It’s no secret: the working poor don’t have things easy. The Food Stamp Program, which has existed since the 1930’s, was enacted nationwide in the 1974 to supplement the diets of America’s poor. So, who gets food stamps:

The Food Stamp Program is targeted toward those most in need. Of all food stamp households in FY 2003 (the year for which the most recent detailed USDA data are available), 55 percent contain children; households with children receive 79.3 percent of all food stamp benefits. Roughly 18 percent of food stamp households contain an elderly person and 23 percent containa disabled person. Approximately 88 percent of food stamp households have gross incomes below the poverty line ($18,100 for a family of four in 2002). Approximately 38.4 percent of food stamp households have gross incomes at or below half of the poverty line.

The food stamp benefit translates to about 3 bucks a day, or 21 bucks a week. Though the program was meant only to supplement their nutrition needs, these days food stamps recipients are more likely to rely entirely on the program. As inflation eats away at the buying power of the minimum wage, the working poor are earning less. Things have to change.

Some in Congress are trying to bring light to this problem:

Today, four members of Congress conclude the Congressional Food Stamp Challenge, in which lawmakers chose to live “on three dollars of food per day, the same amount an average participant in the Food Stamp Program receives.”

One of the participants, Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH), “stuck to the challenge” even as he traveled to speak at his alma mater’s commencement exercises, bringing along his “pasta and sauce, as well as the last of my jelly, peanut butter, and bread.”

But when Ryan had to go through airport security, things got dicey:

When I arrived I decided just to carry my bag on so I ran over to the security gate with my carry on. I step up to the metal detector, take my shoes off, place my bag through the scanner and come out the other side to the most dreaded words in travel, “Bag Check!”

As the agent sifted though my bag, I tried to recount what could possibly be in there that was threatening…my mouthwash? Toothpaste? Yeah, it was those two, but it was also my peanut butter and jelly.

He politely put the peanut butter and jelly to the side, closed my bag and gave it back to me. I was too astonished to talk. I took my bag and walked towards the gate thinking about the 4 or maybe 5 meals that she had taken from me. What am I going to do now? It’s not like I can just go to Safeway and grab another jar. I have .33 cents and a bag of cornmeal to last today and tomorrow.

A few congressfolks and the Governor of Oregon took the Food Stamp Challenge. Then again, millions of Americans take that challenge every day. Unlike these pols, it doesn’t end with a flank steak, red skin potatos, and a bottle of pinot noir.

UPDATE:

Many families do things like buy in bulk to keep costs down. This is impossible for most poor folks on a tight budget. Bulk is cheaper per person, but the upfront costs at the cash register make bulk buying impossible. Also, poor folks can get more food if they buy lower quality, hence the fatty ground beef versus the more expensive leaner beef. No wonder obesity is an epidemic for poor kids.

I got a call this weekend from a volunteer from the Barack Obama for President campaign. It’s was a fund raising call, and I politely said that I was backing another horse. But, in the guy’s prepared text, he mentioned how Obama wants to “bring people together,” and “he’s been bringing people together his whole life.” He talked about how partisanship is ruining Washington DC, that to get things done we have to get past party labels to find solutions.

I appreciate the sentiment, but I’m not on board with it.

You can’t be talking ‘ceasefire’ while your enemies are training their guns on you. You can’t negotiate with them until you get their elbows pinned behind their backs and you hear them squeal. Senator Obama means well, I’m sure, but I think he misjudges what’s called for in ’08.

I like politicians who can work together. Seattle’s Rep. Jim McDermott has joined with Rep. Jim McCrery (R-LA) to work on healthcare. While they have their differences on policy, the goal is the same. They both want America to do something every other industrialized country does already: provide healthcare to all it’s people. McDermott favor a single-payer system in which the government plays a central role, while McCrery wants to fix the current system so it insures everyone. McCrery isn’t like a lot of Republicans. Most don’t care to solve these problems in a way that won’t give them total political victory.

I expect the sort of “play nice with the GOP” meme from folks like Joel Connelly, not a potential standard bearer like Obama.

