Finally! Congress gets a chance to bail out an industry it understands: porn.

With Washington seeming even easier than a starlet on a casting couch, even smut peddlers are clamoring for their share of the bailout pie.

Triple-X DVD sales have gone limp, tumbling 22% since last year. Hustler magazine founder and smut icon Larry Flynt, along with Girls Gone Wild creator Joe Francis, are now petitioning Congress for $5 billion to help prop up the business of selling sex.

Myriad websites, quasi-reputable news sources and witty bloggers report the pair are arguing that theirs is an industry worthy of support. According to Francis, who recently did time for alleged child abuse and prostitution charges:

"Congress seems willing to help shore up our nation's most important businesses, (and) we feel we deserve the same consideration. In difficult economic times, Americans turn to entertainment for relief. More and more, the kind of entertainment they turn to is adult entertainment."

Lawmakers must be asking themselves why they bothered rescuing Citigroup (C), General Motors (GM) and AIG (AIG) when that money could have been so much better spent.

For a fraction of what it cost to bail out the entire financial system, Congress could focus its efforts on saving a line of work even more essential to political life. The collapse of the porn industry, in addition to eliminating the entire curriculum of certain community colleges in southern California, would wreak havoc in Washington, DC.

Congressmen and lobbyists alike would spend the weekends wandering the DC streets like lost puppies in search of a teat.

And while reports indicate Flynt and Francis have thus far been unsuccessful in their money shot, they aren't likely be deterred. Most experts expect they'll they'll be coming back to Capitol Hill.