Our hero, former Asheville City Councilman Dr. Carl Mumpower, used to refer to corporate welfare as a rigged lottery. This made sense because all taxpayers contributed, but only those hand-selected by government received the redistributions. This blog reports that the Hendersonville Times-News reports that the Asheville Citizen-Times reports that the allegory provides another parallel: The house always wins. Not the un-savvy cats portrayed by detractors, legislators have set thresholds for payouts low enough to tempt, but beyond the reach of all but the luckiest. (Note: I did not investigate the source of the Citizen-Times story. I’m just drive-by.)