I am what most people would consider unsuccessful. I left high school and got a GED. I spent the 14 or so years since then flitting between crappy dead end jobs, my parent's house, and various majors in college (I'll finally get a degree with the fourth major, probably). I've always dreamed of being a writer but only sold work twice. I have many max-level characters in multiple massive multiplayer online games (World of Warcraft being the most recent).
I'm not bitching. I just wanted to establish that when it comes to failure and bailouts, I know a lot.
Which brings me to the title of this piece: the Welfare Kings.
Now, maybe you've heard about Welfare Queens before. If not Wikipedia has some history for you. These evil monsters had the audacity to dupe the American taxpayers out of many hundreds of dollars, some say even thousands of dollars, for evil things like groceries and rent and, gasp, perhaps the occasional expenditure on something entertainment related. Since we, as a nation, were much too strapped for precious resources (and bodily fluids!) to support the poorest among us, we "reformed" welfare and now there isn't anymore poverty in America!
Except somehow, we still have Welfare. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, a proud product of the Contract with America brought to you by your friends in the Republican Revolution, somehow didn't manage to wipe the practice out after all.
Now, I know what you're thinking, this neoWelfare is different from the old Welfare. The country can survive losing some of those people with too much skin pigment and not enough 0's in their bank account, but these pigment-challenged folks from the correct zipcodes need moneys or they've promised to detonate their suicide vests and take the whole economy out with them if we don't pay up (here, with color commentary here if you prefer). I guess 180 billion for AIG is a small price to pay to ensure that AIG and Citibank and the other vehicles for the Masters of the Universe continue to be the lean, efficient, unparalelled wealth extraction and concentration tools that they've been for decades.
The Welfare Kings are rich, and they damn well plan on staying rich, even if they have to end civilization and bring back fuedalism to do it.
So hey, Congress, since Washington did such a bangup job of dealing with Welfare Queens back in the 90's, ending that horrible practice that might have cost us, I dunno, say almost as much as a six pack of Air to Surface cruise missiles, I think its time for the encore performace. I'd like to see a new Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, with an extra helping of the Personal Responsibility and some excelent Work Opportunities for those involved in getting us into this mess. I hear there might be an open fry cook position at the local fast food resturaunt that needs filling. Just as long as you keep them away from the cash register.