by Matthew Hay Brown
Did you hear the one about the Muslim, the Jew and the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee?
The three are among the latest to take the Food Stamp Challenge – a pledge to eat on $21 for the week, the average amount received by participants in the U.S. Food Stamp Program.
Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, the only Muslim in Congress, Rabbi Steve Gutow, executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, and Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who chairs the House Democrats’ election fundraising organization, said today that they hoped their participation would help to raise awareness of poverty in America.
"I don’t care which faith tradition you come from," Ellison told reporters. "you cannot justify living in a country with 36 million poor people."
Members who took the challenge earlier this year warned their colleagues of the hunger, fatigue and irritability ahead.
"It’s not a pleasant thing to go through," said Rep. Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat. "But you also learn that when you’re poor in this country, it takes a lot of work to get through life."
Matthew Hay Brown covers Congress for the Baltimore Sun, a Tribune Co. newspaper.
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Comments
Let's add the poor befuddled NFL player.
Posted by: Doug Zook | September 18, 2007 5:58 PM
If these so called people are not eating....Then why are they sooooooo fat?????? And yet they manage to buy cigarettes and alcohol. $21 can buy a lot of bread, peanut butter and tuna fish...
Posted by: Stu | September 18, 2007 6:32 PM
Where did the "average" $21 come from? According to the Coalition on Hunger, the maximum per individual is $35.47 a week ($152 a month) under the federally-funded food stamp program. For a family of two, the allowance is $64.87 a week, meaning they'd do better by combining two individual amounts. Strange, huh? Still not enough, but more than $21.
Posted by: Pierce | September 18, 2007 10:04 PM
I vote that Muslims and Jews eat pork; Hindus eat beef; and fundamentalist Christianists eat crow.
Not one of the bunch is capable of being anything other than a ignorant bunch of goobers. Hey, look up! The the sky is falling!
(Made ya look.)
Posted by: weinerdog43 | September 18, 2007 10:32 PM
"it’s not a pleasant thing to go through," said Rep. Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat."
Yeah, that's the whole point.
I can't believe its 2007 and Dems and self loathing libs are still clinging to the failed social policies of the past.
Oh yeah, I forgot, It keeps the poor down and votes still coming in thru pandering.
Instead of teaching people to thrive in our capitalist economy, they teach them to barely survive a socialist program signed, sealed and delivered by the left.
Hey Ellison, why don't you spend your time teaching Muslims about the pro's and con's of interest paid on borrowed money. Maybe then you and your "Brothers" can climb out of the stone ages.
Posted by: JD | September 18, 2007 11:59 PM
JD,
What "failed socialist programs" are you referring to?
Posted by: Doug Zook | September 19, 2007 7:33 AM
I'll let Howard Dean answer that for you Doug.
"I'm not asking to go back to the '60s; we made some mistakes in the '60s," he (Dean)said. "If you look at how we did public housing, we essentially created ghettoes for poor people" instead of using today's method of mixed-income housing.
Another mistake Democrats made in the '60s, Dean acknowledged, was that "we did give things away for free, and that's a huge mistake because that does create a culture of dependence, and that's not good for anybody, either," he noted, a reference to the Great Society welfare programs created by Democratic President Lyndon Johnson in the mid-1960s.
Posted by: JD | September 19, 2007 11:13 AM