"Food Stamp Cut Backed by Republicans With Voters on Rolls"
Food Stamp Cut Backed by Republicans With Voters on Rolls
By John McCormick & Greg Giroux at Bloomberg
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-14/food-stamp-cut-backed-by-republicans-with-voters-on-rolls.html
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As the U.S. economy recovers from the worst recession since the Great Depression, the explosive growth of food stamps remains a lingering legacy. And now the program comes with an irony, as the Republicans seeking to cut it also represent vast numbers of recipients.
Among the 254 counties where food stamp recipients doubled between 2007 and 2011, Republican Mitt Romney won 213 of them in last years presidential election, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data compiled by Bloomberg. Kentuckys Owsley County, which backed Romney with 81 percent of its vote, has the largest proportion of food stamp recipients among those that he carried.
Stella Marshall is among the food stamp users in Owsley County. Around the fifth of each month, she heads to a discount grocery store to buy staples: macaroni, beans, corn meal and peanut butter. At the checkout, she swipes the Electronic Benefit Transfer card that carries the $352 in food stamps she receives each month.
Of all the things they could cut in America, it shouldnt be the food stamp program, said Marshall, 58, who received Social Security disability payments and is raising three grandchildren, ages 7 through 17, in Booneville, Kentucky, on a monthly income of $1,255, all from the state or federal government.
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