Sherrod Brown: “last month, at a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing, Rhonda Stewart, a single mother from Hamilton, OH, Butler County…”

“last month, at a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing, Rhonda Stewart, a single mother from Hamilton, OH, Butler County, testified that despite working full time, caring for her 9-year-old son Wyatt--even serving as president of the PTA--she and her son must rely on food stamps to survive. At the end of each month, she told us, she must forgo dinner so her son can eat because the food stamps, which is about $6 a day, don't go far enough. She told us that at the beginning of the month, he gets pork chops. He knows he eats better in the beginning of the month than at the end of the month when she is running out of money. At the end of the month, she sits and tells him she is not really hungry, as her son eats, because she wants him to have enough, even when she doesn't. On the same day that Ms. Steward testified, U.S. Treasury Secretary Paulson told the Senate Banking Committee that the economy was doing well. He said over and over that the GDP was up 3 percent for the quarter. He kept insisting: Senator, you don't understand, things are going very well in this country. GDP is up 3 percent. People are making money and companies are profitable. When you think about all of that, here is the story: Profits are up. The stock market is doing well. Millionaires are enjoying exorbitant tax breaks. Worker productivity is up, but the workers are not sharing in the increasing profits most corporations are making.…”