Excerpt:
The number of Americans receiving aid under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has reached the highest level since records began being kept by the USDA in 1969. Commonly referred to as “food stamps,” there are approximately 35 million Americans receiving aid under the SNAP, which represents about 12 percent of the population. This data does not include those receiving similar aid under state programs. See: http://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/SNAPsummary.htm.
A look at the increase in the amount of people who qualify for government benefits paints a disturbing picture. The U.S. is in a deep recession and bailing out banks and industries may not be addressing the core of the problem. There may be no such thing as a “jobless recovery.”
Read more here:
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-23316-Madison-Independent-Examiner~y2009m9d26-Number-of-Americans-on-food-stamps-highest-since-records-kept
IMO, Greg, the country’s been in a depression for the past two years, at least for poor, working class, and middle-class Americans. In some areas of the country, it’s been in a depression for a longer period than that. (In the Midwest, parts of Michigan, Ohio and the town of Janesville, Wisconsin [distant relative], among others, come to mind.)
I wasn’t surprised that at the top of the list 3 million Texans are collecting food stamps, but many of them still vote Republican nonetheless (unless vote fraud there is more widespread than I thought, which is entirely possible). The GOP, starting with Junior, has sold the state to the wealthy 10 percent, leaving few crumbs behind for the majority. Perry continues the practice — I can only hope Texans wake up in 2010, but I also won’t be surprised if they re-elect Republicans and keep blaming ‘dirty lib’ruls’ for their pain and misery. It is a state stuffed with proud Craig T. Nelson’s: “I’ve been on food stamps and welfare. Did anybody help me out? No! No!”
(Read it here: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,522939,00.html )
As long as people like the ‘Coach’ appear on Glenn Beck and act as if things like food stamps and welfare aren’t liberal government programs funded by the taxpayers, then Texans will continue to vote for Republicans and loathe liberals until they end up sleeping in the street — and maybe even then, too.
As native-born Texans Molly Ivins and Jim Hightower have written, there are a whole passel of really dumb white people in the Lone Star State and, unfortunately, the phenomenon is not confined there.
Comment by RS Janes — September 27, 2009 @ 4:09 am