Foodstamps Surge By Most In One Year To New All Time Record, In Delayed Release(after election of course)

I'll tell you how the memo worked out for Republicans in the election. They lost by many,many fewer votes and the mandate is that you better not keep f-ing up or all the support for Democrats will dry up in 2 years (mid-term elections). In essence, we'll go with your "forward" bullshit, but it better be forward into better sh** than what you've done so far.

We'll see....and if things get better for me, I'll vote Democrat next time to keep the good times rollin'....if not, I will vote for the economic policies that I believe will work to make America grow.

muchadoaboutnothing wrote:

They lost by many,many fewer.

^hilarious rationalizing.

All the whoo-hoo-ers who are throwing the "Obama won" seem to fail to realize that his winning does not nullify the fact the country is deeply divided. This was as far from a landslide win as you'll see. It doesn't bode well for the country, so while you want to celebrate Obama's win-by-a-hair, you might not want to celebrate the state of the country just yet.

Actually, this election doesn't rank that high up on the overall list in terms of closeness. Bush (2000) Bush (2004) Carter (1976) Nixon (1968) Kennedy (1960), to name the more recent examples, were all closer in terms of both the popular vote and the electoral college. Not saying this election was a massive landslide, but obviously the country has been more divided in the past (if you are using presidential election results as a measure of division). Also, this clearly isn't "as far from a landslide win as you'll see".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_by_popular_vote_margin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_by_Electoral_College_margin

classic example of how we now vote. Has nothing to do with securing inalienable rights, defending the Constitution, or what's best for the Republic and everything to do with "and if things get better for me, I'll vote Democrat next time to keep the good times rollin'...." Doesn't matter where the $$ comes to keep your 'good times rollin', does it?

What a clown you are.

I read the "zerohedge" article, and see that here is a case where they showed 4-5 years of data, but somehow managed to selectively choose statistics to help infer political motives for the delay in releasing bad news.

When you look at the black line they provided, you can see that the "all time record" has been fairly flat for the year in question. It looks to be 46 million in Sep. 2011. This also explains why the monthly increase was the biggest increase in one year -- because the rest of the year was basically flat. 5 of the months in question shows a decrease in food stamp numbers. There is nothing outstanding about the month of July pushing things to an all time high. On Sep. 5 (see article below) it was already reported at 46.7 million, to be an all time high, after the June data was released. If July was politically damaging data, then so was April, May, and June. The voters were already informed that things were at an all time high.

"zerohedge" wants to infer that the delay of bad news was done for political reasons. But when you look at the 4 and 5 year graphs, you could draw a completely different conclusion wholly supported by the data provided by "zerohedge": that the effects of the inherited Bush recession have maxed out, and Obama is finally starting to turn things around.

But I don't want to draw such "partisan" conclusions on such few facts out of context. Here's another perspective, looking at more facts, when the figure was 46.7 million after the June data was released:

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/09/who-benefits-from-food-stamps/261993/

Quotes from the article:

"You can look at the enrollment numbers in one of two ways: either it's a sign that more Americans than ever are in need of help, or that more Americans than ever are receiving benefits who don't need them. Where you stand often falls along partisan lines, but it doesn't have to. Unlike most questions of ideology, this is one where the facts exist."

"What these numbers imply is that those who get benefits are unquestionably poor; many of them aren't old enough to work or care for themselves; many recipients who are of working age are employed; and that SNAP runs on a shoestring, leaving the vast majority of its funds to providing benefits.

Add to that the research by both public and private outfits suggesting food stamps can actually generate wealth by juicing GDP, and what you've got is a reasonably strong argument for giving needy people the benefit of the doubt at a time of slower-than-expected economic recovery."