And She Called Me A Racist!

Interesting dinner last week with friends. Politics, the forbidden dinner topic, reared its head and drifted to welfare and government programs. I made the statement that we really need to address our "Black Problem". A good friend of mine, who is also a former New York resident and liberal, corrected me. She said, "You mean we have a problem with the disadvantaged." I repeated, "We have a black problem," She then called me a Racist. I chalked this up as one more intelligent exchange between a Conservative and Liberal.

Let's talk about this.

In today's Austin American Statesman, not known for its Conservative positions, Ken Herman (not known for his conservative positions as well), writes "Central Texas African American community produces too many children that wind up in foster care and too few black volunteers to help these children." He cites 68% of African American children in Travis Country are born out of wedlock and only 17% of whites (which is still too many whites!). Herman says too many blacks drop out of school, too many wind up in prison, and too many failed government programs exist. Herman speaks of the "evolving redefinition of marriage". Herman then makes an impassioned and constructive plea for more blacks to volunteer as special advocates for abused and neglected children through an organization named CASA. Only 6% of the current volunteers are black.

In the same newspaper there is a long article about food stamp fraud. It seems that of all agencies our Agriculture Department is out of control with a runaway food stamp program. Recipients can sell their food stamp cards for cash and request a replacement. Stores are forbidden to request identification to verify ownership. Also, many card owners get cash from crooked retail store operators to buy alcohol and drugs. So what is the Ag Department's remedy? They will now allow states to "question" card holders who lose more than three cards in a calender year". Also, this crack federal agency has requested that Facebook, Twitter, Ebay,and Craigslist not allow the buying and selling of food stamp cards on the Internet. WOW! If the Ag guys are not careful they may take action that could reduce their bulging federal budgets. God forbid!  Their answer on why they tread so carefully in controlling the system, "many of our people are homeless or have dementia or mental illness."  So the federal government's solution to the homeless and the mentally ill is to allow food stamp trafficking to funnel cash and drugs to recipients?

In the same edition of this newspaper (I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP) the director of advocacy for the Capital (that be Austin) Area Food Bank authored a huge article entitled, "Combat hunger and you'll combat other health issues". Her article was just loaded with facts. I have wondered personally how we can fight world hunger and obesity among the poor all at the same time. She really cleared it up for slow people like me. Ms. Green starts with the fact, "that 1 of every 6 Americans struggle with hunger". She continues, "as hunger is often a symptom of poverty, those cannot purchase nutritious food." She says, "surprisingly, some hungry people are also overweight. This occurs when access to fresh, nutritious food is difficult and expensive." WOW, WOW, AND A DOUBLE WOW! Thank goodness for Michelle Obama and her White House garden! And then Ms. Green really takes it home with more statistics, "According to the Center of Disease Prevention more than 1 in 3 adults and 17% of children are OBESE." And now Ms. Green's solution, "Programs such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps) need to give more hungry people more purchasing power to buy food." Can you believe the name of the food stamp program? By putting more money into the program we turned hunger into obesity. If we can just put more money in we can all buy veggies from someone like Michelle and live happily ever after. What a great country we live in!

Just looking at "the facts". We are basically told that about 45% of Americans are fat and hungry, and we just need a few more programs from the federal government and more money of rich tax payers. Making poor people obese just isn't fair.

So what is the big problem here? It is the old producer and moocher thing. There are too many government programs providing incentives for moochers to take from the producers. The programs are for food stamps, welfare payments, tax rebates for non-tax payers, extended unemployment and fake disability claims, student loans, incentives for single parents, marriage tax penalties, public housing, etc., etc.  It is clear that Obama wants to drive organizations like the Catholic Church out of the assistance business whether it be hospitals, schools, or charities for the poor.  HHS recently said religious organisations must provide early abortion support to their employees resulting in laws suits this week.  Obama wants his voting base to look to HIM, not their church or community for assistance and a safety net.

Why pick on blacks who certainly aren't all problems nor do they represent all of our nation's problems. Because there are too many blacks mooching and not enough producing. Some blacks believe they are entitled to mooch off white tax payers because their ancestors were mistreated.  There are black pimps who work to keep blacks down and under their influence and control. Obama is a black pimp. He has done nothing to help blacks WORK their way out of poverty. I repeat, WORK, WORK, WORK.  This mixed race President who claims to be African American stirs up division between blacks and whites in an attempt to cement his voting block needing over 95% of the black vote for re-election. When blacks were recently interviewed while standing in a welfare line they said they were there to receive their "Obama Juice". Obama isn't alone. There are entire industries and many government agencies working to create a downtrodden black culture from which they can benefit.

Even public educators fight for the status quo which in many black neighborhoods means inferior education. Obama was quick to support stopping funding for Charter Schools in Washington DC once elected.  Started in 2004, the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship provided vouchers of up to $7,500 to low-income, mostly minority children for private-school tuition. Democrats never liked the program and -- egged on by the teachers unions -- made the program's demise a top priority. Congress moved to cut off funding, and the Obama administration went right along.  Despite the fact Obama's two daughters attend the elite Sidwell Friends School because he knew they would get a far better education there than in the struggling D.C. public schools.


The sad part of this story is, as always, the ones who are hurt the most are the moochers themselves.  Shame on us.  We were on the right track back when Clinton ran to the middle and passed welfare reform with the Republican Congress.  A small step, but in the right direction.  And that was a long, long time ago.
Think about it,

Jim