Because people who do ride the bus know that this is a stupid idea:

Under its proposal, the I-90 center corridor would be acquired by Sound Transit exclusively for light rail between Seattle and the Eastside. Buses, vanpools, HOVs and all Mercer Island vehicular traffic now using this inner corridor would be rerouted to the outer lanes.

The result would be increased delays and congestion on all traffic moving between Seattle and the Eastside. The cost of building light rail to the Eastside would be $6 billion. The I-90 bridge would suffer a vehicle capacity loss of one-third compared with today. Even with an optimistic doubling of transit ridership, there would be a 9-percent loss of total (vehicle and transit) person trips.

Light rail would not give us either the flexibility or the capacity that rapid bus service offers at a small fraction of the cost. Bus rapid transit can share the center lanes, thus avoiding the one-third loss of vehicular traffic.

People who like Bus Rapid Transit are people who never ride the bus. BRT is cheaper because, almost all of the time, it sucks.

The fact that Phil Talmadge would sign on with rightwingers like former Sen. Jim Horn and the Washington Policy Center shows just how out of touch Talmadge is these days. Phil also campaigned hard for a new elevated Alaskan Way Viaduct. The vote for the new Viaduct failed in every Seattle legislative district except, you guessed it, West Seattle’s 34th LD (Talmadge was the state senator from West Seattle for years). Talmadge is opposite many Republicans on the Eastside like Connie Marshall, the former Mayor of Bellevue. She supports rail, but this one-kidneyed liberal Democrat from Seattle doesn’t. Weird.

What happened to the Phil Talmadge who told Tim Eyman to go fuck himself? The Talmadge who challenged a sitting Democratic Governor in 2003 for not being progressive enough? Phil gave an anti-war speech to the Democrats at the King County Convention that was fiery as hell back in ’04?

Go figure.

Last night, at Drinking Liberally, a handful of us liberal bloggers decided a few things: Jerry Falwell was an ass. Billy Graham, however, is not. And I offered this hypothesis: Pat Robertson has his moments of clarity, such as his sudden realization that global warming is happening and his association with George Clooney. Weirder things have happened, folks.

It’s posts like this that make me wish Joel Connelly wrote a “No on Impeachment” column every week, if only to see how few people know what exactly a columnist is.

At Monday’s fund raiser for the Parks levies, the food was amazing. If you’re going to an M’s game, check out King Street Bar and Oven. I recommend the BBQ Chicken pizza.

If you like Seattle and like blogging, you should consider blogging for Friends of Seattle. However, if you don’t like Seattle and like blogging, you should probably leave town, Mr. Sharkansky.

Here’s a clip of Ron Sims doing what no other Seattle pol can do- a kick-ass rally speech. Sims is like the Brett Favre of local politics. No matter which team he’s on, his team wins. I tried to tell him that the new parks levies are going to be gold at the ballot box, but he would have none of it. Even though parks are popular, a good pol doesn’t take anything for granted.

Also…

It’s a girl! Congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. You Know Who.

If you’re like me, you probably like the King County Parks System. Growing up in the suburbs, I loved Marymoor Park. I played many a youth soccer game there, and tasted victory and sometimes bitter defeat… If only after defeats in life everyone got to go out for ice cream at the Dairy Queen.

But parks cost money. Tax money. We have to fix them up and add more of them. We’ve got trails that don’t connect- let’s connect them! People are moving to King County, and if we don’t add to our parks system, people will be forced to hunt Knute Berger for sport and leisure. No one wants to see this happen. No one.

So show up at today’s “I (Heart) Parks” Levy Fundraiser:

Monday, May 14th, 2007
5pm – 7pm
King Street Bar & Oven in Pioneer Square
170 S. King St Seattle

Chuck Taylor’s snipe hunt notwithstanding, someone is actually being prosecuted for actual voter fraud.

The CBS News Investigative Unit has learned a man who was a field coordinator in Congressman Patrick McHenry’s (R-NC) 2004 campaign has been indicted for voter fraud in North Carolina.

The indictment charges that Michael Aaron Lay, 26, illegally cast his ballot in two 2004 Congressional primary run-offs in which McHenry was a candidate. The charges indicate that Lay voted in a district where it was not legal for him to vote.

