According to the article there are 163,000 people on food stamps in El Paso that has a population of a little over 700,000 or around 23% of El Pasons are on the food stamp program. They also state that there is a growth in this program of 9.2% in two years. If those numbers stay true, the number of food stamp recipients will double in a mere 15 years. We have more on food stamps this year than last, we will have more on food stamps next year than this year. That has been the trend.
Budgets at every level of government today are being squeezed due to lack of funds and I am not sure most folks cannot afford any tax increases. Something has to give.
Our nation declared a war on poverty 45 years ago and has literally spent trillions on it and the net result is we have more living in poverty than ever before and it is increasing. It begs the question, If we are spending records on anti poverty programs, why are they not working? At what point are we going to try something different than merely more entitlements?
And ironically the federal government is borrowing 41 cents of every dollar spent on programs like these which means future generations will be burdened with this debt. We are already limiting what future generations will be able to do due to increasing deficits. In less than 10 years, we will be spending more on the interest on our debt than we do on military, meaning there are less tax monies for such important things as infrastructure, defense and social security (which is already running a deficit 8 years earlier than anticipated).
"I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer."
Benjamin Franklin
I am knocking out the stage 8 blog a bit early because I read and liked Holly's mysteriously untitled stage seven post. Her blog is "Looking farther than Red and Blue" and I assume she just forgot to put a catchy title on it, which has little impact unless you want to link just the post. So if I am to critique something it would have to be that minor mechanics issue.
ReplyDeleteAbout the content, I feel she brings up a very good issue that should be a concern to just about everyone. Food stamps and welfare are programs "designed" to help those in need make it threw tough times. Holly give good statistical information that depicts the growing percentage of recipients getting food stamps in El Paso. The numbers are a bit alarming since we (the working tax payers) are having to pay the bill. Working class people avoid going out to eat at restaurants to save money, yet they are buying lobster, soda, and TV dinners for 25% of the the people in their community? That is ridiculous! I think Holly also does a good job pointing out the failing systems that are paid for and are supposed to benefit the working Americans like Social Security. The Economy is like a ship, if you take on more water than you can bail out, you will eventually sink and die. Well... the liberals in Washington that want to keep throwing vast sums of money at dead-end programs have currently put us in a situation where we are taking on more and more water and have less and less people to bail. We are going to start sinking one of these days unless people in the important positions grow some attachments and cut the cord on generational free loaders! (Holly's article has done a good job getting me wound up).
Holly also closes her post with a spectacular quote by Benjamin Franklin, which somehow fits her article perfectly even though it was written 200+ years ago. I also agree with Mr. Franklin... you buy a man a fish, some Doritos, a few T-bones, and cable TV and he will throw a BBQ for his friends (then say he needs more more more). Teach a man to fish and get off his lazy ass and earn his own living, and he will tell his friends to bring over their own food and get a digital converter box! How is this a hard concept? What happened to Darwin? Sink or swim... throw someone into the water you will see how fast they get to shore.
Signing off,
Dan-O
Thanks Dan. Love you post. Made me giggle!!!
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