Texas Among Hungriest States

KRIV FOX 7 Houston, TX Nov. 18, 2009. 09:32 PM EST

A new study ranks Texas lower than all other states but Mississippi in a key measure of hunger.

Rightardia has noted the hypocrisy of southern senators and represenatives. Most of the Southern states are recipients states of more federal revenues than taxes that they pay. We have have never understood when Southerners elect conservatives in states that have such weak infrastructures.

The food stamp rolls have expanded to record levels. Thirty six million Americans are now collecting aid, an increase of nearly 40 percent from two years ago.

Problems gaining access to food were highest in households with children headed by single mothers. About 37 percent of them reported some form of food insecurity compared with 14 percent of married households with children.

About 29 percent of Hispanic households reported food insecurity, compared with 27 percent of black households and 12 percent of white households. Serious problems were most prevalent in the South, followed equally by the West and Midwest.
 

The Bush administration had tried to deep-six this annual Agricultural department survey. But President Obama has dealt with it openly and called the danger to children especially troubling.

Some conservatives have attacked the survey’s methodology, saying it is hard to define what it measures. The 18-item questionnaire asks about skipped meals and hunger pangs, but also whether people had worries about getting food. It ranks the severity of their condition by the number of answers that indicate a problem.

“Very few of these people are hungry,” said Robert Rector, an analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “When they lose jobs, they constrain the kind of food they buy. That is regrettable, but it’s a far cry from a hunger crisis.”

Conservatives are sticking their heads in the sand about hunger in the US. The conservative approach is reminiscent of a famous quote from the French Revolution.  Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote that he recalled the last resort of a great princess who was told that the peasants had no bread. She responded: "Let them eat brioche (cake)."

sources: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/us/17hunger.html?_r=1&ref=us and Clip Syndicate

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