(Adam Hunger/Reuters)
Details, details. Newt Gingrich's whole schtick about how Barack Obama is "the food stamp president" is
founded on a false claim, a
USA Today fact-check finds. Gingrich's basis for the "food stamp president" thing is his specific claim that "more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history." It would be accurate to say that under Obama food stamp enrollment has been at its highest point ever, but:
Gingrich goes too far to say Obama has put more on the rolls than other presidents. We asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition service for month-by-month figures going back to January 2001. And they show that under President George W. Bush the number of recipients rose by nearly 14.7 million. Nothing before comes close to that.
And under Obama, the increase so far has been 14.2 million. To be exact, the program has so far grown by 444,574 fewer recipients during Obama's time in office than during Bush's.
Obama still has time to exceed Bush, of course, but the number of people receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance (SNAP, or food stamp) benefits actually went down in October. And even if, during the coming months, the number will go up enough to exceed Bush's record, Newt Gingrich has yet to prove that he can see into the future, And even if Newt Gingrich can see into the future, he can't change the rules of grammar such that when he says "more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama" it actually means "more people ultimately will have been put on food stamps." So no matter what happens in coming months, right now, Newt Gingrich is a liar.