Time for everyone to get off the gravy train

Let’s see how your liberal mentality handles this one, Ralph, seeing how you bleeding hearts deceptively use poor people, make wild promises you can’t keep and play on their ignorance to gain their precious votes.

Let me clarify something right off the front end here so you won’t make me out to be such a selfish, self-serving, greedy, “I don’t give a damn” Republican who has no sympathy or compassion for those less fortunate among us. I identify myself as a conservative due to the fact that politicians on both sides of the isle have made a mockery of our political process.

Let me say those individuals truly in need, and there are plenty of them right here in Crittenden County, definitely deserve our utmost attention in such ways as volunteering our time to distribute food and clothing to needy children and struggling women and men, or donating to such worthy organizations as the 8th Street Mission in West Memphis, or the Salvation Army or the many other non-profit organizations whose main purpose is to lend a helping hand to those in need.

I also fully support government subsidies to deserving single parents struggling to feed their child or children. I call these subsidies and I am strongly opposed to the use of the word “entitlement” because, Ralph, we aren’t entitled to anything, which brings me to my main point of this week’s debate.

We both are smart enough to know that the majority of those needy fellow citizens we give to and help during their struggles there are those among them who clearly, what I describe as, milk the system to the tune of millions upon millions of our hard-earned tax dollars.

Fraud and welfare abuse should be aggressively combated and one of the ways Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and Republican lawmakers are in favor of is making those able bodied individuals among the 344,500 Arkansans receiving food stamps and other government subsidies to get off their lazy butts and secure gainful employment.

Oh, but no, the critics are howling that that is unfair and discriminatory not to mention unusual punishment. Therefore, this state’s mandatory work requirement for able-bodied welfare recipients has been temporarily shelved pending results of legal challenges.

I have argued this time and time again, Ralph, there is absolutely no legitimate reason not to support the idea of encouraging people in need to gain self-respect and become self-dependent when possible.

Arkansas is among 17 states that do not have statewide or local waivers from the requirement to work, which liberals define as an cruel attack on working families.

Come on Ralph, we both know there are generous exceptions within these work requirements that include subsidies for day care, health care as well as foods stamps to make sure children are taken care of while a parent earns a living.

With that said I was encouraged to read the other day where the Trump administration gave final approval to federal work requirements for those taking advantage of the federal food-stamp program.

Let me make it clear, Ralph, before you make your snide comments, by saying this Department of Agriculture approved rule applies only for able-bodied adults without children, so let’s not get on this tear-jerking argument that these poor children will be left unattended or supervised.

Let me sum this up by repeating what the agriculture secretary said and that is, “government can be a powerful force for good, but government dependency has never been the American dream.”

He also said, and I agree, “we need to encourage people by giving them a helping hand but not allow it to become an indefinitely giving hand.”