Finished goal of running the distance of 2,080 miles from Lafayette, LA to Washington D.C and back!!!...plus 339.1 miles


0.0 miles run this week.
Daily running average for the week is 0.00 miles per day.
Total amount run in the past 800 days is 2,419.1 miles.
Daily running average overall is 3.02 miles per day.

Day275 Tuesday 05/31/11

ran 4.6 miles
New Mexico will be ending a food stamp supplement for elderly and disabled residents of the state on July 1, 2011. There is no money left in New Mexico’s budget for it. As awful as it is that these highly dependent citizens of New Mexico are going to lose $25.00 monthly from their own state, it is one of many different examples festering in all fifty states of a truth that is growing more and more severe.

Even if you happen to be someone who clings to Bush for the blame of every problem we currently have, which is pure poppycock, what has this current president done that has moved us forward? Regardless of whose fault it is, Barack Obama is doing nothing but perpetuating an irresponsible cycle of empty promises and false hopes. And the near-future outcomes of his actions quite possibly will end in the same way as the events I am about to describe in New Mexico.

Federal law requires that recipients of food stamps receive a minimum of $16.00 a month. New Mexico is currently paying $25.00 to all who qualify for food stamps. This is down from a total of $30.00 last year.

If I might make a comparison, New Mexico is one single state and their circumstances cannot possibly be applied to every other state (for the same reasons that Obama’s universal health care plan would not work for fifty different states), but notice the abrupt transition from what was a small decrease, yet still more than a necessary amount, to what will soon become nothing at all, in the case of New Mexico versus the ability to afford food stamps for elderly and disabled residents.

Nearly 14% of Americans receive food stamps. Don’t quote me on this, but I am pretty sure that the Tea Party represents 13% of the vote. Those are two extremely different sides of the aisle when it comes to casting votes. I'm not trying to capture any real point that isn't immediately obvious, but it is certainly an interesting couple of numbers to look at. As of March, under Obama, there was an 11% increase of food stamp recipients from the year before, more than 44.5 million Americans, and the number of recipients from four years ago is up 61%. That’s a lot of voters who would never vote for a man or woman who campaigned on and threatened to fix this problem that has been created.

To take a step back to the comparison I was trying to make in the paragraph before last, it is unfortunate, but what happened in New Mexico is a very common sequence of events, which tend to lead up to the utter failure of government programs. New Mexico was given a $16.00 per month minimum to disperse, they upped it to $25.00 per month, raised it to $30.00 per month, dropped it back down to $25.00, and then, unexpectedly, completely ignoring the idea of reverting back to the minimum, as established by the federal government, they went from $25.00 to zero. Nothing! And, they could have not upped the amount and let the program last twice as long.

Just think about how terrifying it could be if that standard method of operation was applied to a much larger scale. Health care, serving all fifty states, for example, in the very near future. This is a micro-example of such a larger national scale, but do you honestly think for a second that the federal government would behave any differently if their bottom fell out?

You are promised $16.00, you receive $25.00, then $30.00, the bottom falls out and they return to $25.00…and then it’s over. Just like that! It is a similar sense of utter denial that children often exhibit and it is cruel and unusual punishment to be so deceitful and out of touch with the people who are being served that rather than prepare for and adapt to the realities before our leaders, they too often go on lying and behaving as though everything is fine.

Our national debt? Health care? Our borders? Idiotic spending at an incomprehensible scale? If you back Obama than good for you, but I can tell you this, as New Mexico has just made a great example of; Barack Obama and minds like his have great intentions but they seem to lack rationality and feasibility. If you voted for Barack Obama in 2008, whatever it is you disagreed with on the conservative side of the political arena, I think it is important to note that here in 2011 and on into 2012, there is only one side that has an attainable goal to flip this country right side up, and it is not the liberal, or progressive side. The House had a vote tonight on whether or not to raise the debt ceiling and if I remember correctly, only 10% voted to raise it, further hurling our nation into financial oblivion. The 300-something House members who voted against it, many of which were on the left side of the aisle, obviously realized that they would quite possibly lose their jobs in 2012 if they continued to do what our president wanted and what the people did not.

1,272.2 miles to go.