INQUIRER: In January 2012 Alexander announced the department was instituting an asset test – making the amount of food stamps that people receive contingent on the assets they possess. It was an unexpected move that bucked national trends — favored by both Democrats and Republicans, to eliminate asset tests altogether — since they are viewed as punitive toward elderly people saving for their burials, poor people trying to save enough to get out of poverty, and working- and middle-class people who lost their jobs in the recession and would have to liquidate assets to feed their families. Alexander’s department also faced sharp questions about children being dropped from Pennsylvania’s Medicaid rolls. Between August 2011 and January of last year, about 130,000 people – including 89,000 children – were dropped from Medicaid rolls, leading some advocacy groups to cry foul. The number was so high that the Obama administration stepped in, seeking detailed information to determine whether anyone had been wrongfully struck from the rolls. Separate from his policy decisions, the secretary also came under fire last year for hiring Robert W. Patterson, the editor of an ultraconservative faith-based journal, as a top aide. In his writings, Patterson had condemned birth control, working women, and some of the programs assisting the poor that the department was responsible for administering. MORE