education system.

Eric Rodriguez, vice president of the National Council of La Raza, emphasized that policies are needed that target low-income, mixed status, Latino families. Rodriguez also remarked that lifting the five-year bar for legally present immigrants to receive public benefits and implementing health care reform are necessary steps to reducing Latino child poverty.

Finally, Melissa Boteach, Manager of the Half in Ten campaign at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, discussed Half in Ten’s work, highlights from the 2009 poverty data, successful federal programs, and recommendations to improve antipoverty policies. Boteach emphasized the need to extend the TANF Emergency Contingency Fund, extend unemployment benefits, and increase the number of eligible people enrolled in SNAP/food stamps.

Latino children are tomorrow’s workers and taxpayers. Investing in their education and well-being, therefore, is investing in America’s future.

For more on this event please see its event page.

For more on Latino child poverty please see:

• A Challenge to Our Nation: Improving the Economic Well-Being of Latino Kids by Leticia Miranda, Melissa Boteach, and Katie Wright

SOURCE: AP/Pat Sullivan

Matthew Alacon, 1, plays at the register as clerk Jessica Martinez, right, checks out Isabel Mendoza's groceries at a grocery store in Houston.

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Hispanic children are tomorrow’s workers and taxpayers. Investing in their education and well-being is investing in America’s future. The Census’s most recent data, however, reveal that of all racial and ethnic groups, Latinos experienced the largest one-year increase in poverty in 2009. The number of Hispanic families with children in poverty has been exacerbated by the current recession and disproportionately high unemployment among Latino workers who are concentrated in the hard-hit industries, such as construction.

Poverty in the Latino community has been a significant issue for many decades. But recently released Census data reveal that in 2009 poverty was at its highest level for Latino children since 1997. Job creation is one of the most important strategies to reverse these statistics but America’s system of work supports also has a role to play in lifting America’s children out of deep poverty.

At the same time, this safety net has shown weakness in reaching Hispanic families and children facing tough economic times. A number of factors contribute to this: high concentrations of Latino adults in low-wage jobs without benefits; barriers to access and eligibility for immigrant workers; and cultural and linguistic differences. As a result, Latino children and families are less likely to have the supports they need to help them through economic difficulties. The safety net’s ability to reach all families and children, therefore, should be strengthened.

This brief will provide background on Latino child poverty, including important demographic information that underscores how Latino poverty is similar to and different from poverty experienced by other groups. It will then discuss stateby- state differences in the data, and policy solutions to reduce poverty and close racial and ethnic disparities.

Background on Latino child poverty

Anyone concerned with our long-term economic growth and productivity should care about Latino child poverty. We know that child poverty has long-term economic consequences for our nation’s productivity and that costeffective investments to tackle child poverty now can contribute to greater economic growth later on. The following sections will provide background on Latino child poverty, its causes and consequences, and important demographic trends that will affect how we tackle this issue.

Hispanic population growth and rising child poverty

The Hispanic population is growing in all age and income groups and this growth is most visible in the child population. The share of all U.S. children who are Hispanic has grown steadily from 7.5 percent in 1976 to 22.7 percent in 2009. Over the same time period the share of all poor children who are Hispanic grew from 14.1 percent to 36.7 percent. The Population Reference Bureau projects that by 2030 Hispanic children will make up 44 percent of all poor children in the United States.

Hispanic child poverty rises and falls with the economy but remains high

The Census Bureau publishes Hispanic child poverty rates from the early 1970s to the present. Hispanic and black children have had poverty rates three to four times that of white children throughout this time period. Latino child poverty stood at 28 percent in 1979 before the recession of the early 1980s, then jumped to 39.5 percent by 1982.

It would be another 22 years before poverty would fall to 28 percent again. Hispanic child poverty rates peaked again in the early 1990s at 41.5 percent in 1994 and took a steep eight-year dive to 28 percent in 2001 as the economy improved. The lower rates prevailed through most of the 2000s, though they took a sharp turn upward as the recession began in 2007. The Latino child poverty rate in 2009 was 33.1 percent, its highest level since 1997.

Low income

Many Hispanic families and children are considered low income, meaning their family income falls below 200 percent of the poverty line. This was $44,100 annually for a four-person family in 2009. Sixty-three percent of Hispanic and black children and 28.7 percent of white children are under 200 percent of the poverty line. By comparison, 33.1 percent of Hispanic children are below 100 percent of the poverty line compared to 35.7 percent of black children and 11.9 percent of white children.  Hispanic children are more likely than black and white children to fall between 100 percent and 200 percent of the poverty line, so examining how safety net programs address this income group is important.

Families’ income affects their eligibility for federal safety net programs and tax credits. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, for example, requires that participants fall under 130 percent of the poverty line, while the Earned Income Tax Credit allows participation up to approximately $44,000 a year depending on family size and makeup, with families earning between $10,000 and $20,000 earning the maximum credit. Programs that allow participation higher up into the income scale can reach more families and children who are low income but not poor. They can thus help more Hispanic children.

