Lawmakers Find $21 a Week Doesn't Buy a Lot of Groceries

WaPo reported Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) stood before the refrigerated section of the Safeway on Capitol Hill yesterday and looked longingly at the eggs. At $1.29 for a half-dozen, he couldn't afford them. Ryan and three other members of Congress have pledged to live for one week on $21 worth of food, the amount the average food stamp recipient receives in federal assistance. That's $3 a day or $1 a meal.

They are idiots. the food stamp program is not supposed to pay for all of their food. It provides assistance to help low-income people be able to afford more nutritious food. It is not supposed to provide all of the food they need to eat.

They started yesterday. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.), co-chairmen of the House Hunger Caucus, called on lawmakers to take the "Food Stamp Challenge" to raise awareness of hunger and what they say are inadequate benefits for food stamp recipients. Only two others, Ryan and Janice Schakowsky (D-Ill.), took them up on it.