Trick or Treat Indeed

To The Illustrious Mr. Pot:

For a leftist, you could have not picked a more inopportune time to use the analogy of Trick or Treat. This Halloween, our Trickster-in-Chief  symbolically invited us to stop by the White House for some great treats (in the form of the Affordable Care Act) yet when we naively sauntered up to the door, we were greeted with nothing but a bag of tricks!

I couldn't help myself. I had to throw that in.....but now it's on to the topic of government largesse and who should get it and who shouldn't.

The problem with government sponsored doles is the necessary creation of a dependent culture. Some on the right might believe that the eventual, and then on-going, dependence is the specific purpose of liberal entitlement programs such as S.N.A.P. thus, when a meager reduction is effected, there is a genuine feeling that something is being taken away that rightfully belongs to the recipient. The reduction in benefits is not technically a reduction. It's a return to the pre-recession amount. The extra money was proffered in more prosperous times and now ironically the sun is setting. We seem to have reached an economic tipping point, yet you would never know it by the insatiable demands of liberal politicians continuously seeking votes by  offering more and farther reaching entitlements. We should note Maggie Thatcher's sage observation that the only problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money (other people being productive members of society). Your reference to what amounts to a 6% reduction in benefits woefully bemoans the fact that on a yearly basis it subtracts two full weeks of take home pay from the income of a minimum wage worker supporting a family of four. Mr. Pot, a minimum wage position was never intended to provide income to support a family of four. I've often wondered why the left always demands a minimum wage that is so abysmally low. If the Federal government feels it has the authority to establish a mandatory wage in the private sector, why set it so low? Why use a carrot and stick approach with federal entitlements?  If the minimum wage provided workers with a realistic amount to support a family of four, then, of course, there would be no need for S.N.A.P. or the couple hundred other Federal hand out operations.  And liberal control of those individuals would begin to rapidly diminish (as would votes for their liberal benefactors). A $75,000 minimum wage certainly shouldn't be any problem for a political party that keeps the Treasury's printing presses running 24/7.

I challenge the use of the laughable liberal catchword...investment. Pouring funds into programs such as S.N.A.P. (food stamps) is no more an investment than buying shares in a perpetual motion company ( a.k.a Solyndra). There is no return except at the ballot box for the Ted Kennedy ilk. The program is rife with fraud and excessive administrative cost. And the uproar over a “per person $2.75 weekly reduction” demonstrates more clearly than I could ever write the entitlement mentality of the vast welfare class we have sadly created and continue to maintain. Success in the la-la land of federal bureaucrats is measured not by the number of assistance recipients that eventually go on to lead independent and productive lives; but rather how many more can be added to the bloated rolls and induced to stay there for generations.

Farms subsidies are not something I wholeheartedly agree with, but they do resemble an investment to a greater extent than food stamps.  Farmers and farm conglomerates are at least productive and represent a vital national interest. In addition to providing America with the best selection and highest quality of food sources, they do the same for the entire world. We are the world's top agricultural exporter. The world's reliance on our agricultural exports plays a vital role in international treaties and agreements. Farmers and conglomerates pay an extraordinary amount of various and sundry taxes and provide gainful employment for hundreds of thousands of American and those in our country on work permits and even those here illegally. That alone should spur on lefties to shout the praises of farm subsidies from the silo tops.  If one mistakenly views farm subsidies as investments, then these at least have something resembling a return.

I have often been intrigued with the leftist predilection of rewarding individuals for non productivity. The most absurd of these is of course unemployment compensation which generously rewards individuals for notworking nearly one year or more. A question, Mr. Pot?????  Why can we not, as a society, require those who receive the dole from the rest of us to provide us with a “return” on our involuntary investment? Scads of public service activities could benefit from their mandated labor and in return their “subsidies” would continue. Despite what I foresee would be a deluge of unionists' objections, the community service possibilities are almost endless and would provide dignity to those who are genuinely looking for a hand and not just a hand-out. The results might just astound even a bleeding heart investor like you, Mr. Pot. Who knows? We may actually instill traditional American values like self reliance, pride, and a continuing work ethic. But when they finally have those values firmly in grasp, why would they want to continue to vote for a Democrat? Maybe that’s the real conundrum.....