It’s funny, how all these congressmen who eat steaks and drink fine wine on the taxpayer dime are somehow experts at shopping with food stamps!
Donny Ferguson (no relation to this reporter), an aide to outspoken right-wing congressman Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) claims that people who say that the Special Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), more commonly known as food stamps, isn’t enough to live on are lying and that the program should be cut even further. Think Progress flagged a Stockman press release in which Ferguson said he believed that the weekly allotment of food for one person of $31.50 is too generous because he claims was able to purchase a week’s worth of food for $27.58.
“I wanted to personally experience the effects of the proposed cuts to food stamps. I didn’t plan ahead or buy strategically, I just saw the publicity stunt and made a snap decision to drive down the street and try it myself,” Ferguson said in the release. “I put my money where my mouth is, and the proposed food stamp cuts are still quite filling.”
Ferguson was reacting to the “SNAP Challenge,” in which Democratic legislators and activists are protesting proposed cuts to the newest Farm Bill, which would slash benefits to people on SNAP. To protest the cuts, people taking the challenge will attempt to live for a week on the amount of food money allotted to people who receive SNAP benefits, $31.50 a week, or $4.50 per day.
Stockman’s office called the challenge “a left-wing publicity stunt” and claimed “Democrats have been intentionally buying overpriced food and shopping at high-priced chains to make it appear the cuts go too far.”
With his $27.58, Ferguson purchased:
Two boxes of Honeycomb cereal
Three cans of red beans and rice
Jar of peanut butter
Bottle of grape jelly
Loaf of whole wheat bread
Two cans of refried beans
Box of spaghetti
Large can of pasta sauce
Two liters of root beer
Large box of popsicles
24 servings of Wyler’s fruit drink mix
Eight cups of applesauce
Bag of pinto beans
Bag of rice
Bag of cookies
Gallon milk
Box of instant oatmeal
H/t Thomas Soldan.
If living on food stamps is so luxurious, perhaps the 1% might be willing to trade places (swap wealth) with all of those now receiving food stams? Our ‘government’ is NOT the politicians in Washington or in the several states. Our government is “we the people.” The Democratic and Republican politicians in Congress and elsewhere are suppose to represnt the 99% and assist us in running our government. Instead these politicians represent the 1% and manipulate our governemt (NSA) against us and in favor of the 1%. Their goal is to privatize everything and allow contractors to run it for profit. Profit is their only motivation. Doing what’s best for the people is nowhere on their list of things to get done.
Basically, the story of the welfare queen with a fleet of Cadillacs is such a great, froth-at-the-mouth, vote getting story for the Reich wing that it must never be allowed to die.
So they have to invent new versions of it, even though it is totally nonsense. Food stamps constitute the current version of Ronnie Rayguns classic falsehood.
Foodstamp use is a SIGN of the sickness of the economy, not the cause of it.