I've spent the better part of my career administering retirement plans, and have seen with my own eyes what Atrios observes in this article for USAToday:

Over the past few decades, employees fortunate enough to have employer-based retirement benefits have been shifted from defined benefit plans to defined contribution plans. We are now seeing the results of that grand experiment, and they are frightening. Recent and near-retirees, the first major cohort of the 401(k) era, do not have nearly enough in retirement savings to even come close to maintaining their current lifestyles.

Frankly, that's an optimistic way of putting it. Let me be alarmist for a moment -- because the numbers are truly alarming. We should be worried that large numbers of people nearing retirement will be unable to keep their homes or continue to pay their rent.

According to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, the median household retirement account balance in 2010 for workers between the ages of 55-64 was just $120,000. For people expecting to retire at around age 65, and to live for another 15 years or more, this will provide for only a trivial supplement to Social Security benefits.

Yes. This is the consequence of shifting the responsibility not only for saving, but also for investing. People saving for retirement via 401k plans have taken at least two very deep hits to their investments over the past thirty years. But even if they hadn't, 401k accounts would not be sufficient.

Popular theory at the time dictated that retirement assets should consist of three different things: Social security, personal savings and/or home equity, and retirement savings via IRAs and 401k plans. We all know home equity is gone, thanks to the real estate crash. IRAs and 401ks took a hit during the early 90s, recovered some in the late 90s, and then crashed in 2008.

The solution is one that won't be popular with the "privatize everything" movement:

We need an across the board increase in Social Security retirement benefits of 20% or more. We need it to happen right now, even if that means raising taxes on high incomes or removing the salary cap in Social Security taxes.

I don't see that happening anytime soon. The current generation of soon-to-be retiring baby boomers is screwed. Between health care costs eating through retirement savings, the housing crash, and the likelihood that many of us who lost jobs in 2008 probably won't ever find one again, we're the biggest victims of Reagan 'trickle-down' theories.

Atrios offers a solution: Voters should be demanding that we should not only refuse cuts to Social Security, we should demand they be expanded.

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(h/t Video Cafe for the vid) The corporatist elites have been relentless in their attacks on earned benefits for Americans and are trying to seize upon Disaster Capitalism tactics to try and swindle the 98% out of needed entitlements using the mask of bipartisanship. The loathsome Ed Rendell was back on MSNBC and continued his assault on working-class Americans. He even went as far as to throw support for the election of more Republicans like Steve Latourette, who wanted to cut government spending tremendously.

RENDELL: The people want us to get together and do something. That's why I was sad to see Steve not run for re-election because we need Republicans, we need more Republicans who are going to stand in there and say, spending is the issue, but we gotta have reasonable revenue to come in into the mix and we got to look at everything when it comes to spending. Defense cannot be a sacred cow, we've got to look at everything and we've got to have legitimate entitlement reform. .

And on our side Mike, we've gotta do this. I was on The Cycle, one of MSNBC's shows and I suggested that raising the age in Medicare, given the fact that we're living longer, isn't a necessarily bad idea. The three progressive hosts, you would have thought that I'd proposed treason to the American government.

It is evil for a political hack to demand retirement ages go up and fewer benefits be paid to the many, many millions of people who need them to survive while he collects a fat check to sit on TV and spew bought-and-paid-for propaganda. In my last post, I labeled him a traitor -- so he obviously took it to heart.

RENDELL: And he has to also deliver a message to Democrats that we're going to have to compromise. Now give the President credit, he said he would consider chained CPI, he said back in 2011 that he would raise the age limit on Medicare with carve-outs. Those are things he's going to have to deliver if we're going to get Republicans to go along with more increased revenue and doing something finally on the debt. But only one person can take this on his shoulders and cross the finish line and that's the President of the United States. He has to lead.

No ifs ands or buts about it. He has to lead. And boy, I’d love the whole Congress, this new Congress and the President, they should all go see a screening of Lincoln together, because Abraham Lincoln led on the 13th Amendment when everybody on both sides told him he was crazy.

