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Gingrich's tough talk on food stamps may backfire | Reuters
Everyone who gets foodstamps had to swallow their pride. When people have jobs its all good to rant how foodstamps users are all getting free rides getting over, that is until they need them when they're in a jam.
"You used to hear all the comments when I was a kid about 'Welfare Cadillacs,' but that's not really something you see much," he said.
More and more food stamp recipients are like Susie, 59, who declined to give her last name at a food stamp office in Jacksonville.
"I am a Republican and a conservative ... and I had to swallow my pride today and come in and apply for benefits for the first time because I'm losing weight," Susie said.
The blonde, blue-eyed mother of grown children looks like a typical consumer at an upscale shopping mall. She said she has suffered a triple whammy since the recession began in 2007 - losing her house, business and marriage.
Susie, who described herself as an undecided voter, said the only work she has been able to find was as a part-time cashier at a Dollar Tree discount store.
Nationally, at least 36 percent of the 46 million people on food stamps are white, 22 percent are black, and 10 percent Hispanic, according to factcheck.org. The race of many participants is unknown.
Non-Hispanic whites make up about 63.7 percent of the U.S. population while blacks make up about 12.6 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
"A RISKY GAMBIT"
Gingrich casts Obama as "the greatest food stamp president in history."
That's not quite true - yet.
During George W. Bush's eight-year presidency 14.7 million people went on the food stamp rolls, a half-million more than in Obama's three years, according to factcheck.org, a nonpartisan group.
Economic times are so tough for many people that Gingrich's strategy of casting food stamps as a negative symbol could backfire, said David Roediger, a historian at the University of Illinois who has written extensively about class and race.
"It's an old appeal but it's a risky gambit. It may work less well now because in this economy so many white people are on food stamps, or know people who are on food stamps, and so many people have difficulty getting a job," Roediger said.
Everyone who gets foodstamps had to swallow their pride. When people have jobs its all good to rant how foodstamps users are all getting free rides getting over, that is until they need them when they're in a jam.