M2RB: Prince Slave O{+> Whatever & Paul Shanklin's 'Party Like It's 1929'
But life is
just a party
And parties
weren't meant to last.
We say "Don't look how to do it. Hurry up 'cuz we're almost out of time. We're gonna party with your money like it's 1929."
By Mark Steyn
The
politics of the “fiscal cliff” deal is debatable: On the one hand,
Boehner got the “Bush tax cuts” made permanent for most Americans; Obama
was forced to abandon his goal of increasing rates for those earning
$250,000. On the other, on taxes Republicans caved to the same
class-warfare premises (the rich need to pay their “fair share”) they’d
successfully fought off a mere two years ago; while on spending the
Democrats not only refused to make cuts, they refused to make cuts even
part of the discussion.
Which of the above is correct? Who cares? As I said, the politics is
debatable. But the reality isn’t. I hate to keep plugging my book After America
in this space, but if you buy multiple copies they’ll come in very
useful for insulating your cabin after the power grid collapses. At any
rate, right up there at the front — page six — I write as follows:
“The prevailing political realities of the United States do not allow
for any meaningful course correction. And, without meaningful course
correction, America is doomed.”
Washington keeps proving the point. The political class has just
spent two months on a down-to-the-wire nail-biting white-knuckle
thrill-ride negotiation the result of which is more business as usual.
At the end, as always, Dr. Obama and Dr. Boehner emerge in white coats,
surgical masks around their necks, bloody scalpels in hand, and announce
that it was touch and go for a while but the operation was a complete
success — and all they’ve done is applied another temporary band-aid
that’s peeling off even as they speak. They’re already prepping the OR
for the next life-or-death surgery on the debt ceiling, tentatively
scheduled for next Tuesday or a week on Thursday or the third Sunday
after Epiphany.
No epiphanies in Washington: The Congressional Budget Office
estimates that the latest triumphant deal includes $2 billion of cuts
for fiscal year 2013. Wow! That’s what the government of the United
States borrows every ten hours and 38 minutes. Spending two months
negotiating ten hours of savings is like driving to a supermarket three
states away to save a nickel on your grocery bill.
A space alien on Planet Zongo whose cable package includes Meet the Press
could watch ten minutes of these pseudo-cliffhangers and figure out how
they always end, every time: Spending goes up, and the revenue gap
widens. This latest painstakingly negotiated bipartisan deal to restore
fiscal responsibility actually includes a third of a trillion dollars in
new spending. A third of a trillion! $330,000,000,000! Fancy that! In
most countries, a third of a trillion would be a lot of money. But in
the U.S. it’s chump change so footling it’s barely mentioned in the news
reports. Then there’s the usual sweetheart deals for those with
Washington’s ear: $59 million for algae producers, a $20 million tax
break if a Hollywood producer shoots part of a movie in a “depressed
area” as opposed to a non-depressed area, like Canada. I’m pitching a
script to Paramount called “The Algae That Ate Detroit.”
In all the “fiscal cliff” debate, I don’t recall a lot of discussion
of algae. But apparently it’s essential to the deal. And don’t worry,
it’s paid for by all the new revenue — an estimated $620 billion over a
decade, or about $62 billion a year, which is what the government of the
United States borrows every 13 days. But don’t worry, that’s a lot of
algae.
We’re already broker than anyone has ever been ever. But this is
America, where we can always do better — or anyway bigger, and broker:
Under the “deal,” the federal debt of the United States in 2022 is
officially projected to be $23.9 trillion. That’s in today’s dollars, as
opposed to whatever we’ll be loading up the wheelbarrow with in 2022.
With “deals” like this, who needs total societal collapse? By 2050, the
federal debt will be $58 trillion. But you won’t have to worry about a
United States of America by then: It’ll just be one big abandoned Chevy
Algaerado plant.
Around the world, the only interest of friends and enemies alike in
this third-rate Beltway hokum is (to return to the theme of my book) the
question of whether America is capable of serious course correction —
and, from debt ceiling to supercommittee to fiscal cliff and now back to
debt ceiling, the political class keeps sending back the answer: No,
we’re not. For a good example of how Washington drives even the greatest
minds round the bend, consider Charles Krauthammer’s analysis on Fox
News the other night:
“I would actually commend Boehner and Paul Ryan, who in the end voted ‘yes’ for a bad deal. But they had to do it.”
If courage is the willingness to take a stand and vote for a bad deal
because you’ve been painted into a corner and want Obama to fly back to
Hawaii at the cost of another $3 million in public funds that could
have gone to algae subsidies so he’ll stop tormenting you for a week or
two, then truly we are led by giants.
