A teachable moment

      In April 2020, some major reductions are coming to one of the government's biggest handout programs: food stamps.  Some 700 thousand otherwise able-bodied recipients are getting cut off.  Savings are estimated at over $5.5 billion over 5 years.

      The push for these cuts comes from none other than President Trump.  Tens of thousands of people wrote to him to protest the cuts - but he basically ignored them all.   

      Here's what Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) had to say about it:  "The Trump administration is driving the vulnerable into hunger. … It is heartless.  It is cruel.  It exposes a deep and shameful cruelness, and hypocrisy in this administration."

      As everyone knows, I am no Trump fan - but he gets kudos this time.  HOWEVER, rather than just ignoring the protests, he could have taken advantage of this opportunity and turned it into a teachable moment.   (And I don't mean via Twitter.)  Here's what I what have said if I were the president: 

      My fellow Americans.  Many of you are upset because the American government is cutting back the food stamp program.  I know the program is popular, and that many of you depend on it to buy food.  So here is why we are doing it:

      The United States of America became a wealthy and prosperous nation because of a culture of limited government.  The founding fathers realized - correctly - that when the people are unburdened from the shackles of government, that business and commerce would expand enormously.  Innovation and competition, spurned on by the profit motive, would result in a dynamically growing economy that would give anyone and everyone with the desire to succeed the opportunity to do so.  For positive proof, look no further than the legions of immigrants who will do anything to come to America, despite my harsh and draconian efforts to deter them.

      However, the advocates of economic "progressives", as they call themselves, gradually took over our economic system, replacing the benefits of the free market with one whereby government takes from those according to their ability and gives it according to their need.  If this type of economic "logic" truly could produce wealth and eliminate need, then carry the idea all the way to its logical conclusion:  just have the government confiscate ALL of the nations wealth and then re-spend it "properly".  Actually, this idea HAS been tried, many, many times throughout history, and the results have ALWAYS been the same:  mass poverty, the total absence of goods and services people need to survive - and a fat, lazy, and very wealthy ruling class.

      So I am here today to tell you that government is NOT some combination of Santa Claus, Superman, and God.  Governmental wealth redistribution is not the path to prosperity, and depending on the government for life's essentials only punishes success and rewards failure.  Politicians who promote this idea claim they are "generous" to the poor, but there is nothing generous" about spending somebody else's money.  All government welfare programs should be abolished - but today all we're doing is REDUCING just one of them - yet many are screaming that this is cruel, heartless, and hateful.  Well, that response is actually pretty normal when people get too comfortable living off freebies.  In reality, the only part of it that is cruel and hateful is forcing otherwise productive taxpayers to foot the bill for it all.

     Furthermore, if you feel that strongly that the poor need help … then HELP them.  Put your money where your mouth is.  I will demonstrate:  I am handing over a check from my personal bank account, made out to my favorite charity.  I encourage everyone who claims to care about the poor to do the same.