At the time Lay was listed as a resident in a home owned by 32-year-old McHenry but campaign records indicate Lay’s paychecks were sent to an address in Tennessee. McHenry won the primary by only 86 votes. According to Gaston County, North Carolina District Attorney Locke Bell, Lay was indicted on Monday, May 7 by a local grand jury.

Uh oh.

The reason I mention Taylor’s story at the Crosscut was because regular reporters (you know, guys with fedoras with a card that says “press” on it) have low balled this US Attorney firings scandal ever since it came out. The story wouldn’t be around for Chuck Taylor to poo-poo if it were not for some liberal bloggers.

At Wednesday’s Friends of Seattle get-together, I got the impression that our city council candidates aren’t big drinkers.

This may be a problem.

You see, Seattle city politics can be awfully dull. Everyone is for parks. Everyone supports the schools. If we had the money, we’d hire 5000 new cops. When it comes to transit, the question isn’t “why?”, it’s “where and how much.” There are lots of lopsided votes on the council. Lots of 9-0, or 8-1. Consensus matters, maybe too much. On most issues, the difference of opinions between the members can be a matter of degrees.

The interesting stuff is in the details, and if it takes a PBR tallboy to coax it out, so be it.

Venus Velasquez told me she wants young people to be able to buy houses in Seattle. My reply was, “House? I’ll never afford a house in the city.” She said “home” might be a better word to use. In the downtown area, the condos being built are mostly luxury units. The developer community is going to learn soon that you have to serve the whole market, not just the high-end folks. Venus and the other candidates ought to have (eventually, I know it’s early) specifics about how we’re going to accommodate young families in the city.

Venus is running to succeed Peter Steinbrueck on the council, and claims him as a supporter. While I don’t know a lot about the challengers, I do know some about the guy they’re looking to replace. Peter Steinbrueck stands for something. On the great issues facing the city, he’s not afraid to pick a side and fight. Venus told me about how she’s good at solving problems and bringing people together. Sure, that’s important, but sometimes you have to pick which side is going to be the winner. These campaigns for council should be about what decisions they’d make and why.

In the last several months I’ve talked to several people who are supporting Hillary Clinton for president primarily because she is a woman. Personally, I can’t overlook a candidate’s stand on the issues, but when female friends say they want to see a woman president in their lifetime, I don’t blame them.

But, why Hillary Clinton? I totally dig how she stirs up hate by the right-wing mental midgets who comment on this blog. That said, Clinton would be a continuation of her husband’s two terms in office. While I loved the 90’s, I think we need to move forward with some new blood. Contrary to conventional wisdom, there is at least one Democratic woman out there who will one day be on the national stage.

I’m talking about Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who is sticking it to President Bush:

For months, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas and other governors have warned that their state National Guards are ill-prepared for the next local disaster, be it a tornado a flash flood or a terrorist’s threat, because of large deployments of their soldiers and equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Then, last Friday night, a deadly tornado all but cleared the small town of Greensburg off the Kansas map. With 80 square blocks of the small farming town destroyed, Ms. Sebelius said her fears had come true: The emergency response was too slow, she said, and there was only one reason.

“As you travel around Greensburg, you’ll see that city and county trucks have been destroyed,” Ms. Sebelius, a Democrat, said Monday. “The National Guard is one of our first responders. They don’t have the equipment they need to come in, and it just makes it that much slower.”

While the Governor and the White House have cooled the war of words, the issue still stands. When resources from states like Kansas are sent to the occupation in Iraq, our local authorities won’t have the ability to respond to disasters like they would if they were fully equipped. Sometimes this is unavoidable, but governors all over the country have been sounding the alarm for years now.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius could be on the ticket in 2008. With good reason. She’s ready for prime time. Of all the women in politics today, she’s the toughest. Kansas tough. And whether it’s an incompetent president in DC or a tornado, she proves she can deal with anything.

