Random Thoughts: school lunches, EITC, election mandate

*** I hear liberals and many elected Democrats talk about 'fairness' all the time - usually in the context of "rich people" or "evil corporations" not paying their 'fair share' of taxes. But I never hear them talking about how UNfair it is for people who don't pay any taxes at all to get refunds.

Through the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which politicians have publicly pushed in the past, people with lower incomes complete their tax forms, report how much they've paid in taxes and often owe no more or might get some back. But many individuals, because of the EITC, get back more than they paid in.

For instance, a low-income family might actually owe $0 in taxes after completing their tax forms. But a single parent-two child family earning around $12,000 could still get around a refund of about $5,000, according to the Piton Foundation which has been 'helping' working families get their credits for about 20 years.

Also according to Piton, that family could get $1,000 per child for the Child Tax Credit, even if they owe no income tax.

So how, exactly, is it "fair" to just give people money ... because that's what this is - a blatant, outright payment to certain people. This is not money they've paid and they're getting a portion back. In fact, since the government doesn't have anything it hasn't taken from someone else, this is money other people have paid that is then 're-distributed' to people who didn't pay anything.

How can people who advocate 'fairness' ever support such a direct taking from one to give to another? If anyone can explain this to me, I'd appreciate it.

***Too often it seems that when Democrats win, they say it's because the public has spoken and they proceed with the attitude of a 'mandate' to implement their policies and goals. But those same individuals have a different opinion when Republicans win. When the GOP gets elected, they expect 'compromise' and complain - loudly and often - that the Republicans are enacting 'extreme' agendas.

Both cannot be true.

Either you get to enact your agenda when you get elected or you don't. Either you must compromise when you get elected or you don't. Either you have a mandate or you don't. It's hypocritical to say you have a mandate when YOU get elected, but your opponent doesn't have a mandate when THEY get elected.

As President Barack Obama told the Republicans after HE took office, elections have consequences.

*** Banning bringing school lunches from home isn't just about a 'healthier' lunch. A Chicago Public School has banned students from bringing their lunch from home, making them eat the lunch provided by the cafeteria. As the article explains:

But parent Miguel Medina said he thinks the "no home lunch policy" is a good one. "The school food is very healthy," he said, "and when they bring the food from home, there is no control over the food."

He gets it - it's all about control, but apparently parent Miguel Medina doesn't understand that he's just given up control over his child to a public school system. Of course, he fails to understand that he does have control over the food his child takes to school, as he could supervise the packing of the lunch, but that seems to escape him as well.

It's parents like Medina who are the biggest threat, because they willingly give up their parental right and responsibility to raise their children and turn that duty over to a bureaucracy which can do whatever it wants, so long as it can say it's for the child's own good.

Sad...very, very sad.