Congress to leave Food Stamps spending pretty much intact

The Washington Post reports that the House of Representatives is considering a farm bill that would reduce spending for SNAP (food stamps) by 0.5% over ten years. Wow. So I wrote Representative Frank Lucas:

Mr. Lucas,

I work part time at Walmart; the VA considers me disabled, but I manage about 26 hours, most weeks.

I noticed that one of my co-workers in Lawn and Garden will buy a $1.58 soft drink on SNAP, instead of walking to the associate break room and spending $0.50 out of their pocket. This seems to be an issue with SNAP -- that people are using the free money to make poor decisions.

Other families seem to be able to afford new, bigger screen TVs because the SNAP program supplements their income.

I understand that for some Americans, SNAP does bring the food budget up to "adequate", but in many cases I am convinced that SNAP merely displaces their other sources of food purchasing money, until SNAP become nothing more than a straight forward government cash addition to family income. That is, a social welfare program rife with unintended consequences.

Please consider whether Congress is responsible for people that choose expensive fast food and prepackaged food over staples and lower cost but nutritious food. Most people could eat adequately on much less money than many SNAP recipients spend, if they were willing to actually, like, cook their meals.

Because government spending creates industries, industries devoted to growing and maintaining those spending programs. Industries that administer the program, enable merchant compliance, gather additional recipients into the program, etc. And Congress has *no* mandate to create such industries.

And do cut SNAP by 50% in the next five years. Counting long term unemployed and young never-employed into unemployment statistics will be a good start.

Thank you,

Institutional racial prejudice, and the US Government in America

Racial bias as a matter of policy is wrong for any American. Especially for the government. So I wrote Senator Coburn,

Dr. Coburn,

While the Supreme Court, properly, considers the Constitutionality of universities and other schools using racial discrimination, or racial quotas under so-called "affirmative action", the US Senate, the Congress, and the nation should take a different approach to the problems of race relations.

Repeal affirmative action.

De-regulate, without decriminalizing, institutional prejudice that establishes and maintains distinctions and intolerance of people, based solely on racial characteristics.

Intolerance of race, any race, is wrong. Especially if the institution entrenched in bias is the government.

Thank you,

Brad Kruse
Ponca City, OK
So I wrote Senator Coburn,

Energy and the lawn

So I wrote Senator Coburn,

Dr. Coburn,

A friend gave me a two-hand scythe some years back. To my regret, I haven't found anyone that remembers using one for field harvest, that can show me how to make the silly thing work, easily, cleanly, all day long. Go figure, living four miles from the Conoco home refinery. I did find a scythe stone on Amazon.com, and it helps a lot, keeping the blade sharp without running for the shop, the vise, and the grinding wheel.

 But I was thinking. . .

1) Carbon cycles. Harvesting hay preserves the summer's carbon for use in winter. That boosts the CO2 and other airborne carbons, as well as build fertilizers for the coming growing seasons, at a time that a blanket of snow would seem to suppress the carbon, delaying spring.  If we want to boost CO2 usage, and growing cycles, what would happen if we concentrated industrial use of fossil fuels to mid and late winter? The intent would be to shift consumption to support boosting an abundant springtime, and use natural growing cycles to make best use of all that carbon.

2) Lawn care.It seems wasteful of resources to build and industry that blankets Ponca City, and other places, with scores of trucks pulling trailers filled with high dollar, modern technology lawn mowers and trimmers. Just as it is ignorant to think that building new, battery powered cars will take less energy than maintaining an existing vehicle, with increasing maintenance requirements, for years and years -- building new riding lawn mowers cannot make sense, in an energy sense.

Where in the past people could plan a lawn with the intent of pushing an unpowered mower -- we could still do that. Reel type mowers work as well today as before. And having a few lawns to mow wouldn't hurt some young people, or many others. Besides, keeping lawn and home care in the neighborhood increases person-to-person contact and builds communities as well as the character of young people.

3) Hand-gathered harvest. Enhance the USDA Organic label program. Provide labels for crops and products cultivated and gathered with tools and equipment that use no fossil fuels. Permit use of horse or oxen drawn wagons and equipment, just nothing with a battery, gasoline, diesel, propane, or other fossil fueled device.

Providing, now, for challenges in supply lines and fuel price and access might get more people thinking about alternatives.

We should recognize that what worked for our ancestors before the glut of affluence from burning fossil fuels, still works today. But we have to rediscover the techniques and tools, and recover from regulations that presume continued growth and universal affluence.