My God, he even used a slavery fight analogy from the movie Lincoln to justify his wickedness.
MSNBC's Steve Kornacki was so shocked by what he heard by this supposed lefty that he forced him to clarify his remarks.

KORNACKI: Well, Governor is... I heard you right there, are you saying you would be okay with raising the Medicare eligibility age?

RENDELL: With proper carve-outs for people who are, you know, have health challenges, absolutely

WTF does he mean by carve-outs and health challenges? Geeze, I couldn't transcribe any more from this Benedict Arnold traitor in a suit.

Latourette's ego is so big that he says Rendell and himself would solve all our problems in a week and a half if he was allowed to. Rendell goes on to support the idea that it's fine if more reasonable and conservative Republicans are elected to Congress. Did it ever cross his mind to maybe mention that electing many more progressive Democratic politicians would be the best solution to the crisis?

Rendell: Look, even if it means there are a few more Republicans in the Senate and the Congress, if they're reasonable Republicans who are moderate-conservative then that's a good prescription for America.

Republicans holding the House hostage isn't enough for Rendell, he wants a few more, just in case their majority isn't strong enough -- and wants to add a couple more in the Senate, which would give R's one-party rule. Ed Rendell, a major league embarrassment!

Tom Brokaw has no excuse for his stupidity on Meet the Press Sunday. None. He's old enough to know better, but evidently he's so full of right wing tropes that he's forgotten the purpose of Social Security and why it is structured the way it is, which of course plays right into the hands of those who would like to destroy it entirely.

This particular exchange is characteristic of people who have absolutely no basic understanding of the principles at play or what those principles mean to everyone, not just people who rely on Social Security:

GREGORY: Okay. But you-- Tom-- Tom when you-- I’m not afraid of it-- well, you know, I thought I’d let it go the first time. On second thought I had to say I don’t really know what you meant. Tom, you know, you interviewed-- you interviewed then candidate Obama in 2008. You said-- you asked him then, would you get Medicare and Social Security reform done in your first two years? He said, well Tom, I don’t know if I can do that but-- certainly in the first term. I asked him to make a commitment for the first year of his second term. He’s not prepared to do that. This is the driver, David you-- you recently linked to a Weekly Standard piece about you’re going to run out of discretionary money to do the things the president wants to do if he doesn’t take on entitlements.

MR. BROKAW: They’ve got to address it. And the president I think, could help himself a lot if he were tougher on the AARP for example, and said look, it’s not about the people at the bottom for whom Medicare really is the lifeline. It’s about all of the people, including those of us around the table who get the same benefits, members of our family who are very working class. My brother, you know, has a really great working class career working for the telephone company. But there’s a big disparity between what I’m worth and he’s worth but we get the same benefits at the end of the day. There’s something wrong with that. And, you know, the fact of the matter is that we’re all living longer as well. Social Security can go up if you give it some lead time to retire at 67 and probably 20 years from now to retire maybe at 70 because people are staying in the workplace longer. He ought to be able to raise those issues in a way that he can begin to sell them to the idea of-- sell to the American people the idea that we’ve got fundamental reforms that we have to do, as David says, downstream because we are going to be bankrupt not just our children but your grandchildren.

No. There's nothing wrong with that. Not one thing. Lean in, and listen carefully. Tom almost had it right when he said it's not about the people at the bottom, but about ALL the people, but then some weird kind of out-of-touch equivalence signal went off, and he had to go on about how wrong it is that he gets the same benefits that Joe Surveyor gets.

The problem is, people actually listen when he does this. I happened to get caught in a discussion on Twitter where he had sold his bill of goods to at least one person who seems to think poor folks won't get their Social Security benefits unless we take it away from people like Tom effing Brokaw.

For the benefit of that person, Tom Brokaw, and anyone else who is laboring under this travesty of a misconception, here are some facts to take to your discussion:

• Social Security is intentionally universal. This is not a bug, it's a feature. It is intentionally universal and must remain so because otherwise it becomes just another discretionary program that Congress can raid, cut, and shame people over like they do with Medicaid, food stamps, heating subsidies and just about everything else. By making it universal no matter whether you're Donald effing Trump or Granny down the street, and by paying for it with employee and employer contributions, it is removed from the realm of the hungry right wing, provided it is protected by the left wing, which is something our President and Congress would do well to remember.

