11-17-25 - 11am - Food Stamps and Communist China

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Mac old Goober thirty three thirty three. Here, I don't
wonder and if we could follow the money and find
out what activists of ringing these lawsuits that these activist
judges are ruling on to stop all of Trump's activities.
These activist judges don't make these rulings out of whole cloth.

(00:22):
Somebody brings these court cases.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
I wonder who that is? Thank you well, I dat
is Judge Boseberg's daughter that it's hurt in goo. But
remember she's one of hundreds of NGO that do that.
They so we are as taxpayers, we're funding probably the

(00:45):
majority because they don't you know, they rely a lot
on grants, so they get a lot of taxpayer dollars
to go advocate against our own self interest drives me crazy.
I want if I have time, I will try tie
two topics together this hour. If I don't, we'll do
the second one tomorrow morning. But here are the two

(01:07):
topics in reverse order. Yesterday on my X timeline at
Michael Brown USA, you need to be followed me on
X at Michael Brown USA, someone had posted a photo
of Shanghai, Shanghai, China and said, quote, if communism is

(01:29):
so bad. Then why is China so advanced? And the
responses were just kind of disgusting. And so I want
to talk about the difference between say, communist capitalism if
I could dare use a phrase like that, and a
free market and our constitutional republic that gives us individual

(01:54):
liberty and individual freedom which feeds into our form of capitalism,
which are free markets. And then the second topic is
we've mentioned before when we during the shutdown about how
SMAP has forty two million people receiving food stamps. Now,

(02:20):
that is depending on what you look at as the
most recent population of the United States, that's between twelve,
I mean between ten and twelve percent of the US
population is getting food stamps, which cost taxpayers nearly one
hundred billion dollars a wealthy nation. A wealthy nation, nearly

(02:42):
forty two million people rely on food stamps. There are
twenty one million kids that get free or reduced price
school lunches. So I think that's reasonable for asking some
questions how many people are getting help but aren't truly needy.

(03:03):
And what told is America's illegal alien crisis taking on
those programs. So as welfare enrollment hovers at historically high levels,
you start getting stories. You can find stories all over
the interwebs about states that are trying to crack down
on ineligible food stamp users. And when you really dig

(03:26):
into those stories or you do the follow on because
there'll be a big headline initially, Oh my god, Colorado,
which we can only wish. Colorado's going to cut down
and review all of their food stamps and you're gonna
have to reapply now in Texas and someplace they're actually
doing this. Well, that grabs all the headline, That sets
all the oxygen out of the room, and you never

(03:48):
get to the well, what'd you find out? I mean,
once all the hullabaloo was over, and let me just
say this, why should we be upset that someone who
is getting some of your heart earned, or that we're
going into even more debt nationally? Why is it wrong?
I don't think it's either wrong morally, ethically, legally anyway

(04:11):
to ask the question, Hey, prove to me that you
are entitled or that you meet the requirements to all
the prerequisites to get this particular benefit. What's wrong with that?
We've been browbeat to the point we're simply asking the question,
is Oh my gosh, you can't ask that question, Michael,
you might offend somebody. Well bite me, because I want

(04:32):
to know. I want to know the truth. Here's the
stark truth for you. From states that crack down on
ineligible food stamp users, minimal reforms could slash case loads
by up to eighty percent without harming those that are

(04:54):
truly in desperate need. Now that tells me that over
the years enforcement has become loosey goosey, that the programs
and their requirements have become you know, broader and broader
for eligibility, and that has now reached an almost unsustainable level.

(05:16):
Then you add the lax oversight. Lax oversight combined with fraud,
waste and abuse, or expanded eligibility or no requirement that
you every ninety days every year. I don't care, but
at some point you have to requalify for the benefit.

(05:37):
It shows that there might be actually be billions of
dollars in a being wasted. And have you ever thought
about this? There might actually be some people who are
eligible that are not getting their benefit. Isn't that just
as bad as someone who isn't eligible getting a benefit.

(05:59):
So for all the that are like, oh, you just
told you about No, what about the fact that if
you don't tighten up eligibility, if you don't require someone
to reapply and make certain that they are eligible, that
what you're really doing is you may have people who
actually have a legitimate need and they're not getting that benefit.

(06:22):
Think about it that way, Brownie Dragon, I really know
you're making the big bucks.

