FOR THE HELL OF IT        VOL. 2   NO. 11

ON POLITICAL LEADERS AND THE DEBT…..

The wind whistles along Constitution Avenue causing lobbyists to pause and reapply product to their hair.  The sky darkens and the ballooning clouds promise rain…a promise that will likely be kept…a rare thing in Washington.

As lackeys, yes-men and status quo obsessed bureaucrats all head for their respective burrows and dens, a man hunches over his desk at the White House.  The desk is a gift from the Queen of a country that once held dominion over the nation.  It is large and it is said to hold many secrets.  It is undoubtedly made of sturdier stuff and far more useful than most of the men who have been elected to sit before it.

On this particular evening, the Oval Office’s occupant runs his fingers through his graying hair and reaches for the phone.

“Uh”, he says, searching for the right word to begin the conversation.  “Hello,” he says, finding the lost word.

“Hey!” shouts Biden.  “Yo dog! Whazzup?  I can’t believe your calling me! Is someone dead? Do I get to go to a funeral in some foreign place? Represent dog?”

“No,” says President Barak Obama. “No one has died.  ….well I guess someone has died.  I mean, uh, people die everyday so maybe one of ‘em is important enough to send you away but, uh, no. This call is not, uh, about someone being dead.”

“Cool beans. Whaddya need my brutha?“

“Don’t! Don’t say that now. Don’t say that ever. I don’t even say that. We have discussed this,” Obama says sternly.  “Now, uh, I need you over here. I’ve invited Congressional leaders from both parties and some of the announced Presidential candidates from the other side to come over and discuss the debt crisis and come to a solution.”

“Presidential candidates? Is there an election coming up? Who we running?”

“Umm. Us. We’re going for another win.”

“Excellent. I loooovvve not having to travel on Amtrak all the time. Do you know that if it weren’t for me pushing for constant Amtrak funding in every single bill anybody proposed when I was in Congress, that whole thing would’ve gone bankrupt ages ago?”

“Everybody knows that Joe.”

“How the hell can a national railroad carrying millions of people not make money?  It would be like the MTA in New York or the OTB in New York losing money! Can you imagine? Millions of riders daily and having no money?! Or having state sponsored horse race betting and not making money? Hah!”

“Joe, those things are not making money.  New York’s MTA is always out of money and the OTB system went bankrupt and closed.”

“You’re sh*ttin’ me!” exclaims the Vice President. “Weird how obvious money making businesses lose money when the government gets involved, isn’t it?”

“Joe – get over here. The meeting is about to begin.”

Soon the Oval Office begins to crowd with the nation’s political leaders.  Nancy Pelosi drifts in unnoticed and notices the lack of interest in her.  “I’m here!” she sings out.

“Sorry Nancy, you were standing sideways and I thought you were a coat rack!” Newt Gingrich – one time Speaker of the House and all time yutz barks.

“Oh Newt! Visited any hospitals to end marriages lately?” Pelosi teases back.

“Mr. President? Mr. President? Can we get this started? You Democrats wasted enough time when you held Congress, no sense doing the same thing here!” shouts Sen. John Boehner.

“Certainly John,” responds Obama. “Don’t want to get you upset – I know how weepy you can get.”

Before Boehner can respond, the President holds his hand for silence until the only sound that can be heard is the relentless tapping of Michelle Bachman’s foot.  “My friends,” begins the President, “I have asked you here because our nation is in dire economic straits.  We have bailed out companies that were in the private sector and failed because of their own greed and mismanagement.  We have stepped in and taken over businesses in the auto, insurance and healthcare management businesses and we have no track record in any of those fields –“

“Yes we do!” shouts Ron Paul. “The government has a long track record of ruining every business they take from the private sector.  The government is not even good at government and should stay the hell out of the way!”

“Who said that?!” shouts Harry Reid.  “Was that Schumer? Jeez. Can’t that guy hush for 2 minutes?”

“It was, uh, Ron,” says the President.

“Who?” asked a perennially confused Reid.

“Paul. Ron Paul.”

‘Nope. Don’t think I know him.”

“Sure ya do!” chimes in Gov. Rick Perry.  ‘Lil fella – big idears and no personality…you know!  God told me he likes him a bit.”

“God probably liked you before you caved on states right and became a tea bag,” quips Paul.

“We are here –“says the President trying to command the attention of the room with out the aid of a teleprompter, “to uh, figure out how we’re gonna deal with the, uh, debt issue.  Since we’ve reached impasse after impasse and we can’t seem to work together –“

“Too many homos!  Too many homos!” screams Bachman, unable to hold herself in any longer.  All eyes turn to her.  “Sorry.  I thought we had moved on to the gay stuff.”

“We’re on the economy – that’s what we’re here to discuss,” the President says.

“Gay people shouldn’t be allowed to get married.  It ruins the economy. They shouldn’t be protected by the Constitution.  The Constitution never mentions them you know,” says Bachman, unwilling to yield the issue.

“Doesn’t mention you either, you one-note moron,” mumbles Biden.

“We’ve called in an expert to help us on this economy, uh, thing,” says Obama, ignoring the interchange.  “We’ve retained the best kind of help we can. We, uh, searched and searched and, uh —-“

“Searched?” – suggests Mitt Romney, trying to help.

