Vetting

We have been repeatedly assured by the Obummer administration that vetting of individual Muslim immigrants takes two years. Oops, now it seems.that at least 10,000, but more like 36,000 Syrian immigrates are going to be vetted, cleared, settled in the U.S., given Chapter 8 lodging, EBT cards, Obamacare, Obamaphones, voter registration cards, and invites to Hellery.s inauguration ... all before September 30 of this year ... or in just six months. Remarkable! ... see: Washington Examiner Story.

Somehow this previous avowal of a two-year vetting process must have become another inoperative statement ...

Old MacDonald

The U.S. Congress has just passed a pork-laden farm bill that ostensibly cuts food stamp costs by $8 billion over ten years … see: CATO Institute Analysis.  La-di-f-ing-da … $8 billion out of $784 billion. That’s effectively nothing!  Food stamps (read EBT cards) now represent $776 billion out of $950 billion of “farm” bill spending over ten years.  That’s almost 82% of this bill’s total being spent on debit cards for the “poor” people in this country.  These debit cards are supposed to be used to buy food for children (the reason this amount is in the farm bill), but increasingly it is spent on anything but food.  If you need to raise your blood pressure, please read: Another Liberal Morphing.

Apart from the outrageous amounts being allocated for EBT cards, this bill has lots and lots of payments to special-interest farm groups … please refer back to the above CATO Institute analysis for more hypertension.  Congress people, both Democrat and Republican, apparently can’t help themselves. Once a program is started, for whatever noble purpose, it becomes a Christmas tree upon which more and more silly spending ornaments are hung … often bearing little relation to the original intended purpose.

 So, American farmers (now often large agri-businesses) are also sucking $166 billion out of American taxpayers over the next ten years for these farm-bill ornaments. This is primarily because we, the taxpayers, are not paying attention.  For instance, we allow our government to borrow $17 million a year from the Chinese to pay for our catfish oversight program.

E-I-E-I-O

The Ship of State

Old Ironsides

The United States must really have some special resilience going for it to have survived the last five years ... maybe even longer ... of domestic and international screw-ups.  Whether this mismanagement is purposeful or as a result of incompetence is almost beside the point.  Our country has been buffeted by a series of fiscal, operational, and diplomatic tidal waves that would have sunk even the sturdiest of ships … yet we sail on … a little slower and shakier than would be nice … but we are thankfully still afloat.

I hope I need not detail these tsunamis … which should be quite obvious to those seamen even traveling in steerage.  Can I just tweak a few reminders …  the IRS, huge deficit spending, Benghazi, Iran, NSA, Obamacare, the Muslim Brotherhood, Fast and Furious, North Korea, the stimulus, amnesty, Solendra, illegal immigrants, Assad, the fiscal cliff, EBT cards, unemployment, Afghanistan, global warming, Edward Snowden, SDI, increased tax rates, the debt ceiling, Excel pipeline, etc.?  We have placed a tyro at the helm of our ship of state who appears somehow oblivious to these buffetings … just as long as he can play some golf, have his White House soirees, and pick his March Madness brackets.

Our man-o-war surely must be rock-ribbed.

Wait a Minute!

Today starts the government shutdown as a result of the impasse between the White House and Congress over the contents of the continuing resolution on federal funding. The media is beginning to gnash their teeth and wear sack cloth over this event.  I'm however looking forward to a number of deserving things that I hope happen as a result of this fiscal hiatus:

- Stopping all bribes to the President of Afghanistan, Karzai
- Closing the Congressional Country Club
- Ceasing all government grants to favored eco-companies
- Stop sending arms to the radical Syrian rebels
- Eliminating Pelosi's weekly private flights to/from California
- Eschewing future White House galas
- Stopping NSA's Internet snooping
- Closing the IRS's Cincinnati office
- Stop recharging EBT cards
- Ceasing Eric Holder's gun-running purchases
- Curtailing of the Obama's extravagant  family vacations
- Shuttering the Congressional barber shop
- Stopping all government bank bailouts
- Closing all Obamacare federal healthcare insurance exchanges

And I'm sure there are many other worthwhile possibilities ...

