Food stamp number too high

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To the Editor:

Frank Tuttle is free to hold a low opinion of President Obama and The Times to publish it [Letters to the Editor, September 1] because that is the way we do things in this remarkable country. But neither should expect gross errors of fact to go unchallenged.

Mr. Tuttle’s assertion that “More than 50 percent of Americans are on food stamps …” is a gross error.

According the the US Department of Agriculture, the figure for May 2011 was “nearly 15%.” (http://money.cnn.com /2011/08/04/pf/food_stamps_record_high/index.htm).

Should he wish to, Mr. Tuttle could contribute to the atmosphere of civility in political discourse that President Obama has done so much to promote by acknowledging his error in writing, alongside the correction that The Times will surely publish for the sake of its own professional reputation.

James Pritchard

West Tisbury