Is the Republican Party Toast?

As post election day drama and trauma pile up, the future of the Republican Party tops the agenda. Some are even speculating whether or not the GOP even has a future.

 Republicans Are Becoming Irrelevant, and That is Frightening For the Future of America

As for the future of the Republican Party, I’ve had every liberal friend I know texting and e-mailing me over the last 24 hours offering me advice on the soul-searching the GOP needs to do — from dumping the ultra religious moral crusaders of the evangelical right to losing the economic and small government arguments of the Tea Party, which I find puzzling. If we did all that, essentially what would make us any different from the Democratic Party? More government vs. more government? More spending vs. more spending? More taxes vs. more taxes? Every election would basically just be a choice between two left-wing ideologies. Coke and Pepsi (then the Libertarian Party would really have an argument about presenting a different option).

Look, I’ve said this time and time again till I’m blue in the face: When I say I support smaller government across the board, I mean it. I don’t believe government has any more right or authority to tell women who can and can’t have children or tell couples who can and can’t get married than it should be running every aspect of our system from health care and finance to energy and education. The Chicago Young Republicans are as diverse as the city we live in. As a group of over 1,000 members, we have more females than males. We have African-Americans, Latino-Americans and LGBTs because the values that unite us all are free market principles, private sector solutions and a constitutionally-limited government. We can’t control what some Senate candidate in Missouri or Indiana says, which is a burden those states’ primary voters must bear; nor can I tell every Republican in America what to think, say, and do.

But our losses were more than just Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock. There’s no doubt America has socially shifted to a center-left nation. We also lost in purple states like Florida, Virginia, and Ohio because I believe America has economically shifted to a center-left nation as well.

I do believe that America is center left on the social issues and that the social conservatives have literally driven folks away from the Republican Party. However, I do not agree that America is overall a center left nation. Moreover, the Republican Party absolutely lost voters by emulating the Democrats and being big spenders who pile up the debt. The national debt increased by $5 trillion during the Bush years.

As a Libertarian leaning fiscal conservative who hates the spending and debt, I quit voting Republican in 2006 simply because Republican socialism wasn't any less painful or destructive than Democratic socialism. As election results prove, I'm not alone.

One of the most annoying things that Republicans do is accuse the Democrats of being socialists while believing the delusion that Republicans are in fact fiscal conservatives. It's always a LOL moment. The truth?

The Tea Party Republicans Spent More Than the Dems They Replaced.

Can you hear the screeching roars of the Tea Party Republicans accusing the Dems of being socialists, commies, fascists, Marxists, big spenders and a whole lot worse?

Well, as it turns out, the Republicans and the Tea Party crop of Republican Congress Critters that sailed into the District of Crime in January, 2011 to clean up the Democrat fiscal mess turned out to be bigger deficit spending hawks than the Democrats they replaced....

The approximately $1.59 trillion in new debt accumulated since the Republican-controlled House gained a veto over federal spending legislation is more than the total increase in the federal debt between 1789, when the first Congress convened, and October 1984, when the 98th Congress was nearing the end of its second session.

How about Obama being the food stamp president?

Bush is the REAL Food Stamp President

Republicans just can't stop calling Obama 'The Food Stamp President'. However, the truth is quite different and Bush and the Republicans are responsible for massively expanding the food stamp program....

President Bush dramatically expanded eligibility, restoring benefits to nearly a million individuals at the beginning of 2003, and paving the way for the program to expand as it did during the rest of presidency. As a result, Bush managed to oversee unprecedented growth in the program even as the economy grew. Obama then followed up on this with an eligibility expansion of his own in the 2009 stimulus package. It’s not unreasonable to criticize Obama for the expansion of the food stamps program under his watch. But Obama's Republican critics shouldn’t forget that it was a GOP president who helped make that expansion possible.

Not only is Republican hypocrisy outrageous beyond belief, Republican socialism isn't any different than the Democrat version. Yet, when I confront Republicans on entitlements and fiscal issues, they inform me that they aren't socialists, just compassionate conservatives. Huh?