Obesity

The American Medical Association (AMA) has just decided that obesity is a disease (see: USA Today Story).  This is a profound declaration and is likely to cause not just a ripple though our society, but a tsunami … considering that it is estimated that 1/3rd of Americans are already obese.  (Full disclosure: yours truly shops in the “hefty” section of clothing stores.)

Now, I am old enough to remember that, in Germany, being overweight was once considered to be a recognition that you had “made it” … particularly for men.  This might be a hint as to why so many in this country are fatties – we are a land of good and plenty and this plutocracy is reflected in out waistlines. Not only are we overweight, but we are also obsessed with getting svelte.  I once was friendly with Dr. Robert Atkins who made his fortune with his weight-loss theories … and is still famous long after he has expired (probably partly due to his being overweight.)  Even after the billions of dollars Americans have spent on diet fads and weight-loss regimes, things do not seem to be getting better.

So how do we fix things?  I don’t think it will be by banning super-sized drinks or by declaring that there are “food desert” areas of our cities or by forcing restaurant to list caloric contents on their menus or by many of the other cockamamie ideas touted by the likes of Mika Brzezinski or Michelle Obama.  Perhaps I too can offer a few silly suggestions:

-         stop making tobacco smokers into piranhas (maybe why Barack has stayed so thin)

-         start making pot smokers into piranhas (the munchies don’t help things)

-         bring back physical education to our school curricula

-         eliminate food stamps (EBT cards) for anyone overweight

-         locate all parking spots at least 100 yards away from the nearest store (or restaurant)

Unfortunately, these are probably not effective solutions (the real ones are too buried in our society’s ethos.)  And if I did have them, I would then be listed in the “Forbes 100,” a compendium of the world's richest people.

But the most insidious result of this AMA decision is that now millions more Americans will now likely apply for Social Security disability benefits (SSI) … in that they have this “disease” … again, an example of unintended consequences.

And what will happen to these people who then go on the federal dole?  You guessed it.

New Year’s Resolutions

1)      I’ve decided to stop calling President Obama “The Barry” … like we call Donald Trump, “The Donald.”  This is clearly a disrespecting appellative.  From now on, I occasionally might call Obama “His Royal Highness.”
2)      I will offer to drive any EBT card holders who have “lost” their EBT card to the Massachusetts state center to receive a new EBT card … as many times as are required (but no more than five times a month per holder).
3)     I will not “fudge” on my tax returns this year as I herein resolve to help His Royal Highness pay for his many lavish vacations, White House celebrations, and golf outings..
4)     I mean to keep my non-conforming political thoughts to myself … and only those discontents who read this blog.  At parties and other social gatherings I will echo the MSNBC talking points (especially Al Sharpton’s).
5)      I plan to lose 55 pounds by strictly following Michelle Obama’s diet regime = waygu beef, peacock tongues, and caviar (of course paid for by U.S. taxpayers.)
6)      I intend to install solar panels on my house’s roof and refuse any associated tax credits … and not laud it over my global-warming denier friends.  I also intend to exhale only half as much in order to reduce my carbon footprint.
7)      I will rent every Michael Moore DVD ever made and watch them over and over until I am converted fully to his warped way of thinking.
8)      I shall denounce my desire that the U.S. balance it’s fiscal accounts and will publicly revile anyone who does … feeling that our national debt is inconsequential at best.  This includes placing an iconic statuette of Little Timmy Geithner on my mantel.
9)       I no longer will watch anything on Fox News.
10)   I intend to start a "Hillary in 2016" political action committee.

Zabar's ...

One of the most expensive delicatessens in New York City ... chock-a-block full of gourmet items ... now accepts EBT cards.

