the destitute will engage in an ambitious indentured service program, spending up to fourteen hours a day sharecropping marginal land, picking cotton and serving mint juleps to pampered southern belles. At night, participants will attend classes preparing them for rewarding careers in the fields of migrant labor, shoe-shining and butlery.
The new workfare program is expected to be a boon to the struggling textile industry, which saw its market share erode under pressure from cheap Chinese imports. "Much of the Chinese clothing is made by political prisoners in state-run forced labor camps," Gingrich noted. "The only way America can compete is to return to the old-time values which made this country great--values like human bondage."
Gingrich also allayed fears of a return to the racist Jim Crow policies of the past, declaring that he is committed to freedom and equality for every man, woman and child who can afford it. According to Gingrich, all Republicans desire is to help people who refuse to help themselves. "How do you help a welfare queen who decides to engage in brazen sexual intercourse without the protection of a marriage certificate?" Gingrich asked. "I believe the only way is to stop letting them make decisions altogether. Which is why we've taken away their vote."
Buoyed by passage of their revolutionary reform legislation, Republicans are promising to apply lessons learned from the workfare program to other areas of federal subsidy. An amendment cutting off funding for Medicaid is said to be in the works, and a bill teaming disabled veterans with orphaned children to remove asbestos from public buildings is already before a committee. According to GOP insiders, the new legislation enjoys broad, bi-partisan support, and is certain to pass, although this cannot be confirmed as Democrats are no longer permitted to speak to the press and were unavailable for comment.
"The American people have spoken, and they are tired of Congress giving taxpayer money away to otherwise able-bodied Americans," Gingrich maintained at a speech before an convention of the American Association of Retired People. "I'm going to see that it stops." Gingrich went on to state that Social Security is an entitlement, not a subsidy, and would be exempt from any budget cuts.