“Uh yes,” the President smiles at Mitt. “Thank you, uh, Mitt. We searched for the best help we could find. We are in a heck of a situation so we called on Joe Biden and some of his cohorts to find the best accountant he could to see if we can get out of this hole. Joe?”

“What?” asks Biden, having dozed off for a minute.

“Who’d you get to help out here?  The, uh, accountant?,,,”

“Oh yeah!,” smiles Biden. “We are so screwed up, me and the boys – Bernanke, Tim Geithner, and a couple of fellas from the Amtrak bar car – we went out and got someone who knows all about money!  He’s a Jewish guy!  C’mon! You saw that comin a mile away! Right?! Anyhoo, he’s gonna get us out of this fix!  He’s a big time accountant from Williamsburg, New York – and he’s here with us today with his assessment of our screw-ups!  Let’s welcome Murray Finklestein!”

A heavy set sweaty man with an odor of cigars and strong cheese enters the office.  His pocket pens have leaked through his shirt and he is clearly not impressed with the office or its occupants.

“C.P.A.” he says.

“What?” Biden asks.

“After my name.  It should be Murray Finklestein CPA!  What, I’m just some putz, some yutz, some meshuggener?  I’m a macher!  The best in the business!”  Murray looks around.  “What? You don’t have a nice little something to nosh?  You invite me over and not even a sandwich for me?  Ach. No matter.  You people –“ he shakes his finger rigorously for emphasis, “you elected shmendricks… Ashamed!  Ashamed you should be!”

“What is he sayin’?” asks Rick Perry.

“Those words — are they gay slang?” queries Bachman.

“Wonder how the second half of that gubernatorial term would’ve gone if I hadn’t of quit midway through…” ponders Sarah Palin.

“What are you thinking!? You face trillion dollar deficits and you wanna spend trillions more to fix it?  What you think there’s trickle down economics?  How can you have a trickle down if there’s no trickle? There’s no trickle!” Murray yells to the gathered leaders – having quickly decided that half are morons and the other half village idiot school drop outs.

“You, uh, looked over the books – yes?” asked Obama.

“Books? I looked. The books – oy! Kosher? – they ain’t!  How much are you paying Geithner and Bernanke? A lot of chutzpah those two have! Putting out such shmatta!.  Listen, you want to fix the problem?  You wanna make the debt smaller and save the nation?  You want I should tell you how?”

“Yes!” shouted the clueless crowd.

“Well, first – stop spending what you don’t got.  You wanna buy a nice submarine, you only got the money for a tug boat? You buy nothing!  You save the shekels!  You build some reserves.  You don’t raid the social security! You don’t keep taxing, taxing, taxing!

I don’t wanna go into a spiel.

This Texas guy – this Perry – for a while he had it right.  Ron Paul, he knows! Keep the federal government out of the way of business and let the states handle their own business.”

“That’s me!” shouts Perry, glad to be noticed.

“Yeah that’s you…you had a good thing and gave it up to kiss the fanny of the Christian right wing nut cakes, you shlemiel!  What did the gay people do to you – you should hate them so much?  They wanna get married is such a big deal, it should be more important than jobs and the economy? What a bunch of bubkes! You’re all fercockt!  You want you should do what’s right? You want I should tell you how to fix this nonsense?  Do you?,” Murray Finklestein CPA asks.

“Yes!” the assembled respond.

“One – get out of the auto business. Get out of the banking business. You got one business – to govern and you can’t do that right so why mess with what you know you don’t know, you know?  Let’s face it, the Chinese are taking over! – you’re such good leaders.  The country’s falling apart and what are you doing?  You’re naming post offices!  Oy! Inept! Incompetent! Nebbishes! The lot of you!

Two – stop adding things to bills that have nothing to do with the bill.  You want a road in your town, let the town buy it!

Three – close the loopholes so the taxes are fair and quit with the taxes on the middle class already! Stop with the taxes on the estates! The money got taxed when the dead guy first earned it, you shmendriks!  You keep shtuping the middle class, there won’t be no more middle class!

Four – let the faygalas alone! Why get fermisht? They wanna get married? Let em! What? Only straight people should be miserable?

Five – throw out the lobbyists! They’re all a bunch of gonifs!

Six – and this is the most important thing: audit the Department of Defense!  We gotta be able to kill every Chinese 15 times? Dead is dead! Kill em once and use the savings to fund a school or hire a cop or a fireman!  How many air craft carriers do you need in a world that doesn’t care about them?

Okay, that’s it. Do that and you’ll be fine. I gotta go, I’m shvitzing, it’s so hot! I’ll send a bill!  I can’t take you no more – you give me a pain in my tuches. Mazel tov,”  Murray Finklestein, CPA gives the group a dirty look and leaves.

“Well, uh, that was, uh, most illuminating and interesting,” says President Obama.  “Anyone want to, uh, audit the DOD? Or stop having lobbyists take us to lunch?”

The room is silent.

“Well then, uh, let’s table the economy issue and take a look at, uh, Ms. Pelosi’s motion that we rename the Oscar Wilde Public Library in Des Moines the Jason Bourne Memorial Library…..”

“oooh. I like Jason Bourne!” says Michele Bachman. “Matt Damon’s not gay is he?”