Sunday, July 8, 2007

Poverty Level in Arkansas

According to the federal census, 24.9% of the children under 18 in Arkansas in 2005 were living before the national poverty level.

Living.

The official poverty level is $19,307 for a family of four, $12,334 for a family of two....and that's before taxes, mind you.

Hmmmm... take 300 families of four living on food stamps...1200 living breathing human beings...add their total income before taxes... still doesn't equate to the value of John Edwards NC estate.

Wow...simply wow.

Food Stamps... playing the game

When running for office, politicans like to come across as just another pea in a pod. We're supposed to forget that many of them are priviledged, wealthy individuals who have no clue what it's like to live in the real world.

Oh sure, they'll be quick to drag out stories about their poor parents who were born with nothing...but it's the parents who had nothing, not them. They're 'one of us' and they 'feel our pain'.

But now, they've raised the playing field. No longer is it enough to just pity the poor people... not when you can mock their way of life by playing the 'live on food stamps for a week game.'

Who came up with the idea that by spending nominal amounts for the food they buy that it somehow equates to the life of people on foodstamps. Ridiculous.

Have they cut their income down for that week as well to a qualifying income? Expenditures to not exceed that income? Gas? Transportation? Clothing?

Heck, one day's suit cost more than the monthly alloted income allowance for those on food stamps. And their transportation.... oh my.

One week is scarcely enough time for the body to experience the effects of the lack of proper nutrition. Heck...you can live a few days without WATER... let alone food.

One week of meager food allotments is nothing. Try one month...one year...

Then let's talk.

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Food Stamps and the Fourth of July

Imagine Lyrics
» John Lennon
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

The Food Stamp Diet

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the "hottest diet sweeping the nation" is the food stamp diet.

Good grief...

Living on food stamps is NOT a fad...it is NOT a craze.

There is no bandwagon....no parade...

Please, quit celebrating your ability to play the food stamp game with what is a difficult fact for so many Americans.

Wants vs. Needs......

In a world of haves and have nots.... the haves love to proclaim their care and concern for the have nots.

Heck...the politicans are lining up to enter in the food stamp challenge and show just how 'in touch' they are with the little people by living on food stamps for a week.

How touching.

TMZ, the internet celebrity newsblog, tosses up little tidbits and photo ops of Mr/Ms Celebrity giving a ten spot to some guy on the street.

How sweet.

They like us...they really, really like us.

Trust me says the politican. I know what's best for you.

As they hop into their private jet...get their $500 haircuts...sport the latest fashions...and prattle endlessly into their Iphones and Blackberry phones.

I'm moved to tears.

Living on Food Stamps....

Living on Food Stamps is no joke....IF you are really living on them and not just a fraudlent joker supplementing their income with food stamps.

It's hard. They never go far enough.

But it's better than nothing.

By a long shot.

The Food Stamps Gimmick

...from the New York Times:

SALEM, Ore., April 27 — He swore off beer, had to put the pricey organic bananas back on the supermarket shelf and squeezed four meals out of a single chicken, all in the name of reducing hunger. And this is not even an election year.

Theodore R. Kulongoski’s decision to live on $3 a day in grocery money for a week, as he had been urged to do in an Oregon “food stamp challenge,” could confound the surest cynic. At 66, he was just elected to his second term, with a budget surplus surpassing $1 billion and a legislature controlled by his fellow Democrats. So just what was there to gain politically?

For a governor who has long pushed to reduce hunger and happens to like eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, maybe that was not the point.

As Wayne Scott, the leader of the House Republicans, put it: “Obviously I’m in the opposite party, so it would be easy for me to knock him for this. Now, I don’t know that I fully believe that he’s eating on $21 a week, but I do think he’s trying to bring attention to the food stamp issue. He’s a pretty straight shooter.”

Mr. Kulongoski, who said he had not tried to skirt a strict limit of $21 for the week — the average amount allowed Oregon food stamp recipients — claimed that his only goal had been to raise awareness of hunger here and of a need for the federal government to preserve the current level of stamp benefits.

Along the way, however, the governor, little known outside the state, also raised awareness of himself. News organizations across the country picked up coverage of his shopping expedition to his local grocery store, where he was guided by a state worker who had temporarily relied on food stamps. Calls came in from Europe. Hundreds of people sent e-mail messages to the main sponsor of the challenge, the Oregon Food Bank, saying they too had been inspired to give it a try.

By the end of the week, not only had Mr. Kulongoski’s relatively spare entry on Wikipedia been updated to reflect the developments, there was also a sense that the 5-foot-9, 155-pound governor had set a high standard for other elected leaders who profess to care about the needy. In Washington, the House Hunger Caucus asked members of Congress to undertake a similar challenge in May. Closer to home, Mr. Kulongoski noted, one of his West Coast counterparts would have a particularly tough act to follow. “I think Arnold probably has a larger caloric intake than I do,” he said.

Mr. Kulongoski has made hunger an issue since he was first elected in 2002. That fall, he said in an interview, he was surprised to learn that Oregon ranked high on the list of what the Department of Agriculture used to call hunger and now calls “food insecurity.” Oregon’s timber and agricultural industries had long been struggling, driving up unemployment, and the high-tech boom that had benefited places like Portland had started to unravel.

Since then, the state has fallen lower on the list, thanks to an improving economy and federal policies that allow it to expand eligibility for food stamps, said Michael Leachman, a policy analyst for the Oregon Center for Public Policy, which advocates for lower-income people.

