By Lance Winslow
Food Stamps may just be the cause of obesity in the
poorer areas of our nation. The other day, I was talking with a couple at
Starbucks, they were left leaning individuals, but we were having a political
discussion on how our government runs their affairs. The lady asked me if I
believed that people should go through a test to see if they were eligible for
food stamps. My answer was no, as I would prefer that the food stamp program be
completely eliminated. People don't really starve in this country, that's
nonsense.
Further, there are all sorts of community groups
that can help people, not to mention all the churches that help pick up the
slack. I don't believe it's the responsibility of the federal government to
feed people in such a great country with so much abundance thanks to free
markets.
Further, I mentioned that the program was wasteful,
full of fraud, and it was making people fat. That didn't sit well with her
husband who I would have to classify as a bleeding heart neo-liberal
progressive, even though I don't believe socialism as progressive, I see it is
regressive - but only because it's never worked in human history, and we should
learn from the mistakes of the past and not go down that path again.
Now then back to the question that the lady asked;
do you think people should have to qualify and pass a test before they get
their food stamps? Yes, unfortunately if we're going to continue this program,
we have to get rid of the fraud. But I would submit to you that since 45% of
the money that the IRS collects is pre-spent in advance in the administration
of the collection of that money, that it is already an inefficient way to feed
people from the get-go.
And that's before we spend 35% in administration of
the food stamp program, or the 35% of the food program which is deemed to be
fraudulent. Also, I consider the food stamp program to be in many regards
corporate welfare, and perhaps the politicians are double dipping with the
lobbyists, because not only is it considered social welfare, therefore the
Democrats pull for it, but the Republicans like to vote for it because many of
the food processing companies get to sell more, therefore it becomes corporate
welfare as well.
With a situation like that, you can't stop the
fraud, abuse, bureaucracy, or waste, its built-in. Indeed, we are giving food
to people who don't need it, and they are getting fat because they are over
eating. Then they're going to get diabetes, and then ObamaCare is going to take
more taxpayer money from us so that they can help everyone by giving them free
drugs which is corporate welfare to the pharmaceutical companies.
You see, I don't know where to stop, as the whole
thing is so silly and so ridiculous, and it just goes on and on and on, at some
point the system will collapse if we don't reign in the wasteful spending.
Does that make me any less empathetic because I see
the reality? Does that make me a bad person for pointing out all this
hypocrisy? Certainly not in my opinion, nor am I going to take a chastising
lecture from a neoliberal socialist progressive on this topic. If we are going
to feed people who cannot feed themselves, that should be done at the community
level, not by way of the federal government, which in my humble opinion can't
do anything right. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think
on.
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