The New Welfare Queens are Hungry Beasts.

Using 80 aliases, 30 addresses, 12 social security cards, and 4 "dead husbands", President Reagan's mythical, Cadillac-driving, African-American "Welfare Queen" ripped off taxpayers to pay for her ten "out-of-wedlock" children. Upon hearing this tale, Americans became outraged and demanded President Reagan eliminate this anathema and her giant Cadillac too.

As it turns out, there was no evidence that a significant problem with welfare cheating even existed, as less than 5% of all welfare benefits went to persons who were not entitled to them (Green book overview of entitlement programs by the Committee on Ways and Means, U.S. House of Representatives (1994), not to mention all the people who were entitled but either because of ignorance or inability, never collected what was owed to them.

You see, President Reagan wasn't really lying, he was trying to tell us that he was about to give birth to this blood sucking beast, a.k.a. the "Welfare Queen", a.k.a. the banks and financial corporations, who would one day, reap the benefits of the biggest corporate welfare scam ever.

In other words, the banks want more bailout money, and it looks like Obama, in an attempt to win needed Republican support, is not only going to grant their wish, but has agreed to extend the number of years that firms can retroactively write off huge losses incurred in 2008 and 2009.

This business tax cut, in effect, is another gift to the financial institutions, as the banks and perhaps the housing industry, are the only companies with losses large enough to benefit. Essentially, it allows companies to receive cash, free of conditions, from the government, that they would not have received otherwise.

It's easy to go to war against folklore... a little harder when the folklore becomes reality. We can either fight the beast or end up fighting amongst ourselves as the beast hungrily awaits our remains.