Stuck in Wonderland

The new budget has a 3.83 trillion dollar price tag. Telling lawmakers to tone it down but be sure to pass cap and trade, health care and the stimulus two package --I'm sorry, job recovery package so as to save 1/2 of one percent of the budget through a 3 year discretionary spending freeze that won't happen until 2011 doesn't just smack of chutzpah, it mock turtle dances in the streets of sheer Alice in Wonderland madness. "It's all her fancy that: they never executes nobody, you know. Come on!"

As Americans, we've been down this rabbit hole before. We followed and found the loans that said drink me and eat me and made ourselves balloon up and out and every which way but right. It was only after we'd discovered our errors and dropped the fan crushing much of the housing market that we thought our way back to a safe size. It was a narrow escape.

To excoriate the prior administration for its fiscal irresponsibility and compound it with one's own is to pretend that your wrongs are irrelevant because you've been wronged first; well, Alice, surprised by her own courage, speaks truth to the President. "No, No!" Said the Queen. "Sentence first --verdict afterward."

His new tone of being a fiscal hawk rings hollow.

"Cheshire Cat would you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here?" "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat. We've been told, we can't save our way out of this economic problem, we can only spend to prosperity. Between the Mad Hatter, (Congress) March Hare, (press) and Sleepy Door Mouse (Republicans) and the Tea Party, nothing will get done except badly. They'll just keep changing chairs and cups and repeating the same sob stories of the Mock Turtle and when they were unjustly accused.

To our commander in chief who asks us to believe he means business about the deficit, I would say, "This is all nonsense." The budget is filled with imaginary numbers. You have not slain the Jabberwocky with your vorpal blade. Meanwhile, all the nobles gather to play croquet. "I don't think they play at all fairly." "And they quarrel so dreadfully, one can't hear one's self speak."

But the Democrats march merrily along, painting the white roses red and red roses white. All these promises, all these programs are just a bunch of cards. If we speak up, we shall be told, "Off with her head!" because "Nothing could be clearer than that. Let the jury consider their verdict."

Here's hoping we wake up soon.

Apologies to Lewis Caroll, but when you spend 16 years reading children's literature, it's what you know.