The Federal Budget Poem
We have a foreign policy that makes us lots of enemies
Which mandates buying battle gear that lets us master land and seas
To pay for all these war machines requires lots of borrowings
And that, in turn, requires we ignore painful tomorrowings.
The elderly keep crying for more help to pay their big med bills
(Who would have figured codgers had so many costly aches and ills?)
We can’t ignore them wholly cause they show up at the voting polls
So what the heck, we borrow more, to keep them happy with their doles.
There’s nasty costs of hurricanes, that lead to spending deepening
There’s infrastructure maintenance, a can’t ignore upkeepening
The folks who give out campaign cash, expect a payback myriad
And budgeteers who don’t play ball ain’t reelected, period.
The things we use increasingly come from another hemisphere
The money fer’ners make on trade comes back to us as loans most dear
So servicing our debt costs more, expenses we can’t seem to thwart
A household budget done this way, you end up in a bankrupt’s court.
The fed’ral budget we now see, can’t just be viewed financially
In truth it mirrors who we are, and who we think we ought to be
And what is clear, in red ink writ, are can’t escape conclusions dire
Our power dreams, our bloated schemes, stoke history’s delusions pyre.
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