The case for voluntary sterilization

There’s a court case in Virginia that has liberals all in a tither. It involves a man who has fathered seven children with six different women. The judge took the unusual step of offering the man the option of getting a vasectomy in exchange for a lighter sentence. The liberals are crying that the deal harkens back to the days of eugenics when mentally deficient individuals were forcibly sterilized. The claim is not only hollow, it’s ironic.

You may not be familiar with the name Margaret Sanger so let me bring you up to speed. Sanger is the founder of Planned Parenthood. Sanger was one of the key figures in that eugenics program — the forced sterilization of individuals — that we all now so vehemently

 oppose. In a 1932 essay, Sanger advocated excluding immigrants “whose condition is known to be detrimental to the stamina of the race,” and advocated forced sterilization and segregation of those she and her cohorts deemed inferior. That’s Planned Parenthood’s ugly history which they choose to keep swept under the rug.

Now, back to the case in Virginia. The individual in question has proven himself to be irresponsible. He continues to procreate with no means of support. In short, he’s a menace to society. Should he be forcibly sterilized. Of course not, however, giving the man the option to have a vasectomy is no different than offering him the option to perform community service to lighten his sentence. It’s purely his choice, an option he accepted, by the way.

If we want to get to the heart of the welfare program, this case in Virginia does. There are far too many people having far too many children they can’t afford. Giving them an incentive to do the right thing only makes sense. If we, for example, were to offer a one-time cash award for anyone on welfare who would voluntarily take measures to break the cycle of generational dependency, shouldn’t we jump at that opportunity? Welfare recipients, both male and female, who would choose to stop having children they can’t afford would only benefit, not only society, but their own life situation.

There are millions of Americans who have already chosen to take measures to prevent pregnancy for myriad reasons. Those reasons range from financial constraints of the family to the limits of taking on the responsibility of more children. But they are all incentives nonetheless.

I would hope that more judges would seek the remedy of the judge in Virginia. If they do we will see a substantial reduction of the welfare caseloads in future generations. It’s not just about saving money, it’s about rebuilding lives and society. I don’t need to tell you that the housing projects are not only trapping millions in cyclical poverty, they are breeding grounds for crime. Ask any police officer in any town where the major crime area is and he or she will point you in the direction of the government housing projects.

The current course leads us into uncharted waters for America of more people riding the wagon than pulling it. We need only look south to the hordes of illegals coming here from third world countries to understand what that means to the well-being of a country. Soon we will be like them.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Food desert? How about brain desert

State social services officials in Louisiana have decided to enact new limits for welfare recipients. No longer will you be able to use your welfare card at lingerie shops, tattoo parlors, nail salons, jewelry stores, video arcades, bail bond companies, cruise ships, psychics, adult-entertainment businesses, nightclubs or bars. Which begs the question, why in the world were you ever able to use your welfare card at these places?

The Louisiana legislature is trying to codify the changes into law. How many other states are allowing our tax dollars to pay for a cruise for some deadbeat? It’s absolutely infuriating.

State officials say there’s only so much they can do about the abuse because the cards can be used at ATMs to get cash. Hello! This is the easiest thing to fix I have ever seen.

The leftists think tanks and advocacy groups do their level best to shroud the obvious but there’s no denying that poor people in this country are the fattest. The liberals claim all sorts of nonsense like “food deserts” and “food insecurity.” The fact of the matter is there’s no excuse for anyone to be food insecure. They hand out EBT cards like candy, especially if you have children. And food deserts? Please. The poorest people live in the cities and there are grocery stores all over the place.

So what’s the answer to why so many poor people are obese? This is the obvious answer the liberals try to keep hidden. People getting free food make poor choices. Now, in all fairness, junk food is generally cheaper because it’s subsidized through the farm bill. Oh, yeah. A lot of the junk food consumed in this country comes from corn, soybeans and wheat, three crops that get huge subsidies from the federal government. Your vegetable farmer gets virtually nothing from the government.

The answer is not to subsidize the vegetable farmer but to stop subsidizing everyone else. If lettuce and carrots were cheaper then, perhaps, more people would buy them but don’t bank on it. A large part of it is taste. Poor people seem to be suckers for junk food. They love it. Heck, I love it but I know it’s not good for me so I limit my intake of it.

And now we’re getting to the crux of the problem. How do you solve obesity among the poor and save the taxpayers a ton of money? 

First, no more cash advances from your welfare or food stamp card. That’ll keep welfare recipients from buying things they don’t need to be buying like beer, cigarettes and lottery tickets. Anything you need to purchase can be bought at stores with the card. 

Second, items need to be coded so that you can only by essentials with the cards. No lobster. No steak. No chips and cookies and soft drinks. You buy hamburger and chicken and fruits and veggies. Did you know that Papa Murphy’s Pizza now accepts EBT cards? And you wonder why poor folks are fat.

If Michelle Obama really cared about the obesity problem she’d be all over this idea but you’ll never hear her advocate limiting the food you can buy with an EBT card. Why? Because that’s how Democrats get re-elected. Why do think the food stamp rolls have exploded since Barack Obama got into office? Yeah, it’s all about keeping that base constituency satisfied. You talk about a riot, take away the junk food from the food stamp crowd and see what happens.

Fat and happy means one thing: Democrat votes. And they’re buying elections with your money.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Curing American poverty

The Associated Press recently conducted a study based on all manner of government statistics and national surveys and determined that Americans’ economic security is low compared to prior decades.  They based their determination on how many Americans have either lived below the poverty level, taken government assistance or been unemployed or a combination of the three.  Aside from the government assistance, I’ve been there.  Many of us have.