Still, Oregon continues to have a higher unemployment rate, at 5.2 percent, than that of the country as a whole, 4.4 percent. High-tech jobs are growing again in Portland, but the timber industry continues to decline. “We have a very pronounced rural-urban split,” said William Lunch, a professor of political science at Oregon State University.

Under a farm bill now before Congress, advocates for the hungry say, the rules that allow expanded eligibility for food stamps could be restricted, potentially disqualifying about 50,000 of the 434,000 Oregonians who use them. On Friday, Mr. Kulongoski sent a letter to President Bush asking him to preserve the current benefits.

The governor, a former labor lawyer, state insurance commissioner, state attorney general and member of the Oregon Supreme Court, noted more than once during his week on the low-cost diet that he grew up an orphan in a Catholic boys home in St. Louis. He said Friday that he had learned to clean his plate no matter what was on it.

With Mr. Kulongoski and his wife, Mary Oberst, limited to $42 between them, what was on the plate became distinctly familiar. Ms. Oberst, who typically does their cooking — the governor has no kitchen staff — released a to-the-penny menu midway through the week that showed a single chicken surfacing first with zucchini on the side, and then later in salad and a “chowder.”

[The couple returned to their regular diet on Sunday afternoon. In a brief telephone interview on Monday, the governor said that eating less had clearly affected him. “I went to bed earlier,” he said, “because I was tired at the end of the day.” He also said he had missed his stash of Northwest microbrews.]

How much do the Kulongoskis usually spend on food? Hard to say. The governor’s office puts it at just $55 a week, but that is for at-home meals only. Not included are things they eschewed during the challenge: meals at official functions, dinners out, and lunches and snacks bought on the job.

For all the public fascination with the governor’s menu, there did not appear to be immediate benefits for his policy agenda. Mr. Kulongoski’s proposal to provide health insurance to children by raising the cigarette tax failed in an initial vote during the week, though he said he believed that it would pass before the legislature adjourns in June. His plan to expand financing for community colleges has also stalled for now.

Asked if his lean week had bolstered his political heft, he said: “I don’t think it makes any difference. I’ve been in this for 35 years, and these things all pass. Next week they may not remember me being on the diet, but something will stay in the mind about hunger in Oregon.”




......wow...a whole week on food stamps.

Food Stamps... The Rich Get Richer

You know...just who are food stamps helping?

Now this is just my opinion...but it seems that the biggest winner in the Food Stamps lottery is big business.

These manufacturers and grocery chains wouldn't be able to stay in business if people weren't buying their products. If you have no money, then you can't buy the merchandise.

Enter food stamps.

Abracadabra...now the people can buy their products. At their inflated prices.

Funny how food stores and programs such as Angel Food are able to acquire food at drastically reduced prices.

hmmmmmmmm....makes you wonder just how much that box of cereal really costs.

What is the goal of Food Stamps?

What is the goal of the Food Stamps program anyway?

To make sure that low-income Americans have nutritous meals right?

Why then are soda, candies, donuts, and chips (just to name a few) on the list?

Five major food groups? I don't think so.

You can buy chewing gum on food stamps.

Please.

Need Food Stamps?

Don't be confused.

I support the Food Stamps program.

It is a wonderful program that provides the needs of life to men, women and children. Many of whom would truly hunger if not for this lifeline.

However...many of the truly needed find the red tape and hurdles overwhelming. Without transportation...without a phone....getting food stamps is not an easy task.

Yet... I don't support the joke the program has become.

It should be a lifeline...not a way of life.

Finding Food Stamps Fraud...

Food Stamps fans and supporters are quick to say that food stamps fraud is a myth... and happy to cite the GAO report pronouncing historically low error rates.

What a joke.

Go to your local supermarket. Take five minutes to observe the checkstand area. Look over the purchases. You are sure to quickly spot food stamp purchasers.

They're the ones with name brand items, plenty of red meat, deli sliced meats, and the finest of the seafood departments.

It's a joke.

You'll see the scrimpers and savers not so lucky to have hit the food stamp lottery.

They'll be the ones with Ramen noodles.

Food Stamps Bonus for Missouri

WOW... Missouri has a population of about 5.6 million people. Of those fine Missouri folks, around 300,000 FAMILIES (not just individuals) receive food stamps.

300,000 Families!

Now...Missouri's average family size is 2.48 persons. So times that by 300,000 and we have about 744,000 people on food stamps in Missouri.

So.... one out of every 7 or 8 people in Missouri are living on food stamps.

Is the federal government concerned?

Apparently not as per their annoucement of Missouri's winning a $4 million bonus for being among the "most accurate" in dispersement of food stamps in the nation.

Wow...a $4 million bonus for obeying the law.

Not 100% accuracy mind you...but among the "most accurate." So, I guess they follow the law more than most.

And the government is passing out awards for it.

Sheesh.

Food Stamps .... Apparently the Latest Craze

What's up with the politicans across America and their newly acquired passion for food stamps?

Rather than finding solutions for the need for so many people living on food stamps...they are apparently lining up to join the crowd. That's right...the lastest fad is living on food stamps.

Why oh why is it a challenge to live on food stamps?

Is this a game?

People just itching to sign up to play the 'watch me live on food stamps game'...

What's it going to be....a network game show???

I don't get it.