Speaker 3 (06:28):
Now, this is my first day off where I could
actually hit koa button and I have to listen to
a thirty second Cadillac commercial just to get me through,
And then you must have been on break and it
was at least, I say, at least four more minutes
of commercials. Proof positive you two are making the big bucks.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
And proof positive that you didn't pay any attention to
the clock over on the other station where we had
breaks where I actually went out and took a nap.
I'm just impressed.

Speaker 4 (07:04):
He's getting the algorithm is feeding him Cadillac ads he's
making that's.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
Right, that's right, right, because at the same time we're
feeding Cadillac ads, we're also the Sodo ads at the
same time Cars for Kids, Cars for kids.

Speaker 4 (07:18):
That's probably the other ads that he tuned out exactly.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
But I do find it interesting the comparison between the two,
because you and I would You and I would go
to lunch during some little spot blocks over there, so
I like this clock, like this block. Go back to
the Great Depression nineteen thirty nine, we launched the country
does we launch a program to help struggling families buy.

(07:44):
We would buy surplus agricultural goods, big blocks of cheese
and you know, sacks of flower and all sort of
They were commodities. And I'm not I'm not too proud
to tell you this story, but my maternal grandfather would
sometimes use those. He would he would come see my

(08:07):
mom and he would go out to the fairgrounds where
they would distribute the commodities, and he would he would
come back and and my mom would just, you know,
she would try to explain to my sister wasn't alive
at the time, to my brother and I about you know, well,
you know it's just this way. She didn't like it,
but that's what he did. But they weren't they weren't

(08:29):
food stamps. I mean, it was just basic commodities that
you would need. Foul oil, you know, cheese, just the
things that staples. I guess you might describe them then
nineteen sixty four and Lyndon Johnson under the Food Stamp
Act of nineteen sixty four, part of the Great War
on Poverty, which we still haven't fixed, the food stamp

(08:52):
became a permanent fixture. It was Johnston's way of combating
hunger by providing poor Americans with literally stamps. They started
out with staying, you get a little book of stamps,
and then of course, as we you know, went into
a digital world. Then that War on poverty morphed into

(09:16):
EBT cards, electronic benefit transfer cards for groceries, you know,
And now there's a whole black market about how to
deal with the EBT cards. So from nineteen sixty four
to say, mid nineteen seventies, about twenty million people were
getting I'm generic food stamp, just food stamps. Yeah, in

(09:40):
a second, I'll tell you more about how that figure
has more than doubled what it is today. Meantime, we
created another social safety net, the National School Lunch Program. Now, interestingly,
it provides overlapping benefits for a lot of these families.
Together with SNAP, it gives poor children help the total
of five meals a day per child. And then in

(10:02):
places like Colorado, it doesn't make any difference how wealthy
you are, how poor you are. Everybody gets fed. And
of course they knew when they launched the program in
Colorado that the costs were going to be higher than
the mount of revenue, and so they knew. They come
back and in LLL and MM whatever, those two issues
were on the ballot this month. Of course it passed

(10:24):
because it was for the children. But we don't realize
how overlapping those programs have become. The original school launch program,
signed into law back in June and nineteen forty six
by President Truman. It was simply a response to post
World War two concerns over child malnutrition and the fact

(10:50):
we had agricultural surpluses. It wasn't just necessarily, hey, it's
a way to you know, cater to voters. No, it
was because we had agged surpluses and we had severe
child malnutrition. You know, interesting life. Just as a footnote here,
I would argue that have we really helped child malnutrition?

(11:14):
Maybe the school lunch program has, But I would certainly
argue that the food stamp program has not, because how
many bags of ritos do you really need? And how
nutritious is the bag of dridos, but back to June
of nineteen forty six, that the purpose was really nourishment

(11:38):
and what do we do with all these surplus agricultural
products in the school year. Last year, about twenty one
point four million kids got free or reduced price meals
in school. That accounted for almost seventy three percent. Can
we just round it up? Three course of all public

(12:01):
school meals served were free or reduced price, and that.

Speaker 5 (12:07):
Means Hey, Michael, I noticed your shows a little quicker
paced and more harder hitting since moving over to KOA.
I don't know if that's the old blow torch effect
or if this is because you've had to convince your
showdown and you can't get away with an hour of
goofing off anymore. So let me know what it is. Huh.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
Are you bitching or moaning? Are you happy or sad?
Not that we care, don't get me on, not that
we care. I'm just curious. Do you want us to
mess around more? Yeah? I mean, come on, we can
mess around all day long and not do anything serious.
There's too much to talk about. There's too much. For example,
there are two topics I'm trying to squeeze into this hour.