Another Liberal Morphing

When did feeding hungry children morph into providing bail money for a convicted drug dealer?  The answer is ... when liberals are given their leash ... as they have continue to enjoy in our current bleeding-heart society.  Recently in Massachusetts, a drug dealer was re-arrested and made bail by having a compatriot use his food-stamps allocation to bail him out of prison ... see Boston Herald Story. OK, it wasn't actually food stamps, it was the modern-day equivalent ... his EBT (Electronic Benefit Transfer) card. The EBT card came about because the old food-stamp program was deemed to humiliate those people who paid for their groceries with food stamps.  Soooo ... now indigent people have been given a debit-card like appliance that allows them to swipe it, without embarrassment,  like other shoppers would do with their bank or credit cards.

There, like with most good intentions, is where things have gone awry ... because the administration of this program is lax to say the most ... and the road to hell is now paved with EBT cards.  Since recipients complained that it was sometimes more convenient to pay in cash, EBT recipients (at least in Massachusetts) were allowed to swipe their cards almost anywhere as though they were real debit cards ... such at automatic teller machines (ATMs), gas pumps, liquor stores, casinos, nail salons, tattoo parlors, strip clubs, etc. ... even on luxury sea cruises.  And, in supermarkets, EBT holders are quite often also allowed to buy cigarettes, lottery tickets, and many other non-food items.

The list of abuses goes on and on ... see More Abuse Examples.  Around the country EBT holders have gotten quite clever in converting what is meant for children's hunger relief into hard cash.  At the start of each month, newly-credit-filled EBT cards are often sold to other shoppers at substantial discounts outside of grocery stores.  One enterprising woman even bought cases and cases of soda with her card and then ran the (full) cans through the deposit-return machines just to get the cash.  (It broke the machine.)  Yesterday while listening to Massachusetts state Rep. Shaunna O’Connell (R-Taunton) on local talk radio I heard some even more disturbing facts about how poorly this program is administered in this true-blue state:

- People, here, who have "lost" their EBT cards, can have them replaced with no consequences.  As a result, there are 20,000 EBT cards that are "lost" in Massachusetts each month.
- Here, 85% of all EBT card use is to retrieve cash directly and not to purchase food.  And even most of the use to purchase food involves substantial cash-back requests (eg., buying a pack of gum with an EBT card and getting $49 back in change.)
- There is no restriction in Massachusetts on the use of EBT cards outside of this state ... say in Las Vegas.

In fiscal 2011 the United States spent $75 billion on "food stamps," according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That's more than double ... up from $34.6 billion in 2008 (see: CNN Report), George W. Bush's last year in office.  Newt Gingrich has called Obama the "food-stamp President."  Perhaps he better should have called him the EBT-card President.

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Safety Net

Mitt Romney recently said that he is not worried about the poor ... they have a safety net ... and if the net is broken, he will fix it.  Most "pundits" on the left and the right consider this a major gaff that Romney needs to walk back.  I'm not quite so sure.  I believe that the safety net that our European-style welfare economy has constructed is nearly as universal as humanly possible ... and our politicians constantly vie to outdo each other finding even newer benefits.  I recently wrote about how the poor in this country are now getting free cell phones (see: Alphabet Soup).  Now I read that our safety net includes another goodie -- nearly free high-speed Internet access (see: NY Post Article).  Wow!  We middle-class schlubs are paying north of $50 per month for broadband Internet access.  So this reduced fee ($10 per month) then amounts to about another $480 per year of cost forgiveness (this time, courtesy of The Barry) to those who already have a myriad of government benefits.

I would really love to see a definitive financial spreadsheet of all this government largess (Section-8 housing, heating assistance, Medicaid, free school lunches, free cell phones, SSI, cash aid to dependent families, food stamps/EBT cards, free transportation, earned-income tax credits, reduced Internet costs, educational grants, etc. etc.) that a go-getting welfare family does, in fact, receive.  I suspect such a compendium would show few if any holes in the safety net and shock the American public into a movement toward real welfare reform.  Were this to happen, Romney's words may not be so damaging after all.