Democratic "talking point" is a lie

I like to read John Good's blog, <http://leftinaboite.blogspot.com/>. He does a great job with his blog and he does a fairly good job of illustrating The Democratic point of view. That being said he posted a piece entitled "Hunger has been eliminated" that is one of the least accurate pieces I have read in a long time.

Please go and read the article entitled "Hunger has been eliminated" at <http://leftinaboite.blogspot.com/> and then come back here and we can discuss it.

I have copied the post here for ease:

Hunger has been eliminated!

Paging George Carlin. . .Mr.Carlin, your country needs you. . .

Claiming that the term "hungry" is "not a scientifically accurate term for the specific phenomenon being measured in their food security survey, and stating that "we don't have a measure of that condition", the US government has decided to drop the word "hunger" from its vocabulary. The condition formerly known as hunger shall henceforth be referred to as "very low food security". Statistically speaking, hunger will no longer exist in America.

The government report follows five straight years of increases in the number of Americans unable to afford the food they need. While the USDA may feel comfortable saying there is no hunger in America, simply because they can't find a precise scientific measure to describe it. It is not so difficult. In fact, it's so easy a child could do it. A young boy at a San Francisco food pantry knows exactly how to describe hunger. He says, "My stomach is touching my back.

"If the government stops using the word "hunger," people may begin to believe that hunger has gone away. It hasn't. Just ask that little boy whose stomach is touching his back. However, by any name, the statistics are grim: 35 million people in America are living in "food-insecure" households. Seniors and children are especially at risk. Hunger is especially devastating for our most vulnerable citizens: children and seniors.

Yet for the past six years, the Bush administration has been cutting food-assistance programs, and in some cases, proposing to eliminate them. The continued unraveling of our nation's food safety net, will mean that more elderly Americans will go to bed hungry, more working poor parents will have to choose between paying the rent or putting food on the table, and more children will perform poorly in school and be unprepared for productive work lives.

The new Democratic-led Congress has an important opportunity to reverse these policies. They can take the lead in combating hunger by restoring and increasing funding for the government food-assistance programs that provide vital nutrition to low-income Americans. And they should never be afraid to call hunger by its name.

My comment I left on his blog is below:

I am NOT sure where to start with this post...

The fact that the Feds want to stop using the word "hunger" helps to show how silly these large Government programs really are...

The rest of this post is quite possibly one of the least accurate posts I HAVE EVER SEEN on this blog.

John, I respectfully suggest you do some research on this topic! This is a Democratic talking point and it is an OUTRIGHT LIE.

The line item on the actual Federal Budget is "Food and Nutritional Assistance." Spending on this item has SKYROCKETED since 1962. All of my figures are taken directly from the US Budget and are rounded to the nearest million or billion dollars for simplicity.

1962. 275 Million dollar spent.
1970. 960 Million dollars spent.
1980. 13 Billion dollar spent.
1990. 21 Billion dollars spent.
2000. 28 Billion dollars spent.
2001. 29 Billion dollars spent.
2002. 33 Billion dollars spent.
2003. 37 Billion dollars spent.
2004. 41 Billion dollars spent.
2005. 48 Billion dollars spent.
2006. 51 Billion dollars spent.

The largest annual increase in the programs long history occurred from 2004 to 2005; when Republicans were in control... The program grew by 17% that year...

The 2001 - 2006 Budgets are directly attributable to a Republican President, a Republican House, and a Republican Senate...

From 2001 - 2006 "Federal Food and Nutritional Assistance" grew by 76%!

How is this causing people to starve? We are spending more then ever before and The Republicans are growing the program faster then Bill Clinton did...

Please take a few minutes and go look at the actual budget of The United States. It is easy to check my numbers...

Look at it this way:
About 13% of Americans live below The Federal poverty line. If HALF of them are on food assistance then this would be 19.5 million people. This would mean that last year The Federal government spent $2615 PER PERSON in 2006 to help feed them.

Note this does NOT count any Federal programs that give these same people income that can be spent on food nor does it include State programs nor does it include private charities nor does it include the Earned Income Tax Credit...
There are MANY different Federal food assistance programs. Each program has their own mission, administrators, staff, and agenda. It is one of the most inefficient setups you could imagine.

President Bush is proposing that we ELIMINATE the ones that do the least good and take the money that they would have received and give it to the food assistance programs that perform better. This would eliminate some of the waste, fraud, abuse, and unneeded overhead...

It is a GOOD idea.

I have ranted long enough...

I hope that everyone who read this learned something...

John Good, sorry for the rant. I imagine you just copied this from some left leaning sight without looking into it yourself!

I hate it when I see "talking points" that are this inaccurate.

Mike Sylvester