Postman reads the New Republic. Here’s a snip of the original article:

FOR THE NETROOTS, partisan fidelity is the sine qua non. As Moulitsas told Newsweek in 2005, “The issue is: Are you proud to be a Democrat? Are you partisan?” What they cannot forgive is Democrats or liberals who distance themselves from their party or who give ammunition to the enemy. The netroots will forgive Democrats in conservative districts for moving as far to the right as necessary to win elections. But they do everything within their power to eliminate from liberal states or districts moderates like Joe Lieberman or Jane Harman, whose stances are born of conviction rather than necessity. This is precisely the same principle espoused by Norquist and other GOP activists. They will defend Republicans who need to demonstrate their independence from the national party in order to maintain their electoral viability. (As Norquist once remarked about Lincoln Chafee, “A Republican from Rhode Island is a gift from the gods.”)

First off, in 2006, conservative groups like Club for Growth went after Senator Lincoln Chafee. They ran a right wing candidate in the primary that forced Chafee to move to the right, only to put in out of the mainstream in the general election. Rhode Islanders loved the Chafee family, and they really liked Lincoln Chafee. But, after seeing him tack to the right, they remembered that their “nice guy” Senator was still a Republican. And being a Republican in New England was a really bad thing to be in ’06.

So the idea that the conservative interest groups are so Machiavellian, so brilliant, and so comfortable with moderates like Chafee, is wrong. Democrats like Markos from DailyKos got painted as a purity-demanding extremists for going after Lieberman. The difference is, Connecticut is a blue state, and either Lieberman or Ned Lamont was going to win in ’06, so there was no real downside to trying to knock out the DINO Lieberman. Conservatives, on the other hand, were not nearly so savvy, and sabotaged Chafee with an ill-advised primary challenge.

The Netroots? Smart and savvy. Club for Growth and other conservative groups? Dumbest mother f****** in the universe.

What’s more, ever since Rep. Jane Harmon was challenged by the Democratic base in her district, she has seen the light and has become a great congresswoman. And conservative Democrats like Sen. Ben Nelson and Rep. Gene Taylor do receive their fair share of kudos on liberal blogs, even though those two guys don’t vote with Democrats as much as I’d like them to. Heck, having Nelson in Nebraska is a gift from God, and Taylor, while socially conservative, is an FDR Democrat.

As for the difference between the “wonkosphere” and party-line Democratic blogs, I see the difference, but in the end everyone is on the same team. Goldy a political blogger of the first order; he’s all about winning elections and gaining/using power. But, he also has his wonky side wherein he’ll get into the nitty-gritty of tax reform and gambling issues. I too am a proud political hack who also likes to write about health care and urban planning.

So, Postman, I’d take anything about liberal blogs that’s published in the New Republic with a gigantic grain of salt. They love kiss-ass DC cocktail party Democrats who apologize for being Democrats. The New Republic LOVES Lieberman, and they love Democrats who believe that if only Democrats were more like Republicans, they’d be in power…

…when, in fact, as we learned in ’06, the opposite is true.

Friends of Seattle, following the smash success of their kickoff event in Belltown some weeks ago, are throwing another get-together that mixes big city politics with (what else?) stiff drinks.

You can RSVP here.

Wednesday, May 9, 2007, 5:30-8:30 PM
The Baltic Room (1207 Pine Street)
(a recommended $10 contribution gets you membership and a free drink)

Expect lots of great guests and conversation. More info here.

Inside this great piece by Angela Galloway at the P-I there is this gem:

[F]ree parking costs everyone, said Donald Shoup, the nation’s most prominent academic on parking policies and an urban planning professor at the University of California-Los Angeles. Free parking inflates grocery bills, housing costs and movie ticket prices, he said. The burden is heaviest on the poorest, he said.

“Even if you’re too poor to own a car, you have to pay for parking,” said Shoup, author of “The High Cost of Free Parking.” Like other cities, Seattle has “very expensive housing of people and free parking for cars — and I think we’ve got our priorities the wrong way around.”

I live close to downtown, where free parking is tough to find. However, there are plenty of pay lots available, and parking is free on city streets after 6pm and on Sundays. Lots of people take the bus to work in the downtown core, and the people who do drive have a look of pain on their faces as they idle in gridlock on downtown streets.

