Meet the hobos
A Republican cartoon version of the future
Meet the hobos
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
If you're currently out of work and waiting for your next unemployment check, you might be out of luck. Republican Senator Jim Bunning - a politician so out of touch that even the Republican leaders considered him unfit to run for reelection this year - has been single-handedly blocking an extension of jobless benefits. For 1.1 million affected Americans, the jobless pay ran out last night. Senate Democrats will try to help the jobless by overriding Bunning this week. He insists that, as a matter of fiscal principle, it would be wrong to add to the deficit, but his real message was actually more pungent. Late last week, when Senate Democrats begged him to drop his objections and, in essence, to stop screwing around with people's lives, Bunning was overheard saying, "Tough s--t."
That would make a fine GOP bumper sticker, but perhaps it's Dean Heller, a heretofore obscure Republican congressman from Nevada, who best exemplifies his party's attitude toward the everyday straits of the struggling millions. At a Republican dinner in his state the other night, Heller questioned the wisdom of extending unemployment benefits over a span of several years. He feared that, by doing so, the federal government might turn us into a nation of slackers. Or, as he suggested to his listeners...and I kid you not, this is what he said...
"Is the government now creating hobos?"
Absolutely, that must be the Democrats' ultimate game plan. I happen to have an exclusive iPhone application called iFuture, which allows me to upload text and video of events that haven't even happened yet. I've just tapped the icon. Here's a news story from 2012. Or perhaps it's the Republican cartoon version:
HOBOHEMIA - Riding the rails from all over America, unshaven hobos by the millions descended on the federally-mandated city of Hobohemia, intent on celebrating the creation of their own community and vowing to live out their once-productive lives on the government dole.
Everybody had a story to tell. Strumming a Woody Guthrie tune on his five-string banjo, Joe Hill smiled at the sun as he lolled on his back in the town square. He pulled a cigarette butt from behind his ear, stuck it between his lips, lit the match on his stubble, and said, "I was a middle manager at a manufacturing plant for 35 years until I got laid off back in '09. I suppose I should've kept looking for work so that I could support my family, but there's no need for any of that, now that I've got my jobless check from the government. Long as those checks keep coming, I'm gonna choose to be a bum. The heck with the family - right, Harry?"
His friend, Harry McClintock, looked up from his well-thumbed John Steinbeck novel, and smirked toothlessly. "I'm fixed up real good, Joe," he said. "Just got my latest check from DHS (the federal Department of Hobo Services), and I used it to buy a new iPod. I'm thinking tonight I might try to download that old Red Skelton comedy sketch, Freddy the Freeloader, and maybe that old Johnny Cash ditty, The Hobo Song."
"Good thing we jumped off that train, Harry," said Hill, "because those boxcars didn't have free wi-fi. Which is outrageous. DHS should work up some rules requiring that the freight trains get wireless. The other night I tried to download Big Rock Candy Mountain, and I couldn't even get a signal."
"Great song!" McClintock exclaimed. Hill fired it up on the banjo, and McClintock sang: "In the big rock candy mountains/ There's a land that's fair and bright/ Where the handouts grow on bushes/ And you sleep out every night...Awesome, that part about the handouts. So much more fun than being an out-of-work engineer with a wife and kids and a house in foreclosure. Joe, what say we hit that Starucks over there, then go to Banana Republic for some new glad rags?"
"I guess so," Hill yawned. "But that involves getting to my feet and walking across the street. I've been telling DHS that my checks need to be bigger, to cover the cost of those Frappuccinos, and they keep saying, 'next month, next month.' I keep telling them, 'Jeez, don't I have any rights anymore?'" He shook his head sadly, and started strumming John Lee Hooker's Hobo Blues.
"Buck up, Joe. See the sign in Starbucks? There's a week-long reading of Jack Kerouac."
"Well, OK," said Hill, brightening. "But only if they let us sleep out on the sidewalk between readings."
"DHS already says that's your right as a hobo," McClintock pointed out. Then his phone buzzed. "Hang on, Joe, I got a text coming in. Two, actually." He read and groaned. "First one's from the wife. She wants me to come home, says there are 'now hiring' signs being put up all over town. No frickin way. I like it better when the handouts grow on bushes."
"You got that right," Hill murmured, his eyes growing heavy. "Whuz the other text?"
"It's from the Obama re-election campaign again. They're asking for our vote. They created us hobos, we should be grateful, that sort of thing. But I don't know. Weren't we planning to hop a freight train to Montana that week?"
"I dearly hope there's no jobs for us up there," Hill yawned. "But the heck with the train this time. We'll rent a car - get the DHS discount, ride in style." Fighting sleep and fumbling for the banjo, he began to play Woody Guthrie's Hobo Lullabye.
Lulled by the strumming, McClintock slid his Steinbeck novel under his head and began to nod off. His last words were, "Mmmm, OK. But only if the rental has XM radio."