So as fiscal conservatives, Libertarians, constitutionalists and advocates for small government flee the big government socialist GOP, the Republican Party that has no grip on the reality on the ground is scratching its head in utter bewilderment.

At the root of the GOP's problems lies the stiffling Republican base that refuses to hold Republicans accountable, so long as Republicans continue to scream "rape is legitimate, kill the Muslims, bomb Iran, outlaw homosexuality, ban gay marriage, ban abortion under all circumstances and for any reason, and crush constitutional civil liberties with the Patriot Act and NDAA".

That's the pathetic state of the Republican Party.  The only question remaining is whether or not there are enough sane small government conservatives left in America to take back the Republican Party from the socialists, statists and theocrats.

As for the wars and foreign policy, that's another issue for another day.

The Government Subsidizes Junk Food and the Costly Lifestyle Diseases Resulting from Poor Nutrition

If there ever was a defining characteristic of insanity, it's got to be the US government. Only in America are taxpayers forced to subsidized unhealthy bad food that results in expensive to maintain lifestyle diseases that are also publicly funded. The Big Food and Big Pharm lobbies are determined to perpetually guarantee big profits through mandates and subsidies. The marriage of big government and big business has churned Americans into fat pharmaceutical dependent blimps.

Cato has a fascinating piece on this issue.

How Uncle Sam's Making Us Fat

The US Department of Agriculture is Exhibit A for foolish, wasteful federal policymaking: It spends billions subsidizing the same unhealthy foods it tells us to avoid.

This year, the USDA will spend more than $1 billion subsidizing the growth of four common food additives: corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, corn starch and soy oils (hydrogenated vegetable oil).

These additives "provide a cheap dose of sweetness and fat to a wide variety of junk food products," warns the US Public Interest Research Group. PIRG found that the USDA spent $18.2 billion from 1995 to 2011 to subsidize junk-food additives.

Yet, while some of your tax dollars pay for these junk-food additives, more pay for public-health education campaigns that strive to convince us to eat less and to eat better.

The USDA lectures and hectors us to avoid anything that's fatty, salty, sugary or filled with processed ingredients — like the ones our tax dollars subsidize.

Clearly, the Agriculture Department puts the D in double standard: The bureacuracy's left hand is at war with its right.

The government doesn't just subsidize nasty things like the manufacture of HFCS and hydrogenated oils, it also subsidizes the retail sale of these nasty products with food stamp subsidies.  Food stamps have been renamed SNAP, Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, although there's nothing nutritious about the program.  Even liberal organizations are waking up to the stone cold reality that the government subsidizes junk food that makes folks sick and unhealthy. The farm bill passed by Congress is loaded with all kinds of subsidy horrors

Farm Bill Jackpot – How Much do Corporations Benefit from SNAP?

* Powerful food industry lobbying groups such as the American Beverage Association and the Snack Food Association teamed up to oppose health-oriented improvements to SNAP, at times working with anti-hunger groups

* At least nine states have proposed bills to make health-oriented improvements to SNAP, but none have passed, in part due to opposition from the food industry In one year, nine Walmart Supercenters in Massachusetts together received more than $33 million in SNAP dollars—over four times the SNAP money spent at farmers markets nationwide

*In two years, Walmart received about half of the one billion dollars in SNAP expenditures in Oklahoma

* J.P. Morgan Chase holds contracts in 24 states to administer SNAP benefits, indicating concentrated power and a lack of competition

*In New York, a seven-year deal originally paid J.P. Morgan Chase $112 million for EBT services, and was recently amended to add $14.3 million—an increase of 13 percent States are seeing unexpected increases in administrative costs, while banks and other private contractors are reaping significant windfalls from the economic downturn and increasing SNAP participation.

While food stamps supporting liberals are not exactly recognizing that the government freebies that they so cherish are unhealthy, they are beginning to wake up to the reality and some of them are lobbying for nutritional improvement in the junk food laden food stamp program.

