Saturday, September 5, 2009
‘And You Want To Manage Our Health Care?’
Nanny State piece by
J.J. Jackson
George Costanza, the hapless friend of Jerry Seinfeld in his self titled sitcom, was a fairly lazy man. His goal in life was to get paid a healthy salary for doing as little work as possible. In one episode George is unemployed. He likes being unemployed and living off the government dole. It gives him a lot of freedom and he is content to sit around and not look for a job. But a problem crops up when he is asked to prove that he is actually looking for work or else lose his unemployment benefits. George then concocts a scam instead of actually doing what he should be doing which is looking for work and doing something useful.
George tells the unemployment office that he is really close to landing a job with a fictitious company called Vandelay Industries. He then gives the unemployment office Jerry’s home phone number so that they can call and confirm that he is not really the slovenly buffoon that he is trying to just milk the system. After his meeting he hightails it over to Jerry’s apartment just to make sure he beats any potential call and explains to his friend that when the phone rings he must answer it as if he were indeed Vandelay Industries. When Jerry asks what he was supposed to tell the unemployment office when they call, George tells them that he is supposed to claim that the company is looking at hiring George to be their latex salesman.
Of course at the end of the episode everything blows up for poor, hapless George. He is in Jerry’s bathroom using the toilet when the phone rings and Kramer answers the call. It is the unemployment office calling to confirm George’s job prospects and Kramer, not knowing about the scam, readily tells the person on the other end of the line that they have the wrong number and that there is no such company at that location. George, trying to salvage his lie, rushes out of the bathroom, pants around his ankles and screaming feverishly, “Vandelay! Say Vandelay Industries!” only to trip and fall on his face.
Jerry, seeing the spectacle of a half naked George on the floor, upset that his plot has now crumbled, remarks with a bit a disgust to his voice, “And you want to be my latex salesman?” Well, here we are once again with comedy foretelling real life.
America is in quite a predicament these days. We are spending money we do not have on everything from wild horse preserves to buildings that serve no real good except that they allow Congressmen and Senators to put their names on them as a reminder to their constituents that they created some temporary make-work projects for their political cronies. But you want to know the worst part of it all? The worst part is that this sort of stuff is small potatoes. And while every penny certainly counts, the stark reality is that unless we start looking at where money is really being spent on a federal level and the big pots of unconstitutional cash that are being thrown around (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Welfare, etc.) there is no way on God’s green Earth that we are going to change course on spending more than we collect any time soon.
The American people are angry. They are beginning to wake up to the fact that government spending is out of control. Getting them to accept the need to take their own hands out of the cookie jar is still a good while off I think, but at least they are starting to realize there is a problem.
However this new reality has not stopped President Obama, who is more and more like George Costanza every day, from trying to continue government’s highfaluting spending ways. He voted for billions in bank bailouts as a Senator. Since becoming President has bought government stake in automobile companies. He has also given that entire industry billions to boost sagging sales through “Cash for Clunkers,” a program under which many dealers are still waiting for payment despite being promised payment within 10-days. He played an integral part in getting hundreds of billions more spent on all sorts of further make-work projects most of which will not be spent until next year or later. Some “stimulus” huh? And he is proposing all sorts of new regulations and government programs that will cost even more money that we do not have on top of all that which we are already spending and that we do not have.
Months ago George ... I mean Obama ... was standing before us and Americans asked him to verify that he was not trying to milk the system to further his own ends before they would vote for him. They asked him for proof that he was not just another in a long line of leaders whose mentality amounts to simply spend, spend, spend and spend some more because they are too scared to forcibly remove the little hands from the cookie jar if need be. His answer was to basically tell all who asked that he was different and that if they doubted him that they could call a number, a number he provided, to verify that he was being truthful and that he really was the harbinger of hope and change.
For months many Americans did not bother. Then, one day, not too long ago many decided to pick up the phone and check. Obama must have been in the bathroom at the time because someone not in on the ploy must have answered. All we know is that the voice on the other end answered matter-of-factly, “Hello, White House. What’s that you say? Hope? Change? No there is no hope and change here. No, you’re way, way, way off!” In the background you can hear a frantic voice calling, “Joe! Say Hope! Say Change! Hope!” and then a mighty thud.
Now on the floor President Obama lays prostrate with his pants around his ankles and whimpering. Looking on America sighs in unison, “And you want to manage our health care?” as we shake our heads collectively. Maybe instead of trying to scam America President Obama should do something useful, abide by the Constitution and get to work.
J.J. Jackson
http://www.libertyreborn.com/
HowardWasRight 
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