Greg Stanton, mayor of Phoenix, under-went a “Trading Places” of sorts when he challenged himself to spend just $29 on food for the entire week — a typical food stamp budget. During the process, he said:
I lost a few pounds this week, I’m probably down about four pounds. Occasionally I’d have a cup of coffee and skip a meal in order to make it through.
This is a terrible economy, a lot of people are living on food stamps that before were solidly middle class. There are a lot who have a job but are significantly underemployed than what they’re used to.
Now multiply that by 52 weeks a year, with the fact that over 1 million Arizonans receive food stamp benefits, while more than 600,000 are below the poverty line and don’t (41% of which are children and senior citizens), and you begin to understand the lunacy underlying GOP efforts to cut food stamps via the so-called “farm bill.”
