About that Obama and food stamp story. [View All]

[cornermouse]

Obama timeline.

Obama was born in '61. His father left when Obama was 2 years old, apparently sometime in '63 to go to Harvard and according to the wikipedia bio never came back. His parents were divorced in '63 and Ann remarried two years later in '65 at which time Obama was 4 or 5 years old. I'm assuming he wasn't on food stamps after his mother remarried and she went overseas in '67. So it looks to me that he was on food stamps for, at most, 3 years when he was between the age of 2 and 5.

I think it's safe to assume that he was not on foodstamps after he decided he wanted to live with his grandfather and grandmother in Hawaii. I think it's safe to assume that Grandpa, who had a work history of furniture store management and salesman and Grandma, the bank Vice President, who helped pay tuition so that Obama could attend a very exclusive private school in Hawaii were not on food stamps. I would think that at the very least, the eyebrows of those overseeing the food stamp program would have shot up to their hairline if Obama and his grandparents were on food stamps while sending Barack to a private school.

Basic foodstamp info which indicates a limited possibility of foodstamps. Also wikipedia.

Pilot Food Stamp Program - May 29, 1961-1964

The 18 years between the end of the first FSP and the inception of the next were filled with studies, reports, and legislative proposals. Prominent Senators actively associated with attempts to enact a food stamp program during this period are Aiken, La Follette, Humphrey, Kefauver, and Symington. From 1954 on, Congresswoman Leonor Sullivan strove unceasingly to pass food stamp program legislation. On September 21, 1959, P.L. 86-341 authorized the Secretary of Agriculture to operate a food stamp system through January 31, 1962. The Eisenhower Administration never used the authority. However, in fulfillment of a campaign promise made in West Virginia, President Kennedy's first Executive Order called for expanded food distribution and, on February 2, 1961, he announced that food stamp pilot programs would be initiated. The pilot programs would retain the requirement that the food stamps be purchased, but eliminated the concept of special stamps for surplus foods. A Department spokesman indicated the emphasis would be on increasing the consumption of perishables.

Mr. and Mrs. Alderson Muncy of Paynesville, West Virginia, were the first food stamp recipients on May 29, 1961. They purchased US$95 in food stamps for their 15-person household. In the first food stamp transaction, they bought a can of pork and beans at Henderson's Supermarket. By January 1964, the pilot programs had expanded from eight areas to 43 (40 counties, Detroit, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh) in 22 States with 380,000 participants.

Of the program, Congresswoman Leonor K. Sullivan asserted, "...the Department of Agriculture seemed bent on outlining a possible food stamp plan of such scope and magnitude, involving some 25 million persons, as to make the whole idea seem ridiculous and tear food stamp plans to smithereens."

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The fact remains that neither of the candidates should not have to embroider or invent facts in order to be elected. And now that I've no doubt made
both sides mad at me, I'm going to watch the Derby. Knock yourselves out.


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