(12:50):
And if not, if I can't get to the second part,
the communism part, we'll get to that tomorrow. But I said,
I told you at the end of the last segment
that twenty one point four million school children, Why shouldn't
you say school child, just children, because they're not all
in school, got free or reduced price meals in the

(13:13):
twenty twenty four school year. That accounted for seventy three percent.
Can we just say seventy five? Okay, thank you. Seventy
five percent of all public school government school meals served
were either free or reduced price.

Speaker 4 (13:29):
I'm curious here, Michael, does that include all of the
Colorado schools that are free lunch for all.

Speaker 2 (13:35):
I think the numbers will have to change now based
on what happened a couple of weeks ago, so it's
actually going to increase. But if you take those numbers
from twenty twenty four, I'll try to find twenty twenty
five numbers. If I can to make Bozo back there
happy or no Boso back there, should start looking for
the twenty twenty five numbers. Yeah, yeah, that's what I thought.

(13:56):
That means that seventy two percent of public school family
in this country are supposedly unable to support their children's
nutrition needs, and that's costing you and me as taxpayers
almost eighteen billion dollars a year seventeen point seven billion
dollars for poor families that are eligible for both free

(14:23):
or reduced price school meals and the SNAP program the
Food Stamp program. The programs offer two meals provided directly
at school, lunch off and breakfast, plus help with three
more meals via the SNAP program, and then SNAP calculates
the cost of three low cost nutritious meals for a

(14:46):
household under the USDA's thrifty Food program. If you were
to diagram this like you diagram a sentence, it's just
tentacles going out everywhere. In fiscal year two thousand and one,
six point one percent of Americans got benefits six point

(15:10):
one Today we've blodd that up to almost thirteen percent. Now,
are you going to try to convince me that that
is a proportional increase. No, that's an exponential increase. It's

(15:34):
out of control. In fiscal year two thousand and one,
six point one percent, seventeen million people. Then the rocket
ship takes off, peaking at about fifteen percent of the
population or forty seven point six million in twenty thirteen.
That was the highest rate in the program's history. Now,

(15:57):
the COVID pandemic and the shutdown triggered another spike, and
I want you to pay attention to these numbers because
if you don't think that we're still suffering. By the way,
I just got a text message from Walgreens Healthcare alert
there's a new COVID vaccine available for anybody over the
age of three. Delete. The COVID pandemic triggered another spike.

(16:25):
Now why well, because jobs were lost, the economy was
shut down, and you had emergency expansions, and that pushed
enrollment above forty two million people in twenty twenty one,
and the current level remains elevated, which just proves my point.

(16:46):
Once you start a government program and you reach a threshold,
every time you reach a new threshold, it's a new
threshold upwards. The threshold always is. The trend line is
always upward, it's never down. Let me retell you again.
In fiscal year twenty four, an average of forty one

(17:07):
point seven million people roughly again, about twelve and half
percent of the population collected food stamps, costing US a
ninety eight point eight one hundred billion dollars a year,
and we exacerbated that program through the COVID shutdowns. And
yet if a state like Texas, I mean Texas in
Colorado can be two more diverse examples. In Colorado, we

(17:30):
don't take expand expand expand Texas is like, wait, wait
a minute. What we ought to do is why don't
we start kicking everybody off and making you re enroll.
And the blowback is irrational, It's truly irrational. So I
want to ask you a simple question. Have we reached
the point in the country where once you start getting

(17:52):
a benefit, regardless or my least favorite word in the world, irregardless,
regardless of whether or not you continue to remain qualified,
we don't care. We just want to We want you
to stay a ward to the state. We want all
of the all of you schmucks out there, you know,
working your butts off right now to feed your own family.

(18:13):
We want you to also feed everybody else's family. Almost
almost thirteen percent of the population, more than ten percent
of the population now illegal aliens. They're eligible for free,
free or reduced price school lunches. So then once you
get that surge that we had in the Biden administration,

(18:35):
there were somewhere between six hundred and forty thousand to
seven hundred and fifty thousand of the roughly eight hundred
thousand undocumented K twelve students that got free or reduce
price meals at our expense. That is roughly one third
of the twenty one million total participants for the year

(18:55):
twenty twenty three through twenty twenty four. So don't try
to tell me that illegal aliens don't have an effect
on the fiscal crisis in this country, because clearly they do.
And if there are some people that are not getting
qualified because the program is so overwhelmed right now, and

(19:17):
if illegal aliens account for somewhere between twenty one point
one million, one third of the twenty one point one
million that's at the expense of American citizens now illegal
alien parents they can also get food stamps. They get
food stamps for their US born children. For those dreamers,

(19:40):
Somewhere between two point two and three million US born
citizens children citizen children of illegal aliens get that form
of welfare. That is a huge portion of the eighteen
to nineteen million children on snap overall. So yes, that's
what we're paying for the same is true with me dedicade.

