It’s time to weed out the truly needy from the simply “wanting”

You can’t question any benefits or entitlements programs – or God forbid suggest cuts in any of those -- without being accused of trying to snatch food from the mouths of infants; issuing a death sentence to the poor, the elderly and the disabled; and being devoid of any humanity.     

You’d think someone was planning to turn people into pet food.  And drown baskets of puppies and kittens at the same time. 

The truth is, sometimes we may be providing very expensive help to some people – certainly not all – who don’t really need that help to survive and get back on their feet. 

We’re making those people more comfortable, but it that really the mission here?

Do the people who really need help get assistance through government programs?  Certainly.  But do a lot of other folks fairly well off get an unneeded benefit too?  Why yes they do.  

A lot of government programs designed to help the needy fulfill what they were supposed to do:  help those who couldn’t get by without them.

But far too many times they also provide assistance to those who could easily get by without them; folks who use these benefits to avoid having to forego stuff they just want but don’t need.  We are trying to satisfy needs – like basic food and shelter – but end up subsidizing wants. 

Don’t want to be insensitive here, but does someone on food stamps really “need” a $41 birthday cake for their kid?  Does someone who supposedly needs help to provide for their family “need” a big-screen LCD TV, or the latest Air Jordans, or Ralph Lauren clothes for their toddler?  Or high-def cable TV service plus broadband in their house?

Face facts, everyone.  This is not to whip up on the poor, but this is going on all the time.  You’ve probably seen it yourself. 

No one is saying that people on public assistance should be living in hovels with no heat, electricity, or indoor plumbing, while their starving kids wander barefoot clothed in tattered rags. 

Then again, no one wants to see their taxes going to support people who are clearly not impoverished – or at least appear to have a pretty solid middle-class lifestyle – bragging about how they are doing well working off the books while collecting government benefits.  Or how they are beating the system.  Or not working at all when they could. 

It’s obvious that a lot of people are using government benefits in place of their own money to buy the things they want, while government bucks cover a lot of what they need.  

It’s the unintended consequence of building a system of subsidies that almost anyone can get, so why not?  If they are in an area where food stamps, welfare, and all the other government support programs are the main sources of income – which is becoming more common – it’s an acceptable way of life.  Just business as usual.  

Congress seems intent on expanding these benefits even more, to a broader range of people, and to make them even easier – and less restrictive – to qualify for.  There appears to be no end to giving away free stuff to appease voters of almost all income levels, and to make getting these handouts somehow “normal.” 

Maybe that’s why almost 46 million Americans and almost 22 million U.S. households receive food stamps – or as it’s now euphemistically called, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; SNAP for short.  (The acronym seems quite appropriate.)

To preserve the “dignity” of those using food stamps, for example, government even dispensed with the stamps themselves and replaced those with a Visa-like debit card. 

So that well-dressed shopper ahead of you at checkout buying the rib-eye steaks before driving off in their late-model SUV may be using their SNAP card, not Visa.  

It’s human nature for some people – not all, of course – to take advantage of any situation.  And if you’re giving away free money with limited restrictions, most people will take it.  Our government proved that with the “Cash for Clunkers” program.  (Hence the SUV.)    

Unfortunately, In our current financial straits, we can’t afford to be so loosey-goosey about handing out freebies anymore.  There aren’t enough tax dollars to cover everybody’s “wants,” but probably plenty to cover the truly needy.  We need to focus. 

Government needs to suck it up and do a better job of separating those who truly need our assistance to survive and become productive from those who simply want more free stuff to live a more comfortable life.    

Being on public assistance is not supposed to be comfortable.  Otherwise there’s no reason to get off it.  If you make it more attractive to stay there – by providing free everything – no one will ever rationally decide to change.  People will find ways to live that lifestyle for generations, as some do now, until they are forced to leave it.  People will be born into it, live in it, and die in it. 

No one on public assistance should be made content with their lot.  They shouldn’t be made to be miserable either – that would be cruel.  But they should always be thinking they could do better and have more if they did something else besides being on the dole.

The exception is the truly disabled.  They should get all the help we can provide; provided that they are truly disabled – not simply conveniently disabled that prevents them from working but permits them to go golfing, bowling,  mountain climbing, snow skiing, etc. 

