352. Goverment

Ahhh. I’ve had a whole week off from C.W. He’s trying his hand at consulting. Somehow, he got a gig working on the re-organization of our state government. I guess he finished since he showed back up this morning. As I figured, he was still in the form of Reggie the Young Conservative.

“I’m bushed,” he said. “I thought getting rid of old-timey government would be easy.”

“Oh?”

“Government is hard,” he said.

“That’s what I’ve always heard.”

“Who said it would be easy?”

I looked at him. “Uh,” I said. “Your pals?”

“Well,” he said, sipping a latte he had brought with him. “I did my part.”

“Which was?”

“My assignment was to reduce the number of state agencies.”

“And?”

“I got it down to six.”

“Which were?”

“One,” he said, holding up a finger, “The Department of Tax Cuts.”

“The what?”

“It’s a ‘sunset department.’ Self-liquidating. It’ll be gone in three years, max.”

“Say what?”

“Two,” he said. “the Department of Energy Consumption.”

“Which does what?”

He smiled. “Well let’s just say you won't see any more of those solar panels or windmills dotting our landscape.”

“Are you nuts?”

“Three: The Department of Payroll and Expenditures.”

“Oh no.”

“Yes,” he said. “Have to. The governor’s wife has expensive tastes and his pals need jobs.”

“What kind of jobs?”

“Four: The Department of Peace and Quiet. I saved us loads of money there.”

“How?”

“For one, no more state police. The cities have to take care of their portion of the highways. Same with jails. We’ll tell them who we don’t want associating with the good folks and the city of origin will take care of rounding up, and herding in, and keeping them from public view.”

“I guess next is a department for education.”

“Don’t be silly,” he said. “Walmart will take care of that.”

“How?”

“They’ll add classrooms onto their stores. Sort of a ‘drop them off to learn while you shop’ arrangement. Each employee will take a shift teaching.”

“Teaching them what?”

“All they need to know.”

“Which is?”

“How to greet, stock, sweep, watch over the auto checkouts, run computers, and compute profits.”

 

The legislators in charge of
reorganization rejoice upon
completion of their work. - C.W.

“What about history and math and language skills?”

This time he looked at me funny. “Are you crazy?”

“No, but I’m beginning to think I’m living in an asylum.”

“That brings me to number Five, the Department of Emergency Care.”

“The what?”

“Emergency care. Our Health and Welfare Committee decided that was all the care we really needed and the various emergency rooms around the state will provide that. All our department will have to do is print and distribute directions to the emergency rooms along with parking instructions.”

“Any more departments?’

“Six: The Department of Truck and Commuter Mobility. Want to hear about it?”

“I don’t think so.”

“That’s about it,” he said, with a noticeable display of pride. “The Guv says it will be the smoothest operating government this side of Somalia.”

“With only six departments?”

“And a few agencies. The largest will be run by a group of evangelical ministers: The Agency for Funny Acting Groups.”

“And they will?”

“Funny you should ask, I happen to have their mission statement here.” He took a folded page from his coat pocket, opened it, and scanned the contents. “Here is the main part,” he said. Then he read, “our mission will have been completed when our state is cleansed of deviants, those who would take from the wholesome and give to the unworthy, teach unilateral forgiveness to our youth, wander jobless throughout our state, cohabitate with individuals of the same sex, and refuse treatment of, or cure for, such ailments as a thorn in their side.” He folded the paper. “Neat huh? We’re thinking of having that carved in granite and placed on the state capitol grounds.”

Click on some ads. It costs them money and makes me some.

Also check out www.allhatnocattle.com

And buy Big Dope's book at Amazon

or  www.wattensawpress.com .