  As long as the payroll deductions and benefits are calculated on the same formula for people, it remains a universal program and everyone's benefit is funded. The very second you talk about cutting the "upper tier" out of the program it is no longer universal, no longer paid for, and no longer alive.

  Get it? Good.

• Social Security is funded for 24 years. Talk to me about the "need" to reform it after the wars are amortized in advance, or taxes are raised in advance to pay for them. Do NOT, under any circumstances, sit your righteous self down in the room and misinform the American public that a PREPAID program for the next 24 years is your problem when it most clearly is not.
• The nonsense about raising retirement age has to stop. This is a real flaw among the Village elite, who think they can look at a damned actuarial table and figure it all out. People are not statistics. Some people live longer because they're not out there digging ditches and laying pipe at age 65. Some people wouldn't live longer if they had to lay pipe or dig ditches until age 70. And damn it all, someone will be out there laying pipe and paving roads now and in the future, and they'll just be screwed by an age change the same way the baby boomers were.

  I really hope Tom Brokaw reads this. Because anyone who has bothered to pay attention during this recession knows the highest percentage of workforce dropouts are women between age 54-65. So we get double-screwed, because we're denied the last 15 years of our working lives to earn higher benefits, and have to scrape by until we get to the magic retirement age.

  NO. Raising the retirement age isn't a simple swipe of the pen. It's the difference between having money in the bank at retirement to supplement Social Security and not having money in the bank. It's the difference between survival and living on the dole for some people.

  Mostly, it's just unnecessary.

I am so tired of these out of touch pundits pretending they're playing the Great Policy Game of 2012, where they approach it like Monopoly on steroids. Just. Stop. Stop talking about inflicting pain like sadists and get out of your bubble. Talk to real people, not people who play all of this out like it's a big game where someone wins and someone gets "pain."

Tom should be telling his rich buddies to suck it up and get over it. They profited from the wars, now they can pay their fair share. If they have that much, they can give a little up to make sure others have even the small things they worked so hard for.

Enough of the pain talk. Start talking about real life, with real people, in real situations. Or shut up and sit down and let someone else talk about it.

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Paul Ryan gave a speech yesterday. About poverty. That's right, the guy who blasted his way into a soup kitchen so he could wash clean pans and give the illusion that he cares about hungry people stood up on a stage and gave a speech so he could give the illusion he cares about poor people. No, really. He did.

This clip, put out by the Romney campaign, summarizes the Romney-Ryan view of poor folks. You see, it's all your fault, you single parents, you less educated folks. It's your fault, but it's also just a lack of opportunity. But mostly, it's your fault because you're all a bunch of dependent, irresponsible slackers who look to Daddy Government to take care of you.

Delivered with a smirk, of course. A somewhat self-satisfied smirk, at that.

After extolling the virtues of an "opportunity-driven free enterprise society", Congressman Ryan laid the smackdown on the poors, saying this (via Politico):

“With a few exceptions, government’s approach has been to spend lots of money on centralized, bureaucratic, top-down anti-poverty programs,” Ryan said. “ … The problem is, starting in the 1960s, this top-down approach created and perpetuated a debilitating culture of dependency, wrecking families and communities. This was so obvious to everyone by the 1990s that, when a major welfare program was finally reformed, the law was passed by a Republican Congress and signed by a Democratic president.”

Let's just come out and say it plainly: You people of color are dependent because you are all welfare queens and slackers.

Why did I interpret it that way? Ryan's reference to the 60s was a clear signal that he was about to whale on the mythical poor folk of the 60s, who are always brown or black, live in government-owned housing (they called them 'projects') and mooch.

You moochers, Paul Ryan wants you to know it's all your fault but he's going to help you anyway, and he's going to do it by removing all those restrictions that are in place to ensure people who actually are in need get what they need. Via Huffington Post:

Ryan noted that Americans born into poor families are more likely to stay poor as adults than Americans born into wealthy families.

