A Santorum Loss Will Hurt the Poor

Dems are always quick to claim that Republicans hate poor people and want to put them out on the streets. So where are all the Dems doing great things for the poor (other than keeping them dependent on social welfare programs)? Will a vote for Bob Casey in Pennsylvania do more for the poor than a vote for Rick Santorum? Not according to David Brooks of the NY Times (h/t The Corner):

Every poll suggests that Rick Santorum will lose his race to return to the
U.S. Senate. That's probably good news in Pennsylvania's bobo suburbs, where
folks regard Santorum as an ideological misfit and a social blight. But it's
certainly bad for poor people around the world.

For there has been at least one constant in Washington over the past 12
years: almost every time a serious piece of antipoverty legislation surfaces in
Congress, Rick Santorum is there playing a leadership role.

In the mid-1990s, he was a floor manager for welfare reform, the most
successful piece of domestic legislation of the past 10 years. He then helped
found the Renewal Alliance to help charitable groups with funding and parents
with flextime legislation.

More recently, he has pushed through a stream of legislation to help the
underprivileged, often with Democratic partners. With Dick Durbin and Joe Biden,
Santorum has sponsored a series of laws to fight global AIDS and offer third
world debt relief. With Chuck Schumer and Harold Ford, he's pushed to offer
savings accounts to children from low-income families. With John Kerry, he's
proposed homeownership tax credits. With Chris Dodd, he backed legislation
authorizing $860 million for autism research. With Joe Lieberman he pushed
legislation to reward savings by low-income families.

In addition, he's issued a torrent of proposals, many of which have become
law: efforts to fight tuberculosis; to provide assistance to orphans and
vulnerable children in developing countries; to provide housing for people with
AIDS; to increase funding for Social Services Block Grants and organizations
like Healthy Start and the Children's Aid Society; to finance community health
centers; to combat genocide in Sudan.

I could fill this column, if not this entire page, with a list of ideas,
proposals and laws Santorum has poured out over the past dozen years. It's hard
to think of another politician who has been so active and so productive on these
issues.

Like many people who admire his output, I disagree with Santorum on key
matters like immigration, abortion, gay marriage. I'm often put off by his
unnecessarily slashing style and his culture war rhetoric.

But government is ultimately not about the theater or the light shows of
public controversy, it's about legislation and results. And the substance of
Santorum's work is impressive. Bono, who has worked closely with him over the
years, got it right: ''I would suggest that Rick Santorum has a kind of
Tourette's disease; he will always say the most unpopular thing. But on our
issues, he has been a defender of the most vulnerable.''

This is the side of Rick Santorum that you generally don't hear in the media.