Romney Speaks on Food- stamp Growth

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said in May that he’d written off votes from 47 percent of Americans who are collecting government aid. Turns out many of them are part of his political base.

According to him almost seventy percent of the counties with the highest food stamp aid during the last four years have voted for the republican in the last four years as stated by the U.S Department of Agriculture data compiled by Bloomberg. Republican strongholds like King County, Texas backed the republican John McCain in by 92.6 percent, his largest share in the nation; and fast-growing Douglas County, Colorado.

This clearly means that Romney is counting mainly on the votes by the low income people who are depending on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program commonly referred to as the Food Stamp.

Head of the Douglas County’s Republican Party, Mark Baisley said that many recipients of back Romney hoping that he would improve the economy.

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“Would you rather be sitting at home wishing you had a job and relying upon the kindness of neighbours?” Baisley said in a telephone interview from Colorado, one of the swing states that Romney and President Barack Obama are battling over. “Or would you rather be self-supporting, with a job that sustains your family?”

In a video from a May fundraiser, Romney said “there are 47 percent who are with him,” referring to Obama, “who are dependent on government.” They “believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing.

 

Feeding Families

The chief marketing strategist of ConvergEx Group LLC in New York predicted that risk adverse voters in competitive states may site with that presidential candidate who would extend them greater benefits to overcome the economic downturn from The Great Depression.

“You have a lot of people who are relying upon the government to put food on the table for themselves or their families,” Colas said in an interview. “That’s going to have to inform a lot of decisions.

Romney has even suggested the transfer of the control of food stamps and other federals programs to states.

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$ 80 Billion

According to the recent figures more than 16 million additional people have on the food stamp aid in the last four years by USDA. From an initial 2.9 million beneficiaries in 1969 an 80 billion program to 46.7 million at the end of July.

 

Downhill Industry

LIFT-UP, a 30-year-old interfaith humanitarian program in Rifle, Colorado, about 70 miles northwest of Aspen, helped provide food to more than 5,100 families this year after a poor ski season hurt tourism-industry workers and the collapse of natural-gas prices devastated the region’s energy sector, said Mike Powell, LIFT-UP’s executive director.

This story was originally reported by Frank Bass of Bloomberg

 

 

 

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