Gittin’ Sumpin’ Fuh Nuttin’

Thaddeus, a hog farmer: Government money, unemployment benefits, entitlements, including food stamps for his 'non-farming'

Gittin’ Sumpin’ Fuh Nuttin’

Saturday was a perfect Indian summer day, so I decided to loaf. I plopped down in a chaise lounge and began thumbing through a book of quotations.

I came across one that a scholar of that dismal science, economics, made: “Outside of nature’s free gifts, everything we get must be paid for, but many so-called economists are full of schemes for getting something for nothing. They tell us that the government can spend and spend … that it can continue to pile up debt without ever paying it off, because ‘we owe it to ourselves.’ In the past, such pleasant dramas have always been shattered by national insolvency or runaway inflation.”

I put the book away, determined not to spoil my loafing time with disturbing thoughts about the economy. Soon, I dozed off into a deep comfortable sleep, feeling like an old loggerhead turtle astraddle a limb, soaking up salubrious sunrays.

While snoozing, I dreamed my boyhood best friend, Jaybird, was lounging next to me, and we struck up a conversation in which I asked his opinion about government spending. As always, the old black man imparted his wisdom by telling a story. It was about his friend Thaddeus, a hog farmer.

The pork market wasn’t favorable, not to mention that slop had soared to $9 a gallon, and Thaddeus was feeling poverty’s pinch.

Then he heard that the government would pay him more money not to raise hogs than he could make raising them. “Lawdy mercy, if I kin make mo’ money by not workin’ — gittin’ sumpin’ fuh nuttin’ — why, dat’s ’zackly what I’ll do,” he said to hisself.

Thaddeus did the arithmetic, and it worked out that Uncle Sam would pay him $100 for every hog he didn’t raise, and since his hog herd numbered about 500, he would get a check for $50,000.

Then he heard that not only would the government cut him a check for not raising hogs, but also would reward him for not raising corn to feed the hogs he wouldn’t raise.

Again, the swineherd did the arithmetic. “If hogs I don’t raise don’t eat twenty-five bushels of corn each, and if I git another big government check for all dat corn dat I don’t grow … why, all dem checks added together will make gittin’ sumpin’ fuh nuttin’ a mighty comfortable, worry-free lifestyle.”

Even better, he could now file for and receive unemployment benefits and other entitlements, including food stamps.

Thaddeus had always despised folks who didn’t work for a living, but now he was down to surviving any way possible, so he got a government bureaucrat to help him fill out the necessary forms, and soon the checks started rolling in.

Thaddeus was so happy that he decided to write his congressman to thank him for helping create such wonderful government programs.

But, he never mailed the letter. After all, outside of lying, cheating, and stealing, he realized that congressmen don’t do anything anyway. They’ve always enjoyed gittin’ sumpin’ fuh nuttin’.


By Jimmy Reed