In his hysterical 1981 film “History of the World: Part I,” Mel Brooks, playing the role of French King Louis XVI, turns to the camera several times after molesting a number of buxom filles d’honneur, declaring to the audience: “It’s good to be the king.”

If that movie was to be made today, instead of Versailles, Brooks would probably consider a 2015 White House venue, change the ladies-in-waiting to the American tax payer, and revise his classic declaration to: “It’s good to be the President.”

While Barack Obama and his Democratic sycophants have given us a disastrous exit strategy for Iraq and Afghanistan, and claim to have discovered a nonexistent “War on Women,” they continue to shovel billions of our tax dollars into the failed forty-five year old War on Poverty at an alarming rate.

When it comes to an actual war against our country’s real enemies, the only plan Obama has is one of surrender. But when it comes to our tax money “waste” and “fraud” are apparently considered plans.

I read recently that if I went to Google and typed in “How to qualify for…” a variety of government handouts would pop up so I tried it. And they did. The word “job” never appeared” nor did the words “school,” “university,” “work,” “military,” not even the oxymoron: “government job.”

Try typing in “How do I qualify for..” on Google or any other search engine and here’s what you’ll see immediately pop up: “disability, food stamps, Medicaid, earned income credit, welfare, government assistance,” among many more tax payer funded handouts.

Today the American tax payer supplies the poor, lazy and fraudulent with food stamps, disability checks, school meals, subsidized housing, medical care, and direct cash payments, a special supplemental Nutritional Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), and much more at a cost of billions and billions of dollars. The downtrodden in this country today are so well fed their leading health problem is obesity. They have “Obama phones,” color TVs, air conditioning in the summer and heat in the winter, luxuries — with the exception of heat — that I and many of my working friends and family members didn’t have until years after graduating from high school and college. It’s bad enough that American citizens are being ripped off, but billions of dollars of our money is also going to illegal aliens, to buy the votes of that future Democratic voting bloc.

An almost four-minute video by an organization appropriately called Government Gone Wild tells us that in this country today 41% of all births and 60% of elderly long term care is paid for with our tax dollars, and that one of every three households, accounting for 144,000,000 people, receive food stamps, subsidized housing, cash welfare and free health care.

The video also reveals that as far as investments go, being poor provides a greater return than silver, gold or stocks, since for every dollar paid in taxes by a poor person, he or she receives ten dollars in welfare. To make it worse the government funds a marketing program, with our money, encouraging even more people to be dependent on food stamps.

Early in his first term when Obama was tossing around the term “shovel ready” he was obviously referring to himself standing inside the U.S. Treasury shoveling our cash out the windows as fast as possible. In an August, 1980 campaign speech at the Neshoba County Fair in Mississippi, Ronald Reagan warned Americans of this monstrous government money pit and the perils of an Obama-like administration, saying he didn’t believe people were on welfare “simply because they prefer to be there.” He said it was the welfare bureaucrats who kept them “so economically trapped that there’s no way they can get away. And they’re trapped because the bureaucracy needs them as a clientele to preserve the jobs of the bureaucrats themselves.”

To illustrate this, the Government Gone Wild video points out that under Reagan, 19% of adults paid no income tax. Under Clinton, the percentage rose to 25% and, under George W. Bush, it jumped to 30%. Under Barack Obama, it has soared to 47%. In other words, 53% of us are paying for all of these government giveaways.

Disability payments are an example of this rampant fraud. A Heritage Foundation report says the biggest problem there are payments to people who are able to work but continue to receive benefits. Heritage says that several researchers have raised concerns that individuals increasingly have turned federal disability programs into early retirement and long-term unemployment programs, as the growth in the number of disability beneficiaries is far outpacing the growth in the number of working-age disabled.

The Disability Insurance Trust Fund alone is projected to remain solvent for only a little more than a year, until sometime in 2016, after which point benefits would be reduced by 19 percent according to Romina Boccia, who focuses on federal spending and the national debt, and is a  fellow in federal budgetary affairs in the Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation

Ms. Boccia warns that Congress should immediately reform the disability program before its trust fund is depleted by tightening eligibility criteria and helping more beneficiaries and applicants return to work, something I’m sure the “disabled” will fight tooth, nail and crutch to avoid. This would enable Congress to preserve benefits for those actually unable to work, and increase labor force participation by the marginally disabled. However, having to actually work might alienate some “disabled” Democrat voters so I’m sure this idea will go nowhere.

And for you folks out there with jobs and legitimate pensions and savings that actually pay taxes to fund these deadbeats, I’m sure you are impressed with Hillary Clinton’s campaign promise to tax the rich. Folks, the “rich” according to this shrew are the 53 percent of us who have jobs or have worked and pay taxes. She and her slimy ilk use our money to buy votes. And if you think Mrs. Clinton is bad take a look at the other leading Democrat running, the loopy Bernie Sanders, a man who honeymooned in the old Soviet Union, wrote a college thesis on why women long to be gang raped, and wants a 90 percent tax rate. What astounds me is not that people would actually vote for this crack pot, but that he managed to scrape together a campaign staff, a group of folks it would be frightening to be among in a room. The people of Vermont apparently voted this loon a U.S. Senator in the dead of winter when their brains were frozen solid.

