As a reporter, I am on the road most of the day. Because of that, I eat on the go quite a bit, and since I loathe long lines I often snack at convenience stores. I was on my way out of one the other day and noticed an interesting display at the door. One can pay for a pizza at the convenience store and then take the empty box to the local Pizza Hut, and the restaurant will fill the aforementioned box with a fresh, tasty, piping hot pizza. Not a bad idea, all things considered. But something caught my eye. It was a sticker. A sticker that informed the ersatz buyer that he or she could pay for their thick crust pepperoni and anchovy pizza pie with…wait for it…
An EBT card.
Yup, ordering pizza is a SNAP! Looks like the pizza is on you tonight, taxpayers!
I get that the poor need food. I am familiar with the Bill Cosby routine of how there are eggs and milk in chocolate cake, so it’s okay to feed it to kids for breakfast. And technically many pizzas come with such things as pineapples, olives, tomatoes, cheese, onions, peppers and other healthy members of the fruit, vegetable, and dairy families.
And pizza is food. But it is junk food. Oh, yes it is, don’t get huffy. I ate mounds of it as a bachelor and even then I knew it was junk food. And there is nothing wrong with junk food. Bring on the pizza, the ice cream, cheeseburgers, fries and buffalo wings. It’s all good and it’s all junk food. But junk food it is a luxury. One does not need a pizza to be well fed or healthy.
I am familiar with the argument that poor people are forced to live on junk food because it is cheaper than buying real food. But in this case, people aren’t buying anything. They aren’t being forced to make poor nutritional choices. They are being encouraged to do so.
If you want a pizza, fine, go get a pizza. Get one with all the toppings, throw a pint of Hagen Daz on it, smother it in onion rings, sprinkle on some chocolate chips, drench it bacon fat and call it dinner. Call it breakfast if you want. I don’t care, Those aren’t my guts you’re filling up. But don’t call me to foot the bill. Pizza is not a right. Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the first nine amendments to the Constitution (Along with several subsequent ones.) are all rights. Junk food is a treat. And I should not have to foot the bill for treats. And neither should you. If actual disadvantaged people need food to survive, that’s one thing. Compassionate people care for the poor. That does not include pizza.
But what constitutes poor? Your heart may go out to someone who has no food, as well it should. But if the latest reports from the Census Bureau is right, many Americans who are living below the poverty line have a pretty full complement of household appliances, not to mention computers, cell phones, microwaves And microwaves. In fact CNS News noted that in the report that 80.9 percent of impoverished households have cellphones. Just over 58 percent have computers. A little more than 96 percent have televisions and just over 93 percent have some sort of device to record programming.
But they can’t afford food?
I have a cell phone. And I eat pizza from time to time. But nobody pays for either of those things but me. And when I was young and poor, and the biggest event in my week was trip to the grocery store to buy a cut-rate can of soda from the machine, I didn’t own a cellphone. I could not afford a cellphone. I could barely afford the soda. And I did not ask someone else to buy my sad little can of soda or front me for a cellphone. Somehow I understood that a cellphone was not something I could afford to buy, and I was a liberal back then for crying out loud!
What went wrong? Well the wrong people got into power. And I don’t necessarily mean Democrats. As you may have guessed by the last sentence, I, as a Democrat, did not have this entitlement mentality. By the wrong people I mean an inner party which enjoys the trappings and adrenaline rush of ruling, and tells itself to feel warm and fuzzy when it “helps” a proletariat made too simple-minded fend for itself, or to even want to. And it is a party that recognizes that dropping a few crumbs here and there keeps the masses voting liberal.