Having tennis elbow, or a blister on your butt, or an ingrown toenail does not qualify as truly disabled.  You may be able to wangle a handicap tag for your rearview mirror – a tag you’ll keep and use forever, long after your malady is gone – but you aren’t really disabled.  (And don’t think all of us who watch you park in the handicap spots, only to see you sprint to the front door of wherever you’re going with nary a care, aren’t aware of what you’re doing, you weasel.)    

Prying the not-so-needy and the fakers from the truly needy is going to be a tough task. There will be pain as people adjust from getting a predictable monthly “bonus” from the government to relying on more of their own money.  Not mortal pain, nor a plunge into destitution, but there will be an impact on those who’ve built a lifestyle on other people’s money.   

In this society, practically everybody claims to be a “victim” of one thing or another – this will just be more fuel on that fire.  The media will be all over this, like white on rice, showing how cruel and heartless we are as a nation; they’ll trot out the clips of the exceptions unintentionally or mistakenly affected and present these as the norm.  It will be heart-wrenching theater. 

Then there will be the usual attacks from the people receiving these benefits, and the politicians they are tethered to, to preserve the status quo or even increase the goodies.

No one will want to give up anything. 

It’s going to take some really big brass ones to be the politician that says enough is enough.   

Critics will claim the cuts will attack the dignity and self-respect of the downtrodden, hitting them when they are down, and punishing everybody for the actions of a few. 

But it’s not really a few.  It’s millions upon millions of people, on whom we are squandering billions of dollars every year – not to help them survive, but simply to be more “comfortable.”

That’s not our job. 

Extreme conservatives and extreme liberals have a lot in common

The most media coverage focuses on strict social conservatives who take things to extremes.  When you cut through all the self-righteous posturing, and the tsk-tsk commentary by the media, what these extreme conservatives actually want is pretty clear.

They want time to stand still; they long for the days of Eisenhower and Reagan.  They want everything they don’t agree with banned – like sex outside of marriage, restrictions on public prayer, legal abortion, porn,  etc.  They want to interfere in everybody’s private life to enforce their own beliefs.   In truth, they’d like a theocracy – as long as it was their own in charge. 

Sound familiar?  Well it should … it’s Iran, but with priests and ministers instead of mullahs.

But extreme liberals are no better and no less intolerant. 

They also want time to stand still, only they long for the days of FDR, Johnson and the Kennedys.  They also want everything they don’t agree with banned, like smoking, fast food, sugar, and public displays of faith.  They also want to interfere in everybody’s private life to enforce their own beliefs.   In truth, they’d also like a theocracy – but with government as God, and them as its chosen disciples.  

Sounds like Europe …

The majority of Americans don’t like either extreme.  Go deep enough into their belief systems and you’ll find most are Libertarians by nature, if not by name. 

That means the thing they want most is to be left alone.  They don’t want to be told what to do, what to think, what to believe, what to drive, what to eat, who to hire, who to sleep with, and what jokes they can tell or find funny.  

They feel fully competent to make those decisions on their own, thank you very much.

It’s not that complicated.  They just want the American promise of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” on their own terms, not terms dictated to them. 

In short, they just want the more extreme folks to stop screwing with them.  And they are perfectly willing to leave other people alone in return.  Live and let live.    

It would be a far nicer -- and more enjoyable -- world if the extreme folks would return the favor.    

Big numbers get attention, but percentages often tell the real story

It would be nice if more people understood math so they could tell if something was significant

or not.  

We're not talking advanced Trig, Calculus or abstract Algebra here, just simple fractions and

percentages.     

This would save a great deal of handwringing and over-reaction to relatively statistically insignificant events.

It also helps to know that there are about 320 million people in this country, and that 1% means 1 in 100 (for those who slept through Math class) and 1% of the population is 3.2 million. 

So when you hear a big number, like 100,000 afflicted with this or a half-million suffering from that, divide that by 320 million to get a real percentage.

Fiddling with the numbers and definitions is a time-honored tool for anyone trying to make a case.  For example, about 2.5 million people – less than 1% of the population – will die in this country every year from any number of causes, including accidents.
  
When you hear that 19% all deaths are from heart disease, you first need to know that the term "heart disease" includes a lot of stuff beyond heart attacks.

So it doesn’t mean that 19% of all Americans will die from heart attacks this year-- which most people will think, it just means that of the very small percentage of people who will die, an even smaller group will die from some form of heart disease which includes many conditions also associated with simply growing older.  