Because, 4) we could support home owners that mow their lawn but once a month, pull weeds by hand instead of chemical pesticides, etc.

Thank you,

Sustainable resources

I wrote Senator Coburn (R,OK):

I propose a wider application of the word "sustainable". For one thing, measuring the resources a community uses in terms of dollars is *not* sustainable. Just look how the US Government chose to stop including food and fuels in measuring inflation. Or how the Obama administration has devalued the dollar.

 o Lumber used in a community should be sourced within 50 miles, perhaps 50% of lumber within 30 years.

 o Properties forfeited to counties for tax liens could be divided, in lots of 10 and 40 acres, and allotted for a new wave of steadholder, for a low-tech approach to raising food with non-patented seed, no "big" equipment, family occupied and operated. A system of agriculture dependent on government spending, intercontinental supply chains, governmental and private crop and production insurance, and highly technical equipment is *not* sustainable, not if energy or monetary resources are interrupted.

o Employment within walking distance of worker residence, 1.5 miles, should be recognized and encouraged. Commutes further than eight (8) miles should be recognized and discouraged. And, yes, this does penalize monster and big businesses. Stores intending that 80% of customers live within 1.5 miles should be recognized and encouraged. A school should be considered "local" only if 80% of students, 80% of teachers, and all staff live within 1.5 miles.

o Mass transit will not be the answer to challenges to energy supply, not when infrastructure and massive construction projects are based on large amounts of money, and energy, to implement. This is why using less energy is more effective that building out massive wind farms or solar farms.

 o Move to paying taxes "in kind", and return to "county farms" for people requiring assistance and support, rather than interpreting need in dollars.

 o Pass a Congressional budget that is "balanced" -- total  expenditures not to exceed average collected revenues of the immediately preceding three fiscal years. Five year plans sunk Russia. Let us stop playing with other people's money, and make do with what we have. And, please, let us give the government a *stake* in growing the economy that they plan on taking more money from, in funding special interests and cherished programs.

 o Building codes assuming affectations of the wealthy must be re-examined. Single-child bedroom "standards", expectations of hot water in each home, immense housing developments intended to generate developer revenue, rather than conserve community energy, building homes that aren't intended to serve the occupants for generations instead of until the next promotion or transfer. These are wasteful of energy, of money, of strained resources. In general, we have to start valuing resources in terms other than dollars -- like availability if political, economic, or energy expectations are interrupted.


My own feeling is that climate change is here. Recovery will never again be complete while we measure condition and recovery in dollars; we cannot afford it. Whether due to man's consumption (and depletion of) fossil fuels or natural cycles of the Earth or the sun, CO2 levels seem to be rising, and weather is getting more energetic.

Between wider devastation from flooding, drought, and storms from hurricanes and tornadoes to thunderstorms, and the nation's economic woes -- we will *not* be rebuilding to what we, as a nation, had been.

Just looking at the Moore tornado this last week, I think of the lives changed. The homes, and vast amounts of building materials from lumber to cement that were destroyed and must be transported, and much of it replaced. The amount of electrical wiring, fixtures, drywall, nails -- and many of them resources that, if replaced, will further deplete strained resources of labor, material, etc.

What I do *not* hear on the news, though, is the loss to Oklahoma from productive people choosing to leave the state, to find accommodations or work. I don't hear of employment lost as people working at home no longer have the resources to continue to produce, or employers that temporarily or permanently lack a venue to continue operation. Just one example is the schools devastated in the tornado. Most school budgets don't include items for "replace buildings this year". And lack of schools will hamper inspiring people to restore residence nearby, increasing the loss of productive people to the area, if not the state. Some of the loss to Oklahoma will benefit other states, but many employments, and sources of tax revenues and economic contributions, will never recover for the state or the nation.

Whether the people involved receive assistance from the state, the Federal government, or private and religious resources -- that is a drain on national and local economies. My neighbor spent two days, this week, helping with a church group near Shawnee, OK. That meant that two days of his ranching were put off -- including losing much of the hay that he had cut, during a brief window between rains. Some of what he put on hold can be made up, but some will result is loss of crop and herd production.

And that is true everywhere. I expect that the expanding list of "once in a lifetime" events, as they occur more often, are draining the abilities of private and government insurance to respond completely.

The high rate of taxes, and the immense National Debt and ongoing and increasing annual deficits of the United States government, further drain the economy. As for CO2, I argue that government, or other fund raising, represents *overburdened* energy and carbon consumption. I note that gasoline prices are jumping again, perhaps moving toward a stable economic level based on production (limited) and demand (growing)


Thank you.