Well, duh. That's what happens when you have no estate taxes. The wealthy become dynasties unto themselves. Yes, I think it's fair to say that children of poor folks have a more difficult row to hoe than children of the wealthy.

A Romney administration, Ryan said, would help restore mobility by turning the open-ended commitments of federal anti-poverty programs into "block grants" -- fixed chunks of money the federal government sends to states each year regardless of the amount of need. States, in turn, get more leeway to design their own programs.

"The federal government would continue to provide the resources, but we would remove the endless federal mandates and restrictions that hamper state efforts to make these programs more effective," Ryan said. "If the question is what's best for low-income Ohioans, shouldn’t we let Ohioans make that call?"

If you believe this, you also believe Romney would have saved the auto industry. There's a reason these programs are funded and regulated at the federal level. Can you imagine, for example, a scenario where the federal government hands off a huge chunk of money to a state like Alabama, who then allocates it in a convenient fashion which might not include people who most need it?

I can. Or let's say they aren't quite that blatant, but at the state level decide they should privatize all services to the poor and force restrictions on those receiving assistance that they must only seek assistance from those private organizations who stand to profit?

Paul Ryan would call that free enterprise. I call it theft.

As if his condescending, smirky, high and mighty attitude wasn't enough in this speech, he actually did deliver some policy proposals. I'm sure Chuck, Dave and Bill Koch are all gratified. Huffington Post reports on that too:

Part of the problem with programs that haven't received the block grant treatment, Ryan said, is that they perpetuate "government dependency." But he also said government spending itself is a threat to people who rely on safety net programs for food and health care.

"When government’s own finances collapse, society's most vulnerable are the first victims, as we are seeing right now in the troubled welfare states of Europe," he said. "Many there feel that they have nowhere to turn for help, and we must never let that happen in America."

Ryan also said government spending discourages people from giving to charity. "Debt on this scale is destructive in so many ways, and one of them is that it crowds out civil society by drawing resources away from private giving."

Oh yes, let's serve some shame with a little fear sprinkled in for good measure. Did anyone think to mention to Paul Ryan that the United States government is in no danger of collapse? It might also be a good time to point out to him that austerity programs in Europe aren't working. Europe and the UK in particular are seeing a shrinking economy, not one that is growing, as Paul Krugman noted:

Schularick and Taylor have an update to their article on post-crisis economic performance. They previously showed that the United States is doing a bit better than one might have expected from the historical record. Now they show that the UK is doing significantly worse:

Hmmm. A bit better. Let's not mention that government dependency thing called the stimulus, shall we? Wouldn't want to wreck Ryan's narrative.

I wonder whether Paul Ryan felt dependent and shamed when he collected Social Security after his father's death and paid for college with it. After all, he didn't need the money, seeing as how his family's business (government built that), kept food on their table and the lights on. Did it make him feel dirty to collect a paid-for benefit?

If so, he could atone by giving back his college degree, for starters. And paying some extra taxes on that inherited money that keeps such a robust income stream going to his family. Does his mom feel shamed and dirty for being on Medicare? No?

Maybe Paul should just take his Ayn Rand nonsense, sit down, and STFU. I cannot wait until this smirky, cocky little twerp isn't on my radar anymore.

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40 years after Archie Bunker, the Reagan Revolution, the Gingrich Revolution, welfare reform and the Bush/Cheney years, conservatives are still convinced that the real problem with this country is that the poor have it too damn easy. And as Ronald Reagan did with his "Cadillac-driving Welfare Queen" and "Strapping Young Bucks buying steaks" -- right-wingers are still lying to make their case.

Cavuto claims it's unfair that half the country pays no federal income taxes when Ronald Reagan signed the Earned Income Tax Credit into law. He also claims "half the country doesn't pay any taxes at all" -- and that's a lie.

Cavuto bemoans the loss of the US's triple-A credit rating, when it was the hostage-taking by Republicans that led to it.

