Stu Bykofsky: Pigs blind to pork on their own plate
THIS IS ABOUT the national budget, and to save you from yawn-spawning boredom, I'll frame it around people - stupid, greedy or hypocritical people.
THIS IS ABOUT the national budget, and to save you from yawn-spawning boredom, I'll frame it around people - stupid, greedy or hypocritical people.
The abridged list of villains: former bike messenger and bit-part actress Janeane Garofalo, Iowa Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin, House Republican Leader John Boehner.
They intersect at President Obama's 2010 proposed budget, which contains cuts of $17 billion.
That sounds like a lot - it is a lot - but amounts to about 0.5 percent of the budget. The reduction is small, but a journey of 1,000 miles, Lao-tzu taught us, starts with a single step.
Programs to be cut, the White House said, either do not accomplish the administration's goals, are inefficient, or duplicate other efforts.
Here are my three favorite markdowns:
* CUT from the Department of Education, $632,000 for an educational attache - in Paris! - to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization;
* CUT from the Department of Agriculture, $5 million to help rural Public Broadcasting stations' conversion to digital. It's almost completed - and why is the Ag Department in broadcasting, anyway?
* CUT $142 million in Abandoned Mine Lands Payments because, the government said, "this program is now used to clean up mines that are already cleaned up."
If Obama can find $17 billion to cut (George W. Bush found $18 billion) does this suggest to you that there just might be more than 0.5 percent that can be sliced away without doing any real harm?
It does to me - and it did to the Americans who turned out for the Tax Day Tea Party protests targeting too-high taxes and its evil twin, too much waste.
Waste brings me to adorable imbecile Garofalo, who said on (almost) national television (it was MSNBC, with ratings so low it seems more like public access out of Madison, Wis.) that the tea parties were "racism straight-up" attended by "a bunch of teabagging rednecks."
When I heard her, I wanted to kick myself - for not interviewing the handful of African-Americans I saw at the local protest. Ah, the missed opportunity to interview a black redneck.
In the adorable imbecile's coconut skull, the only possible explanation for disagreeing with the president is racism. While I saw no "race-based" signs in Philly (Janeane, were you actually at a tea party?), I know a few were seen on TV. Yes, a few Tea Baggers are racist, as are a few Democrats, but to smear the entire turnout as racist is as bigoted, as, well, the adorable imbecile, Garofalo.
Sen. Harkin, it was reported, is all for cutting waste, but the first thing he says he asks is, "Does this affect employment or not?"
Not, "Does the program work?" Not, "Is it needed?" No, just: "Will it cut jobs?" I don't want to see anyone lose a job, but I also don't want to see anyone doing a job that doesn't need to be done. Thinking like Harkin's guarantees bloat, forever. Would Harkin vote to keep ghost employees on the payroll because firing them would "affect employment"?
To protect Iowa jobs(?), Harkin fought to keep a $1.8 million earmark to study how to deal with the odor from pig manure. (How about the stench coming from Congress, Tom?)
Finally, the Honorable Mr. Boehner harrumphed, of the $17 billion in cuts, "We should do more."
Yeah, bro, and what kept you from doing "more" when W was The Man? Spending went up like a moon shot even though Republican zombies controlled Congress for most of that time.
Dimwits and hypocrites.
Which are worse?
E-mail stubyko@phillynews.com or call 215-854-5977. For recent columns: