January 2012

Advocates Blast “Beyond the Pale Demonizing of Poverty"

For Immediate Release: January 6, 2012

Advocates Also Release Point-by-Point Rebuttal of Bloomberg Claims

Joel Berg, Executive Director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, issued this statement:

“On John Gambling's radio show this morning, Mayor Bloomberg claimed that, just as we will never know how much terrorism was prevented by the New York Police Department, we will never know how much fraud was prevented by food stamps finger imaging. Comparing all food stamps recipients – the vast-majority of whom are law-abiding citizens – to terrorists, even indirectly, is a beyond the pale demonizing of people forced to live in poverty. In another recent statement by the Mayor, he said that collecting DNA from criminals is essentially the same as collecting their finger prints. There is no question that finger imaging is an electronic stop-and- frisk, which assumes that low-income people are guilty until proven innocent. In yet another recent interview, Bloomberg implied that all people who didn’t want to give their finger prints have something to hide. This was another shocking statement that entirely ignores both the Bill of Rights and shows a disregard for the civil liberties that prevent America from becoming a totalitarian society. It is truly heartbreaking that a Mayor with a reputation for non-ideological, data-based governing – who has taken fact-based, common sense, stands on issues like gun control, religious liberty, and marriage equity – descends into misinformed right-ring rants against low-income people that drag him down into the Newt Gingrich realm.