Jim Hightower

It's so good to know that Congress and the White House have finally cut Welfare Moms off the federal dole. Two years and you're out! Hey . . . get a job you Moochers!

Where? Uh, well, you know, somewhere. Don't bother us with details.

The important thing is that now fewer of our tax dollars will be going to welfare, and more can go to Essential National Needs . . . like helping ABC Newsstar Sam Donaldson kill coyotes on his New Mexico ranch.

Say what?

You heard it right. Sam Donaldson wants us taxpayers to pay to get rid of predators on his sheep ranch near Ruidosa. This is a guy who has a bazillion-dollar-a-year contract with ABC/Disney to be on TV and who commands $25,000-a-pop for making speeches to corporations . . . yet we are to pay to send hunters and trappers out to protect his sheep?

As longtime resident Pat Wolff put it: "It's outrageous to expect taxpayers to pay government agents to kill wildlife on public land leased by a millionaire TV star playing rancher." [Bell] bingo!

But predator control is only part of the welfare this millionaire TV-sparklie draws. He leases some 2,300 acres of state land on which he grazes his sheep, for only a buck an acre -- the fee for grazing on private land would cost him up to twelve times that. In addition, Donaldson has drawn federal subsidies for the mohair wool his sheep produce. Do you think he uses some of that mohair for his toupee?

The TV star is uncontrite, saying that [quote] "The government helps ranchers and farmers and businessess of all kinds. If it is in existence and I am eligible to use it, I'll use it."

What a guy, huh? A real role model.

This is Jim Hightower saying . . . And you wonder why the mainstream media pays so little attention to the scandal of welfare for the rich? It's because they are the rich . . . and everyone involved including Sam Donaldson, is on the take.