Mitt Romney has been quoted, out of context he claims, that he’s not concerned about the poor, only because the safety net takes care of them. But what he really means is he plans to block-grant Medicaid, which will drastically reduce spending their health care, cuts to the budget that includes housing vouchers and food stamps, and cuts to the federal workforce administering those programs. He literally means, “not concerned.”

Gingrich never tires of calling Barack Obama a food stamp President, saying that the food stamp rolls increased by the highest amount in history under this Administration. As a technical matter, this is not true. George W. Bush actually put more people on food stamps, and the law that allowed that was passed while Gingrich was Speaker. More interesting, the food stamps program is a success!

Mitt Romney has a big problem ahead, as he is faced with headlines that feature words like bankruptcy and layoffs. The Bain business model, as Paul Krugman noted, enriched Romney and his cronies at Bain at the expense of ordinary workers at the companies they bought.

Reuters paints this picture vividly, as they tell the story of a Kansas City steel mill that Bain purchased, looted, and led into bankruptcy. Even more devastating is the reaction of at least one conservative former Armco worker, who is featured in a new anti-Romney ad put together by Moveon.org. “They [Bain] walked out of here with millions. They left us with nothing.”

Way to reach out to the conservative base, Mitt.

In the past few decades it has become much rarer for the poor to move themselves out of poverty. Low economic mobility and high income inequality are hallmarks of feudal societies run by landed gentry, not nations founded on fairness and equal opportunity.

The Census Bureau’s revised way of measuring poverty takes into account changing costs and the offsetting effects of support programs. Importantly, it reveals that rising drug costs and health have left millions more seniors in poverty that previously thought.

Yesterday was the 15th anniversary of the Clinton welfare reform package, which “ended welfare as we know it.” In a sense, we didn’t really know how that would turn out until a time of stress. Unfortunately, for the group of low-income Americans who need welfare, that stress has been part of their lives for almost a decade.

Almost every month, as the calendar winds down, I start getting calls in my office on the phone or in person from people who have more month than money. “Pastor, I’ve run out of money for food, and don’t get paid until the first of next month. I’ve got two kids, and need some help.” The specifics of the conversation vary, but the underlying substance does not.

Now, though, I’ve been hearing a different item tacked on at the end: “Pastor, you follow the news out of DC pretty well. Am I going to get my Social Security check next week?”

Making matters worse, DC seems hell-bent on budget cuts, right at the time the economy needs government spending more than ever. For the folks coming into my office lately, this is more than a mistake. It’s a disaster.

These days you can get an original Xbox — with a few games thrown in — for about $40 bucks. The poor have it so damn easy in this country.

It takes a special kind of bully to target the most vulnerable and neediest families in society, which millionaire politicians like to argue are draining America’s treasury. I am referring to Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA), who recently introduced a bill that would require states to implement drug testing of applicants for and recipients of the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program.

Tomorrow is May 1, and college graduation season is almost upon us. Seniors everywhere are writing their last papers, taking their last exams, preparing for the end of their college careers, and probably crying about the employment situation. College placement officers might as well be grief counselors.

For the last three years, the unemployment picture has been Ugly with a capital U, especially for those graduating from college. The Economic Policy Institute’s new paper “Class of 2011: Young workers face a dire labor market without a safety net” is a depressingly accurate take on what they face.

Glad I’m not a commencement speaker this year.