Who doesn't have their hand out these days?

Between the banks, auto makers and the mothers of high-profilemultiple births, we've got more people looking for publicassistance than Venezuela.

Sorry if I sound a little annoyed, but I thought we reformedwelfare back during Clinton's first term. The latest? Seems theFlorida insurance commissioner -- apparently killing time untilhurricane season -- is in D.C. this week looking for his slice ofthe federal bailout pie.

Commissioner Kevin McCarty hit Capitol Hill yesterday, tellinganyone who'd listen that he needed (and I'm not making this up) anunlimited line of credit to shore up the state's hurricanecatastrophe fund. Yeah, while the rest of us debate the latestfederal stimulus plan, McCarty's looking for a blank check.

According to a press release from the nonprofit CompetitiveEnterprise Institute, Florida's CAT fund, "which imposes apotential $32 billion liability on the state of Florida, has only$2.8 billion in hard assets and plans to issue bonds to cover otherliabilities. Given that no state has ever sold more than $11billion in bonds all at the same time, however, it appears unlikelythat Florida could even come close to paying the Cat Fund'sdebts."

So, like the overextended homebuyers, greedy mortgage brokersand rock star spending lenders that got us into this mix, we haveentire states sidling up to the public trough.

I'm not necessarily a big think tank fan - not enough action forme -- but I've gotta agree with Senior Fellow Eli Lehrer, whodirects CEI's Washington-based Insurance Project: "This is areally, really bad idea."

Public assistance as public policy will put us all in publichousing.