October 12, 2010--Let Them Drink Milk

Though I am getting close to hoping that New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg will run for president in 2010 as an independent, there is something imperial about him that turns me off.

I am coming to feel that if our economic problems do not show real evidence of improvement by this time next year it may be time to consider turning the White House over to someone who knows how to get big things done. Bloomberg has a real track record of just this sort of accomplishment both in business, where he built Bloomberg L.P. from scratch (and accumulated $18 billion in personal wealth in the process), and in government service where as mayor he has handled skillfully what some claim is the "second toughest job in America."

But there is at times also something insensitive and even arrogant about him when he appears oblivious to some of the realities of average people's lives. He can be quite patrician. It is as if he says, "I know best what's good for you."

Case in point--Bloomberg's recent call to have the federal food stamps program amended to forbid recipients from using them to purchase sodas or any other beverage artificially sweetened with sugar. (See linked New York Times story for the details.)

He claims, not unjustifiably, that sugar-sweetened drinks are unhealthy. We have an obesity problem in New York and in the rest of America that leads to a variety of medical epidemics, with diabetes and heart disease acknowledged to be correlated to the over-consumption of beverages of this sort.

Bloomberg has already run successful crusades against cigarette smoking (now banned in New York even at some outdoor public places) and trans fats (illegal in Big Apple restaurants). He claims that as a result life expectancy for New Yorkers has increased by more than one year.

What low-income people do with food stamps has been a hot topic since the program's inception in the 1960s. Those who resent what they consider to be government handouts to the poor have railed about what they claim to see people buying with food stamps in supermarkets.

Remember all the rage directed toward "Welfare Mothers" who allegedly languished on public assistance, driving fancy cars to the welfare office and buying up expensive groceries rather than nutritious foods for their, of course, illegitimate children?

Bloomberg isn't revisiting that sorry history of resentment, but rather, as with tobacco and trans fats, he is making an argument based on what he and others consider to be responsible nutrition. To support his appeal to the Department of Agriculture, he cites evidence that poor people spend 40 percent of their food budget on items not recommended by government nutritionists.

Just the other day, I was talking with someone up here in midcoast Maine who is usually quite a generous soul. He told me about the daughter of a friend who works in a bank and reported that people with food stamps regulalry come to her bank to get cash for their food stamps.

I said, "That doesn't seem possible."

He said, "The stamps now come in something resembling a debit card and people can get cash from them."

I said that I don't believe this and would see what I could learn. I reported back to him the next day that his friend's daughter must have been mistaken (I was trying to put the best face on it); I had learned that people can't legally get cash for their food stamps.

"Well," he said a little heated up, "Have you seen how fat all those people are who get food stamps? They must be eating up a storm on taxpayers' money."

As gently as I could, I said, "Think of how terrible it would be to have to be on any form of public assistance. You go into the market and people see you paying with food stamps. That can't make you feel very good about yourself."

He said, "That's not a bad point. But still, people shouldn't be allowed to spend government money, really our money, on things that make them fat."

"If they are overweight, and I'll grant you that a lot of low-income people are, it's not because they're eating a rich diet of steaks and chops at our expense, but rather it's because eating is one of the few pleasures they have and unfortunately what's most satisfying and affordable to a lot of people--including plenty or rich ones--is neither nutritious nor slimming. It's sweet stuff and high fat foods that most of us most like to eat and fill us up. To many, affluent and struggling people, eating vegetables is like taking medicine. Chips, hamburgers, and French fries are much more enjoyable."

"I'll grant you that, but still I don't like what I hear and what I see. If they are helped to buy food with our money they should be required to eat good foods."

"You tell me you're a libertarian but you want to have the government tell people what to eat? I'm confused."

"You got me there."

"So what's going on with you about this?"

"I worked hard all my life and never had anyone, or the government for that matter, bail me out. I admit it, people living on the dole get under my skin."

"Even those who through no fault of their own need a little help once in a while?"

"If that's what we're talking about I'm all right with extending a hand. But then your mayor, that Bloomberg fellow, he wants to tell people what to eat and what not to eat. What do you think about that?"

"I understand what he's trying to accomplish--to encourage people to eat better--but he can be heavy handed, and that I don't like. I'd prefer to see no one drinking sugar-sweetened foods, but I don't like the idea that when people have very little in their lives we start taking those simple pleasures away from them. I understand the health implications, but I'm not comfortable legislating behavior."

"So you're a libertarian too?" my friend said with a smile.

"About this, yes."

"Doug makes good donuts here. Homemade. Especially the sugar coated ones. Can I treat you to one?"

It indeed was delicious.