LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
counts our noses and asks fresh questions about who’s still living at home and how many bathrooms we have; decides whether the door to our office or shop should have steps or a wheelchair ramp; decrees the gender and complexion of the people to be hired there; lectures us on safe sex, and dictates what we can sniff, smoke, and swallow. The government is huge, stupid, greedy, and makes nosy, officious, and dangerous intrusions into the smallest corners of life – this much we can stand. But the real problem is that government is boring. We could cure or mitigate the other ills Washington visits upon us if we could only bring ourselves to pay attention to Washington itself. But we cannot. Government is boring because political careers are based on the most tepid kind of lie: “I’ll balance the budget, sort of,” or, “I won’t raise taxes, if I can help it.”
Of course, politicians don’t tell the truth: “I am running for the U.S. Senate in order to even the score with those grade-school classmates of mine who, 35 years ago, gave me the nickname Fish Face,” or, “Please elect me to Congress so that I can get out of the Midwest and meet bigwigs and cute babes.” But neither do politicians tell huge, entertaining whoppers: “Why, send yours truly to Capitol Hill and I’ll ship home the swag in boxcar lots. You’ll be paving the roads with bacon around here when I get done shoveling out the pork barrel. There’ll be government jobs for your dog. Leave your garden hose running for 15 minutes and I’ll have the Department of Transportation build an eight-lane suspension bridge across the puddle. Show me a wet basement and I’ll get
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Government is boring because political careers are based on the most tepid kind of lie: “I’ll balance the budget, sort of,” or, “I won’t raise taxes, if I can help it.”
8 | October 2017
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