The point of the study was to try and figure out how to make Americans more economically secure but they sidestepped a major factor.  Many Americans are economically insecure for the very reason that they’re trapped on public assistance.

We hear the president and others complain about a shrinking middle class.  If the middle class is shrinking it’s because some are moving up, not down.  The poverty rate was arrested by LBJ’s Great Society.  After a decade of decline in the poverty rate prior to the big social programs the poverty rate has remained pretty much steady since the mid-‘60s.  It fluctuates a point or two depending on whether or not we’re in a recession but the percentage of people in poverty hovers between 12 and 15 percent.  From 1959 until the Great Society the poverty rate dropped from around 22 percent to 14 percent.  Since then we’ve sort of been locked in a holding pattern.

Before I make this next point I want you to suspend your emotions and think logically.  Poverty, by and large, is the product of bad choices.  Yes, I know there are some exceptions but the vast number of poor people are poor because of the choices they’ve made in life.  Whether or not you’re poor is based largely on whether or not you can find and hold a job.  The recession notwithstanding, many people can’t hold a job either because of their personal habits – i.e.: drugs and/or alcohol – because they don’t show up for work or because of their attitudes while they’re at work.

Plenty of people show up for a job interview ill-prepared, improperly dressed and lacking basic personal hygiene.  These are easy fixes but for reasons unknown some people don’t want to be told what to do.  But a major culprit of cyclical poverty is the very Great Society that was designed to lift people out of it.  You know the drill.  We have people now in third generation dependence because that’s the way they were raised.  Living free of government shackles is not even an option for too many Americans.  It should be.

Conservatives judge success of their policies by how many people are off welfare.  Liberals judge their success by how many people are on it.  Take the food stamp program, for example.  The number of people on food stamps has exploded during the Obama administration and they crow about it.  It’s a national disgrace.  Abuse is rampant and Obama made it even easier to get on the program.  He justified that by saying he needed to do it because of the recession but think about that for a moment.  If there’s a level at which one needs public assistance then hard times will bring more people to that level.  We don’t need to go out to the street to greet them.

We also need to come to terms with the fact that plenty of people are poor and happy.  Elitists love to look down their noses at poor people and assume they can’t be happy unless they surround themselves with the trappings of wealth.

I’m all about showing poor people a way out but first they have to want to go.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Ryan budget not good enough

There's much fanfare over Rep. Paul Ryan's budget.  Although it's infinitely better than anything the Democrats have put forth it's not good enough.

For starters, it continues to increase spending, though not at the current rate of growth.  Right now we're increasing spending at 4.9 percent per year.  The Ryan budget increases spending at 3.4 percent.  How about increasing spending at zero percent?  Better yet, how about decreasing spending?

Oh, but Phil you don't understand.  Entitlement spending is the problem.  Oh, I do understand but everyone talks about entitlement spending like it's this runaway train that nobody can control.  Congress created all of it and they could end all of it if they wanted to.  If they can end it surely they can mend it.  We're going to have to increase the retirement age for Social Security and Medicare.  That's a given.  We're also going to have to start rapidly moving toward privatizing those programs if we ever hope to pull out of this yet the Ryan plan calls for "means testing."  That's Washington-speak for welfare.

Basically, what means testing means is if I work hard all my life, keep my financial house in order, fund my 401(k) and otherwise prepare for my retirement then I get nothing back for all the Social Security money I paid in.  The government deems me too wealthy to participate in the program.  For those who save nothing and have nothing to show for their life's labor they get everything they paid in plus mine.  That turns Social Security and Medicare into welfare programs.  There has to be meaningful Social Security and Medicare reform if we're ever going to get control of spending.

Ryan's plan also asks federal workers to begin making some contributions to their pension plans by the end of the decade.  The end of the decade?  I literally laughed out loud when I heard that one.  Federal workers should be required to make 100 percent of the contributions to the pensions starting today!  That's a no-brainer.  When the recession hit in 2008 our company cut out the 401(k) match.  Although some of the employees got mad, I always looked at the match as a gift.  I was thankful I had it for the time I did. (They eventually reinstated it.)  Any contribution we as taxpayers make to the federal workers' pensions is a gift.  When you're $16 trillion in debt there are no more gifts.  End the pension contributions and end them now.

Ryan's budget purportedly balances the budget in ten years.  Ten years?  We can balance the budget in ten minutes.  Don't raise the debt ceiling.  And don't tell me we'll default on all our debt.  That's like saying you have a house payment and two car payments.  You go to the dealership, sign the papers and drive a new car off the lot then drive over to your bank and tell them you need 30 grand for a new car.  The loan officer informs you that you have too much debt and he's not going to loan you money for the car.  Do you default on the house and the other two cars?  Of course, not.  You might default on the car you just bought if you can't talk the dealership into taking it back but as long as you have an income stream you don't default on all your debt.

We have an income stream of about $2.5 trillion.  If we don't raise the debt ceiling it simply means that we have to live within that $2.5 trillion.  Oh, sure, things will have to be cut because we're spending over $3.5 trillion a year but we still have plenty of money coming in and we won't default on all our debt.

The pitiful whining about the recent sequester and its accompanying cuts made most Americans sick to their stomachs.  What a bunch of spoiled brats.  We've seen furloughs and layoffs in the private sector over the last few years and we had to cope.  The problem is we have a government hooked on the crack of taxpayer dollars and, let's face it, there will never be enough money to satisfy its spending jones.

It's time for the House Republicans to stick their foot in the revolving door of debt.