But is that all there is? As the old song says: What’s it all about —
algae? Is it just for the moment we live? What’s it all about when you
sort it out — algae? Are we meant to take more than we give?
If you think politics is a make-work project for the otherwise
unemployable, then the system worked just fine. And I don’t mean only
the numbers: On Monday, 300 million Americans did not know what their
tax rates would be on Tuesday. That’s ridiculous.
Then the Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell spent the night alone
in a room with Joe Biden (which admittedly few of us would have the
stomach for). And when they emerged they informed those 300 million
Americans what their tax rates now were. That’s unseemly.
Then, in the small hours of the morning, the legislature rubber-stamped it. That’s repulsive.
There’s a term for societies where power brokers stitch up the
people’s business in back rooms and their pseudo-parliaments sign off on
it at 3 a.m., and it isn’t a “republic of limited government by citizen-representatives.”
There are arguments to be made in favor of small government: My
comrades and I have done our best over the years, with results that,
alas, in November were plain to see. There are arguments to be made in
favor of big government: The Scandinavians make them rather well. But
there is absolutely nothing to be said for what is now the standard
operating procedure of the Brokest Nation in History: a government that
spends without limit and makes no good-faith effort even to attempt to
balance the books. That’s profoundly wicked. At a minimum, the
opposition, to use a quaint term, should keep the people’s business out
in the sunlight and not holed up in a seedy motel room with Joe Biden
all night.
The fiscal cliff was a mirage. If Washington was obliged to use the
same accounting procedures as your local hardware store, the real
national debt would be at least ten times greater than the meaningless
number they’re now going to spend the next two months arguing over.
That’s to say, we’re already over the fiscal cliff but, like Wile E.
Coyote, haven’t yet glanced down at our feet and seen there’s nothing
holding us up. In a two-party system, there surely ought to be room for
one party that still believes in solid ground.
But hey, maybe we can thread all that algae into a climbing rope . . .
Party Like It's 1999 - Prince Slave O{+> Whatever
Don't worry,
I won't hurt you
I only want
you to have some fun
I was
dreaming when I wrote this,
Forgive me
if it goes astray.
But when I
woke up there this mornin',
Could've
sworn it was judgment day.
The sky was
all purple,
There were
people running everywhere,
Tryin' to
run from the destruction,
You know I didn't
even care.
'Cause they
say 2,000 zero zero party over, oops! Out of time!
So tonight
I'm gonna party like it's 1999!
I was
dreaming when I wrote this,
So sue me if
I go too fast.
But life is
just a party
And parties
weren't meant to last.
War is all
around us,
My mind says
"Prepare to fight."
So if I
gotta die,
I'm gonna
listen to my body tonight.
Yeah, they
say 2,000 zero zero party over, oops! Out of time!
So tonight
I'm gonna party like it's 1999! (Yeah, yeah)
People, let
me tell you somethin'
If you
didn't come to party,
Don't bother
knockin' on my door.
I got a lion
in my pocket
And, baby,
he's ready to roar. (Yeah)
Everybody's
got a bomb,
We could all
die any day. (Oh)
But before I
let that happen,
I'll dance
my life away.
Oh, they say
2,000 zero zero party over, oops! Out of time!
(We're
runnin' out of time)
So tonight
I'm gonna party like it's 1999!
(We gonna,
we gonna, oh!)
Say it one
more time.
2,000 zero
zero party over, oops! Out of time! (No, no)
So tonight
I'm gonna party like it's 1999!
(We're
gonna, we gonna)
Alright,
1999!
You say it,
1999!
1999 (1999)
Don't stop,
don't stop, say it one more time.
2,000 zero
zero party over, oops! Out of time! (Yeah, yeah)
So tonight
I'm gonna party like it's 1999!
(We gonna,
we're gonna)
Yeah, 1999
(1999)
Don't you
wanna go? (1999)
Don't you
wanna go? (1999)
We could all
die any day (1999)
I don't
wanna die, I'd rather dance my life away (1999)
Listen tp
what I'm tryin' to say
Everybody,
everybody say party!
Come on now,
you say it (Party!)
That's
right, everybody say (Party!) {repeat in BG}
Can't run
from revelation, no!
Sing it for
your nation, y'all!
Dreaming
when you're singin', baby!
Say the
telephone a-ringin', mama, now!
Come on,
come on, you say!
Everybody,
two times!
Work it down
to the ground, I'm sayin'
(Oh baby,
say it again)
(Oh, shake
your body, baby!)
That's
right, come on, sing the song!
That's
right, everybody say!
Got a lion
in my pocket mama, say!
Ah, and he's
ready to roar
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