Wasting away in Sequesterville

The musical Annie is enjoying another revival on Broadway. The show opened during the Carter administration when America was in need of some optimism. “The sun’ll come out tomorrow,” sang Annie, and with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, for a while, it did.

Now we’re back in “Hooverville,” the name given to shanty towns that popped up during the Great Depression. It isn’t that bad yet, though the Obama administration is forecasting gloom and doom if Republicans don’t cave on another tax increase.

“We’d like to thank you Herbert Hoover for really showing us the way,” sang the fictional residents of “Hooverville” in Annie. Now, I think we need an updated song that reflects what this administration has given us, and so I offer these original lyrics to be sung to the tune of “Margaritaville.” All together now:

Millions on food stamps Finding jobs? No chance Government spending has put us in hock Taxing and spending Without any ending If we go on like this we’ll all be in shock. Wasting away today in new Sequesterville Searching for some honest pols in D.C. Some people claim that just one party’s to blame But I know the real problem is we.

Yes, the real problem is that too many of us send these politicians from different parties to Washington only to then complain about the gridlock. It’s because too many of us haven’t made up our minds what we want government to be, what we should expect from it, and, more importantly, what we should expect from ourselves.

The entire sequester scenario is about delivering the House of Representatives to Democrats in 2014. The Washington Post last week exposed that strategy. “Obama, fresh off his November re-election,” writes The Post, “began almost at once executing plans to win back the House in 2014, which he and his advisers believe will be crucial to the outcome of his second term and to his legacy as president. He is doing so by trying to articulate for the American electorate his own feelings—an exasperation with an opposition party that blocks even the most politically popular elements of his agenda.”

Furloughing people from government jobs is part of the process, but unnecessary. According to projections from the Congressional Budget Office, tax revenue could hit $2.7 trillion in 2013. Government doesn’t lack revenue. Government lacks restraint.

On Monday, the first regular workday under sequestration, federal agencies posted more than 400 job ads. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is predicting long lines at major airports due to anticipated furloughs and yet, according to CNS News, the Transportation Security Administration spent $50 million late last month on new uniforms, some of which will be manufactured in Mexico.

The government is not so broke that it can’t find $250 million in aid to send to Egypt.

Jim McElhatton of The Washington Times discovered federal purchasing records that show “The Environmental Protection Agency spent nearly $40,000 on a portrait of Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, while a painting of Air Force Secretary Michael B. Donley will cost $41,200. … The price tag for a 3-by-4-foot oil portrait of Agriculture Department Secretary Thomas J. Vilsack: $22,500.”

In a digital age when photographs can be made to look like oil paintings, the government could have saved a lot of money by taking a high-resolution picture of these “public servants,” or even better, asking them to pay for their own portraits.

Voters had better pay attention to this stuff, otherwise liberal politicians will cause them to fall for more lies. Remember the judge and jury in the musical Chicago? Shyster lawyer Billy Flynn explained how to win them over, singing:

Give ’em the old razzle dazzle Razzle Dazzle ’em. Give ’em an act with lots of flash in it And the reaction will be passionate Give ’em the old hocus pocus Bead and feather ’em How can they see with sequins in their eyes? … Razzle dazzle them and they’ll never catch wise.

Thus ends this mixed musical metaphor tribute to the phoniness that consumes Washington, as we waste away in Sequesterville.

© 2013 Tribune Media Services Inc.