Nothing to sneeze at, but not catastrophic or a sign of the end of days.  

The same goes for the claims of autism affecting 1 in 110 children.  Part of that is because the definition of autism has broadened dramatically in recent years and more doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, schools and, yes, parents are willing to tag children as autistic.  Also, back to math, that's still less than 1% of children even with the broader definition.

Peanut allergies? That's the official reason for banning peanuts on planes, although most of us think it's because the cheap bastards that run the airlines don't want to give us anything for free anymore.  It's also why some schools overreacted and banned PBJs, the staff of life for many us when we were growing up.

So what's the real percentage of people -- including children and adults -- with peanut allergies?  About 0.4 -0.6% by some accounts; it's true that a higher percentage of children are susceptible but also true that most children naturally outgrow the condition.    

To put this in perspective, about 3% of all adults will have a life-threatening whole-body
(systemic, or anaphylaxis) reaction to bee or wasp stings each year.  

If you know your numbers, most things are not as dire as others would want you to believe. 

     There really aren’t that many “poor” in America
What’s really “poor” anymore?  Is it the ability to feed your family?  Or is it the ability to have the same things more affluent Americans may have – like cable TV, high-speed broadband, a big-screen TV, a computer, a nice car perhaps?

It all depends on how you define poor, and that’s fairly relative. 

The government uses an index based on household income for a family of four.  Right now, it calculates the poverty line at about $47,000 annual income. 

But that index doesn’t account for a variety of government support services – like food stamps, aid to working families, school lunch programs, WIC and variety of rebates and credits – all of which help subsidize basic needs. 

Nor does it account for where that family lives.  Living in San Francisco is a lot more expensive than Fargo, North Dakota.  Lots of families in many places would be perfectly fine at $47,000 a year, and hardly in poverty.   

So the numbers are quite fuzzy. 

But advocates for “the poor” always claim that there are more people in poverty every year.  The reality is that the percentage of truly poor in the U.S. has remained essentially fixed for a long, long time, estimated to be between 10-13%. 

      George Bush had a hurricane machine
Well of course he didn’t. 

But that doesn’t stop some people from believing that he did.  Or that he had inside information on 911 prior to the attack.  Or that Dick Cheney engineered the Iraq War solely to aid his buddies at Halliburton.  

Or that the current administration is helping small businesses.  And that merely by taxing the wealthy more we can solve all our economic problems. 

People believe what they want to believe, no matter how crazy or delusional.  Especially when it comes to politics.  
  
A common mistake rational people can make is confronting the politically delusional with facts.  It’s a waste of time – like trying to teach physics to parakeets, or your cat to speak French.  Reality is an alien concept to these folks, and not particularly useful, since it threatens what they believe and disrupts their otherwise blissfully ignorant state. 

You can point out that extending unemployment benefits didn’t really help the economy, and that even with 99 weeks of UC, most people who found jobs did so only when their benefits were about to run out.  That’s all true. 

Still some people will respond that every dollar we spent paying people not to work actually generated up to $3 or more in stimulus to the economy. 

The same folks also believe Federal spending on any number of clearly wasteful and unnecessary projects -- using money that’s mostly borrowed now – is a powerful tool for stimulating the economy.   It’s a better than 3-1 payout every time. 

Really?  Can someone rationally explain how you can take a dollar from your left pocket and put it in your right pocket and it magically becomes $3 or more? 

Or how you can borrow a dollar, again put it in that magic right pocket and multiple dollars come out?  And best yet – you don’t have to pay back the dollar you borrowed? 

Bet most of us would like to get a pair of those magic pants …

It’s amazing how many people do believe this.  Which is okay; lots of people have odd beliefs and they manage to function in society just fine.  Some people believe fairies and gnomes are real – and who is to say they’re not? 

Simple logic tells you that this modern-day alchemy of turning a single dollar from the government into multiple dollars in the economy is fiscal bullshit. 

The only way this conceivably works is if the government dollars attract additional dollars from the private sector in the process.  How does that work with unemployment comp and other entitlements?  Fact is, it doesn’t. 

It’s also bullshit when cities use the same weird logic to justify squandering millions of taxpayer dollars, backed by bond sales, on new stadiums for professional sports franchises. 

