Bailout bonanza part II

On Thursday I explained to you how the bailout is an excellent tool that the government can use to help downtrodden victims of tragic events such as investment bank CEOs.  So it looks like the $700 billion Wall Street bailout is going to happen now that both the House and Senate have passed it.  It will only be a matter of time before we're bailing out airlines, oil companies, healthcare providers, and gamblers in Las Vegas.  But why stop there?  There are so many more problems in this country that can easily be solved with a few hundred billion dollars!  Here are a few other bailout ideas that the government absolutely MUST consider to make things right for victims of other major crises:

The prisoners' bailout

Criminals are a demographic group that has been mistreated by the U.S. government throughout our nation's history.  Instead of allowing them the freedoms afforded to the rest of American citizens, we keep them locked up in cells all day, being forced to make license plates and play on terrible football teams with Adam Sandler as their quarterback and Burt Reynolds as their coach.  How can we make it up to them?  Bail them out - literally!  The government should post bail money for every criminal, from Winona Ryder to Charles Manson.  Then, to give them a good start in their new life of freedom, give each of them $10,000.  If after a few years many of them end up in jail once again, another bailout may be needed.

The Jared Fogle bailout

Obesity has become an increasingly serious problem in America.  How do you conquer obesity?  Well, exercise is obviously out of the question, because 1) nobody can afford gym memberships with the economy as bad as it is, 2) global warming has made outdoor exercise unbearable, and 3) there are so many good TV shows on these days, leaving no time for exercise.  The one factor that is within our control is how we eat.  As our beloved Jared Fogle showed us, you can lose a lot of weight just by eating at Subway for every meal.  So why not bail out everyone in America with a BMI (body mass index) over 30 (the cutoff for obesity) by giving each of them $10 a day to use on Subway subs?  Let's just hope they don't use that money to wolf down footlong Chicken Bacon Ranch subs with cheese, which weigh in at 1280 calories and 70 grams of fat apiece.  But why would they - they want to lose weight, don't they?  There's no way obese people would ever choose to eat something so unhealthy!

The smugglers' bailout

Every year, drug smugglers lose many millions of dollars worth of product due to crackdowns by U.S. government officials.  These huge losses have put many a smuggler's business and livelihood in peril, and the drug smuggling community has become increasingly agitated by these government seizures.  How can we make it up to them?  Bail them out, of course!  Whenever smugglers are caught before delivering a shipment, compensate them for this inconvenience with a $1,000,000 check!  Remember to suggest to the smugglers that they should use the money to stimulate the U.S. economy, rather than to buy better smuggling boats or more drugs.  Can we trust them to actually do this?  Well, we trusted Wall Street, didn't we?

The bailout bailout

Despite the fact that the government supports it, a lot of (extremely unpatriotic) Americans are outraged about the bailout.  How can the politicians appease them?  Bail them out, of course!  Allow any American citizen who did not support the bailout to send an official statement of their position to Washington, and then send each of them a $5,000 check.  Of course there will be people out there who supported the original bailout and are angry about the bailout bailout, but then they can be bailed out in a bailout bailout bailout.  

The buffalo bailout

In the late 19th century, millions of buffalo were killed by hunters across the American plains.  Yet 100 years later, the government has done next to nothing to make amends for this atrocious act.  But what can the government do?  Money obviously has little use to a buffalo, but money does have considerable use to buffalo activists.  Therefore I propose the government should give $10 million to anyone who publicly supports buffalo, specifically buffalo conservationists and anyone who writes a blog having to do with buffalo.  Like the economic bailout, this is an urgent matter and must be done immediately as there is no time to think about it or consider the alternatives (there are none anyway).  So George, if you're listening, I would like my bailout money in a suitcase of unmarked $100 bills, and if you could deliver that by next Wednesday or so, that would be great.