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I'm Thankful for Layaway
11/23/2011
More Articles by Charles Payne Recently, I thought of the facial expressions that liberals often displayed in Harlem and other places back in the days when I was a child growing in the area. When the government unveiled educational or food programs in my neighborhood, the facial expressions of these liberals were always a mixture of pity and accomplishment. The pity was for that young skinny kid with no heat or hot water, and the accomplishment was for handing out a block of government cheese or pointing out how badly America treated certain citizens.  The Fuel of Self-Belief Learning What Not To Do FromThe Europeans Respect Yourself Of course they lived off the gratefulness of those in line and even looked the other way when some families abused the program by showing up with shopping carts or getting in line over and over. I was reminded of these memories when I read about Rep Charles Schumer's valiant fight to make sure poor people aren't ripped off by layaway plans. With Christmas just a few weeks away, the New York Senator says the $5.00 charge to layaway "Rock n Roll Elmo" with a 10% monthly payment is the same as a credit card that charges more than 100%, so it should be disallowed. I'm sure Schumer and his like-minded friends would rather these families not get anything or wait in line for yet another government program to provide them presents. It's intellectually dishonest and disingenuous. I grew up with layaway, and my mother beamed with pride when she was able to make the payments in time for the big day. I beamed with pride that she was a hard worker and achiever and someone to emulate. I learned the ethos of work, determination and accomplishment. That's not victimization, it is empowerment, and maybe that's what's really eating at Chuck. Lessons in life are expensive but often return value in ways not easily measured. Now layaway is the same as college tuition—too expensive? Do we eschew both or blame Wall Street and get someone else to pay? This is the same Charles Schumer that showed leadership a couple of weeks ago by saying the Super Committee would fail because Republicans didn't want to levy the nation with a trillion dollars in tax hikes. It seems contradictory to me that we would make life more expensive for some, taking money out of the system that otherwise could create jobs, while protecting consumers from the self-reliance of layaway because they might pay too much. The cauldron of pity, anger, and animosity seems to be the hallmark of Schumer and the stew he stirs best. Whenever the free market provides that help to lower income Americans, solutions such as Wal-Mart's low prices, the left begins the demonization. When there are opportunities to talk about greatness, like that time the women's lib representative brought a book about US presidents, it's skipped to find a flashpoint that could spark hatred, empathy, and frustration. In the case of this history lesson, the only thing I took away after she flipped through the pictures in the book was her main point—none were black. We didn't talk about personal obstacles faced on the road to the White House or their own achievements. This negative stuff works. People begin to almost worship government while despising businesses and the idea there should be profits. This kind of rhetoric will heat up even more during the course of the year. The narrative will be that we should resent businesses that make too much profit but also condone the confiscation of hard earned money in the name of social justice. Although you could make a mean grilled-cheese sandwich from that government cheese, the ones I make from cheese I bought with my own money taste better. I'm not sure what the profit margin is on store-bought cheese, but it's a drop in the bucket from what people pay when they give up on capitalism and look to government for handouts or dishonest protection. The day before Thanksgiving I'm grateful for layaway; it made a lot of Christmas gifts possible, and this taught me invaluable life lessons.
Charles Payne |
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