(Folks in Seattle often say “there isn’t any parking downtown.” What they mean is there isn’t any “free” parking downtown. How folks spend money downtown while expecting their car to stay for free is beyond me.)

In his book, Shoup makes it clear that even if I choose not the drive, I still pay costs for parking. When new condo developments are built, new residents who choose not to own a car are nonetheless paying more for their units. Essentially, residents are socially engineered into owning cars.

U-District community activist Matt Fox (who comments anonymously on some local blogs) isn’t on board:

Officials say forcing unneeded parking inflates cost of development. Each above-ground spot costs developers about $20,000, below-ground spots can cost $30,000 to $40,000 or more, said City Planning Director John Rahaim.

Officials say unnecessary parking costs undermine the city’s efforts of providing affordable housing. But some doubt the relaxed rules will produce the anticipated savings.

“It’s really good for developers’ bottom line, but it’s not good for the quality of life in the neighborhoods or for small businesses,” activist Fox said.

Back in my car-drivin’ days, I used to spend entirely too much time on my Saturdays circling the Ave, block after block, looking for a spot to park my Geo Metro. The spot I found was usually really far from the Ave, and I did a fair amount of walking around from shop to shop before trekking back to the car. Now that Metro does my driving, the bus drops me off right on the Ave. After ditching the Geo Metro in favor of King County Metro, I go to the U-District more than ever for all sorts of things.

What kind of stuff, you ask? A used Adidas track jackets at the Buffalo Exchange, or maybe a movie at the delightfully dilapidated Varsity (or the Neptune, which is very cool). The UW Bookstore for Marx or Friedman. Maybe Costas for those goofy-ass french fries or the College Inn Pub for several pints of their finest bitter. Over time, the Ave holds up well, even after a controversial makeover a few years back. I have relatives who still love the Ave, years after their college days.

Maybe further auto restrictions will be the death of commercial districts all over Seattle. I do not believe it will be.

But what about folks who have to have a car to get their work done?

[Ditching her car is not] an option for Morley, who is on two waiting lists for spots in private garages, she said. Many mornings, 40 minutes after she arrives at work, an alarm on her computer reminds her to get back in her car and head toward the good spots.

If she misses out, sometimes she parks in a nearby free one-hour spot and resets her alarm for another try. Or she can pay for up to two hours at one of 570 Uptown street spots that were free until the city installed meters there last year.

Leaving the car at home is not an option, she said.

“I’m in sales, so I have meetings all day. So it’s not really a choice for me,” said Morley, whose work takes her around town and to the suburbs. She said the city’s policies don’t take into account people for whom “driving is part of your job.”

For sales folks, parking a a big deal. I don’t want to minimize their frustration. That said, companies are going to have to figure out solutions to these problems sooner or later. Companies are already utilizing Flexcar or other car-sharing programs to make it possible for folks to leave their car at home but still make errands during the day. New ideas like this require folks in HR and at leadership positions within companies to be flexible to the needs of their employees.

So, yeah, our transit options aren’t what they could be. We’re building the light rail system we could have had in the 70’s, and we’re building our first streetcar lines since the 40’s. (This one doesn’t count!) We’ve got catching up to do. Until then, have your transfer ready for the driver or get ready to pay more to park.

It can be tough being both a liberal Democrat and a staunch supporter of the 2nd Amendment. The National Rifle Association doesn’t make this any easier. A group that once concerned itself primarily with gun safety, the NRA has taken a sharp turn to the right over the last twenty years. Sometimes, the position taken by the NRA defy all common sense.

The National Rifle Association is urging the Bush administration to withdraw its support of a bill that would prohibit suspected terrorists from buying firearms. Backed by the Justice Department, the measure would give the attorney general the discretion to block gun sales, licenses or permits to terror suspects.

In a letter this week to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, NRA executive director Chris Cox said the bill, offered last week by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., “would allow arbitrary denial of Second Amendment rights based on mere ‘suspicions’ of a terrorist threat.”

“As many of our friends in law enforcement have rightly pointed out, the word ‘suspect’ has no legal meaning, particularly when it comes to denying constitutional liberties,” Cox wrote.

