Free cars!

[bobc455]

This is not your father's welfare state

And here I always thought 'Welfare Cadillac' was just a stupid novelty song from 1970.

Now it turns out Guy Drake's tune is another state entitlement here in Massachusetts, compliments of the Department of Transitional Assistance, formerly known as welfare.

In Gov. Deval Patrick's Massachusetts, if you're on the dole, you may be eligible to get a free car. So much for the budget Armageddon they keep talking about at the State House.

Let the taxpayers worry about those billion-dollar deficits. If you're on welfare, come on down!

Nice enough that the layabouts get a free car - plus the state picks up the tab for insurance, excise tax, title, registration, inspection, and approved repairs. The absolute frosting on the cake is a free AAA membership.

Please, try not to let this newest handout destroy your faith in the truth of the budget crisis. You're just angry because you can't afford AAA. But your average welfare leech needs guaranteed road service a lot more than you do.

Don't you hate it when you're fleeing a department store after utilizing the five-finger discount, and the store security and the mall cops are in hot pursuit, and you jump in your Coupe DeVille and it won't start. Damn!

Of course the gimme girls and gals need Triple-A for their welfare Cadillacs. (And yes, I understand they're not really Cadillacs. Only the governor gets a Caddy on the arm.) You can't expect a body to walk to the packy for their nightly supply of forties, can you?

Supposedly, these free welfare cars will enable the non-taxpayer to get a job. If they lose the job, the state comes down hard on them -we the taxpayers will not reimburse the cost of insurance after the first six months. If the client quits work or is laid off during the first 12 months, all transportation benefits end, but the client will still keep the car.

But, but . . . what about the Triple-A? That's an entitlement, you know. Has anybody got a phone number for the ACLU?

A lot of snotty people at the Boston Globe are going to be unemployed very shortly. Finally, a ray of hope for the bow-tied bumkissers. Maybe they, too, will be eligible for a welfare Cadillac.

Cut to the final stanzas of Guy Drake's immortal tune. He?s singing about this new president and his whole new poverty plan.

'Why, he gonna send us poor folks money/They say we gonna get it out here in stacks./In fact my wife's already shopping around/For her new Cadillac.'

Guy Drake - not just a country-music hack anymore. He was a prophet.

-Howie Carr, Boston Herald