Future food stamp dispensary

Let me say this about that.

If we were to conduct an on-line poll to find the goofiest state in the union, Florida would win hands down.  Not even the residents of California can compete with the daffy, dippy, ditzy, dopey citizens of the Sunshine State when it comes to irrational behavior.  Is there any doubt why Walt Disney chose Florida and California as the first places to build his fantasy-oriented amusement parks?  “Reality”  is an ephemeral concept in both states, but Florida is in a league of it’s own.

To find the “Alpha-Dogs-of-the-Deranged” in Florida, one merely needs to find the nearest politician.  Florida politicians have passed laws that have saved it’s citizens from such diverse dangers as having sex with alligators, singing in a public place while attired in a bathing suit, and confining pregnant pigs in…    cages.  However, every now and then a law is passed in Florida that actually makes sense.  It doesn’t happen very often, but one such event happened this week.

Rick Scott was elected Governor of Florida this past election.  Scott is not a career politician, but a successful businessman.  In fact, other than his time in the U.S. Navy, the post of governor is his first public sector position.  As such, it is not surprising that a modicum of common sense has crept into his first term – including a bill he has supported to revamp the welfare system.  This week the Florida legislature approved a Scott-supported bill that requires a drug test for all Florida welfare recipients.

Test positive?  Lose welfare for a year.  Test positive again?  Lose welfare for another three years.  Welfare in the U.S. has been with us since the Roosevelt administration and we are just now getting around to preventing it from becoming a source of revenue for drug dealers.  Amazing.

You may or may not agree with Gov. Scott on everything, but you will be hard pressed to find an argument against his latest bit of legislation.  In fact, I have become so inspired by the ‘drug-test-prerequisite-for-welfare’ that I am sending this open blog to the Florida State House to offer a few additional suggestions that will further enhance it’s welfare system.

Let’s start with food stamps.  How many times have you stood in your local grocery check-out line and waited while some tattooed, cigarette-smoking asshole, talking on a cell phone and listening to an i-pod, shelled out a handful of food stamps to pay for groceries?  Got money for tattoos – got money for cigarettes – got money for a cell phone – got money for an i-pod – got NO money for food.

Suggestion:  Dispense food stamps at the Department of Motor Vehicles.  As most folks will have to stand in line three or four hours, this will allow plenty of time to see who has money for cigarettes.  Need a cigarette?  Go outside for a smoke and start all over at the back of the line.  Got a cell phone, i-pod, or a game boy?  Check them at the door and receive a copy of the IRS code to read while standing in line.  Got a tattoo?  Upon reaching the head of the line, get re-directed to another special  line administered by a DMV employee with narcolepsy, just for people with money for tattoos but not food.

Body piercings cost a lot of money, upwards of $100 each – money that could have been spent on food, pay the rent or the power bill.  I propose changing the current system so that welfare checks are no longer delivered to one’s own mailbox.  In the future, welfare checks should be dispensed at the unemployment office.  Upon entering the unemployment office, a civil servant would attach a one-pound weight to each body piercing and the welfare recepient given a fourteen-page employment questionnaire to complete.  Only then would  the person be granted the privilege of standing in line to receive his welfare check.  

And while we’re at it, pass a law forbidding chairs, water fountains, and air conditioning  in government offices dispensing any form of give-away.  Want comfort?  Get a job.

In addition, I would appoint roving monitors to all government office waiting areas to listen for the words:  ‘Yo- Dude - Bro – Whatever – Like –  Whazzup – Dog – Fazizzle – Home Boy – No Way – Get Real - L.O.L – B.F.F. and Cool’.  Utter any of these words and it’s the back to the rear of the line for you – Home Boy.

Welfare certainly has it’s place, but not as a means of funding electronic toys or ‘gangsta’ crap, nor as a way to generate cash to buy your drug dealers new Escalade.  But who would have guessed that the first shot fired in the new war, that may prevent America from degrading into a “France-like” state of entitlement, would be Florida – a state that can’t tell the difference between a ‘hanging chad’ and a ‘dimpled chad’?  I mean – like Dude, get real.

And, that’s all I have to say about that.

Shambo