Working and poor

Hispanic workers are more likely than whites and blacks to earn poverty-level wages—41.8 percent of Hispanic workers, 21.9 percent of white workers, and 34 percent of black workers earn poverty-level wages (wages below $10.20 per hour for a family of four in 2007). Hispanics in poverty over age 16 also are more likely to be working full time, year round than other groups—13 percent of Hispanics and 7.5 percent of whites work full time, year round, but live in poverty.

Married and poor

Certain safety net programs, such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, serve mainly single female-headed households in part due to design issues. The majority of Hispanic families living in poverty, however, are headed by married-couple families. This family structure makes it less likely that programs like TANF can serve these families.

In 2009 40.4 percent of poor Hispanic families were headed by a single female, which was the same percentage (40.4 percent) of poor white families. This proportion of female-headed households among Hispanics living in poverty has not changed since 1973.

Nativity and mixed-status families

An overwhelming proportion of Latino children are citizens. More than 9 in 10 (91 percent) Hispanic children are native-born U.S. citizens. Nine percent of Hispanic children are first-generation immigrants themselves.

Thirty-eight percent of all Hispanic children in 2008 were native-born children of native-born parents (third generation or above). About half—52 percent—of Hispanic children are second-generation, native-born children of immigrants. Of the second-generation children, 60 percent (or 4.9 million) have parents who are both legally present immigrants, while 40 percent (or 3.3 million) have at least one parent who is undocumented to work in the United States.

Most Latino children are U.S. citizens but a majority live in immigrant families. This often results in their families running up against barriers to services due to eligibility as well as cultural and linguistic differences. Even children with parents who are legally present immigrants have a hard time accessing government programs.

How Latino child well-being varies by state

The table on page 5 shows that Latino child poverty rates are related to unemployment rates in the state. But the intensity of this relationship varies in different states across the nation.

The analysis below of Latino child poverty at the state level focuses on three states: Maryland, California, and North Carolina. These states were chosen because they represent a low, middle, and high in terms of Latino child well-being as measured by the child poverty rate.

The average Latino unemployment rate in the United States was 12.1 percent in 2009 and the Latino child poverty rate was 33.1 percent. States like Maryland had one of the lowest Latino unemployment rates of 7.6 percent as well as the lowest Latino child poverty rate of all the states at 14.6 percent.

States like California and North Carolina paint another picture. California had one of the highest Latino unemployment rates at 14.7 percent. But the Latino child poverty rate was 27.5 percent there, which is lower than the national average. On the other hand, the Latino unemployment rate of 13.6 percent in North Carolina was also relatively high, but the Latino child poverty rate was 42.3 percent, which is far higher than in California.

The lost decade for Latinos

The national Latino child poverty rate was 28 percent in 2000 and it’s grown to 33.1 percent in 2009. But digging deeper into the state-level data reveals that Latino child poverty increased dramatically in some but not all states since the recession began in 2007. And again, the growth is not solely related to changes in unemployment rates.

In Maryland and California, for example, the Latino child poverty rate increased slightly between 2000 and 2009 even though unemployment doubled in both of those states. Latino child poverty in California increased from 26.6 percent in 2000 to 27.5 percent in 2009 as unemployment rose from 6.5 percent to 14.7 percent over the same timeframe. In Maryland, Latino unemployment rose from 3 percent in 2000 to 7.6 percent in 2009 but Latino child poverty increased from 13 percent to 14.6 percent over the same period.

On the other hand, the economic well-being of Latino children in North Carolina was much more deeply affected by the recession. There Latino child poverty grew dramatically from 28.4 percent in 2000 to 42.3 percent in 2009 while Latino unemployment more than doubled from 5.4 percent in 2000 to 13.6 percent in 2009. Latino child poverty is much higher in North Carolina compared to California even though North Carolina has a lower Latino unemployment rate.

Overall, any economic gains Latinos made earlier in the decade were lost to the recession as Latino child poverty rates in 2009 were much higher than 2000.

A way forward

America’s safety net and tax credits for the working poor in particular play an enormously important role in lifting America’s poor children out of poverty and deep poverty. But these programs don’t work as well as they could for Latino and other children. Protecting and strengthening them is critical.

Families in deep poverty are those with income below 50 percent of the poverty line (or income less than approximately $11,000 in 2009 for a family of four). Unpublished data by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities show that the safety net lifted a total of 7.3 million American children out of deep poverty in 2005, including 1.9 million Hispanic children. Without the safety net a total of 9.7 million children overall, including 2.8 million Hispanic children, would have fallen below half the poverty line.