Cavuto claims "90 percent" of Americans have health insurance. It's more like 80%. He claims "10 percent" of Americans don't have health insurance -- it's much closer to 20%. He also calls the US health system "the world's envy" -- even though Mitt Romney just admitted that we pay far too much for a system that produces mediocre results.

Cavuto says "you used to have to work for welfare, now you just take it" -- but the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act championed by Gingrich and signed into law by Clinton requires work and leaves welfare recipients to the tender mercies of the states. So the opposite is true.

Cavuto says he doesn't recognize the country, and on that score he's right. The gap between the very rich and everyone else has no precedent except for the 1920s. The number of union households in America is at an all-time low. Also at historic lows are taxes -- especially on the rich. And social mobility in the US has collapsed.

This segment is telling, however, because no matter how low taxes are, no matter how much wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few, no matter how high corporate profits are, no matter how degraded the safety net is -- for right-wingers, the problem will always be that the "moochers" are dragging down the "producers."

Shorter Cavuto: Mister we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again.

With the news that Congress has cut $16 billion dollars from the SNAP (aka Food Stamps program) and House Republicans warning they want even deeper cuts, the question of what kind of country we want to be comes roaring to the forefront.

Food stamp usage is at an all-time high, over 45 million Americans (and 21 million households) are currently receiving food stamps. Naturally, the economic downturn has played an enormous role in that, with the high levels of unemployment and underemployment.

But rather than look at the economic times and come to the consensus that Americans shouldn't starve and so many children should not suffer from food insecurity, what does our compassionate Congress do? Cut benefits even more. It's almost as if they think that taking away the benefit will eliminate the demand.

Feeding America reminds Congress that they are endangering the life and health of millions of Americans:

Cutting food assistance at a time when so many Americans need help is a callous departure from Washington's historic bi-partisan commitment to protecting and strengthening programs that feed hungry families.

Consider these disturbing facts: The proposed cuts would cause two to three million individuals to lose their food assistance entirely; an additional 500,000 households would have their SNAP benefits cut by $90 per month; and nearly 300,000 children would lose free school meals.

"Cuts to SNAP will drive more struggling families to local food charities at a time when food banks are already stretched thin. Make no mistake, our food banks will not be able to fill the gap caused by these cuts.

"We strongly urge Congress to reject these cuts to SNAP. They should instead seek to protect and strengthen current food assistance programs as the Farm Bill process moves forward.

It is important that Congress keep in mind a few simple facts about Americans who receive SNAP benefits:

• 76 percent of SNAP households include a senior citizen, at least one child, or someone who is disabled.
• The average SNAP household receives only $284 per month in food stamp benefits. This works out to about $1.50 per person per meal.
• To qualify for SNAP benefits, the household income for a family of three has to be less than $24,817.

With millions of Americans out of work or underemployed, now is the time to protect and strengthen SNAP, not cut it.

It's been my ongoing mantra for years: we are the wealthiest nation in the world. There is no reason why any child should go hungry. And while conservatives can talk about the "culture of dependency," have they once considered the ongoing collateral costs for their selfishness?

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True story: Billo's rant went on so long I wasn't sure what part of it to clip. This is about 8 minutes in.

Worse yet, where on earth did he get his numbers? In his Talking Points Memo segment, he claims that "means-tested entitlements" have risen 5,500 percent since 1970. Wow, what does that even mean?

The tactic is obvious. This is the ZOMG, we're helping people who need it! ZOMG, ZOMG scare tactic. I mean just think. Claims have risen "five thousand five hundred percent" in 42 years! Be afraid, Billo viewers, be very, very afraid. Of course, the punch line is that it's all President Obama's fault and anyone who wants to cut these lifelines will be viewed as a bad person.

His numbers just seem like argle-bargle nonsense to me. He claims there are about 150 million people receiving some form of direct federal assistance. I can't get there, no matter how I turn the numbers. Here's his Talking Points Memo segment with a lot of really strange and trumped-up claims.

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As Rachel Maddow explained so eloquently a while ago—Voodoo Economics such as the Bush tax cuts—never work.

