Food stamps do little to alleviate hunger; increase government dependence.

For who to raise wages?

The editor is not an employee of the government.

The private employer's priority is not to keep the editor off of food stamps. It is to employ a competent person in that position as inexpensively as possible.

 

I don't think that and I am not at all ashamed. That''s because I doubt that growing wealth inequality has played even a trivial role in the almost three-fold growth in food stamp recipients since 2000. The 1-percenters having gotten wealthier has NOTHING to do with those at or near the food stamp level.

 

You know what would help now? Higher minimum wages, shorter work days/weeks/years and stronger, more enforceable labor laws.

 

But that's just food stamps, repackaged as a flexible spending account, with the burden of financing the program shifted from the government to private industry.

 

Yeah, so what's your point?

 

If we'd just listened to that French guy a couple hundred years ago -- you know, the one who said we should make everyone work with one arm tied behind his/her back? -- we'd have full employment and absolutely no need for food stamps!

 

So on the long continuum between slavery and the oh-so-cushy labor regulations I favor, where is the optimal place to land?

 

Those are all Band-Aids that do nothing to fix the real problem: Americans, and in particular American men, do not possess the skills necessary to contribute to growing the present and future economy. And that's not a moral or character judgment.

 

Now you're talking tha crazay!

 

I'm perfectly happy to strike a blow for pragmatism against modern liberalism. But I don't see any better alternatives at the moment.

 

The REAL problem is growing poverty and a broken system that perpetuates it.