Chris Murphy Photo
Wednesday’s dinner.
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy urged his colleagues from the Senate floor Wednesday to fight a bid to “eviscerate” food stamps — then saved his appetite for a celebratory plate of Safeway-label pasta with sauce.
That happened on Wednesday, Day Three of the Connecticut freshman Democratic U.S. senator’s five-day experiment in eating on $4.80 a day — the average amount Connecticut food-stamp recipients receive.
Murphy barely ate all day so he could have the two dollars left to splurge on a more filling dinner than the packet of Ramen noodles that served as dinner each of the previous two nights. Meanwhile, a day after voting on the losing end of an amendment to try to stop a Senate move to cut $4 billion from food nutrition programs, Murphy drew on his experience in a floor speech warning that the Republican-led House of Representatives is seeking to “absolutely eviscerate” and “obliterate” the food-stamp program. He urged colleagues to fight to stop that move in negotiations with the House. (Click on the play arrow to watch his speech.) Following is an edited and condensed version of his responses to questions about lessons from Wednesday’s experience at the Capitol, then back home in the kitchen.
I had another very rewarding banana for breakfast today. I was hungry as soon as I woke up, so I had it at 8:30 [instead of holding out until 10 a.m. as on Tuesday]. I’m finding that the hunger kind of accumulates. Having not had much all day yesterday, I was real hungry when I got up this morning. I couldn’t wait past 8:30 to have the banana. …
I overspent on lunch yesterday. I had chicken and rice [he’d prepared the night before], which didn’t allow me more than 50 cents left for dinner. I really could not have Ramen three nights in a row. So I pared back my lunch today to just a couple of small chicken legs. No rice; I couldn’t afford the rice today. I needed to have something substantial for dinner. …
Later in the day I went to the floor of the Senate, and I gave a speech about the nutritional title in the farm bill. I talked about my pledge to live on a food-stamp budget.
We have not passed the farm bill yet. To tell you the truth, even though I think it’s wrong to impose even for $4 billion worth of cuts on food stamps, the Senate farm bill pales compared to what we’ll see coming out of the House. It’s expected the House will cost nutrition programs by as much as $20 billion. There are a lot of Republicans who want nutrition titles to go away entirely. Republicans believe these are extravagances we can’t afford; they’ve bought into this belief that the benefits are too generous and go to people who don’t deserve it or should be the responsibility of state and local governments. One of the reasons I’m doing this is to draw attention to the fact that there’s nothing luxurious about living on $5 a day. …
I’m on my way home now to cook some pasta with tomato sauce. I bought the cheapest tomato sauce that I could find at the supermarket. I’m going to have Safeway brand tomato sauce on top of Safeway brand rigatoni. I’ll have to limit the amount I have. I think I’m only up to about a little over $2 today. I think I have $2‑plus to spend on dinner. I might be able to pull off a full bowl of pasta and sauce.
As told to Paul Bass.
Previous installments:
• Noodles Again For Senator On Food-Stamp Diet
• Bagel Rescues Senator On Food Stamps
This dude needs to get real and go down to Shop-Rite or Wal-Mart (the one in Foxon) on the first of the month and load up with everyone else...get a carriage full of soda and frozen hot dogs. Then he'll REALLY be eating like he's on welfare.
It's not just the DOLLAR AMOUNT of food, Mr. Murphy, it's the quality and health of it.