NRA flacks like Cox turn into civil libertarians whenever guns are involved. But other constitutional rights? Silence from the gun rights lobby.

Dan Savage:

Gun nuts talk and talk about needing guns to protect the rights and freedoms that all Americans enjoy, but when the rights and freedoms of Americans are under siege, guns nuts are nowhere to be found. I don’t recall seeing any NRA members, for example, ever protesting an assault on the free speech rights of Americans by the feds—or the federal government’s successful efforts to undermine our constitutional protections against government surveillance and unreasonable searches, their attempts to regulate speech on the Internet, limit abortion rights…

So while gun owners are always saying that owning guns is about defending freedom, the only freedom gun owners seem interested in defending with their guns is the freedom to defend their freedom to own guns.

Pro-gun politicians who defend ALL constitutional rights can be hard to find. The only two I know are both from Montana- Gov. Brian Schweitzer and Sen. Jon Tester. Tester, who is totally pro-gun, also favors repealing the Patriot Act. Schweitzer just signed a bill that tells the federal government to go to hell over Real ID.

I’m certain the NRA will continue to be a Republican puppet organization for years to come, but with Democrats like Schweitzer and Tester on the forefront, real civil libertarians can sleep easier.

An old pipe just up and broke this morning near the University Bridge. It just broke. Nobody hit it with a machine or anything. It just broke.

Joel Connelly is peeved that Democrats aren’t bellying-up to the crapshoot that is primary election politics:

State Democratic Party Chairman Dwight Pelz dismisses Feb. 5 as “stupid Tuesday.” With big states holding primaries that day, he argues, nobody would come to the Evergreen State.

Pelz’s arguments are incorrect and self-serving.

In 2000, Washington had a presidential primary that counted. A total of 1.3 million people voted in it — versus the estimated 60,000 Democrats who turned out for caucuses in 2004.

In 2000, Washington killed the Bradley campaign and didn’t do much for McCain either. While I’d love to see Washingotn hold a primary that matters, it isn’t happening until Iowa and New Hampshire are wrested of their control over the nominating process. And it’s worth noting that Washington didn’t share it’s primary date with lots of other states that year.

Pike Place Market needs some serious TLC. While it seems like Nickels wants a property tax to pay for the improvements, why not tax the cruiseship tourists who cram into the place on the weekends? If we’re marketing Pike Place to folks across the country (and world), then they should help pay too.

Somebody has got to tell the no-growthers (like Skip) that adding housing supply has a measurable effect on housing prices. Somebody, please.

Why does my favorite Seattle Times editorial columnist have to be the conservative guy? Why oh why?

Right about now, John Edwards is standing in a Boeing union hall answering the questions of labor families on all sorts of labor matters. If you got the chance to ask Senator Edwards a question, let us know. What was your question? What was his answer? Did you get a good answer?

Email Goldy or myself and we’ll put your exchange on the blog.

A gigantic tanker blew up on a San Fransisco area freeway interchange the other day. Gridlock was predicted for Monday’s commute. But…

It didn’t happen.

I’ll let Dan Savage explain:

How was the disaster averted? Mass transit got a boost—more trains were running, more ferries crisscrossed San Francisco Bay, and some folks opted to telecommute. Now the same people that predicted disaster today are warning us that the disaster—the chaos! oh, the humanity!—will surely come tomorrow. Or Wednesday. Or Thursday. It’s likelier, however, that disaster won’t come because drivers will do what drivers do only when they must: adjust. Find other ways around, switch to mass transit, telecommute, ride a ferry.

But once again freeway addicts deprived of a freeway predicted disaster and disaster failed to materialize.

Tear down the viaduct now.

While I’m not quite ready to tear down the viaduct, Dan has a point. We are often convinced we need the things we have, only to realize that, perhaps, we can live without them. I’m certain the destroyed section of freeway will be repaired, but it goes to show you just how flexible commuters can be if they have options.

NOTE BY GOLDY:
How naive can you be Will? Don’t you know that Seattle is different, and that transit can’t possibly work here? And while other major cities have torn down waterfront freeways, and commuters have managed to adapt, don’t you understand that this just won’t work in Seattle, because… well… um… it just won’t?