In 1988 a TV movie “The Incredible Hulk Returns” was made as a sequel to the TV show that had featured Bill Bixby as David Banner and Lou Ferrigno as The Hulk. From what I remember the movie was pretty forgettable, save for one piece – Thor. They had the character of Thor join up with Hulk, and Thor stole every scene he was in. The writers did a great job with the “fish out of water” angle, such as having Thor consuming beer by the pitcher (drinking straight out of said pitcher), getting into arm wrestling contests in a biker bar, etc. Toward the end when they were leading up to the final fight scene, Thor and Banner crept up on the bad guys when Thor laid out his plan of attack that they would just rush the villains. When Banner questioned the tactic Thor added “Well after you summon your big green friend of course”. The two separated, and like any good Hulk story, something happened to send Banner into a rage, transforming him into the Hulk. The green beast started raging through the villains when Thor saw what was happening. He stood up and with a smile shouted “I knew you liked my plan!” before jumping in and joining the fight.
Right now I feel a little bit of the Thor-like vindication over a proposal I made that didn’t seem to go over too well. I suggested that we propose some reasonable restrictions on what is allowed to be purchased with food stamps, basically taking it to Michelle Obama level of nannying of the diets of lower income recipients. Interestingly enough, it was Bloomberg who gave me the idea in the first place. And now he’s starting to buy into my idea, and has joined a number of other mayors who want to prohibit food stamps from being used to buy soda. And even though he’s not going as far as I would like to see, this is a great start. Let anybody who accepts government aid face restrictions on what they can use for those benefits. My previous post lists some creative ways we can go farther to improve the lives of those on government assistance.
If we want to incentivize people to get off of the dole, restricting choices and poking and prodding into their lives is a good way to do so. For that matter, I think that the best route to bringing about Obamacare’s repeal is not to fight or challenge it, but to let the public taste every toxic bit of it that’s being shoved up into us. As I argued at the end of my“Economics for Politicians” series a while back one of my more innovate solutions was:
Don’t repeal Obamacare – Accelerate it! By the time that most people are reading this post the Supreme Court will most likely have handed down its decision over this controversial law. Conservatives are naturally fighting this law while leftists continue to support it. Personally, I think that we need to move forward with it – every last bit. Forget all of the vaguely worded provisions that will kick in down the road – let’s make getting every last detail hashed out and implemented right away. Why? Because the American people are starting to wake up and are noticing the reality of having an economically illiterate leftist as president – it seemed like such a cool idea back in 2008! Now America is already seeing the broken promises of Obamacare – “If you like your plan you can keep it” and “Your rates will not go up” have proven to be worth as much as the man who said them. We didn’t fight hard enough to stop this law from getting passed, and now we get to deal with the consequences. What we’ve seen so far has pushed many Americans away from the left, and once people start tasting the long waits and rationing that are inevitable results it will destroy the Democrat party and pressure from the likes of the Tea Party will force the Republican majority that will be swept into power to not abuse it this time around. Ha ha – just kidding about that last part! We know how power goes to your heads, but at least if we can learn our lessons of how leftist economics work in the real world we just might be able to stop silliness like this law from happening again.
So to Mayor Bloomberg, I have only two things to say, “Faster. please”.
And “I knew you liked my plan!”
Cross posted from Brother Bob’s Blog
Newly discharged vets are one of the fastest growing groups getting food aid. Their unemployment rate is about 40% over the average. And 50% of the new vets are putting in claims for a permanent service related disability. 50% of the people who get food aid have never worked ! yeah they are kids less than 18. and another 10% are the elderly and another 10% are disabled/handicapped. So that is 70% of the total. The maximum that is given is 200 per month, the average is 140. Kinda tuff to feed a kid king crab legs on that much. The number of military families that now receive food stamps has tripled
.http://www.vamortgagecenter.com/blog/2012/05/09/why-are-so-many-military-families-on-food-stamps/
Military families actually have a HIGHER rate of use than civilian families
http://www.times-herald.com/opinion/Military-and-food-stamps–1843549
After seeing who gets food stamps, and after realizing how little a fraction of 1% of the Federal government’s budget goes for food aid, why are you even looking at trying to save money in THIS program? Because you still remember Ronald Reagan campaigning with the story of the “strapping buck buying T-bone steaks” or the latest where the food being purchase are the king crab legs?
here is a link for Reagan and his “strapping buck story”
http://reaganandracism.blogspot.com/
The right has turned against cops how long will it be before they turn on the military?
Credit where credit is due:
Michael Ledeen’s phrase, “faster, please” has become a signature meme in Ledeen’s writings (it is currently the title of his blog on the Pajamas Media website) and is often referenced by neoconservative writers.
In early days of CA’s SNAP program (the 1960’s) whole foods were handed out.
You got corn meal, flour, sugar, cheese, butter, (!) powdered egg, powdered milk, corn syrup, canned meats, (corned beef, chicken, tuna) greens in cans and much more.
If we went back to that most of our welfare SNAP recipients would fall off the rolls.
They can’t even begin to cook a meal from scratch, like people did in the 1960’s.
PS, CA included a recipe guide to get you through an entire month off of their dole of food plus your own water and and heat.
@John: Great job of researching a straw man – at what time did I propose cutting benefits? Personally I’d prefer to see people work their way out of benefits rather than become permanently dependent, but we’ll have to agree to disagree there. Maybe if you lefties didn’t work so hard to destroy jobs (Obamacare, the War on Energy) maybe there would be more jobs? And Nan G makes a very good point about how SNAP could just follow it’s older formula that can feed families.
@Nan G: Great catch on the Michael Ledeen reference!
Obamacare’s employer mandate put off for one year.
Funny…..I thought it was a LAW.
Apparently it was just a guideline.
Obama wants to see Dems win another election before it hits with full force.
He knew they wouldn’t had businesses been under the mandate.
Lots more will be on SNAP when the employee mandate is LAW.
Lots more will be only working 30/week or less instead of REAL full-time.
America’s veterans must fill out as many as 613 forms across 18 agencies as they seek services.
70 percent of all Veterans Affairs claims are pending longer than 125 days.
No wonder they end up getting SNAP …..it’s faster!
In the case of many veterans, they are automatically eligible for SNAP, so it is a lot easier!