But back to the subject at hand. I’ve personally met some of the takers. I had a tenant once and after they moved out I discovered they were on disability, food stamps and their kids on the school lunch program. This was a family that drove a luxury sports car, an SUV, and pointed out to me their expensive oil paintings and equally valuable furnishings; and paid more than $1,600 in monthly rent. Like the gals in the Mel Brooks film, the tax payer and the deserving are getting screwed by people like this, yet the Democratic electorate stands eagerly by with their hands out, demanding their representatives take more of our money and give it to them.   We are under siege on one side by a multitude of parasitical mayors, commissioners, state legislators and senators, U.S. congressmen and U.S. senators, and a president who are bleeding us dry and on the other by their sycophants, enablers, the takers, and a compliant media cheering them on.

When the takers reach 51 percent, which I fear is not in the too distant future, something will have to give and it will get ugly. “Eventually,” to paraphrase Margaret Thatcher, “They’ll run out of other people’s money.”

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Speaking Of Government Gone Wild: If you live in Jacksonville and want to back your car into your driveway, you may be breaking the law if a proposed bill (number 2015-377) pending before the JAX City Council is passed. The bill says your license plate has to be clearly visible from the street and is aimed at cracking down on the visual blight that occurs when vehicle owners store broken down cars on their property. The bill filed by City Councilman Warren Jones says that if a vehicle’s tag isn’t visible from the street, the owner must write down that information with two-inch tall letters and post it in a location that inspectors can easily see from the street. What if your driveway is behind the house, is circular, or if your car is in a garage? Talk about intrusive and outrageous government! Does anyone with any common sense ever run for office any more?

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Getting Some Satisfaction From Commissioner Miller: I may rarely agree with Fernandina City Commissioner Johnny Miller politically but I am certainly impressed with his incredible imitation of the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger, a demonstration he put on at the urging of our island’s iconic guitarist and singer Dan Voll recently during a social event at the South 3rd Street Museum. Those of us watching were slacked jawed, and as Mr. Voll said, the performance was “spot on?”

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Dobrodošli: I’ve heard from many restaurant and bar owners around the island that reliable servers, kitchen help and bartenders are in short supply this summer so maybe Sliders at the corner of Fletcher Avenue and Sadler Road has hit on a solution. Not that they will start serving Sarma to be chased down with Rikia anytime soon, but as I’ve heard from a very reliable person that the beach-front bar and eatery has hired a group of Serbians and housed them dorm-like in a nearby house. Nothing wrong with that as long as they are all here legally and treated fairly.

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One Good Cop! Based on news reports I’ve read from New York City and Baltimore, it appears that the only cop that far-left Democrat NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio and loopy Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake like is the one in The Village People.

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Play Ball: One of the delights of living on Amelia Island are the ball parks at Central Park between Atlantic and Beech St. and from July 16-20 those fields will see plenty of action as the 15 and under North Florida Babe Ruth Tournament with some nine teams in towns from Daytona to Tallahassee will compete along with home grown Fernandina to see which ones will make it to the SE Regional to be held in Sarasota. Folks interested in volunteering, being a sponsor or advertising to visiting fans and families in the program should contact Scott Moore at FBPirateAllStars@gmail.com or call him at 904-556-3142. Scott tells me that our local Babe Ruth 14 and under team won the district and will be playing in its state tournament in Lake City during the same dates as the tournament here making it the first time an island league has sent two senior league teams to the state tournament in the same year. If you’ve never attended a game at Central Park and you want to enjoy a pleasant summer day watching some very talented kids play baseball, then this is the place to be. The fields at the town’s high school and middle school will also see action. I’ll be riding my bike over to watch and possibly buy a hot dog and a can of pop at the concession stand. And speaking of Central Park, whatever happened to the doofus out-of-town consultant that suggested the city move the ball parks to the airport?

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Drinking, Dining & Dancing: Pate Sucree, the cozy little restaurant with a great reputation tucked away at 232 North 2nd St. downtown, has closed its doors with the owners saying the inability to seek and keep reliable help was a factor as was the fact they were putting in exhausting 12-14 hour days. I had an opportunity to sample their catered food last Thursday when I was guest speaker at the Amelia Island Ladies’ Newcomers Club and can attest that this place will be missed. The ladies obviously enjoyed the meal as well, because as tempted as they may have been they didn’t throw a morsel of it in my direction. Very reliable sources tell me that the Amelia River Golf Course is on the market and an offer has come in for a tempting $2.3 million from a far up north source. This July 4th Hammerhead, the fun pub at the corner of Sadler and Fletcher, will be serving up free hot dogs and two buck beers. And what more appropriate place than American Legion Post 54 at 626 South 3rd St to celebrate the 4th where the good folks there will be cooking hot dogs and hamburgers for anybody who wants to join them, just a small donation required. It’s worth a trip there just to use the urinals in the men’s room with Jane Fonda targets in them. So far everything I’ve seen from the newly opened Beech Street Bar & Grill is nothing but positive as the bar is one of the coziest and most pleasant on the island and the menu and restaurant raking in nothing but rave comments. Call ’em at 904/572-1390 and help ’em celebrate their one-month anniversary. You won’t be sorry.