It's Time to Nationalize Grocery Stores

This is a parody view on the current government proposals

It's Time to Nationalize Grocery Stores

By Richard E. Ralston
April 26, 2009

One of the great scandals of our age is the fact that America spends more on food than any other nation. Many political leaders are now calling for urgent reform to bring spending on food under control. While food spending is rapidly increasing and many Americans are overweight, some do not have enough to eat.

In spite of this high spending, the United Nations reports that, according to surveys they sent to government officials around the world, the quality of U.S. food is ranked very low. Results from officials in France report that their food is the best in the world. Although that needs to be taken with a grain of Dijon, it might be true. More insulting is the higher ranking that British experts give their food.

Leaders in Congress now point to what they see as the heart of the problem: corporate greed in the form of grocery stores and restaurants operating on a for-profit basis. They promise to replace all private grocery stores with a national system of government commissaries, which will allegedly operate far more efficiently without the administrative overhead required to make a profit. As it will take some time to organize the national network of commissaries, initially groceries will be available only at offices of the Department of Motor Vehicles and U.S. Postal Service. These offices have a proven track record of operational efficiency and excellent customer service, and will be a model for the development of a government commissary system.

Congress and the Administration say they will achieve further efficiencies by prohibiting all advertising of food and food products. Consumers will find shopping to be much easier if personal preference is eliminated in favor of whatever foods government makes available.

To better control costs, the government will invest billions in new electronic food purchasing records. Everything you eat will be reported to the government, which will analyze the data to eliminate wasteful or unhealthy eating. All new food must be approved by a new Comparative Calorie and Taste Administration, which will eliminate most of the unnecessary brands of potato chips. And as anyone who shops in grocery stores knows, we have far too many brands of beer.

Food is surely a right, as it is necessary for human survival. Therefore all groceries available in government commissaries will be free of charge. This will be financed by an increase of 15 percent in income taxes, except for those making over $80,000 a year, whose taxes will be increased by 75 percent. Because the supply of food is not unlimited, a fixed amount of ration coupons will be distributed to insure that each consumer can obtain an equal amount of food.

All private restaurants will be closed, and limited cafeterias will be operated as government commissaries. Congressional liberals point to school lunch programs as a model and the proven results demonstrated by several generations of well-nourished, trim and fit students. Of course, we veterans also remember all of that great Army chow.

So far, conservative leaders are at a loss after hearing these proposals. Some of the more courageous conservatives are responding with proposals for Mandatory Food Purchasing. All citizens, including those who go to bed hungry every night, will be required to purchase membership in new Food Management Organizations. To further control costs, the purchase of certain cuts of meat and imported gourmet foods could require the FMO's advance approval.

Across the political spectrum, there is a developing consensus that the only appropriate response to the fact that some consumers cannot afford groceries is to impose a single, regimented, government-controlled food system on all citizens. All agree that this is sure to provide the same consistently high standards as public education.

Rumor has it that the clincher for those proposing grocery nationalization was stated recently by the White House: "The great thing about these proposals is that if we can somehow get this to work for groceries, we can apply the same idea to health care."

Richard E. Ralston is Executive Director of Americans for Free Choice in Medicine.

To Save the Nation

Repost from FairTax Friday 2/12/2010

To Save the Nation

As the nation drowns in a sea of red ink, more and more and more citizens of all political affiliations are asking “what went wrong with the American dream?”

From coast to American coast and driven by necessity, the American people are awakening to the need to wrest control of our destiny from those who advance their political fortunes at the cost of the genius of the American spirit of innovation, hard work, independence and liberty. There is a dawning realization among a rapidly growing number of citizens that the solution waits in FairTax legislation, HR25, which does more to shift power from government to the citizen than any other single change since the founding of the nation.

More and more experts warn of extended unemployment for what experts also define as the most productive workforce in the world. Once the envy of the world, Bethlehem steel no longer dominates the world, cotton miles across the south no longer ship to the once powerful textile industries in South Carolina, and workers in Detroit see the American automobile industry struggling to regain momentum and take the lead back from foreign manufacturers. From the San Joaquin valley of California to the wheat and corn fields of the Midwest, we grow enough food to feed the world but worry that we don’t have enough food to feed our own children.

In the nation that saw clipper ships ranging the world faster than any competitor, that developed the surgery to replace the human heart, , that brought the personal computer forth from a hometown garage in California, that won world wars and went on to rebuild Europe and Asia and that put man after a ten year effort on the moon, we now actually wonder whether the American people can trump the narrow self-interests of a few in Washington who profit lucratively by trading tax code favors against the best interests of nation and every taxpayer.

Our system of government, we are reminded, was never meant to be handed over to a “political class”. It does not fly right on “automatic pilot”. The Founding Fathers understood the inherent nature of government to gather more and more power unto itself and equipped our citizens with the means to restore the proper role of the people over jealously guarded power concentrated within small circles of influence and profit. It could not be more needed.

The FairTax shifts federal taxes away from what helps the economy—work, saving and investment—to what comes out of the economy—consumption. As significantly, the FairTax shift the power of federal taxation from the backrooms of Congress to the American citizen who then chooses, by personal consumption choices, the timing and size of each family’s tax burden. It exposes the cost of the federal government and makes each consumer a “stakeholder” in the spending habits of government and it frees the American economy to soar to heights not yet seen.

But this needed change waits for the will of the American people. It waits for the great awakening of self-determination that seems to have begun now in TEA parties, in living rooms and at the polls. There are now more Independent voters than either Democrats or Republicans or Libertarians. The FairTax unites all for a new era of American growth, the immediate healing of our economy and millions of needed jobs. It makes the American worker once more in demand and the genius of American productivity and invention again the envy of the world. It waits for the American people to find their voice and their clout to return our great nation to one that is “of, by and for” hometown America. It waits for us.