The GOP presidential candidates are becoming more comfortable trafficking in stereotypes when it comes to African-Americans and welfare benefits. Surprise Iowa frontrunner Rick Santorum recently declared (and later denied) that “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money; I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money.” The NAACP blasted Santorum for “inaccurate and outrageous” remarks that “lifts up old race-based stereotypes about public assistance.”

Today in New Hampshire, another GOP presidential hopeful offered his own take. Consistently slamming President Obama as “the best food stamp president in history,” Newt Gingrich tried to paint himself as a more desirable alternative to town hall attendees, insisting he’d be “the best paycheck president in American history.” Singling out African-Americans, Gingrich declared that he’d attend the NAACP just to tell African-Americans why they should “not be satisfied with food stamps”:

GINGRICH: More people are on food stamps today because of Obama’s policies than ever in history. I would like to be the best paycheck president in American history. Now, there’s no neighborhood I know of in America where if you went around and asked people, “Would you rather your children had food stamps or paychecks,” you wouldn’t [SIC] end up with a majority saying they’d rather have a paycheck.

And so 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. And I’ll go to them and explain a brand new Social Security opportunity for young people, which should be particularly good for African-American males — because they’re the group that gets the smallest return on Social Security because they have the shortest life span.

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Not only is his perception of food stamp beneficiaries prejudicial, it’s false. The majority of people who participate in the food stamp program, known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), are white. Most of the participants are also either children (who can’t earn a paycheck unless Gingrich gets his way) or seniors who are of retirement age. In 2010, working-women represented only 28 percent of SNAP beneficiaries, and working-age men represented only 17 percent.

What’s more, an increasing number of SNAP beneficiaries actually do have jobs and receive paychecks that are the primary source of their income. Unfortunately, only 15 percent of those incomes are above the poverty line. Thus, SNAP benefits provide a necessary safety net to families trying to stay afloat in a sluggish economy. But rather than seeing America’s most vulnerable populations as deserving of aid, Gingrich prefers to see them as lazy drug-users who prefer to put their benefits towards a Hawaii vacation.

Rick Santorum promised to expedite the implementation of Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) Medicare privatization plan during a town hall in Northfield, New Hampshire this afternoon, saying that today’s seniors should receive a premium support subsidy to purchase coverage from private insurers. Ryan’s original budget proposal — which most House Republican supported — exempts current enrollees and doesn’t kick in until 2022. In that year, people turning 65 will receive a pre-determined “premium support” payment to purchase private insurance. But since the government’s contribution would be indexed to inflation and fall behind actual health care costs, by 2030 the proposal would “only cover 32 percent of a typical 65-year-old’s total health care spending.”

Proponents of the plan argue that opening up Medicare to greater private competition would ultimately lower health care costs, but today Santorum admitted that if the GOP’s “trust” in insurers’ ability to lower spending is misplaced, seniors will be forced to spend more on health insurance:

SANTORUM: In Medicare, we’re saying, trust the private sector to drive down costs and it’s a belief that that will happen. And if it doesn’t of course seniors will have to participate more in the increasing cost of health care. So there is a downside, I freely admit that.

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In fact, there is very little evidence to suggest that private plans have or can do a better job of lowering spending. Medicare’s sheer size and bargaining clout have contributed to itsgreater success in controlling health care costs and have allowed it to introduce market innovations and payment reforms that were later adopted by private industry. Here is the per-beneficiary comparison:

As Paul Krugman points out, “if Medicare costs had risen as fast as private insurance premiums, it would cost around 40 percent more than it does. If private insurers had done as well as Medicare at controlling costs, insurance would be a lot cheaper.”

Sarah Kliff points out that the government’s growing reliance on private health insurers to manage Medicare and Medicaid has led to “a pretty stellar financial year” for the industry. According to a new Bloomberg Government study, “returns on investments have surged ahead of general stock indexes and, as the above chart shows, anyone who invested $1 in health plans back in October 2008 has seen that grow to about $1.70“:

Those profits will likely continue to grow as more Americans acquire health insurance as a result of the mandate in the Affordable Care Act. A July 2010 report from PricewaterhouseCoopers concluded that the law’s state-based health care exchanges provide private insurers with a lucrative new market in which they stand to gain up to $200 billion in revenue by 2019, despite some of the provisions designed to curb industry gains.

Insurers, in other words, will continue relying on government for its growing revenues, while lobbying for the repeal of health reform’s taxes and paying its congressional allies to pretend that any additional government regulation of the industry will eliminate the private insurers altogether.

Rick Santorum touted his opposition to the Affordable Care Act early this morning during an event in Manchester, New Hampshire and drew a clear distinction between his long-standing opposition to universal health care and the past positions of Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. “I’ve never been for government-run health care, never. Unlike the other two folks who are running here, who have supported individual mandates, who have supported top-down government health care, I never have,” he said.

The former Pennsylvania senator also implied that widespread access to health care is “what’s destroying most countries in the world” and mocked President Obama for passing reform that offered insurance to “everybody”:

SANTORUM: No, we have to have something for everybody! We can’t have people having access to better health insurance than other people. No! It all has to be the same! Is that American? Equality of result? Is that what built the greatest country in the history of the world? No. That’s what’s destroying most of the countries in the world.

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Despite the growing erosion of employer-based insurance and higher national uninsurance rates, Santorum argued that Americans are still capable and should have the freedom to “go out and work for an employer or find an employment that has health care, or if not providing for that health care for yourself.” He similarly criticized the extension of government-sponsored health insurance to children, pointing out that many recipients live above the poverty line.

Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly challenged Rick Santorum on his opposition to contraception last night, noting that the former senator’s claim that states have the right to outlaw birth control is extreme and out-of-touch with the beliefs of most Americans. Santorum responded that while he disagrees with the use of birth control, he would not necessarily advocate for its repeal:

O’REILLY: You say that the states should have the right to ban some contraception. That’s right off the bat going to be a big one.

SANTORUM: Well, the states have a right to do a lot of things. That doesn’t mean they should do it. Someone asked me if the states have the right to do it? Yes. They have the right to do it, they shouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t vote for it if they did. It doesn’t mean they don’t have the right to do it. As you know, Bill, you’re a Catholic, Catholic Church teaches contraceptive is something you shouldn’t do. So when I was asked the question on contraception I said I didn’t support it.

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Santorum is trying to distinguish his religious beliefs from his governing philosophy to suggest to moderate voters that while he personally opposes contraception, he would do little to limit women’s access to it. But that’s not entirely honest and here is why: Santorum does disagree with the Supreme Court’s 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut ruling (which struck down a law that criminalized the use of contraceptives by married couples) and believes that the question should be left to the states. At the same time, however, he has also pledged to defund federal funding for contraception if elected president and publicly address the “dangers of contraception in this country.” “It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be,” the former Pennsylvania senator explained during one interview in Iowa. In other words, Santorum would not sit on his religiously-inspired anti-contraception beliefs — he would work to move federal policies and public beliefs against it.