The monopoly government soup kitchens

As with motherhood and apple pie, both of the major parties in Washington pay lip service to America’s proud tradition of independent small business, historically the creator of the majority of American jobs.

But just as the veil was lifted from the isolated, cocooned world in which our rulers live when a photo opportunity once took President George H.W. Bush to a supermarket — where he responded with the delight of a little boy at what appears to have been his first exposure to a bar-code price scanner — our rulers seem honestly puzzled that their actions continue to destroy the very thing they claim to want to “stimulate.”

Too much regulation? What ever can you mean?

Ask little Julie Murphy, age 7, who departed in tears when county health inspectors shut down her lemonade stand at a local monthly arts fair in Oregon this month, threatening her with a $500 fine for operating without a restaurant license. (What? No demand for a federal taxpayer ID number? Proof of liability insurance? Compliance with lead-testing requirements on paper cups handed to fellow children?)

The Department of Energy banned multi-outlet shower heads this spring, because they “waste water.” (Is it the federal government’s water?) Even if these units were manufactured overseas, someone presumably hoped to recoup what was invested in inventing the things, while other Americans stood to keep their jobs delivering them by truck, stocking store shelves, and ringing them up on cash registers.

Oh well. Go file for some of those “forever” unemployment checks.

Small businesses refuse to expand, invest or hire for fear of looming tax hikes. Legislative leaders including Nevada’s Steven Horsford respond that hundreds of millions in new taxes will be needed to “plug budget deficits.”

After all, they can’t cut spending. Wherever could they cut?

Why, the fact that Clark County schools will shift back from year-round schools to nine-month scheduled next year means 20,000 low-income children will no longer have free or reduced price breakfasts and lunches subsidized for them by the taxpayers, moans Mr. Horsford.

“What’s going to happen for three months for students who are living in poverty and going hungry?” asks Tim Adams, principal of the year-round Bell Elementary School near Sahara and Interstate 15.

Um, just guessing here, but maybe they should be fed by … their parents?

Isn’t First Lady Michelle Obama now on a crusade to fight childhood obesity? Are we under the impression that’s caused by the total of absence of food in American cupboards and refrigerators? In a nation full of cell phones, flat-screen TVs, and shiny new SUVs?

But never fear! The U.S. Department of Agriculture already provides $1.3 million in tax money for free summer kiddie meals in Nevada, including $669,432 for Clark County. And more summer “feeding sites” are planned!

True, there are always a few emergency cases, where parents fail in their custodial duties. Such cases should be referred to traditional private charities. But at the risk of stating the obvious, the Founders promised us a small central government of limited powers. It was not set up to feed our children, ever — let alone at a time when the federal government borrows 41 cents of every dollar it spends, placing our economy on the brink of collapse.

Nor were the public schools set up to be one-stop soup kitchens.

How many of these free meals go the children of illegal aliens who shouldn’t be here in the first place? Our bureaucrats refuse to even try to get us a count.

And as bureaucrats at all levels unanimously moan that they’re understaffed and overworked, where did they find two — two — health inspectors to send little Julie Murphy home in tears?

3 Comments to “The monopoly government soup kitchens”

  1. John Brook Says:

    Too much regulation? What ever do you mean, Vin?

    Could you possibly be referring to this story? http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/columns/bill-mcclellan/article_ab9ae524-f4f1-51eb-86eb-a35d4ce783e3.html

  2. Mike_K Says:

    The Bush I scanner story was a setup. It wasn’t the scanner he was impressed with but a new type that was not yet in service. The NYT writer wasn’t even present.

  3. Amy Says:

    Vin replies —

    Yes, we’ve all heard the after-the-fact apologias, arguing Bush First was a salt-of-the-earth kind of guy who regularly did the family’s grocery shopping late at night at the Piggly Wiggly after a hard day’s work as CIA chief or vice president, running his own groceries through the scanner to save the cashiers the trouble. Probably changed into coveralls, got flat on his back, and changed the oil and filter in the family’s Ford pickup the first Sunday of every month, too.

    Come on. The Bushes are fourth-, fifth-, who knows how many generation bankers, ambassadors, sons of privilege. They “do their own shopping” about as often as the Kennedys.

    On what grounds do you buy every argument (and they’re certainly couched as arguments — attempts to plead a case) presented by Snopes? It’s not some peer-reviewed consumer protection service like the Underwriters Labs, you know. They do some research and they can certainly be worth consulting, but “Snopes” is, to the best of my knowledge, two people of a thoroughly statist, establishment bent, who spend an enormous amount of energy trying to convince us Barack Obama is refusing to release his long form birth certificate for reasons not scurrilous, is refusing to release academic records which might show (or disprove) he applied to Occidental as a “foreign student” for reasons we have no right or reason to question, etc.

    And no, evidence that one is “pro-Obama” does not lead us to assume one is “anti-Bush.” The statist bankster Republicrats are two branches of the same party — else why did we kick out George W. “Wall Street” Bush and replace him with Barack … who promptly staffed all his important financial advsory offices with essentially the same gang from Goldman Sachs and the New York Federal Reserve?