{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=540648BC-2A1B-4B2A-8970-6F877293ABF0", "As Debate Reopens, Food Stamp Recipients Continue to Squeeze", "2013-09-04", "2013", "2013-09", "Independent", "House", "VT", "Bernard Sanders", "S000033", "sanders.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "As Debate Reopens, Food Stamp Recipients Continue to Squeeze\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t By:\u00a0 Sheryl Gay Stolberg  \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\tWednesday, September 4, 2013\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\tDYERSBURG, Tenn. \u2014 As a self-described \u201ctrue Southern man\u201d \u2014 and reluctant recipient of food stamps \u2014 Dustin Rigsby, a struggling mechanic, hunts deer, dove and squirrel to help feed his family. He shops for grocery bargains, cooks budget-stretching stews and limits himself to one meal a day.\r\nTarnisha Adams, who left her job skinning hogs at a slaughterhouse when she became ill with cancer, gets $352 a month in food stamps for herself and three college-age boys. She buys discount meat and canned vegetables, cheaper than fresh. Like Mr. Rigsby, she eats once a day \u2014 \u201cif I eat,\u201d she said.\r\nWhen Congress officially returns to Washington next week, the diets of families like the Rigsbys and Adamses will be caught up in a debate over deficit reduction. Republicans, alarmed by a rise in food-stamp enrollment during the economic downturn, are pushing to scale down the program. No matter what Congress decides, benefits will be cut in November, when a provision in the 2009 stimulus bill expires.\r\nYet as lawmakers cast the fight in terms of spending, nonpartisan budget analysts and hunger relief advocates warn of a spike in \u201cfood insecurity\u201d among Americans who, as Mr. Rigsby said recently, \u201clook like we are fine,\u201d but live on the edge of poverty, skipping meals and rationing food.\r\nSurrounded by corn and soybean farms \u2014 including one owned by the local Republican congressman, Representative Stephen Fincher \u2014 Dyersburg, about 75 miles north of Memphis, provides an eye-opening view into Washington\u2019s food stamp debate. Mr. Fincher, who was elected in 2010 on a Tea Party wave and collected nearly $3.5 million in farm subsidies from the government from 1999 to 2012, recently voted for a farm bill that eliminated food stamps.\r\n\u201cThe role of citizens, of Christianity, of humanity, is to take care of each other, not for Washington to steal from those in the country and give to others in the country,\u201d Mr. Fincher, who declined to be interviewed for this article, said after his vote in May. In response to a Democrat who invoked the Bible during the food stamp debate in Congress, Mr. Fincher responded with\u00a0his own biblical phrase. \u201cThe one who is unwilling to work shall not eat,\u201d he said.\r\nOn Wednesday, the Department of Agriculture released a\u00a02012 survey\u00a0showing that nearly 49 million Americans were living in \u201cfood insecure\u201d households \u2014 meaning, in the bureaucratic language of the agency, that some family members lacked \u201cconsistent access throughout the year to adequate food.\u201d In short, many Americans went hungry. The agency found the figures essentially unchanged since the economic downturn began in 2008, but substantially higher than during the previous decade.\r\nContinue reading here.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=540648BC-2A1B-4B2A-8970-6F877293ABF0"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7576111238449812, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}