Child Lemonade Stands Formally Request $245 Billion Federal Bailout!
by D’Leereeus Johnson, DP staff
Wednesday, June 27th, 2012,
(WASHINGTON) —Just when we thought the age of federal bailouts was over; something strictly early-Obama-2009-ish, the cannonading of corporate gimme-gimme-gimme’s is starting again, as another “cherished American institution” is pleading for a taxpayer–funded rescue.
The institution this time: lemonade stands.
Correct. The American Lemonade Stand Union (ALSU) formally asked Congress Wednesday morning for a whopping 245-billion-dollar bailout, warning of an “imminent collapse” of the industry, following “dismal” returns on nationwide lemonade stand sales during the recent early-summer heat wave.
Such a request has again turned the heat up on a Congress already spilt down party lines on issues of finance reform, debt curtailment, overblown federal budgets, and all while holding its breath for Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare.
“The mortgage lenders and auto companies got all the federal bailouts they wanted,” stated Sally McMillan, the 9-year-old president of the American Lemonade Stand Union, “but lemonade stands have been a cornerstone of America since its founding, and we’re in trouble. We’re in dire straits, and we refuse to go the way of the dodo!”
ALSU lawyers, economists, and lemonade analysts have been sounding warnings about the stability of the nation’s child-run lemonade stand market for years. National lemonade stand sales have dropped a stunning 
12% since 2008, and the industry has suffered an overall drop of 38% since the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. Such decline is more than the industry can stand, say ALSU leaders, as they prepare for nation-wide layoffs of adolescent lemon peddlers in midst of crucial summer months.
Lemonade Stands: Too Big To Fail, or Just a ‘Big Lemon’?
“Just as this government has deemed so many other industries ‘too big to fail,’ so are we,” said union boss McMillan in front of the Senate Finance Committee Wednesday. “Maybe a nine-year old offering a fifty-cent cup of lemonade isn’t something the government takes seriously…Or, rather, maybe this as a case of age discrimination. I would hate to think that were the case…”.
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But Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas W. Elmendorf responded sharply to McMillan’s statement Wednesday, saying that a 245-billion dollar bailout was “rather unnecessary” for children’s lemonade stands, and that the pre-pubescent McMillan and the ALSU were simply the pawns of “Big Lemonade,” seeking to create a crisis where none exists, all in the name of increasing Big Lemonade profits and union fees of the ALSU.
Said Director Elmendorf Wednesday to Duh Progressive, “These claims of pending cataclysm by the ALSU are absurd. The government has enough on its plate with the pending health care ruling, J.P. Morgan 
scandals and a possible second stimulus package. To add the alleged needs of Big Lemonade in the mix is more than this department can stand, let alone the nation.…And just how the hell can a nine-year-old be the president for anything anyway?!”
Added Elmendorf, “Most of all, I’m perplexed to know just how an ‘industry’ of child-run lemonade stands can be requesting 245–billion public dollars to stay afloat, when their last reported annual income was only fifty-six-hundred dollars!”
However top Democrats in Congress are paying attention to the ASLU, allowing congressional hearings on the subject in the midst of a (traditionally) slow summer legislative season and historically cantankerous presidential campaign.
“Is there nothing more American than lemonade stands? They need help, too. What will we allow to go extinct next, apple pie?” said Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) to Capitol reporters Wednesday.
‘Lemon Kids’ in Crisis, or Just Pawns of Thug Union?
Further complicating the issue is a growing band of former American Lemonade Stand Union members who charge that the meltdown of the lemonade stand industry is being exaggerated by ALSU officials, all in order of maintaining an “exploitative” and “abusive” hold on the industry, and securing their control via taxpayer dollars. 
Timmy Herman, 9, of San Diego heads the group “Lemon Kids for Truth,” and is also due to testify before the Senate Finance Committee this week. Herman, a former “lemoner” (lemonade stand operator) and his 200-plus members claim that the lemonade stand industry is stable, and that it are only the outrageous union fees the ALSU imposes on child lemoners that are harming the industry. Furthermore, claims Herman, those kids who don’t pay the union dues are subject to brutality by ALSU henchmen.
