EBT And The Downfall Of Man

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. ~Chinese Proverb

I like to eat, don’t get me wrong, but what really, really cheeses me off is that some people eat better than I do.  Are these people better off than me? No, not by any stretch of one’s imagination. Have they done something righteous with their lives that allow them the luxury of buying the $20 roast and the $25 dollar bucket ‘o crab legs? Again, nope. What they have done however is suckle at the government teat.

Allow me to explain.  This year my federal income tax return AGI will probably be in the 5 digit range (since the government don’t do the whole cents thing anyway) and will most likely start with an 8 or a 9, not sure just yet.  I don’t live beyond my means either, I drive a 10 year old minivan that is in desperate need of a new engine, live in a house that was about 25% of what the bank said I could spend (PITI is $660 ish just  to give you an idea). I have cable TV of course, the minimum you need to get high speed internet and my cell phone, I have the cheapest plan I could find that was unlimited text and talk since I have family across the country.  Of course I pay for electric, sewer/water, trash service, and fuel and insurance for the van (again my insurance bill is like 20 bucks a month).  I eat relatively cheap, mostly vegetarian with my meat supply coming at the business end of a box of 270 Winchester ammo I buy for $20 at the local Wally world, coupled with an eighteen dollar license from the state.

So why am I cheesed at those people, cause they not only get the food stamps (of which there are now something like 43 million people using them) which roughly equates to 1.5 percent of the entire population of the country, this does not include the chronically hungry who probably don’t qualify cause they “make too much”.  Now I’ve been on food stamps, and let me tell you they make it next to impossible to get off of food stamps, but that story is for another day, even if I laugh myself to tears every time I tell it. What bothers me is that after they are done spending more on groceries for the month than I will probably be able to afford in six, they break out the WIC checks to pay for a couple boxes of cereal, some OJ, some milk, and cheese (mind you they could have gotten all of that on their EBT card).  I don’t begrudge those that need these things the help, as I stated I’ve been there done that, burned the t-shirt.  But it never fails that they are dressed nicer than I could ever afford, have cell phones that make mine look paltry, and drive new cars (after all what are they gonna spend their welfare checks on, odds are they live in publicly subsidized housing that costs little to nothing). More often than not they are also wearing high dollar jewelry that I would not ever deign to look at the price tag of no matter how I felt it might look on me.

Have we fallen that far as a nation that those of us who are responsible adults, pay their taxes (however begrudgingly), pay for their own way have to stand in line behind the EBT crowd watching them spend my hard won tax dollars?  I worked hard for that money, I got up every morning and sacrificed my time and energy to earn it, only to render unto caesers that which is caesers, and watch helplessly while it gets squandered on cheez doodles and ice cream for the multiple screaming brats in the cart that exists to the fore. And mind you mommy looks like she’s barely 20 and the kids are both between 3 and 5 years old, you do the math.

One day all of that is going to come crashing down on them, the government checks and help are going to stop coming in on the first, and people are going to wake up. May the universe help us all when that happens. But i also must question, at what point do we hand out poles instead of fish.