Bush Picture, Motto to Appear on Food Stamps

Recipients Can Use Stamps for Wine, Beer and Pet Food

In an election year bid to reach out to low income voters, the Bush Administration will permit Food Stamp recipients to buy wine, beer, pet foods and tobacco products under the program. Such purchases with Food Stamps have long been banned on the theory that food subsidy programs for the poor shouldn't be used to support bad habits like drinking, smoking and owning pets.

What's more, Food Stamp recipients will pay for their purchases with a redesigned Food Stamp script that bears President Bush's picture instead of the familiar Liberty Bell logo. The motto "Compassionate Conservatism for All" will appear under the president's picture.

It's all part of an attempt between now and the November election to apply the president's compassionate conservative philosophy to as many parts of the Federal government as possible where programs come into direct contact with voters.

A White House spokesperson declined to comment on reports that Bush's picture and the "Compassionate Conservatism for All" motto also will begin appearing on Social Security checks in August and on passports and tax refund checks in September.

Reports have also circulated on Capitol Hill that Administration officials are putting out feelers to gauge congressional support for adding the "Compassionate Conservatism for All" motto to quarters and to $1, $5 and $10 bills.

Al-Jerseera, the Arab language satellite news channel, broadcast reports last week that Bush's picture and the compassionate conservatism motto would begin appearing on the Iraqi dinar after the June 30 handover of power to the Iraqi people. In Baghdad, a spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority called the report "beyond ridiculous", but added that "we are always looking for ways to win Iraqi hearts and minds."

The Food Stamp changes first came to light two weeks ago when Bush signed an executive order authorizing Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman to expand the list of items Food Stamp recipients can purchase and to redesign the money-like script that recipients hand over at the supermarket checkout instead of cash.

Within a few days of the executive order signing, Veneman announced that the program's long-time ban on purchase of beer, wine, pet foods and tobacco would be lifted.

"It's not the government's place to dictate to people how they should spend money given to them to help out with food costs," she said at a news conference. "They can decide for themselves." She added that for some poor people, pet foods offer an attractive diet on a cost-per-calorie basis.

Though Veneman never mentioned compassionate conservatism, her aides made clear in off-the-record comments to reporters that the Bush philosophy was behind the change.

The Agriculture Department made no mention of the new Food Stamp script with Bush's picture. That came to light when a New York advertising agency hired to publicize the changes inadvertently posted a copy of the new script design on a prototype Food Stamp promotional website.

Lesley Robertson, executive director of the right-leaning CompConServ Institute in Washington, applauded both the Food Stamp changes and the "Compassionate Conservatism for All" motto.

"There will come a day when historians look back and see compassionate conservatism as the ethos that came to define the Twenty First Century, just as 'Don't Tread on Me' and 'Tippecanoe and Tyler, too' define us now," he said.

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