[The following is excerpted from an email from Senator Windbag to his nephew, Richard Needles, the esteemed representative from one of our Southern states].
Hi Richard,
Congratulations on winning a seat in the Senate. With the six-year terms, you’ll find it much more lucrative in this chamber than in the House; you can spend less time campaigning and more time farming. And because you can do so much more damage here, you’ll find the pastures much greener.
I’m sorry you won’t have the same opportunities I did, but afraid the good ol’ days are done with, so you’re going to have to work fast. With the debt we’ve run up, this whole thing could collapse any day. You need to tear off as much as you can before that happens. Here are a few pointers for you as you start your new business.
1. Don’t worry about the future. The future is now. If you don’t get as much out of this opportunity as you can today, it might not be here for you tomorrow. It’s kind of like when I opened up the Big Trees National Forest to logging. Old Bill Bunyan had to get in there and clearcut before someone else got the logs. You remember him; I rigged his bid and he found a few thousand votes for me in the obituaries, lol. Anyway, it’s the same for you now — if you don’t clearcut what you have before you, someone else will. Everybody’s dipping into the soup, and the guy with the biggest ladle wins.
2. Don’t worry about the taxes. With all these Tea Party nuts, it’s getting harder and harder to raise taxes, but it doesn’t really matter — we can just keep borrowing. That whole debt ceiling thing was slick as snot; we had everybody thinking his grandma would starve if they didn’t let us borrow more. Those idiots haven’t figured out that borrowing is the same as taxing. But then, that’s exactly what we don’t want them to know, so don’t ever talk about it. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but I have to be sure you’re on board.
3. Don’t worry about the debt. Don’t act like you don’t care, of course, but don’t actually do anything to reduce the debt, OK? This is really important, because, don’t tell anyone, but I made it to the Fed a few years ago! That’s right, it’s just a little share, but it’s a really, really, big pie, LOL. And if you behave yourself and do like we tell you, I might be able to get you a membership too. The way it works is, the Fed prints the money and lends it to the government, the Chinese, and everyone else, and then those people pay interest on the bonds. That interest is income to us, so it really doesn’t matter if anyone ever pays off the loan. Counterfeiters always have money to spend. (By the way, do not forward this). Seriously, the debt is not a problem… for us!
4. Don’t worry about the “revolution.” I know some of us, especially the Republicans, are worried about getting kicked out in the next election, but I have it on good authority that even if the Tea Party nuts turn out huge at the polls, Bill Bunyan and his friends can turn up a lot more votes in cemeteries, schools, border towns, and factories all across America. If the election is anywhere near being close, we can tip it against the Tea nuts. Anyway, I’m pretty sure the economy is going to get so bad by election time that everybody will be demanding more big government solutions, because that’s exactly how we’ve trained them to think.
OK, these are just a few tips to get you started. I’ll send you some more soon, but for now just remember: as long as people are paying taxes, you have job. And a pension. And health insurance, travel perks… and I really need to go now.