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How To Wipe Out Government
Sponsored Welfare
by
Michael Casey
A lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon - try being a highway beautification volunteer, or in plain language, a garbage man.
The job is not complete unless you wear a special orange vest so drivers can pay homage to you for your humanitarian zeal for
clean highways. In our case, our vests gave one driver a good target to toss his entire case of empty Mountain Dew cans at.
This type of undertaking is not appropriate unless the weather cooperates. People that make t-shirts come up with catchy
phrases like, "I survived the hottest day of the millennium." Or, a day that 30 years later people will talk about in awed, hushed
tones.
"Myrtle. Today's hot but 'member back in '96 when the cat exploded. Too damn hot that day."
"Yep, Stan. Ole Fred was only three feet from his water bucket when he just keeled over."
"Dropped dead. Deader than a doornail."
As I trudged along a rural highway with other volunteers, many of whom were in their
50's and had no business walking four miles on any day let alone these brutal conditions, I picked up all kinds of
history - scraps of paper, pieces of a blown tire,
aluminium cans (enough to start my own recycling business), a virtual beer, and even a diaper (used of course).
Only people in the Midwest can relate to the heat that was being generated on that day. In fact, it has been mentioned that
when plots on Mercury go on sale, the side facing the sun, the first people in line will be Hoosiers, Illini, Buckeyes, and
Hawkeyes... places where the humidity levels outnumber the average citizen's I.Q.
The prevailing logic being, "It might be a tad toasty on Mercury, but the humidity won't be as bad."
I could barely breathe, and through eyes burning from sweat (not perspiration, no person that used the word perspiration would ever find themselves doing this as a volunteer), I could make out the four-mile marker that would end my misery.
Suddenly, like Paul in the New Testament, a transformation of intelligence came over me and it burned itself into my collective
consciousness. If anyone was forced to do this job, welfare would not be necessary for ABA (Able-Bodied Americans). TAKE NOTE-
Only ABA's would be eligible for this plan. I know of many people who get laid off and take their government
checks, waiting
until the last day before making an attempt to get off the government's tit. Why not? Who wouldn't want to sit home and just
let money roll in for doing absolutely nothing?
As I finished my volunteer project, I now know for a fact that no ABA on any government sponsored handout would do
what I had just done. In two months, the only people left on welfare would be those who are physically unable to work.
How would this plan work?
Simple. Clean-up crews of ABA's who are getting a government check would be driven 10 miles out of town, given three trash bags, and then told to fill the three bags as they walked back to town. Each day a different road could be chosen. At the end of four days (W, Th, Fr., Sat.) of handing in three full trash bags - oh, only have two bags, walk around the local park, the ABA would get (have earned) his government check. On Mondays and Tuesdays, these ABAs would have the days off to look for a job and/or try to find a doctor who would sign a paper saying they are unable to walk 10 miles a day. (It goes without saying that some people will try to dodge the system.)
In one year of this system, all ABAs will have found work. Why? No one would go through the clean-up torture for long
until that minimum wage job flippin' burgers would look very attractive. These people might decide a good idea would be to
get more education, earn good grades (a trickle-down theory would take over all public schools), and learn a job skill so they
could not only get a job but keep it -- being laid off and going back on the road collecting garbage would not be a good
alternative). In the end, people would be better workers with more incentive, and since employers like harder workers, they
might just earn a wage increase now and then.
For those of you who agree with this plan, don't think Utopia has suddenly shined its lights on the welfare crisis in America. This plan will never fly in the land of the free (irresponsible) and home of the brave (gutless). Some civil liberties organization would slap an injunction on this plan in seconds, a commission of bureaucrats will study the proposal for a decade, and the court system will award millions to those on welfare who while just thinking of this plan have had to suffer injurious mental anguish.
Everyone will continue to talk about how the young people of today have no role models, are too lazy, have no goals, etc....
Why not? They have been shown for the past 30 years that they can do nothing and get paid for it.
However, right here, right now, the working solution has been mapped out for putting all ABAs back to work. If only Utopia had it so good.
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