The federal government, in an effort to publicize the effects of pork stimulus spending, published a list of the spending projects by United States Congressional District. The publication was deeply embarrassing to the incumbent federal administration, as many of the listed Congressional districts were previously unknown to anyone in Wisconsin, or anyone else in America.
Most of the criticism involved the obvious charge that the federal government failed to track properly the billions of tax dollars likely wasted on federal projects.
Please — this isn’t a problem of new spending; it’s an opportunity for heretofore undiscovered congressional districts. I read that in Ohio, a citizen has decided to run for one of his state’s previously unknown districts, and no one from Ohio will blaze a trail that someone in Wisconsin cannot shamelessly follow.
Today, Friday, January 15th, 2010, I officially announce my candidacy for the 55th Congressional District of Wisconsin. As no one has previously been able to locate the 55th district, I might as well describe its boundaries for my prospective constituents. Could I suggest that the borders of the 55th district are identical with those of City of Whitewater, Wisconsin?
Admittedly, this makes the district smaller than others in Wisconsin, but I will not insult the United States Congress, the current Administration, or even the stodgy town fathers of Whitewater by suggesting that smaller is necessarily less effective.
I offer my imaginary district the same illusory and feeble promises that actual politicians offer — only in my case, you won’t have to suffer through the inevitable voter’s remorse.
1. Abolish the Departments of Energy, Education, and Interior, right off the bat. I’d list more cabinet departments for abolition, but carting off so many thousands of whining and crying bureaucrats will take at least a year. The employees of these federal departments will have to be re-aquatinted with (if they ever knew of) normal life and productive employment. That’s no easy task.
2. I will propose a 90% reduction in pay for all representatives, senators, and cabinet officers. I’d keep the president’s salary where it is, but cut the vice presidential salary completely. (There’s just no way the vice president shouldn’t be paying America for the privilege of occupying that office.)
3. I will introduce a bill to restrict, to 5% of current levels, the funds for mailings from representatives and senators. It’s just federal campaign funding for incumbents, sending announcements that are transparent attempts to boost visibility for re-election campaigns.
4. I will urge the Attorney General, Eric Holder, to relocate the all trials of Islamic terrorists from New York to Whitewater, Wisconsin. I see several advantages for the people of the 55th Wisconsin Congressional District:
a. Money and Jobs! Having a trial in Whitewater will significantly boost construction and employment. Forget about some namby pamby Innovation Center — imagine a FEDERAL COURT HOUSE in Whitewater! That’s big money, my fellow citizens. No way a federal judge is going to work out of a conventional building — they have lifetime tenure, and live like royalty. Like kings, with robes, too. A federal court house costs a fortune, and it would be a fortune spent right here in River City Whitewater. No more begging for a few million, here or there– we’ll be rolling in dough when the federal government gets done building a court house.
b. Safety for America! Look, millions of New Yorkers are concerned about trying vile, mass-murdering foreigners in New York. I am sympathetic to their concerns. Who knows what attention and reprisal attacks a New York trial would invite on New Yorkers? They deserve better than that.
The 55th Congressional District of Wisconsin would not incur a similar risk — there’s no way murderous Islamic fanatics know where we are. We might as well be on Pluto, for all it matters. Last summer, during road construction, we even had signs up, trying to direct Americans to find our town! No foreigner who spent his life plotting revenge on America from a landscape that looks like a bombed-out sandbox is ever going to find us.
Everyone knows where New York is, and most know where Guantanamo Bay is. We don’t even know where we are.
5. PBS. It’s just got to go. NPR, too. NPR must be the third-biggest cause of traffic accidents, after drunks and deer. How can anyone stay awake to those soporific tones? The end of NPR would be like an espresso shot for the nation.
6. Speed limits no more! Let’s abolish any federal speed limits, and stop federal pressure on states to comply with a speed limit (lest the state lose federal funding). Millions of Germans are driving really fast, in a place that’s just a cramped, musty terrarium compared to America. Eisenhower spent lots of taxpayer money on an interstate road system, and he didn’t do it to make the snail America’s new national symbol. Go, Driver. Go!
7. NASA. They’re doing okay with robot probes to Mars, but spending so much money on travel in Earth orbit, with such mediocre ship designs, is just an embarrassment. It’s time to turn human exploration over to the American private sector, and get NASA out of the human exploration gig. If we’re trying to have cool-looking spaceships and female astronauts in skimpy uniforms — and we damn well should be — NASA’s a poor option.
8. Offsets of Federal Funding. Sometimes, the federal government spends money on a town, or on a state (for the benefit of a town), only to find that the town’s spending other money in ridiculous ways. Why spend federal tax dollars, in effect, to subsidize dumb local projects? I would propose a reduction — in the following amounts — of any federal government spending on a town, or of a state (for the benefit of a town), for these reasons —
a. A reduction in federal funding of $100,000 for each day a municipal official spends public time on so-called ‘comprehensive planning.’
b. A reduction in federal funding of $250,000 for each day a municipal official spends public time on a federally-funded project without completing a prior, funded project.
The official will also have to write on a chalkboard, a hundred times over, the sentence “I will only waste taxes on one silly idea at a time.”
c. A reduction in federal funding of $500,000 for each and every time a municipal official travels to another city and rides around instead of working in his actual jurisdiction.
If the municipality receives insufficient amounts to cover these offsets, the federal government should require each city politician and bureaucrat to work washing dishes in the nearest federal employee cafeteria. They should have to eat the cafeteria’s food, too.
9. Campaign Finance Laws — None! Speak as you want, spend as you want to support the speech of others. Insiders have been skirting unfairly enforced laws, while others have been hit with fines and lawsuits. There shouldn’t be financial limits on political speech.
10. The Second Amendment — I support it. It’s as much a lawful provision as any other part of the constitution.
Bonus Platform Position, because my prospective constituents are worth more than an ordinary ten-point plan:
TID Spending Illegal. Time to put an end to local officials who want to feel big by hawking wasteful projects through taxpayer money. If small-town bureaucrats want to act like Donald Trump, they should do it with their own money. I’d also suggest they move to New York, and take lessons from that developer himself.
Those who have wasted tax incremental district funds should be incarcerated.
I wouldn’t, however, ever, ever, ever be so cruel as to suggest that they should serve their sentences in ordinary federal prisons.
Other federal prisoners shouldn’t have to put up with self-promoting bureaucrats yakking day and night about their dedication to the community when their schemes are mostly a dedication to their own sense of importance on somebody else’s dime.
The federal administration need not close Guantanamo Bay, ever – we can fill its space with both fanatics and with foreign terrorists.
I promise my fellow citizens, above all else, a level of imaginary dedication modeled after the service of actual politicians and bureaucrats from Whitewater, Wisconsin.