As a Libertarian, I oppose the food stamp program.  That said, I don't believe it will ever vanish.  However, it can be vastly improved by restricting food stamp use to fruits, vegetable, meats and dairy. Food stamp users are notorious for loading up with junk food, sugary cereals for their kids and soda.  They don't have the common sense to eat sensibly which is precisely why junk food needs to be banned from the food stamp program.

But there's a hugely expensive companion problem to the food stamp insanity and junk food subsidies.  Bad food results in lifestyle diseases that are very expensive to treat.  Not only are American taxpayers forced to pay for the junk food that makes folks sick with lifestyle diseases, they are also forced to pay for their healthcare.  In fact, Medicare and Medicaid are costing American taxpayers near $1 trillion a year, here.

With 60% of the American people already on some form of taxpayer subsidized healthcare, America is already a socialist nation and most Americans absolutely do demand government provided healthcare and other entitlements.  Support for Medicare, Medicaid and other government programs remains quite strong. Americans are just like everybody else – they want something for free (translation: at the expense of somebody else) but there is no such thing as a free anything and anything the government does is very costly, inefficient and life threatening.

America spends more on healthcare than any industrialized nation and by a very wide margin.

Also, there is no corresponding increase in American longevity considering the huge amount of money we pour into health care. In fact, we keep going backwards, 3rd world nations are surpassing us and we ranked 42nd in longevity.

U.S. ranks just 42nd in life expectancy

Americans are living longer than ever, but not as long as people in 41 other countries. For decades, the United States has been slipping in international rankings of life expectancy, as other countries improve health care, nutrition and lifestyles...

Among the other factors:

•Adults in the United States have one of the highest obesity rates in the world. Nearly a third of U.S. adults 20 years and older are obese, while about two-thirds are overweight, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

•“The U.S. has the resources that allow people to get fat and lazy,” said Paul Terry, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Emory University in Atlanta. “We have the luxury of choosing a bad lifestyle as opposed to having one imposed on us by hard times.”

Tragically, American is a nation swimming with fat entitlement dependent pigs. Of course, the government itself is responsible for this nightmare by doling out freebies, free junk food and free healthcare to those who simply refuse to eat or live responsibly.

Kids are eating high calorie, low nutrition diets that primarily consist of simple carbohydrates, sugar, corn syrup, fats and sodium. Much of what kids eat in the schools is taxpayer funded garbage. Even more horrifying is that Migration Information reported that schools actually sell advertising to junk food purveyors by signing “"pouring rights" contracts that permit snack and soft drink companies to advertise to children on school vending machines, scoreboards, book covers, t-shirts, and news programs shown on televisions in the classroom., here.

Only in America do we kill our kids for profit and do it with our tax dollars!!

A group called Healthyamericans.org reported in June 2009 that "Today, we spend nearly $800 billion on health problems that are directly linked to lifestyle and poor health habits each year-about one third of our total health care spending…” and that article was quoting a congress critter, here.

America can't begin to solve its immense economic and fiscal problems because we remain a nation of spoiled rotten morons, from the political class and all the way down to the people who vote to hire the police powers of the state to forcibly steal from somebody else to give them what they think they want or deserve.  So long as folks are allowed to vote for politicians who will keep them fat, lazy, sick and entitlement dependent, the soul of a once proud, independent, prosperous and responsible people will continue to die and morph into something so vile that neither America nor Americans will ever be restored to our glorious legacy of being the the strongest, most prosperous and freest people in human history.

Bush is the REAL Food Stamp President

Republicans just can't stop calling Obama 'The Food Stamp President'. However, the truth is quite different and Bush and the Republicans are responsible for massively expanding the food stamp program. Newt Gingrich even called Obama 'The Food Stamp President' during his failed bid to become the Republican nominee for president.

Bush and Obama, the Food Stamp Presidents

It’s true that the most recent figures from the Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service (provided to Factcheck.org/USA Today) show that a record number of people—some 46.2 million—are enrolled in the program. But the same data shows that more individuals were added to the program while George W. Bush was in office than have enrolled under Obama’s presidency: Under Bush, the program grew by 14.7 million individuals; under Obama so far, it’s grown by 14.2 million, and, as of October, was declining.

