Congress Plays Soggy Biscuits with the Economy, Stupid
DAN RUDY
What an unbridled shingle of shit this congressional session has turned out to be, dear and dirty patriotic chums of mine. Would that mine eyes be plucked from this apoplectic, vaguely obscene head!
The original spin on this article which lent itself to mind had revolved around Pakistani children finally being able to play outside, as a budgetary brownout grounds the CIA’s drone squadron for an indefinite time frame. But no, our myriad implements of death are financially unfettered to wreak terrible vengeance upon all subscribers to Islam, great and small.
Rather, this is a metaphor better fit for soggy biscuits – which as every schoolboy knows, might well paint a fairly lurid picture. In failing to pass a continuing resolution to fund the government, our elected betters have busied themselves with prurient, political swordplay, an egomaniacal thumping of clubs before feverishly sopping America’s bread with their precious bodily fluids, racing to see which unlucky fucker has to eat it up afterwards at the polls.
Sadly though, that first terrifying bite will be sunk long before any elections can be held, a noxious mouthful to be mulled over thoughtfully not just by a swath of our mighty legion of pen-pushocrats, but also by the American working poor, struggling veterans, and most everybody else.
It’s a Scroogian fantasy: as already mentioned, defense spending will go virtually unmolested, though uniformed personnel will not receive their already lean pay packets until Congress strikes a deal. If one believes that heady patriotism would suffice as fair compensation, this only means more money to funnel into the high-end weapon systems and black-budget spy programmes that exist in the jurisdictional fringe of secretive oversight.
Superficially the source of the trouble, the workings of the Affordable Care Act will continue to tinker along unabated, but nutrition supplementals will see a slashing. Filing claims at any number of regulatory agencies will become like stuffing a prayer into the Wailing Wall; unanswered, concerns about occupational safety and environmental noncompliance can wait for the next solid rain to get knotted. Disease monitoring and clinical research will be disrupted. And except for meatstuffs, most food quality inspections will be shelved for later.
America’s borders will still remain secure though, no worries. And airports will still be a safe haven for the lackadaisical, threadbare airlines to cancel, delay, and/or overbook the myriad daily runs that are slowly going to kill us all with their untaxed emissions.
The most irritating thing about all of this, though, is the utter futility of the gesture. In the verbiage of the game called Hilltop Politicking.
House Republicans claim to be driving a hard bargain for financial decency and good old fashioned thrift. Essentially, this is bollocks.
In a country shakily on the mend from an extended spate of high unemployment and a sluggish market, the unpaid dropping of anywhere from 400-800,000 government employees (and already mentioned, the unpaid exploitation of 1.5 million active-duty military personnel, plus another 1.5 million reservists) can only hurt the economy further.
The sick bastards behind this unseemly waste of time have blown their load, passing along yet another doomed attempt at a CR cum political statement to the Senate. The Senate will self-righteously add to this sopping great tragedy by rejecting it – and who can blame them? – before America has to take its first unhappy bite in seventeen years, come the morning.
[link for photo above]
