On Saturday, Dec. 17, I had occasion to visit the local Wal-Mart for some basic items. If the crowd there was any indication of difficult economic times, I would not want to go shopping if times were good!

I got trapped in the meat isle and was afraid I’d have to wait for leaner times to fight my way to the rear for a gallon of milk. When I finally made it to the check out counter, with a good degree of exhaustion, I could not help but notice the number of those red, white and blue cards—the ones provided by the government—being used to pay for purchases.

Don’t get me wrong, many people out there need help and I would never begrudge them assistance with the staples of life such as the basic food groups. However, I’m not sure if soda pop, potato chips, Fritos, candy and cookies fall within those necessary items, and these made up a large portion of the shoppers’ carts.

Who can blame them? Why should many of them work when

• there’s extended unemployment checks;

• a couple can live together and not get married so the woman is considered a single mother and everyone gets free medical, dental, and SNAP for everyone? (SNAP, Supplemental National Assistance Program, used to be called Food Stamps but the longer name sounds better.)

The United States can simply borrow more money from China and Saudi Arabia since our national debt is only $15 trillion dollars and counting, and since the number of SNAP recipients is only 45.3 million people. (Notice I used the term “people” instead of citizens because a large portion of the SNAP and medical care recipients are illegals.)

In 2009 the National Bureau of Economic Assistance declared the most recent recession over, but since then there has been a 31 percent increase in SNAP recipients.  

Have no fear, the Democrats have visions for the country! Governor Beshear has a vision for state wide gambling which will decrease our state deficit and allow the Department of Education to expand educational opportunities to include three year olds. He believes we need a pre-pre-school program to prepare the children for pre-school, which prepares the children for kindergarten, which prepares the children for first grade.

I’m going to sue the government! I didn’t get to start until I was six years old and had to endure the humiliation of starting in the first grade. That was detrimental to my psychological growth and look at all the education I missed out on!

I have another idea: We’ll give the mother six months to bond with her baby and then she can enroll the little darling in a taxpayer-funded, Department of Education nursery, thus relieving the parents of any responsibilities of development from seven through 35 months.

We cannot forget about President Obama’s vision of alternative green energy so we can get away from all that smelly, dirty old coal and oil. The Defense Department recently announced it will buy 450,000 gallons of bio-fuel for the US Navy from a company called Solazyme at $15.00 a gallon, four times higher than the market price of conventional jet fuel. If you don’t believe this is green energy friendly, check with Obama’s friend TJ Glauthier who is advising Solazyme.

The government (me and you) funded the construction of the refinery where the bio-fuel is produced to the tune of $20 million plus. Then the Obama Administration provides the customer for this refinery; the US Navy. Ironically, the Navy has 670 million gallons of fuel available so the new bio-fuel will simply go into storage.

But, what the heck, its only money! Right



•••



You can contact Cline Calhoun at

ccalhoun1@windstream.net