BY WILLIAM C. HENRY Question: How can you tell if the Speaker of the House is speaking the truth about America’s fiscal situation? Answer: His mouth is closed. 
Recently, the House of Representatives’ head cockroach hissed that without significant cuts to entitlement programs, negotiations on increasing the debt limit will go nowhere. Although typical of Boehner’s callous, intransigent, extortion-centered, wealthfare approach to governing, John-Boy’s latest nugatory jaunt into the wasteland of Republican recourse is far more enlightening for what it doesn’t say than for what it does. To wit, here’s a partial listing of truly deserving chopping block candidates that will in all likelihood never make their way onto the U.S. House honcho’s budgetary hit list:
OVERSEAS MILITARY BASES:: The utter obscenity of monies expended on U.S. overseas bases (over 1,000 of them, but the actual number is literally anybody’s guess) is beyond comprehension. Private contractors alone raked in some $385 BILLION (yeah, that was your money) over the past 12 years. As accurately as can be determined, American taxpayers shell out “around” $170 BILLION annually to maintain the most unnecessary, useless and unjustifiable hoard of budget plunderers ever conceived by the minds of some of America’s phoniest political hypocrites, namely, well, you get the idea.
CORPORATE WELFARE: What’s $100 BILLION or so a year among hypocrites?! And that’s just federal dollars. State and local governments kick in an additional $100 BILLION of their own! In this great entrepreneurial nation of ours who’da ever thunk that all those unsurpassed captains of business and industry, all those geniuses of creativity and innovation, all those self-reliant, self-sustaining, self-motivated, independent impresarios, all those “just get government off my back and leave me alone to do what I do best” kinds, all those “government isn’t the solution, it’s the goddamn problem” types, would actually have to rely on massive government HAND-OUTS in order to turn a profit?!
THE WAR ON NON-WHITE PEOPLE DRUGS: $15 BILLION PLUS annually. That’s how much the federal government pisses away every year on a TOTALLY indefensible “war” the ravages of whose prosecution have destroyed the lives of literally thousands upon thousands of young American men and women. Grotesque as that may sound, state and local governments contribute $25 BILLION of their own to the cause annually. The bullshit entailed in this disgustingly failed debacle is so sinister as to defy description. Every pandering politician involved in its inception and prolongation ought to be jailed for crimes against humanity. The only people who have ever benefited from it are the bureaucrats responsible for its pernicious, immoral administration.
WASTE, FRAUD AND ABUSE: For starters there simply isn’t enough bandwidth to list everything, but allow me to highlight that little matter of the $365 BILLION our government pisses away every year on duplication and related inefficiencies. For decades Congress has known that more than 1,350 government programs overlap one another wasting appalling sums of taxpayer dollars annually, yet they continue to be too lazy or incompetent (or both) to do anything about it. What the hell, it’s not their money, right? Yeah, I know, it takes some real caring and commitment to root out waste, mismanagement and abuse, the kinds of attributes consistently in short supply (non-existent would probably be a more apt description) in the nation’s capitol.
Stench-filled is far too delicate a term to describe the verbal bullshit being shoveled out of Washington these days. 650 BILLION dollars worth (and counting) of government hubris, stupidity and madness flushed down the toilet every year, and Boehner and company have the unmitigated gall to demand that entitlement programs bear the brunt of budgetary reform. The failure of phonies like the Speaker and his sort to assail the kind of squander outlined above should make it abundantly clear that their version of national I.O.U. reduction will never include what’s “fair” or “right” or “just,” but rather solely how they can best appeal to the baser instincts of their constituencies, and placate the monied, plutocratic interests responsible for getting and keeping them in those extraordinarily cushy, well-paying jobs with all the super perks and benefits the average American can only dream about. It was Anatole France who said, “The first virtue of all really great men is that they are sincere. They eradicate hypocrisy from their hearts.” I can’t help but wonder where that leaves you and the rest of your ilk, John.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Fed up early stage septuagenarian who has actually been most of there and done most of that. Born and raised in the picturesque Pocono Mountains. Quite well educated. Very lucky to have been born into a well-schooled and somewhat prosperous family. Long divorced. One beautiful, brilliant daughter. Two far above average grandsons. Semi-retired (how does anyone manage to do it completely these days?) and fully-tired of bullshit. Uncle of the Editor-In-Chief.