The Trust Factor

According to a recent AP-GFK poll two- thirds of Americans don’t trust each other anymore. That’s beyond the natural level of mistrust in government, Wall Street and insurance companies. In the 1960s,73% of Americans trusted government to get things right,today only 19% trust the government to get anything right.

The level of mistrust leads to gated communities, gun sales, protests, long-winded contracts and 2000 pages of legislation.

 A good example of mistrust is President Obama’s  “honest and trustworthy” poll number. More Americans don’t believe he’s trustworthy and I don’t blame them, given the media’s attention to charges that have never been substantiated. Another good example of that comes from a 2016 presidential candidate Jeb Bush who has always operated above partisan fray. Last week the State Dept. merged the Vatican facility with the larger Embassy in Italy. As expected, the right wing media went nuts saying that Obama was closing the Vatican facility. Jeb Bush responded with a tweet saying, “ Why would our President close our Embassy to the Vatican? Hopefully, it is not retribution for Catholic organizations opposing Obamacare.” The Jeb Bush staff would normally make a couple of calls before embarrassing themselves but the tweet did give Bush some tea party credibility.

It’s going to take the younger people to turnaround the level of mistrust and they will do it with technology. New norms will have to be reestablished using new metrics to reflect the current population. For example ,we now know what the numbers will look like for corporations if they raise the minimum wage; we no longer have to take their word for it. A good example is the largest retail corporation, Wal-Mart’s paying practices. How can people be upset over people being on the government dole and not be equally upset that their tax money is being used to subsidize the health care of Wal-Mart’s employees?Now that's classic 'redistribution of wealth.'

I often hear Rep. Paul Ryan say that we shouldn’t be creating a climate of government dependency but he continues to vote for tax incentives for oil companies.

The other day, I heard a discussion as to whether the Affordable Care Act would have to establish death panels in order to get the cost curve down. The dissenters were referring to the advisory panel but couldn’t call it that because it might give the panel some legitimacy. Insurance companies make life or death decisions everyday. The argument then becomes “do you want a government bureaucrat to pull the plug on granny?” It’s not as if a three star general roaming the halls of the White House or a golfing buddy of Obama will sit on the panel. It’s going to be human beings making that choice, whether it is a selective panel or several insurance companies.  

I remember an old blogger named “thewaywardwind” asking me to explain something that I had written in a blog without inserting my usual political spin. The colorful blogger wanted me to write something he could believe because he didn’t trust my version of the facts. I told him that he was perfectly capable of writing a blog that supported his beliefs. We eventually established boundaries because after many discussions, we understood where we came from. A continuing dialogue will eventfully lead to understanding and from there we will get closer to trust.

We can’t expect everyone to accept the views we had about race, culture, ideology or religion that we had in the 1950s because the demographics have changed. The 1970s were a prosperous time but many were benefiting from the G.I. bill, strong unions, good pay/ benefits and affordable education. Today we are a war weary nation coping with a high level of income inequality, which leads to mistrust.

We need to get our nation back to work so the conversation switches to the positives that are achievable. The employed people will find a way to form a community organization to help others and eventually trust will reemerge.

Buying Junk Food With Food Stamps

I still can’t get over the fact that some people scrutinize other people’s shopping basket looking for food stamp fraud. Do they pick a minority in front of them before peeking or do they check everyone as a routine habit? I’m not a regular shopper, so I wouldn’t know what fancy frozen vegetables are. I don’t like to shop,so if I’m in a grocery line,I don’t want small talk from the cashier nor do I look to see what some people are purchasing and how they are paying.

First, I wouldn’t particularly mind if the government  changed their rules to force a healthier choice for food stamp recipients because it would help the overall problem of nutrition and health care.  I can remember Michelle Obama getting vilified by the right, when she tried to make people aware of the benefits of eating healthy.  I get it ,it's not government intrusion if it's imposed on poor people.

A Victoria online forum poster, Denise Scott has the right to get angry when she sees a violation of the food stamp laws, but she doesn't get to make stuff up.  Cashiers at grocery stores who take food stamps go through a school to learn what can or cannot be purchased with food stamps.  The grocery stores do not want to lose their food stamp license.  Every cashier knows that food stamp recipients cannot buy cigarettes, beer and household items, and they make sure that the camera that’s watching them doesn't see an illegal transaction taking place.  If a violation takes place outside the camera's view, then it's up to people like Denise to tell someone, if she wants to stop fraud.  I think companies take a lot of steps to make sure they are in compliance because one citizen’s complaint will alert the authorities;not to mention the bad PR.

The poster pointed out an illegal food stamp profiteering scenario by Wal-Mart and H-E-B without offering any proof.  In 2012, the government spent $103 billion for food stamps, and CBO predicts that the $110 billion will be spent this year.  The money from food stamps goes to pay the grocer and  stimulates the economy  because the money will be spent to pay employees, truck drivers and farmers, so they can pay their taxes.  When employment is at normal levels, food stamp recipients decrease and those people start paying income taxes. Again, I don't think those companies will jeopardize their license or their reputation for a few bucks.

If we're trying to make a case that some human beings will take advantage of a worthwhile program; point taken but that's throughout society, not just government assistance recipients.  We'll always have that slave mentality when it comes to government assistance.  It's like when we criticize our brother –in- law for buying a six- pack after we just lent him $500 because he was  laid off.  We tell ourselves that we're helping our sister and the children,  so we have to criticize their lifestyles.  I’ll say it again; for the most part, people would rather work and fend for themselves than have people look down at them. They can also avoid those who are  always trying to control all aspects of their lives because they are the ward of someone's ear marked tax money.  That's how some people are.

Some people would like to see all welfare recipients be drug tested.  I could use the pro gun slippery slope logic and say what's next;all those who receive government contracts need to be drug tested? That’s been tried and only 2% of those tested were found to be drug users.

Now I got that out the way and I feel a lot better.