Recently, while I was working in the flower beds in the front lawn, my neighbors stopped to chat as they returned home from walking their dog. During our friendly conversation, I asked their little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said she wanted to be the President some day. Both of her parents, liberal Democrats, were standing there, so I asked her, “If you were President, what would be the first thing you would do?”[Shamelessly cribbed from William Gairdner]
She replied, “I’d give food and houses to all the homeless people.”
Her parents beamed with pride!
“Wow, what a worthy goal!” I said. “But you don’t have to wait until you’re the President to do that!”
“What do you mean?” She asked.
So I told her, “You can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds, and trim my hedge, and I’ll pay you $50. Then you can go over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out and give him the $50 to use toward food and a new house.”
She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, “Why doesn’t the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?”
I said, “Welcome to the Republican party.”
Her parents have stopped talking to me.
"One should doubtless keep an open mind...though open at both ends, like the food pipe, and have a capacity for excretion as well as intake." -- Northrop Frye, 'The Great Code'
Monday, November 26, 2012
The $50 dollar lesson
(A story from an American citizen that is worth more than a hundred studies on how to end unemployment and welfare)
Welcome to the Republican Party! - Where apocryphal anecdotes are worth more than any amount of empirical evidence!
ReplyDeleteAnd what empirical evidence do you cite which states as fact that working for ones own wages does not improve the life of the individual who earned it but rather a handout which is taken from those who produce and given to those that didn't is the path to prosperity? Please cite your sources. I want to know what country has found this incredible formula for success.
DeleteBrad Maynard
Lenny!
ReplyDeleteI'm! so! glad! you've! learned! how! to! find! the! exclamation! point! on! your! keyboard!