Can a Congressman live on $21 a week?

After a week-long challenge to live on the budget given to food stamp recipients (which is very close to what I spent a week on food in college), Rep. Tim Ryan heard the siren song of a pork chop.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.), co-chairmen of the House
Hunger Caucus, called on lawmakers to take the "Food Stamp Challenge" to raise
awareness of hunger and what they say are inadequate benefits for food stamp
recipients. Only two others, Ryan and Janice Schakowsky (D-Ill.), took them up on it.
McGovern and Emerson have introduced legislation that would add $4 billion
to the annual federal food stamp budget, which was $33 billion last year and
covered 26 million Americans. The proposal could be incorporated by Congress
into the new farm bill.
"We're trying to get this debate going," McGovern
said. "There are more working people today getting food stamps than six years
ago. . . . There's not a member of Congress that doesn't have hunger in their
district."
According to the rules of the challenge, the four House members
cannot eat anything beside their $21 worth of groceries. That means no food at
the many receptions, dinners and fundraisers that fill a lawmaker's week.
At
the Safeway, Ryan seemed to grow depressed as he realized the limits of his
budget. "It's unbelievable," he said, filling his small grocery basket with
peanut butter, jelly and bread. He bought a big bag of cornmeal that he says
he'll try to fashion into grits for breakfast and polenta for dinner. And he
grabbed some canned tomato sauce and pasta on sale. No money for meat, milk,
juice, fresh fruit or vegetables, save for a single head of 32-cent garlic to
flavor the tomato sauce.

Both lawmakers will keep blogs about the
experience, McGovern at http://foodstampchallenge.typepad.com and Ryan at http://timryan.house.gov.

Read it and learn

Rep. Tim Ryan's (D-Ohio) $21 shopping list:
Yellow cornmeal $1.43
2 jars strawberry preserves 4.80
1 jar chunky peanut butter 2.48
2 packages angel-hair pasta 1.54
Chock Full o’ Nuts coffee 2.50
3 cans tomato sauce 4.50
2 containers cottage cheese 3.00
1 loaf wheat bread 0.89
1 head of garlic 0.32
Total: $20.66

Photo by Katherine Fey