MOCKY: Bush knew about it, did nothing after making claims to the contrary, and didn't care after the fact. Why would he get to the bottom of it, if there was no crime? Typical Conse 'Pub logic with the housewife so-what attitude. Example: Do you torture prisoners? Answer: You want to take them to Disneyland!! Doesn't answer the question, belittles the questioner, and dismisses the offense.— Talvenada- One of the books I'm currently reading is titled "Wingnuts ... How the lunatic fringe is hijacking America". From the first chapter "... but Wingnut politics is not about solving problems. Armed with ideological certainty, they come to protest and polarize. Wingnuts are addicted to their drug of choice - a righteous indignation that makes them unable to see any perspective other than their own" .... boy, good thing that doesn't seem to describe anybody here. The chapter ends witha quote from Eisenhower "The middle of the road is all the usable surface. The extremes, left and right, are in the gutters"— still_independent
- Still Independent- Actually if we are being honest it is a coalition of independents and conservatives that are against the healthcare bill. And actually it is a coalition of independents and conservatives that lead to Republican victories in NJ and Mass. . It is not that the Independents suddenly crave Republicans. They want balance being restored. The tyranny of the majority can be a dangerous thing. Wether its on the left or the Right.
- And now in 1st place for the 2012 Republican nomination for president! The party of NO has a candidate of NO!! He gave up a basketball game to do his job. Bunning! A tough love you can support!— Talvenada
- And now in 1st place for the 2012 Republican nomination for president! The party of NO has a candidate of NO!! He gave up a basketball game to do his job. Bunning! A to-ugh love you can support!— Talvenada
- Mike Welbourne - do not drag me into your "Cuba" nonsense ... either address the damage the GOP has done or go away .. wee wee boy.— WendyWendy
- "today's GOP: Killed the economy, killed the job market, killed unemployment benefits, killed America." The GOP did all this while Dems enjoy a majority in the House, the Senate and also control of the White House? Please explain...— PhillyTru
In case nobody noticed - We now have almost a 3 trillion dollar debt. That's $3,000,0000,000,000.00. Or, put another way, that's about $10,000 for every many woman and child in America. And that doesn't really include all the deficits in Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security - all of which are insolvent. The REAL lesson of the great depression (the one they don't teach you in public schools) is that massive government interference in the economy (ONLY done by Hoover and FDR) makes a depression much longer and much more severe. Bunning is trying to keep the congress from continuing its massive war on the american people by lining its pockets and the pockets of their wall-street contributors (P.S. They contribute equally to Republicans and Democrats). For that he is to be applauded.- Who's lining Bunning's pockets? Why don't the Republicans in DC get their big-business fatcats to commit to rehiring their fired and laid-off workers as things improve? The GNP goes up but unemployement stays the same. Fact! Amazing! People want to work. But Big Biz has scared the stuffing outta their remaining workers, getting them to do anything they're asked-- believe me, I know. During the Depression, men took to riding the rails. That or an equivalent will happen again soon. This country needs an enema. Is our capitalistic system more precious to us than human dignity? Human rights? Sure looks that way. WWJD?— smacky
- Those who want to blame the current economic situation on the previous incompetent president or completely incompetent current president are missing the point. The problem is that WE - the american people -the ones demanding "Something for Nothing" - are the cause of all these problems. By wanting the government to give us things that we don't want to pay for, by screaming bloody murder when congress (infrequently) tries to cut programs that we can't pay for. By taking to the streets when they try to reform broken social programs, like social security, medicare, etc. We are dragging this country down into the abyss of history. "No democracy lasts longer than it takes for the populace to realize they can vote themselves funds from the public treasury." When the great majority of americans were christian or otherwise had an ethical base, we could resist this impulse. Now that we are mostly secular, it's "grab what you can get" and "everyman for himself." The clock is winding down.
Comment removed.- Congress just passed and Obama recently signed the re-enactment of Pay-go, and the first piece of legislation the Senate and House gets passed/debated as exempt from the new pay-go legislation. All Bunning wants is to have this law paid for, as Congress just agreed to do a few weeks ago. Why is that so wrong?— tom - wilmington, de
- Hmmm. Let's see - unemployment blew up in 2007 - check. Economy tanked in 2008 (remember Co-Presidents John McCain and Sarah Palin saved the world by "suspending" their campaign?) - check. The policies (tax cuts, spending, 2 unnecessary wars) set by the Republican controlled congress having their (intended?) effect today? - check. Thanks GOP! Republicans cannot be trusted to run a newsstand let alone government. Bunning in 2012.— WendyWendy
- All Jim Bunning wants - Ha! Wee Wee Boy Tom (long-term mental disability benefit recipient) back at the excuse making while the unemployed (thanks Bush/Cheney!) suffer even more.— WendyWendy
- Wendy, Wendy- Are you ever going to get more than one cash register in your restaurants? Snarkiness aside, Republicans were not fiscally responsible and they paid for it at the ballot box. Democrats are proving to be far worse and they paid for it by losing NJ and Mass and will lose in the mid-terms. The bottom line here is we cannot solve our issue with our debt by spending more and enacting new entitlements. No one wants to be a grown up and discuss the collapsing ponzi scheme called social security, medicare, and prescription drug. I'm sure a trillion dollar healthcare boondoggle will fix it all. Right?
Cited by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of the nation's top political reporters, and lauded by the ABC News political website as "one of the finest political journalists of his generation," Dick Polman is a national political columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is on the full-time faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, as "writer in residence." Dick has been a frequent guest on C-Span, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and the BBC. He covered the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential campaigns.
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