Government Bad At Unemployment, Puns

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A publicly sponsored jobless center in Florida spent $14,000 in taxpayer money to provide 6,000 superhero capes to unemployed citizens. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. This story has all the traditional signs of government mismanagement: wasted money, unquantifiable benefits, and horrible puns:

Workforce Central Florida spent more than $14,000 on the red capes as part of its “Cape-A-Bility Challenge” public relations campaign. The campaign featured a cartoon character, “Dr. Evil Unemployment,” who needs to be vanquished. (Yahoo News)

More distressing than the idea of your government creating cartoon characters and puns for a public relations campaign to battle unemployment is the fact that they had to rip off an Austin Powers supervillain to do so.

Workforce Central Florida Director Gary J. Earl claimed that the program was part of an attempt to “connect with the community.” Unless the “community” to which Mr. Earl is referring is composed of unemployed 9 year-old Floridian boys who don’t pay taxes, I’m willing to bet buying capes for central Floridians was not the best use of taxpayer money.