It’s tax season. So in next few days, you'll be hearing a lot of politicians in Washington DC talk about the Buffett Rule, which, if passed, would ensure that millionaires pay at least 30 percent in taxes on their income. The President and his Democratic allies in Congress are rallying around it.

The “Buffett Rule” is important, but it shouldn't be a substitute for rolling back the Bush tax cuts, which along with disastrous wars of choice, are responsible for the last decade's spike in our national debt. In case you missed it, an editorial in today's New York Times made the case clearly (emphasis mine):

The Buffett Rule, which would raise an estimated $50 billion over 10 years, would not make an appreciable dent in the deficit or provide a lot more for essential programs. By comparison, letting the Bush-era tax cuts expire for taxpayers making more than $250,000 a year, as the president has also called for, would raise $800 billion over 10 years.

Mr. Obama must ensure that the Buffett Rule does not become a substitute for ending those tax cuts.

To put all of this in further context, in recent weeks we have been hearing a lot of disconcerting rhetoric coming out of Washington DC about the need to cut our social safety net under the guise of deficit reduction. It’s been disheartening to see Democratic leaders talking up right wing talking points about the need for "shared sacrifice" and a "grand bargain." This is code for raising the retirement age and making brutal cuts to vital programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.

There is no need for our leaders to make concessions like these at the beginning of negotiations. In fact history has shown us that such pre-emptive caving leads to disastrous results. If the Democratic establishment is serious about addressing the national debt and deficit, there is a simple way to do it: Let the Bush tax cuts permanently expire at the end of 2012. Adopting the Buffett Rule alone simply will not cut it.

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Beware the doctor who jokes about Medicare. Back in the day, doctors were uniformly opposed to Medicare and despite a shift by some toward a more equitable system, many still are. Here's just one example, from today's debate on This Week With Christiane Amanpour.

WILL: I have -- five years ago when I turned 65, I got my Medicare card. I showed it to my doctor, he said, that's wonderful, George, now we'll send your bills to your children. I find that a regressive transfer of wealth, and the welfare state is full of them.

Hmmm. We'll send your bills to your children, and regressive transfer of wealth. Really? Let's think that through for a minute with a (sort-of) hypothetical example.

Let's say there was a woman who worked from the 1930s through the 1970s for one company. She was an employee pre-Medicare and post-Medicare. The reason she went to work at all was because her young husband was suffering from debilitating headaches and could no longer work. At some point, that youngish husband was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

There was no Medicare at the time. She worked and she paid the bills and her children worked and paid the bills. Possibly there was some state aid, but mostly they relied upon clinics like Mayo to provide care, which meant going back and forth. Still, she worked and so did her children to make sure the bills were paid and they ate.

Medicare was born while she was in the middle of her working life, and like others, she paid into it via payroll deductions throughout the sixties and early 70s, until her retirement. When she turned 65, she was eligible for Medicare. She died 30 years later, at age 95. Some, but not all, of her long-term care expenses at the end of her life were paid by Medicare and the insurance she still had from the company she had retired from.

Her children inherited her home and savings, but not her medical bills. Her daughter is retired now and is also covered by Medicare. As a result, I don't pay her medical bills. If I had to pay her medical bills, our family would not eat. This is the story of three women, three generations, and how Medicare saved all of us from bankruptcy, even though I am not yet eligible for Medicare.

I might add that my grandmother took great pains to live a healthy life, and even in her later years, walked every day and did her own housework. She understood the value of prevention and she valued the fact that she had doctors who diagnosed her cervical cancer early and her breast cancer at age 90 early. She didn't die of cancer; she died of complications from a stroke.

It was possible for her to live to age 95 because of Medicare. It was possible for my mother to work at her own business without going bankrupt on medical bills because of Medicare. It is possible for me to be writing this post at this desk in this house because I did not have to sell everything to pay her bills, nor did my brother.

We did, however, pay Medicare taxes and those taxes certainly did fund Medicare for the time that my mother and grandmother have been covered by it. This is how Medicare works. And because it works this way, it is not a regressive transfer of wealth at all. It is a wealth protector.

