A Few Alternatives to the Stimulus Plan

DORIS ELFANT, 80 year-old Limousine Liberal

When I was a young girl, it was considered a mark of distinction if a young lady was able to own a pony-- a small horse which she could call her very own. That just isn't the case any more. The years have left many changes here in Bryant Park. The utter worst thing is the decline in equestrian activities. I hope I'm not rude in saying this --- and believe me, I think negroes are thoroughly wonderful --- but I wonder how much of what used to be a young girl's pony budget is now swallowed up with landscaping, housekeeping, cooking, and laundry expenses. These were services that used to be performed by well-mannered negroes at significant discounts from today's prices. I'm not suggesting that our negro president unwind the civil rights movement or move Uncle Tom back to his cabin. That would be outrageous. But he has suggested community service. Why not set up finishing schools for domestic servants? That would probably allow young ladies of polite company to own ponies. I think that would be just darling. As we used to sing at Meadowbrook, "Pony days are happy days."


MEADOW GILLIN, 23 year-old pothead

Today, there is a new energy and a new freedom. All the astrologers are talking about it. These are the days that Natalie Merchant was singing about in that song "These Are the Days." Barack Obama-- you can see it in his eyes. They are like Bambi's eyes, only wiser and more powerful. They make me want to take my clothes off. I'm not ashamed to admit it --- I am spending a lot more time naked since the election.

The economy is not very stimulating. Hence, it is something you must stimulate. Sex, on the other hand, is incredibly stimulating. That is one reason that we do not need a sex stimulus package. Thought of another way, the economy is like business, and love is like sex. The economy is something you deal with, but hope is something you are. And something that Obama is. Peaceful, you know.

That's my stimulus plan: sitting on your futon, wrapped in an afghan, just watching the rain hit the windows. I think if everyone just took a deep breath, enjoyed life, and stopped buying so many things that they don't need, the economy would be fine. Banks are cool, but what about keeping your money in tangible things like food and drugs and clothes and stuff. Things are simpler that way. That's what I do.


LEROY DOBBS, 70 year-old Barber, 130th and Amsterdam
The future of science is tech. Everybody know that. My stimulus plan is simple--- go tech. And if you're gonna go tech, might as well go for the highest tech there is. And that would have to be robots. People need to start building robots. And people need to start learning how to build robots. The bigger, the better. We need to build robots so big that white people don't even know what to do with 'em. They tell me on TV that Chinese people got robots who can eat our babies. Chinese people are crazy. With all that money they got these days for stadiums, high salaries, and bank bailouts, don't tell me Barack Obama doesn't have money to send down here. Get his brothers some robot jobs.


HANK WILSON, 45 year-old ex-convict and cowboy, West Texas

Way I figure it, these Mammon-worshiping barbarian bankers --- they've got us by the balls. They got nothing to do with God. Nothing to do with America neither. Who do you think is behind the drug trade? Why do you think the government has been trying to kill black people for well-nigh fifty years? Because black people is spiritual. And because drugs is the worst devil's poison ever to touch the human heart. I tell no lies, brother. I ain't black, but sometimes I wishes I was. My great-grandfather was a big Klansman rancher dude. A real screwed up dude. Back in the 80s, I stole a lot of cars and did a little drug smuggling. That's when they sent me upstate for 10 years. That's when I found out about the banking industry conspiring to hurt poor folk. My economic stimulus plan is right here in the back of my pickup--- a Remington 870, three cases of Budweiser, and the Holy Bible. The Remington is for the Chinese army, if it ever dares set foot in this part of Texas. The Bible is for the spiritual forces of the Antichrist, wherever he's living these days. And the Budweiser is for the long lonely nights out here on the prairie, when that sweet wind is blowing through the screen window of your trailer and it's just you and the Lord Jesus, praying to keep the devil at bay.