Rep Ryan said he had to cheat and order a pork chop in a restaurant, because otherwise he would have been too weak to give a speech. He inadvertently lost his jars of peanut butter and jelly, and was left with only corn meal. He said he lost 5 pounds in one week. In other words, a person who is used to all of the comforts, couldn’t make it on the stipend. I have no trouble insisting that able-bodied people work for benefits, but think that food stamps should be augmented. Children born into poverty can’t perform in school or sports when they eat so poorly. And they, and the elderly are the real victims.

> But the inner cities are
> real America for many
> of the people who are
> on food stamps, and
> who are the folks whose
> plight Rep. Ryan is
> trying to elucidate.

Yes, or merely score some political points. The dependence on public transportation and lack of grocery stores in their own neighborhoods are long-known problems that those in the inner city face.

There are others, too, you may not expect or suspect. For example, I used to live in an inner-ring suburb of St. Louis, in St. Louis county just a mile from the city limit (where the difference between the two is stark). (I didn’t want to live way out in St. Charles County or elsewhere up to 40 or more miles away.) Now, St. Louis is hot and humid in the summer, and its heat compares with Atlanta, another place I’ve lived, and is more humid than the “monsoon” summer season in Phoenix (another place, and one referred to at the link you provided, accurately a modern example of life in the USA).

Believe it or not, there are many buildings, including school buildings, in St. Louis that to this day lack air conditioning. Heat-related fatalities strike every time there is a heat wave.