The Spanish word for “hold hostage” is SECUESTRAR – The sequester is holding hostage all those who are about to get hit by the across-the-board meat ax. And these across-the-board automatic cuts fall heavily on the heads of little children who are being held hostage in this political standoff.
I was talking to a radio host yesterday who assured me that the hostage-takers in Congress would inevitably have to blink. He said, “Once the massive layoffs begin in the Department of Defense and cancer researchers in the Centers for Disease Control and inspectors who make sure our food and air and medicine are safe… well, they won’t let that happen.”
Oh, won’t they.
I’ve lost my faith, you see, in this Congress. Yes, there are good people and smart people and patriotic people amongst the members of Congress. But as a whole, as an institution, they function on a par with drunken idiots behind the wheel of a car careening off a fiscal cliff. And I mean no disrespect to drunken idiots. (more…)
