Kenders' Musings

John McCain’s Cap and Trade plans for regulating carbon dioxide emissions have many people up in arms over the hit to the economy, the costs vs. benefits analysis and more government intrusion into industry.

What nobody has brought up yet is the technology is already available to use John McCain’s cap and spend plan to end the welfare state as we know it.

Follow me here, and you too will see that we can end welfare and destroy the economy without making a dent in the weather patterns. John McCain’s cap and spend plan is a way to limit the creation of carbon dioxide, and industries will be given an allotment (in ever decreasing amounts) of this vile and planet destroying gas that they can emit every year. By the way, “Cap and Spend” is a much more honest name for this plan. Either that or “Cap Our Trade.” Anyway, those that fall under their allotment will be allowed to sell their unused emissions allotment to other companies that go over their cap, thereby reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which will in turn make hurricanes less powerful, poor people richer and magically cure all sorts of ills and wrongs around the planet, or at least that’s how I understand it works.

Anyway, what John McCain can do is have the government attach respirators to people that monitors how many breaths they take in a day. People that are more active will need more allotments, and we should probably have a special exemption for athletes, after all we can’t have guys in the NFL that make 20 million a year paying extra to bring us all of that footbally goodness, right?

OK, so we now have breathing monitors hooked up to people and at this point you’re saying “Kender, how in the hell is that going to end the welfare state?” and that would be a good question to ask right about now.

Luckily I have an answer for you.

The average person takes about 28 THOUSAND breaths in a day (source1) and while resting people have a respiration rate of about 16-18 a minute (Source2) so here’s what we do.

We let welfare recipients lay around and not work (like they pretty much do now) and stay calm and rested and they can sell their unused respiration to industries that go over their allotment. After a couple of years of lying around they should be making enough to get off of welfare completely. Of course we could even go further and simply knock them out so they make even more money and get off of welfare sooner. I envision a government funded department whose sole responsibility is to go to houses everyday and knock out welfare recipients to help them get ahead in life.

This plan has so many upsides that I am actually getting giddy. We get to eventually end welfare and make tax paying citizens of those people while they are getting paid for doing what they do best, lying around and sleeping. Of course the downside is they won’t be getting any exercise and eventually they’ll need to buy some kind of machine that will move their muscles around while they are sleeping and making the big carbon credit bucks, then again it’s not like I have seen any welfare folks out exercising anyway, unless you count running their mouth or bending their elbow as a workout, which I don’t.

If running your mouth was a workout I’d be an Olympian. Anyway, that’s how John McCain could end welfare and save the environment. Or we could always go back to teaching personal responsibility and letting people succeed or fail on their own merits and abilities, but if we do that, what will government do for work?