Government Logic: The Pilot Relief Tube Syndrome

A little before my time (well, around the turn of the eighteenth century, to be precise), Playwright/Wordsmith William Cosgreve introduced to our idiom such useful snippets of parlance as shilly-shally, April Fool and cat-o'-nine-tails.

Also, for his 1693 play, 'The Old Bachelor," he penned the couplet, "Grief still treads upon the heels of pleasure; married in haste, we may repent at leisure."

Aside: Note that in those days, "leisure" rhymed with "pleasure." (Hey, where else in current columnizing do you see such fascinating tidbits of trivia?)

Paraphrasing Wordworker Willie, we make bold to suggest that haste in passing legislation is a dirty trick on the next generation. (Okay, that bon mot needs a little "mot" work, but I'm slogging toward making a point here.)

The point is that, in the bureaucratic mind, there's no tomorrow this side of the next election, so the name of the governmental game is Kitty Litter Management - covering up the really smelly stuff just enough to avoid attracting attention.

Among several cases in point is the apparent determination of our elected reprehensibles to spend our way out of insolvency, a stratagem not altogether unlike trying to screw oneself into a life of chastity.

In governmentese, the word "budget" is a noun which refers to the shotgun marriage of desired expenditures to a conveniently corresponding total of anticipated income - arbitrary ends wedded to and bedded with purely wishful means, some of which are patently unattainable.

In private life, "budget" is also an action word, tying the desired ends to the available means and implying that if the income falls behind the outgo, objectives get modified and belts get tightened until debits and credits are in balance.

No such discipline is recognized - or any such verb used - in the public sector.

If an objective is seen as lofty enough - e.g., universal health care, clean air or a healthy sex life for the Whooping Crane - the battle cry is "Damn the torpedoes of fiscal responsibility and future accountability and full speed ahead," reminiscent of the stirring words of Admiral David Farragut in our Civil War.

More pertinent might be the then-contemporary copout of Scarlett O'Hara: "Oh fiddle-de-dee, I'll just have to think about that tomorrow." (See previously-noted Congressional modification of Tomorrowland.)

With their myopic eyes fixed on the next (2010) day of reckoning, the Crapitall Hill crowd is mobilizing (accent on the "mob") to wrangle over multigazillion-dollar bills that few of them have even speed-read and none have analyzed beyond the talking points of their leadership.

Paradoxically, most of the energy is being expended on either ramming the programs through or blocking them before Santa Claus comes to their home towns; also, incidentally, before they have to face some very unhappy constituents who see "budget" as both a noun and a verb in their personal lives.

Just one problem, among many unseen by them, is the inescapable fact that if any of the proposed legislation can then pass both the litter box and feasibility tests, it will be just as workable - and infinitely more sensible - in the early months of 2010.

Another pertinent point is anecdotal, but symptomatic of the disconnect between the thought process on our side and their side of the aforementioned Hill.

When it recently appeared that the $700 billion allocated for the Troubled Assets Relief Fund was about 20% more than was needed for our rescue from another Depression, there was a tsunami of ideas on how to spend the "found" money.

That immediately recalled a time in World War II when a friend of mine was faced with a problem:

Her government agency couldn't come up with enough "needs" to match the previous year's budget, so she threw in a requisition for more - a LOT more - pilot relief tubes than there were flyboy bladders in all the armed forces, aloft or aground.

The alternative was to cut the budget request - an alternative only slightly more repugnant than giving away military secrets.

There's no such word as "ignoranus" (yes, with an "n"), but forgive this humble scribe for suggesting that we need one to describe the dumbasses who are running things - some of them right into the ground.

Forgive me, too, for adding an apology to my growing throng of great-grandchildren for the ugly mess we're leaving for them to clean up - or, more likely, to wade through throughout their lives.

Pity there won't be any relief tubes to drain away the problems.