If you can afford a Mazda RX-8..

I went to the grocery store this afternoon to get some lunch. When I came in I noticed a brand new Mazda RX-8 sitting in the parking lot. Now I drive an older model Mazda RX-8 so i happen to be a fan of this particular car. I stopped to have a look and admire all the bellls and whisles that the new models have to offer. Once I had my fill I went in and began my hunt for the right lunch food. Having finally found it I went to the only line that was open at the checkout. As I set my items up on the counter I couldn't help but notice that this other patron was purchasing very expensive items such as lobster and steak. I didn't think to much about it and continued waiting in line. When the clerk had finished ringing up her order she reached for what i presumed was a credit card out of her bag and swiped it. The clerk asked her if it was debit or credit, and her answer caught both the clerk and myself offguard. Her card was neither credit or debit, no her card was EBT. For those of you that are not familiar with EBT it is the means through which welfare is distributed. I stood there for a second stumped, hardly able to believe that this women was using government food stamps to pay for high end foods that normal working people like you or I rarely treat ourselfs to. Still in disbelieve of what I had just seen I walked out to my car only to get another shock. The women that had just used government food stamps to pay for her grocieres was getting into the brand new Mazda RX-8 that I had seen before entering the store. Now I don't know if the readers are familar with the Mazda RX-8, but a brand new model with all of the premium features usually runs for roughly $30,000. So do the math here. This women is so "poor" that she needs assitance from the government for food, but is somehow able to afford a brand new sports car that cost more than a large percentage of Americans make in a year. I would sure like to say that this is an isolated incident but it isn't. When I was in high school I worked in a grocery store and saw this kind of event transpire. Now the liberal side of the political alignment says that these are rare cases and that the welfare system is a very helpful entity. The conservatives are always in favor of reforming the policy but rarely do anything to actually chagne these kinds of problems. The true of the matter is that just like the immigration system there are far too many people using the welfare system for problems like this one to be caught all the time. So instead of reforming the entire system why hasn't anyone thought of a simple solution. I've got one how about tracking assets of people that are granted welfare and tracking the items purchased on the food stamps card that they issue to people in need of assitance. Doesn't seem like an unfair or unreasonable solution. In fact the only people that would be oppose to these changes would be the people that are abusing the system. If this simple change were made fraud and abuse would be curbed and more money would be available for people who actually need it. The simple fact here is that if you can afford to own and operate a brand new Mazda RX-8 then you do not need my tax dollars to pay for your steak and lobster, and that is just Common Sense.

The $5.00 Hamburger

By now even those of you reading this blog that don't watch the news should now that in the near future the federal minimal wage is going to be raised. Soon minimal wage employees will be making $7.25 per hour. Now other than some four letter words directed at the television set when I first heard of this brilliant piece of garage the liberal majority cooked up I hadn't given the idea much thought. It wasn't until this afternoon when I went to a local fast food restaurant for lunch that I realized the implications of this new legislation. Thirty minutes after I placed my order I finally got the hamburger and fries that I had ordered. Now I'm sure the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear that it took that long is that the restaurant was really busy. Well what would be your next thought if I were to tell you that only one other persons order was being prepared while I was waiting? By now I'm sure you've come to the conclusion that the only other reason why the food could have taken that long is the people that were preparing, and if you have come to this conclusion you would be correct. In fact while waiting for my food I learned that clerk A thinks clerk B should break up with her boyfriend because hes no good for her, and that clerk c was going to the club later in the day. Now this is nothing new with getting poor service at a fast food restaurant. The part of this story that is new, is that these people are going to be paid $7.25 to give me poor service. Now you might think that this isn't really a problem, and on its own it doesn't really seem like one. But have you stopped to think about the implications of the raise in the minimal wage. Assume that the restaurant has 5 minimal wage employees that work 40 hours a week. The minimal wage is increasing roughly $2 an hour. So in one week the employer is having to pay out an extra $400. Now multiply that number by 52 weeks. That's $20,800 per year that the employer is going to have to pay out. So where is the extra money going to come from? There are only two ways that an employer can compensate for the extra overhead. They can either absorb the costs, or they can raise the price of the goods that they are selling. The value meal that I ordered in this situation already costs $5.15. How much do you think this combo will cost when the increase takes affect? $6 or $7 perhaps? Could it become even more than that? And if the level of service that I received at this restaurant continues to be poor, the customer base is sure to diminish with the price increase. And what do employers do when they aren't getting as much business as they were before? They fire employees to lower their costs. This cause and effect will not only be seen in the restaurant business. Its simple economics, if the price of a good increases, the demand for that product will decrease. So if this cause and effect occurs then the unemployment rate will rise and those that manage to keep their jobs with the new wages will in the end spend their increased income on the same products they purchased before at the new higher rates. On paper the democrats will be able to say that they've helped the lowest end of America, and on paper out country will look better than it did before, but in fact we all lose because of this legislation. High minimal wages are bad for us all, and that folks is just Common Sense.