“We routinely have to pay fifteen-percent of our weekend earnings to the union, and many who cannot pay face abuse and intimidation by (Sally) McMillan’s minions!” said a sobbing Herman to reporters on the Capitol steps Wednesday.
Herman claims the ALSU frequently intimidates non-union lemoners to join the union, and says those children refusing to join or pay their dues in-full can receive anything from late night calls of someone farting over the telephone to having their school lunch money stolen or houses toilet-papered. Physical violence is also charged by Herman and the Lemon Kids for Truth.
Sobbing through the sheltering arms of his mother, fellow 'Lemon Kid' Bradley Stevens recounted his harrowing tale of intimidation at the hands of lemonade union hooligans.
“My mom and dad thought it would be nice for my sister and me to sell some lemonade to our neighborhood last summer,” said Stevens, 10, to Reuters. “But a mean boy on a bike road up and said we weren’t licensed to sell lemonade unless we joined the (ALSU).”
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Stevens refused to “pick up the crayon,” as ALS union members call it, and sign the agreement to join the lemoner brotherhood. However, says Stevens, the following week in school he was spit on, kicked, and given a “titty-twister” by a fellow 6th grader claiming to have “known of his treachery” and that he better join the ALSU if he “knew what was good for him.”
Overwhelmed with emotion, Bradley refused to comment further, although his sister, Theresa, 8, said of the ALSU, “There’s no denying it, what was once a harmless group of children protecting themselves against the rival snowball industry has devolved into a despotic net of fascist hoods –all 
in the name of kiddy lemonade! McMillan and her thugs are nothing but lying, violent boobs!”
Added Theresa, “Ha… I said boobs!”
Big Lemonade and Obama: An Unholy Alliance?
Because of the American Lemonade Stand Union, the age-old adolescent entrepreneurship of lemonade stands has evolved over the years into one of the Democrat Party’s most loyal donors. The ALSU reportedly donated at least $500 annually to the Democratic National Committee since 1994, and $600 to former President Clinton in 1996, $690 to Al Gore in 2000, $550 to Sen. John Kerry in 2004 and an astonishing $802.40 to President Obama in 2008, and have to date given $402.11 to Obama’s re-election campaign.
Such hefty donations are an aspect Senate Finance Committee member Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID) plans on addressing with ALSU President McMillan later this week.
Said Sen. Crapo to Duh Progressive Wednesday, “I’m not casting any aspersions, it’s just that when you look at these contributions to the administration, and our climate of free-for-all bailouts, it 
does make one wonder who these ‘lemon kids’ are really beholden to, and who is beholden to them.”
Such inferences are strongly rejected my union President McMillan and her staff.
“(Senator) Crapo’s assertions of mutual back-scratching are totally absurd.” said ALSU Vice President Jane Chen to the Senate Finance Committee Wednesday. “They are preposterous, I say. They’re darn-near obscene…and I don’t even know what ‘obscene’ means! If our union of decent, hard-working lemonade stand workers is in the pocket of anyone, it is only the American tradition of offering citrusy drinks to people on hot days.”
Added union boss McMillan, “No one and nothing is in our pockets. The only thing in our pockets is pure American lemonade. Lemonade is the only thing in our pants!”
Economists and the nation’s capital are holding their breath to see all that today’s hearings may reveal. Will a humble aspect of Americana prove itself teetering on the abyss of financial calamity, or will Sally McMillan and her ALSU be shown to be a corrupt and malevolent union, harking back to the times of Jimmy Hoffa’s Teamsters and out for nothing but their alleged choke-hold on a childhood endeavor and own aggrandizement?
Like with the Supreme Court and Obamacare, the nation —indeed the world— waits to see…
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