Saving welfare

I'd like to make a suggestion. It may sound a bit bizarre at first, but please, hear me out.

I think we need to increase, dramatically perhaps, the amount of money we give out each month to welfare cheats.

You know, those beneficiaries of the free money system in the U.S. who fabricate children living with them or who operate as three or four people with six or eight addresses and collect benefit checks for each name at each address.

Why would I even think of proposing such a radical idea, ever, but especially at this point in time, when our debt is soaring and our reserves are drying up? Well, it’s tough to admit it about such heinous individuals, but we may lose them.

If we don’t start doling out big money, and I mean fast, our best welfare cheats may leave the American system and go register for benefits with Canada, or the U.K., or Sweden, or some other generous federal government.

These are talented people, cleverly devising ways to cheat the system that pays them for doing nothing and relies on their talent to keep the system working. And think of all the employees of the federal welfare system who would be out of work if not for these talented individuals and their ability to create jobs where none would otherwise exist.

Perhaps we could give them each a bonus. Every welfare recipient receives his/her salary, but the ones who work extra long and extra hard at creating and maintaining additional identities should get a little something extra at the end of the year for their creativity and initiative.

We need to hurry, though, or before we know it, all the good people in the system will be gone, off to other, more foresighted countries, and our talent pool will dry up for generations. And then how will we feel about all the jobs we’ve lost, and all this extra tax revenue we’ll be stuck with?