So Bush wins on volume, and Obama wins on velocity: In just a few years, President Obama managed to expand the program by nearly as much as Bush. But Obama didn’t do it without some help from his Republican predecessor, who approved policy changes that set the stage for the program’s current growth.

To some extent, the food stamps expansion the country has seen under Obama is how food stamps are supposed to work: It’s a countercyclical program, meaning that as the economy declines, enrollment grows. Typically, then, the program grows in recessions and declines in economic boom times. But with the 2002 farm bill, President Bush dramatically expanded eligibility, restoring benefits to nearly a million individuals at the beginning of 2003, and paving the way for the program to expand as it did during the rest of presidency. As a result, Bush managed to oversee unprecedented growth in the program even as the economy grew. Obama then followed up on this with an eligibility expansion of his own in the 2009 stimulus package.

It’s not unreasonable to criticize Obama for the expansion of the food stamps program under his watch. But Obama's Republican critics shouldn’t forget that it was a GOP president who helped make that expansion possible.

Why did Republicans and Bush expand the food stamp program? Because Big Food fills Republican campaign coffers!

The food stamp program was never about providing nutrition to severely malnourished Americans, many of whom live off of taxpayer subsidized junk food that makes them sick and even more malnourished. In many ways, the food stamp program is just a companion program to the Big Pharm and Medicaid programs. Only in America do taxpayers subsidize junk food to make folks sick so they will become taxpayer subsidized captives of Medicaid and the pharmaceutical industry.

If America really cared about keeping Americans healthy with nutritious foods, we'd restrict food stamp usage to fresh fruits, vegetable, meats, brown rice etc. and ban food stamp use for sugary cereals, soda, packaged foods, chips, candy and other nasty junk food that makes folks sick and guarantees that they will become insulin dependent diabetics with other very expensive lifestyle diseases.

Food Stamp Nation Pays for Tatoos, Porn, Manicures, Jewelry, Casinos and More

Every government program is a fraud factory. Food stamps are no exception. The political will to reign in the fraud is practically non-existent. The governor of Massachusetts recently vetoed a bill to curb food stamp fraud and abuse.

Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick vetoes ban on purchasing tattoos, manicures, porn with EBT

Massachusetts Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick has vetoed the state legislature’s attempt to ban the use of EBT cards — or food stamps — to purchase items such as tattoos, porn and jewelry.

Patrick vetoed the reforms Sunday while signing the state’s $32.5 billion budget.

According to the Boston Herald, which first reported the veto, the governor berated the legislature’s stab at banning the purchase of specific items like manicures, tattoos, guns, porn, body piercings, jewelry, and bail by saying the move was “political grandstanding” at a time when such reforms are already on track elsewhere.

“I’m not going to do anything that makes vulnerable people beg for their benefits. This notion of humiliating poor people has got to be separated from how we make a program, and frankly separated and disposed of, from how we make a program work and work well,” Patrick said, according to Wicked Local Hanson.

It's America. Denying someone taxpayer funded tatoos, porn and jewelry is now considered a form of humiliation.  The government actually spends millions marketing the food stamp program.

Government wants more people on food stamps

More than one in seven Americans are on food stamps, but the federal government wants even more people to sign up for the safety net program.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has been running radio ads for the past four months encouraging those eligible to enroll.....

The department is spending between $2.5 million and $3 million on paid spots, and free public service announcements are also airing. The campaign can be heard in California, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, and the New York metro area.

The food stamp program costs taxpayers about $80 billion a year and the number of food stamp recipents has skyrocketed from 17 million in 2001 to over 46 million in 2011, here.

What are food stamps and the EBT card used for?

Free ObamaDollars: The EBT Card for Cigarettes and Alcohol

Welfare benefits paid out at strip clubs

KCTV5 investigates benefits for needy families spent overseas, at Vegas casinos

Food Stamps Accepted in Restaurants in AZ, CA, FL, MI 

Only in America does a person have a legal right to taxpayer funded porn, strip clubs, manicures, booze, cigarettes, jewelry, restaurants etc.