How often have you heard officials say:  “We expect the economic impact on the region to be on the order of several gazillion dollars per year and provide thousands of new jobs …”

And those numbers are based on what?  More people who come to town and grab a snack before they get hosed for over-priced beers and chips topped with Cheez-Whiz?   Maybe a few more low-paid ushers and parking attendants for the games? 

Will that add a gazillion dollars of new money and thousands of jobs to the region?  Nope, unless a whole bunch or new people from outside the region come to the games.   Otherwise, you’re moving around the same amount of money typically spent there. 

And the thousands of jobs?  There will be union construction guys building the stadium – a powerful political force in many cities – and they will benefit briefly.  Yet that’s a short-term bubble; over time more dollars will be sucked out of the region to pay back bonds – with interest – that fund those temporary jobs. 

Al Gore – inventor of the Internet, in case you forgot – coined the phrase “inconvenient truth” when describing his BS about global warming. 

Well here’s the inconvenient truth that’s actually real:  Our governments at all levels are spending too much.  And the ROI on government spending isn’t that hot, despite what all the Keynesian economists say.

Want a reality check?  All you have to do is look at the number of jobs actually “created” with the billions we used to “stimulate” the economy a couple of years ago.  (The “jobs saved” was nonsense from the get-go – it only temporarily “saved” state and local public sector jobs in most cases that were eventually cut anyway.)

It often cost $100,000 or more for each job “created.”  That’s not a good deal. 

We could have cut our costs in half by simply giving each one of those people who got the “created” jobs $50,000 to spend as they wished without having to show up to work.  It would have had the same effect, without the political pandering. 

Officials can rationalize all they want about how “investing in America” with your tax dollars to build stadiums and roads to nowhere is boosting real economic output, and how extending UC and expanding entitlements really doesn’t cost you anything because of their positive effects on the economy.   And how government-funded jobs have a great payback because people with those jobs now pay taxes – as if getting back 20-30% on every dollar you send out somehow makes sense.   

It’s all just sleight-of-hand economic babble.  Spending money like this is not about boosting the real economy; just gaming the system to make it look like the economy is getting better, while paying off political allies at the same time. 

There are no magic pants at the Federal, state or local government levels. 

Just like George Bush’s hurricane machine, magic pants are a myth. 

A significant number of Americans are delusional
Do you ever hear someone make a claim that’s so unreal that you just have to shake your head and wonder what the Hell planet they’re living on? 

And then you hear it again, from someone else, in a slightly altered form.  Then you hear iterations of the same nonsense over and over.  Like a virus making more nitwit zombies. 

Then you start to wonder:  Are there that many delusional people out there?  Do a disproportionate number of them work in the media? 

It must be true.  There’s no other logical, rational reason so much unsubstantiated bullshit keeps getting repeated.  It’s as if the delusional hope that by repeating their misguided mantra over and over – like an affirmation – their nonsense will become “real.”

 Ain’t gonna happen.  There are too many of us left who actually read books, follow multiple news sources, and analyze data objectively so we can keep ourselves anchored in reality. 

We see bullshit for what it is.  Simply bullshit. 

Telling us it’s chocolate pudding won’t make us eat it.  If you think it’s pudding, go right ahead and help yourself.  We won’t try to stop you, or try to convince you otherwise. 

If you’re unstuck from reality, you’re in your own world, Sparky.  You and all your kindred delusional spirits have stepped off the reality express and are now on a cuckoo choo choo of your own making.  So grab a spoon and dig in. 

Keep believing that the economy is rocketing ahead. 
Keep thinking that the world respects America more because we are now humble.
Keep thinking that owing $16 trillion dollars – mainly to the Chinese – doesn’t matter.
Keep thinking that public workers unions aren’t out of control. 
Keep believing that greedy bankers – not deadbeat borrowers – caused foreclosures.
Keep believing that covering millions more people won’t raise healthcare costs. 
Keep thinking there’s a magic supply of money somewhere to give you everything free.
Keep thinking that paying a “fair share” applies to others, but not you.
Keep thinking that we can run the country on renewable resources alone.
Keep blaming the oil companies for higher gas prices, and holding back green energy.
Keep thinking that successful people are inherently evil – unless they’re celebrities
Keep thinking that the Nobel Peace Prize still matters. 

Above all, keep thinking that the Federal government can solve all your problems, protect you from your own stupidity, and bail you out financially when you do dumb things.

Now have another bite of that delicious chocolate pudding.