General
I can’t believe they’re still talking about this
First it was the Oregon governor and now OH-17 Congressman Ryan joining the fun.
This long after the whole $21 a day “food stamp” challenge was debunked by Bizzyblog and others, they persist. mcjoan at Kos has a long write-up where they assume that the average food stamp award of $21 is the only money that the “average” recipient is allowed to spend on food. It also even made federally sponsored NPR’s story of the day.
Ahem:
If $21 is indeed the correct per-person per-week Food Stamp benefit in Oregon, the example that immediately follows the table at the linked Fact Sheet page makes it perfectly clear that the $21 is what remains AFTER a person or family on Food Stamps has contributed what the Program believes they can contribute towards buying food from their own resources (a fairly complex calculation that is beyond the scope of this post, except of course to note its existence). It is definitely NOT what “the state’s average food stamp recipient spends weekly on groceries.” The Program’s table assumes that Food Stamp recipients will spend more, and it’s reasonable to assume that many if not most recipients do indeed spend more.
At this point they’ve crossed the line from dumb ignorance to wilful propaganda. There is no excuse. The problem is not the politicians, they lie, cheat and steal, it’s in the job description.
The problem, as biz pointed out, is that we have a willing and complicit media which will not hesitate to reprint a politicians press release without even a hint of background research or attempt at finding an opposing view. Because even the barest amount of research would have put the lie to this sham.
Hey, but their intentions are good right?!
Oh and Pravda would be proud.
Discussion
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Just d**n.
Subsequent reports (NYT, NPR, have been VERY careful not to actually lie about the level of benefits while not telling the truth about them either.
The NPR reporter noted that the $21 isn’t correct in a roundabout manner, but the Congresswoman came back with the argument that Food Stamps don’t buy toilet paper or houshold goods. Zheesh.
[...] NixGuy properly assigns the blame for why the false claim that the average Food Stamp recipient has “$21 to make it through the whole week” (a direct quote from one of the earlier Oregon participants) has acquired near urban-legend status: At this point, (Old Media has) ….. crossed the line from dumb ignorance to willful propaganda. There is no excuse….. [...]
[...] stay away from the pork chop. It’s one thing to do a meaningless publicity stunt based on a lie but then to fail at it… embarrassing. Filed under: Politics by — Dave @ 7:13 [...]
[...] Read the article. Maggie takes a couple of hours and exposes the fraud. There is one organization that is behind all these food stamp challenges, and it keeps happening even though we’ve proven it false again and again. [...]