(20:02):
So all of these benefits that are costing us slower
growth in the economy, increasing our debt. You know, I'm
not really to talk about it. I may talk about
it tomorrow. But Japan's treasury rates bumped up a little
bit yesterday, one point seven percent. They're bonds one point

(20:22):
seven percent. Japan is the largest purchaser of our debt,
the largest, let me be more precise, Japan is the
largest foreign purchaser of our debt. The costs of that
debt just went up. Yes, And of course we're buying
more of our own debt. And at the same time

(20:43):
that we're doing all of that, all of this is
going on in terms of these entitlement programs, and you
tell me that we're okay, nothing to worry about. Want
me worry Every member of Congress, including the President, who
allow these pro to continue to just bloat, bloat, bloat, bloat.

(21:04):
They're killing us, are literally going to kill the country.
And bloating those programs is not theoretical, it's evident of
what happens when states tighten the reins with just trying
to do some basic over site Maine. Under revisions made
in October of two thousand, fourteen eleven years ago, able

(21:27):
bodied adults without dependence under the age of fifty can
only get food stamps if they enrolled in vocational education
volunteered an hour a day. It's pretty tough go volunteer
an hour a day, or they worked twenty hours a week,
provided they were mentally and physically able. Now, after one year,

(21:51):
the results in Maine were absolutely amazing. The food stamp
caseload for Maine for those childless adults prompted by more
than eighty percent. It went from above thirteen thousand to
only about twenty six hundred. And yet we didn't hear
and you can't find if you go on lexis next
to start searching for headlines of widespread reports of increased hunger. Nope,

(22:15):
but there's clear evidence that many of those had simply
been avoiding work altogether. And Maine's not alone. Next door
in Kansas, go back to twenty thirteen. In Kansas, they
reinstated snap work requirements for adults able bodied adults working

(22:35):
adults after a waiver period during the recession. Enrollment in
that group created by seventy five percent. It dropped from
twelve thousand to three thousand within one year because thousands
either found jobs or they just went out. They just
left the program. Now, if you just left the program,

(22:56):
I don't have a breakdown of those numbers, But if
they just left program, that is proof that lacks enforcement
had allowed ineligible users to just linger on and stay
on the program. Now, if we've got forty two million people,
are you really going to try to convince me that

(23:16):
there's not waste, fraud and abuse net program? If if
Maine is at seventy five percent, and if Kansas is Kansas,
and I'm sorry, Maine was greater than that. Maine was
up there, Kansas was at seventy five percent. In Georgia,

(23:37):
they did a pilot program in twenty sixteen. They did
it only three counties, again stricter work rules, and they
saw those able bodied adult working people that participation fell
by up to eighty five percent in some areas of
those three counties. Now, Georgia has now expanded similar requirements

(23:59):
statewide as of this November, and they project that ninety
six thousand out of one point four million recipients could
lose benefits if they don't comply What does that do?
I mean, that's calling the ineligible users admit ongoing debates
over fraud. Why do we have this reaction that says, oh,

(24:24):
we're just going to go require everybody to go requalify.
Give them, you know, give them a thirty sixty day
period within a thirty you know, start today's Monday, November seventeenth,
as I'm broadcasting, so on whatever December first is, between
December first and January thirty first of next year, if

(24:45):
you're currently on the program, you are going to be
kicked off as of January thirty first of next year.
Gives them two full months unless you reapply, and then
actually have the staff to do a series qualification program
to see if they really do qualify. Now, those examples,

(25:07):
I think underscore a much broader issue. When you don't
do oversigned case loads swell with people who could be
supporting themselves, and that diverts resources from families who are
in real crisis. Interestingly, the critics will argue that that
only inflates the cost, but also for Fossor's a culture

(25:31):
of dependency. Really, how the hell does that happen? Because
as Congress starts to I some reforms Supporters of targeted
enforcements say it isn't about punishing the poor, it's about
ensuring that the aid reaches those who truly need it
before the program's good will continues to erode under its
own weight, which is why it's happening right now. If

(25:52):
you're one of those who opposes the idea of how
to respond to an idea, to the idea of simply
saying you've got to requalify, and you think that's wrong,
you might be part of the problem these kind of

