Posted on 09/18/2007 8:32:59 AM PDT by ButThreeLeftsDo
U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., wants to make a point about food stamps.
Ellison was to be joined at a news conference in Washington, D.C., Tuesday by Rabbi Steve Gutow, executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. They, and others, plan to live for a week on $21 -- the national average for food stamp benefits.
Ellison and others planned to announce a weeklong "Food Stamp Challenge." One of the goals is to raise the minimum food stamp benefit.
Ellison is the first Muslim elected to Congress. The week that he and Gutow will join the challenge falls during Islam's holy month of Ramadan and between the Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
"I can think of no better way to celebrate Ramadan than by participating in the Food Stamp Challenge," Ellison said in a news release. "And to do so with my brethren in the Jewish community is especially fitting because it underscores poverty does not discriminate. It knows no age or gender, no religion or race."
The Food Stamp Challenge is part of a yearlong initiative on poverty.
I have a novel idea:
Why dont you grow a vegetable garden and raise chickens in the backyard?
Oh wait!!! Thats work never mind.
Spaghetti is good for energy and it’s cheap.......
Misleading - any "reporters" have the guts to call this guy on it?
“Food stamps are meant to be a supplement to the money you earn.”
Oh they are still a supplement.
When I was younger and dumber, I worked at a place where people would often come looking for work but wanted to be paid cash as not to “mess up my check”. My boss was nice enough to clue me in on the scale of this. I was shocked.
Later, My friend worked at a car dealership. He got a similar shock when he realized how many people tried to finance cars who were on welfare. When turned down because of income, the most common statement was, “I can afford it. I make way more than I can show.”
Lastly, In college economics I learned that this “underground economy”, while nearly impossible to track, is estimated to rival the GNP.
Oh yeah, food stamps are still a supplement.
I’m SO impressed (not) So he’s going to live on $21/week in a week where he doesn’t eat all day, every day. Yawwwwwn
Plus everything everyone else said. Publicity whore.
We ate it for a week at a time twice a month back then.
Uh no.
Pinto Beans yes.
Living a week on food stamps, spending the night with the homeless under the bridge, doing all of one’s business while confined to a wheelchair for a day, volunteering in an emergency room on a typical Friday night shift, shaving one’s head in solidarity with cancer sufferers, wearing an oversized pillow under one’s shirt for a week to identify with the pregnant, riding a city bus through the tenderloin - about the only thing these silly-assed copycats haven’t done is try to make ends meet on two tricks a night on the street outside the Rescue Mission.
Pinto, Navy, kidney.......
My first check was for $17.57 and I had to pay for my haircut and stock my ditty bag with the rest; the smokers were on the phone to mommy for money.
The hucksters were loaning out 5 for 7.
Lackland AFB, 1959.
Yeppers
When my family had to use food stamps we wound up with enough that shopping well we had a surplus for when we were back on our feet. I see people on here complain about how people on food stamps buy steak. Yeah. I did that too. When it was on sale. The same way I still buy steak.
Me too. But I ate well because I could cook and I could PLAN AHEAD.
But you can be darn sure they’ve still got their cable TV. And cigarettes.
Correct. What idiots. And, the idiot reporters never report that.
Hey Ellison, Islam says you have to give your money to the poor. I didn’t read anything about stealing it from others to give to the poor.
Huh? What a rip off. Shop Aldi. I could live off $20 at Aldi's.
The wife and I made a whole 9,820 dollars last year.I was busy being sliced and diced in a VA Hospital,while the wife worked.Even with a Drs. statement saying I was permanently disabled,we were allowed ten dollars a month.I would gladly accept 21 dollars a week.Not for me,my wife.
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