Of all the things that have gnarled at my soul since I was a kid watching people with Cadillacs back up to a tractor trailer truck and load it down with commodities, welfare is just that. Oh, I know there are people in this country who need government handouts and I would be the first to pitch in and have been since the first time I went to work and started paying taxes. I also know that to many it has become an entitlement and an expectant check for three or four generations. People who are just too lazy to work and a government who saw those people as a voting bloc have used the programs for their own needs and expectations.

Instead of creating a program that would help people to get back on their feet and wean them off gradually, to help with child care and other essentials while the people built their lives back to normal, the government opted for a program of either on welfare or off. For the poor who could did start back into the workplace, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that it was far better to stay on the dole than it was to go to work making little more than minimum wage. Well, enough of that. It is not my intent in this article to attack the government program or the recipients of welfare.

I would like to take a moment to talk about the ultimate welfare program in this country. No, I do not speak of going down to the local county office in a 73" Nissan pickup with three or four borrowed kids in the back asking for food stamps. Neither do I speak of being in a business of agriculture or oil where the government lavishes billions out every year either to find new oil, which they don’t, build new refineries, which they don’t, or for not growing crops, which they don’t anyway.

This is a so special a program that you have to be elected to receive it. The higher the office, of course, the larger the take and the benefits are unequaled in all the world. I am speaking of those darling men and women we elect to the United States Congress and the White House. Not just anyone can be elected to these high offices. They must be able to talk their way into being elected. They must say just the right words that not only will not fill you with any expectations, but they must be able to convince you that no one on the face of the earth will watch out for your interests more than they.

These seemingly fine upstanding people will go to Washington and will hedge and dodge and stay below the radar long enough to get themselves entrenched in the system and before you know it they have convinced you that they have been there long enough and have enough pull to get your interests to the floor for a vote or two. All the while they have gotten themselves into a welfare system that not only will take care of them when they leave office, but also their families, just in case they should pass away. Their paid very handsomely, have the best medical insurance and if they are asked to speak to a group or college they are rewarded with a little gift of fifty to a hundred fifty thousand dollars. But wait, that is not all. If they become the chairman of a committee or leader in their body of fellow welfare recipients, they receive a company car. A limo complete with driver. The best part is that once you are elected you go on receiving all the above benefits until you die and the death of your spouse or significant other. Oh, and did you know that these wonderful elected people get to set the terms of their welfare program themselves.

But wait, did I say I was finished. The absolute ultimate welfare program of course. That would be for the presidency. That program you only have to have for four years. After that you just go on receiving a grand salary and office expenses for people to help you with your memoirs or what ever, plus you keep those secret service guys to help keep all the little people of the world from interfering your space. Even if you die your widow or significant other will go right on receiving a nice comfortable check from the government every month. Then you get to build your own library to keep all those important papers that passed over your desk (except of course those you don’t want anyone to see until long after you are dead or kept locked away under lock and key for no one to see in the library of congress).

Just to think, once you are on these programs you never have to re-qualify, never have to go down to the county office or ever have to show that you really need your check or benefits. You can continue going out giving speeches on the many things you know so little about and be given rave reviews and a very nice envelope at the end of the evening by people who, if they knew what you were really like, would not be seen in public with you much less shake your hand.