Americans need to be more self-sufficient

The Electronic Benefits Transfer food stamp card glitch that occurred in 17 states Oct. 12 was a chilling preview of the consequences concerning over-dependency on the government.

The United States Department of Agriculture estimates that a total of 101 million people in the U.S. are on some form of federal food assistance.

Of this population, 47 million people rely on food stamps.

Welfare recipients now outnumber full-time private sector workers.

This is quite embarrassing for the U.S. as a world superpower and the land of individual achievement.

Little do people know that about one in every three Americans now claim to struggle to feed their families, at that the very least.

Many liberals and Democrats probably celebrate widespread assistance.

They probably view it as a progressive operation to redistribute benefits and empower those who are struggling. However, there is very little to be cheerful about.  

These unsustainable aid programs are intensifying our country’s descent into debt.

They’re solidifying our dependency on the state that limits political and personal autonomy.

The temporary glitch of the EBT system caused almost immediate tension among users in 17 different states.

The malfunction resulted in spending-limit suspensions in some states and totally disabled food stamp cards in others.  

A Wal-Mart in Philadelphia, Miss., served as an example of what happened at grocery stores across different states wherever food stamp cards became useless.

People’s inability to purchase food turned a typical day of grocery shopping into a heated commotion as angry cardholders began looting the store.

If several hours of EBT system failure was enough to spark miniature riots, just imagine what a week, a day or even a few more hours of failure could lead to.

At the worst, I’d predict Hollywood-style mass civil unrest.

This is exactly what we may have escaped by avoiding a debt default through the agreement that reopened the government and raised the debt ceiling last week.

A default could have resulted in a five-day postponement of food stamp distribution starting Oct. 25.

As we are beginning to observe clearly, years of costly, excessive food assistance is not progress.

It has placed at least 47 million Americans in an uneasy situation in which the government can decide what they eat and whether they will starve.

The domestication of the lower class by the select few will only benefit the lower class as long as these socialist programs continue to be funded.

Sadly, it is the recipients who will suffer the worst when the programs finally collapse.

It would take years of restoring proper self-sufficiency to the people and local communities to help defuse this societal time bomb.

That is part of what made this country so great in the first place.

­— edharo@indiana.edu
Follow columnist Edgar Haro on Twitter @EdHarodude.