But you know, this is what they do. They drop lies like this with really big concepts like "regressive transfer of wealth" which is an utter lie, and expect everyone to simply nod yes, yes, that's right. Evil socialists transferring wealth from the middle class to the middle class. Except they're not.

Here's an example of a regressive transfer of wealth in the health care arena. Uninsured Americans who are not eligible for Medicare lose their homes, life savings, and ability to recover because of health costs. And if they have family who can help, that family member also transfers wealth to large corporate interests, doctors, clinics, hospitals and other providers in our for-profit, free market health care system. That is regressive. Medicare is not.

Now that I've ranted, here's how Barney Frank and Robert Reich put Will's lie to rest, from the transcript:

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Jackie Spier is discovering how difficult it is to shop and buy food on just over $32.00 per week. She and seven other Congressional Democrats have taken the Food Stamp Challenge, where they commit to planning and buying food under the same limits as food stamp recipients. This year, more than others, it's a very big deal since Rep. Paul Ryan and his cohorts seem to think they can slash funding to the SNAP program and people will still be able to survive.

How are they doing so far? The Hill:

“Day 2 of #foodstampchallenge so I can't drink Joe's coffee,” Lee tweeted Friday before her appearance on the MSNBC show "Morning Joe." “Had peanut butter and crackers for breakfast.”

Schakowsky has taken to Twitter, as well, seeking suggestions for nutritious meals under $1.50, the average limit per food stamp meal. She said she is also keeping a diary of everything she ate and will post it at week’s end.

Her followers tweeted suggestions ranging from wholegrain pasta and chickpeas to a peanut butter-and-banana sandwich.

Del. Donna Christensen (D-Virgin Islands) — who is also participating in the challenge — said she checked grocery store prices and found the challenge would be harder than expected.

“Ok this #foodstampchallenge is going to [be] really hard.,” Christensen tweeted Thursday. “Checked prices in Safeway and so easy to blow the whole week's allotment.”

Huffington Post:

Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) along with eight other congressional Democrats are eating on a budget of about $4.50 a day to show solidarity with food stamp recipients who receive $32.59 a week.

The personal thrift, which is part of a challenge organized by Fighting Poverty With Faith, was reported by Pacifica Patch. The site also listed the food items that Speier was now buying.

Speier displayed some of the items she was able to purchase for her first day of living on a food stamp budget: a bag of coffee and a loaf of bread from the Dollar Warehouse; a can of Campbell's low sodium chicken noodle soup; and a can of sweet peas, possibly to put in a tuna casserole later in the week."And this is my treat for the week," Speier said, holding up a box of microwave popcorn packets.

Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.), along with his wife and daughter, chose to live on a food stamp budget of about $1.59 per meal. He tweeted about the challenge, relaying that he ate "generic cereal and part of a banana for breakfast."

Rep. Joe Courtney, via the Hartford Courant:

Toward the end of Rep. Joe Courtney's week-long SNAP Challenge, during which he and his family — including wife, Audrey, and teenage daughter, Elizabeth —- lived on just over $32 a week apiece, the pickings were slim. For his last meal of the week, Courtney had leftover spaghetti with a little cheese sprinkled on the top.

So Thursday, the first day back on his regular diet, Courtney was acutely aware of the $4.25 bowl of chili he ordered from his Washington, D.C., cafeteria.

This effort is particularly poignant as I begin my annual task of picking through some FEC and IRS disclosures for different Republican organizations. Eric Cantor, for example, spent $365.00 on one meal in New York in September. That's one meal, equal to roughly ten times what SNAP recipients can spend in a week. On August 4th, he spent $370.00 in Washington DC for one meal. Those were not fundraisers. They were simply meals.

Eric Cantor has repeatedly voted to reduce SNAP allotments. Senator Jeff Sessions' PAC spent over $1,800 on meals in August. Not fundraisers. Meals. You may recall Sessions as the one who was so concerned over waste, fraud and abuse in the SNAP program that he wanted even more cuts to it along with assorted other hoops to jump through.

It's good to see some elected officials learning to live on what's allocated under SNAP. Unfortunately, it's not the ones who could really benefit from the learning experience, but at least some can testify.