(26:12):
this is only food stamps, you take unemployment benefits, you
take Medicaid, you take Medicare or Social Security, you take
any of those, you take any entitlement program across the board.
And if you don't require on an annual basis to requalify,
and if you don't put and I guess I'm actually
arguing for greater staffing. If you don't put the staffing

(26:33):
in where you don't put the technology in to really
vet people who want to take money from the pockets
of hard working taxpayers for those who are unwilling to work,
to the detriment of those who are unable to work,
then we got a screwed up system. A totally screwed
up system. Let me try to get in a little

(26:53):
bit of the one final point I wanted to make
about what I saw yesterday, and that was about communism,
because what we're doing here is we're creating a dependency
class that will eventually lead to a Marxist or communist
form of government. So I see on X on my
timeline at Michael Brown, USA, I see a picture of Shanghai,

(27:18):
and under it is a caption some obviously useful idiot.
If communism is so bad, then why is China so advanced? Now?
I know that's a generalized statement, but let's break it down.
Because China's visible advancement rides on market driven dynamics under

(27:38):
one party Leninist rule. It doesn't rely on communist merit,
and that party state aggressively subordinates wealth, individual rights, the law.
It subordinates the law to political control, and that produces
systemic repression behind that skyline that you see in that picture.

(28:03):
So what does advanced China really look like? I've talked
to a couple of friends, and there are a couple
of people that I follow on X that stay in
touch and can tell you the truth about what's really
going on in China. China's growed since nineteen seventy eight
actually came from allowing market forces and private enterprise to operate. Today,
the private sector generates most jobs, innovation, and exports. Even

(28:26):
if the Party is reasserting its dominance over all the
top firms that have advanced that. Even official party documents
frame reform in terms of market access, property rights, language,
business registration, even bankruptcy systems. Those are tools of free markets,
not classical communisms abolition of private property. But and here's

(28:48):
the big butt, Communist capitalism is a misnomer because the
Party describes quote socialism with Chinese characteristics practice. It's a
mixed economy because the private firms create the bulk of
employment and exports, while the party reserves its ultimate control

(29:09):
over everything that makes those companies available to be profitable.
Capital allocation, data, corporate governance. That's all controlled by the
Chinese Communist Party since twenty twenty. For the past five
years now, Beijing is Titaned controlled. Private firms share among
China's largest companies has fallen precipitously, while state firm share

(29:32):
has increased precipitously. So it illustrates politicization over market discipline
at all the commanding heights of this market that everybody
looks at a place like Shanghai and goes, oh, look
how wonderful it is. And growth, Remember this growth does
not necessarily equal freedom or justice because China's government is assessed,

(29:53):
is economically repressed, because the party state directly controls the
key levers Rick's economic freedoms. Despite all the high investment
in all that beautiful infrastructure you see, is all controlled
by a single party. And of course you've got the
State Department that identifies widespread human rights abuses including arbitrary detentions, torture,

(30:15):
forced disappearances, severe restrictions of speech, religion association, across the
mainland and in Hong Kong. Don't look at Hong Kong today.
It's just a tiny, tiny bit of what it used
to be. And least, but not least and worst, I
think the surveillance security state sing Jiang Shanghai is located.

(30:39):
It actually exemplifies the model pervasive you've heard of grid management, No,
it's not grid management we think about about managing the
electrical grid. This is a grid by grid by the city,
blocked by block AI driven databases, risk scoring systems. All
of that feeds into mass detentions, transforms that region into

(31:01):
a laboratory of tech enabled authoritarianism. So the picture shows
a really shiny object. Don't be confused by the shiny object,
because there are multiple investigations you can find online that
document in tournaments, re education, forced labor programs targeting the leaguers,
and other minorities, all consistent with the findings of possible

(31:22):
crimes against humanity. The shiny object, don't be fooled by
it at all. Communism's core remains coercive, and it always will.
It's a sky scrape illusion. It's simply a sky scrape illusion.

Speaker 6 (31:42):
I bet if they gave us a bunch of slave labor,
we could create a really.

Speaker 2 (31:45):
Cool world, could we. I we could fill the potholes.

Speaker 6 (31:50):
I mean, I get crazy. Throw your role there, Michael.
We need more than slave labor to fill potholes. Apparently
it's impossible to fill potholes. Can't wait till this winter.
Really get that going?

Speaker 2 (32:02):
Let me go to my audience. I apologize. I think
I hit a nerve with somebody, So I'm out of here.