Let's See Rethuglicans Eat on Three Dollars a Day

This is the kind of thing network news used to do every day of the week. The kind of thing the lack of which has been a huge factor in the destruction of our national discourse. The kind of thing we desperately need to stop our rapid plummet into a Randian dystopia.

Crooks and Liars:

I just have to wonder what kind of inhuman people want to ignore this. Hell, I wonder if most members of Congress even know about it! Are we supposed to believe that the United States of America can't afford to feed struggling people?

(CBS) OKLAHOMA CITY - For millions of Americans the economic recovery can't get here soon enough. In 2010 a record 40.3 million Americans received food stamps. That's a 20 percent jump from 2009.

CBS News correspondent Seth Doane reports that even with that help, many are just getting by. By the end of each month the question in Sheri Lopez's kitchen isn't what's for dinner but will there be dinner?

Her daughter says, "At the end we're all just trying to find something in the cabinets. Sometimes you go to bed kind of hungry."

Sheri's husband lost his construction job a year ago.

"It has been downhill," says Sheri. "There've been no ups and downs. It has just been downhill."

This Oklahoma family of five saw no choice but to apply for food stamps. Their $500 benefit lasts two to three weeks but hardly four.

Reward CBS for this: watch the CBS evening news every night in February, during the next ratings Sweeps Month.

And the next time some teabagger starts bitching about food stamps, tell him to show you how he would shop for food based on $3.33 per person per day.

Then tell him that every dollar the government spends on food stamps gets spent right away, generating more than two dollars in immediate economic stimulus. Want to get the economy rolling again, creating jobs? Double food stamp allotments now.