Bush Urges Seniors to Get Back to Work
Author: $7 Trillion National Debt Cited
WASHINGTON (GWB) --
President Bush signed a job-training bill into law Friday to ease the elderly
back to work and "end senior loafing as we know it." Bush told a cheering group
of nursing home residents that, "There is no free lunch. Cooking and cleaning
keeps us fiscally fit and gives seniors moral fiber." Amidst much laughter he
added that, "We all know you folks can't get too much fiber."
The newest jobs are ideally suited to the elderly, whose decreased capacities
are a perfect match for the tediously monotonous routines favored by employers.
GOP plans call for training elderly fry cooks, janitors, Wal-Mart greeters, and
nuclear waste disposal experts. The latter is deemed appropriate for those of
advanced age, since long gestation periods for cancer don't matter to seniors
who will die soon anyway.
With a national debt approaching $7 trillion, Treasury Secretary John Snow
added, "Pay as you go is the only way the unproductive elderly can shoulder
their portion of the national debt." He added, "If they don't pay it off
before they die they'll be deadbeats in more ways than one."
Given the $5.60 an hour minimum wage, most seniors face the unhappy prospect of
leaving the debt to their grandkids. But President Bush kindly reassures them
that if they work 100 hours a week between ages 65 and 90 they can die with the
relief that only their children will be debt-enslaved.
Ruth Perkins, a resident of Lazy Meadows Living Center in Tampa, shared her
nervousness about rejoining the workforce while crippled with arthritis. "It's
been years since I've peeled a potato, but I feel too guilty about my portion of
the debt to sit still." She has applied for a position bagging "Freedom Fries"
at the local Burger King, which she cheerfully says, "will give a whole new
meaning to the Golden Years." That's the spirit, Ruth!
Frank Monroe, a retired engineer in Houston, reflected on his generation's
excesses while nursing a battered thumb: "I always wanted to use one of the
Pentagon's $600 hammers but now I'm too blind to see a nail." Monroe plans on a
career in telemarketing so that he can "rest in peace knowing the unborn will
not have to suffer under my debt burden." He conceded ruefully that the
American Dream has taken a new turn: "It was fun while it lasted but seniors
owe a lot of cash to future generations and I am determined to sell magazine
subscriptions as long as there is breath in my body."
Brimming with optimism about his future, he indicated that Survivalist magazines
like "The Creative Predator" and manuals detailing aboriginal skills were
"selling at a brisk pace."
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