Perhaps the increased number on food stamps is directly related to the policies that caused the crash and the loss of 8.3 million jobs?
Conor Doughtery, writing in the Wall Street Journal, 8/22/2012, noted the timing of the loss of the middle class and the increase in poverty and the reason.
"The middle class — defined as households with between two-thirds and double the nation’s median income — has shrunk considerably over the past few decades, a decline that has been greatly exacerbated by the recession and housing bust.
In 2011, the nation’s middle class income bracket held 51% of households, down from 61% in the 1970s, according to this report released today by the Pew Research Center. Over the same period, both the upper and lower income brackets have grown. Pew notes that while middle class incomes fell over the 2000s decade, the bigger hit was falling home and asset values. The median middle class income fell 5% over the decade, but total wealth — assets minus debt — fell 28%."
Here is what Romney proposes to do: In embracing the Ryan plan, he would cut discretionary spending to pay for a 5 trillion tax cut for the rich would include cuts to Pell grants for the poor to attend college, federal support of education, Medicaid by 30%, and food stamps. Most of those cuts affects kids and their grandparents, but it also directly affects the ability of their parents to give them a ladder break out of poverty and minimum wage jobs, no matter how many jobs that pay enough to support a family are made available.
Not only that, never, never has cutting taxes to the rich ever created jobs in an economy recovering from a recession. Romney may bemoan those "victims and dependents of Government dole", but he only supports policies that would cut the rungs of the ladder the poor could climb to a better future. His tears are only tools to make a point that trickle down and cutting the safety net are how he plans to bring people out of poverty.
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