Look at the facts before complaining

opinions

October 24, 2013 - 12:00 AM

Some people never want to be confused by facts.
That’s the story that begs to be told from a rail in the Anderson County Review’s Phone Forum, a feature similar to the Register’s Sound Off! of years ago. The Register’s forum gave people an anonymous voice, as long as it wasn’t scandalous, mean-spirited or downright untrue.
Sound Off! burned a few ears and eventually succumbed to its own weight.
The column in the Review doesn’t appear to suffer from any heavy-handed editing, and most comments usually are reasonable. Exceptions, as might be expected, are those to do with politics.
This week a caller threw a fit over food stamps. He — or she — claimed from historical perspective the U.S. Department of Agriculture program was over the top with nutrition assistance and a result of what occurred when leaders of the two major parties reached across the aisle. George McGovern and “our own iconic Bob Dole” worked together to provide food for the hungry, the caller noted, “and now half the country is hooked on them.”
Half the country? That’s a lofty number. Current U.S. population is 317 million.
Reality is that a little over 47 million people don’t go to bed hungry because the richest country the world has ever known, with foodstuffs piling because of the expertise of our farmers, is giving a helping hand.
By the way, 47 million is a touch under 15 percent of the nation’s populace, and, not by coincidence, is about the same number of citizens who face each day without health care insurance.

NO ONE wants to suffer the consequences of being poor. Being hungry, having to seek medical care on the cheap, being unable to adequately provide for loved ones and, worst of all, feeling the sting of often unspoken, but obvious, ridicule, is no stroll in the park.
While there always will be people who game the system, in the vast majority of cases food stamps aren’t a handout, they are a hand up to a better life that good nutrition helps provide.
— Bob Johnson

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