The safety net did not, however, reach 900,000 Latino children, who remained below half the poverty line. The safety net lifted 67 percent of deeply poor Latino children and 76 percent of all deeply poor children above half the poverty line. This reflects that the safety net was less effective with Latino children than it was for others. It also represents a weakening of the safety net over time since in 1995 the safety net lifted 90 percent of deeply poor Hispanic children above half the poverty line. It’s critical to strengthen these protections so fewer children grow up in deepest poverty.

Here’s how we can improve critical safety net programs so that they help more families weather hard times.

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program

SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, was one of the most responsive safety net programs in the Great Recession. The official poverty measure does not include the value of SNAP. But when this program is added to the calculation of income we can clearly see that it moved 3.6 million people above the poverty line in 2009—1.4 million more than in 2008.

Many states and counties have successfully reached out to high percentages of eligible families. Maryland particularly has a high estimated percentage of eligible individuals enrolled in the program across the state, while counties across North Carolina and California have lower rates of participation.

As pointed out earlier, one barrier facing Latino children who are eligible but not enrolled in SNAP benefits is their parents’ immigration status. Citizen children with a noncitizen parent are less likely to receive needed nutrition assistance due to the parents’ fear and misinformation about eligibility. Even adult legal immigrants, many of whom are low-wage workers, cannot access food stamp benefits until they have been in the United States for five years.

Unfortunately, some states like California and Arizona opted to enact barriers such as a requirement for fingerprints, which makes applying for food assistance akin to entering the criminal justice system. Also, Arizona enacted a law in September 2009 that requires that state workers report undocumented immigrants applying for public benefits to the federal immigration authorities. This has made parents of citizen children afraid to apply for public benefits for their eligible citizen children.

States and counties can make smart choices to increase the SNAP take-up rate of all eligible families such as removing onerous fingerprint requirements, removing anti-immigrant laws that affect the use of public benefits by citizen children, using a categorical eligibility option to eliminate the asset test, using a higher gross income test, and reducing and simplifying reporting requirements.

Unemployment insurance

Unemployment benefits were one of the most effective policies keeping families out of poverty last year. According to a study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 3.3 million more people would have fallen into poverty in 2009 if not for this critical lifeline.

Still, the unemployment insurance system traditionally leaves behind certain categories of workers, including part-time and low-wage workers. Because Latino workers are disproportionately concentrated in low-wage jobs, they are vulnerable to being without this safety net should they lose their employment.

Fortunately, the Recovery Act provided $7 billion in incentives for states to modernize their unemployment insurance systems. These reforms include enacting an “alternative base period” that would allow workers to credit their most recent employment in determining benefits—a change that would particularly help workers in low-wage positions.

The table on page five details which states have undertaken these reforms and which have not. States have until August 2011 to enact these reforms in order to qualify for Recovery Act dollars. Doing so is the right thing to do for low-wage workers, many of whom are Latino. It’s also good economic policy as these extra dollars stimulate local economies and create local jobs.

Earned income tax credit

The EITC is a federal tax credit for low- and moderate-income working people that supplements income earned in lower-wage jobs. The EITC is “refundable,” which means workers receive a refund check from the government if their tax credit is greater than their income tax liability. Because this tax credit is refundable and supplements income earned by working, it encourages and rewards work. Additionally, it is meant to offset the payroll and income taxes paid by low- and moderate-income workers. The Child Tax Credit, or CTC, is similarly designed in that it is refundable for lower-income families with children.

Because Latino parents often work in lower-wage jobs the EITC is a critically important supplement to family income and lifts many families above the poverty line. Approximately one-third of Hispanic families utilize the EITC. In addition, the Recovery Act increased the EITC amount for families with three or more children by $629. This particular feature also benefited Latino families because these families are slightly more likely to have three children.

Also, the Recovery Act lowered the earnings threshold to qualify for the CTC, meaning that more low-income working families qualified. These improvements will expire in December 2010 if Congress does not take action. These expansions to the refundable tax credits have rewarded work and have been proven to improve child outcomes. They should be made permanent.

Economic growth and targeted investments

Lastly, Latino workers are ready and willing to work and pull themselves out of poverty. The economy just needs to grow again to create jobs.

Targeted investments to stimulate job creation in low-income communities are still needed. And job training and education must be effectively tailored and delivered through groups that know how to serve particular communities such as foreign-born Latinos, many of whom need basic education and English instruction integrated with job training to improve their earning potential.

Despite their high unemployment and poverty, in a July 2009 poll conducted by the Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor, Hispanics were more likely than any other group of Americans to believe that increased opportunity comes from personal effort. Fifty-five percent of Latinos agreed with this statement compared to 40 percent of all poll respondents. It’s time to give them and their children the chance to realize that opportunity.

Download this memo (pdf)

Leticia Miranda is the associate director of the Economic and Employment Policy Project at the National Council of La Raza. Melissa Boteach is the Half in Ten Campaign Manager and Katie Wright is the Half in Ten Special Assistant at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.