Political Quotes

“No. This is a food stamp budget, the SNAP program. Again, the SNAP budget for millions of Americans is $4 a day. And so obviously you've got to shop as aggressively as you possibly can, and frankly you're buying somewhat lower-cost items. As I said, we're about to get across the finish line at midnight tonight. Again, a cup and a half of coffee a day, half a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, generic cereal, little bananas, some meals at night. You don't have to worry about cleaning dishes when you're on this kind of budget because you eat every bit of it. And as I said, it has been a real eye opener in terms of the fact that this is really an experience that isn't just limited to 1 week for millions of Americans. It's something that, again, is just part of a growing reality. I raise it in the context of the Jobs Act because today there are, again, millions of Americans who are 99ers; they are people who have gone through their unemployment compensation period, which, as we all know, has a cap of 99 weeks. For a lot of them, there really is nothing else waiting at the end of that time other than food stamps--or the SNAP program as it's now called. To basically live on $32, which is really what the amount is for a single adult, is really impossible. As a result, we're seeing, again, record numbers of people showing up at food banks, record numbers of people showing up at soup kitchens. There is now a suburbanization of poverty that's going on in this country.…”