Uncle Willy's Badly Designed Family Fun Page

Gather round, children! Today, Uncle Willy is going to teach you about government! Yes, Jimmy! The same people who put your father in jail! No, don’t cry, Jimmy! Just remember: When you grow up, you can always get back at them by cheating on your taxes!
The thing you need to remember about government is that everybody, living or dead, or even undead in the case of Sen. Kerry, is obsessed with money. Money, as you know, is how Mommy and Daddy pay for things they really want, such as birth-control pills, which they purchase on a regular basis because they’re not about to make the same mistake again. In government, money generally comes in the form of large briefcases filled with small green pieces of paper, which are then transferred to and from Special Interest groups, such as the Committee for a Sensible Llama Rehydration Policy. Although this may make no sense to you, Jimmy, it is of course…
JIMMY! For God’s sake, take that finger out of your nose! After the operation, Mr. Gladstone wants it back! Thank you.
Anyway, the main thing that you need to be concerned with, boys and girls, is how money is counted. Do you remember? Here’s an example:

$7.32

This figure is a representation of how large a specific amount of money is. For example, the figure above represents the value of seven dollars and thirty-two cents, which, to give you an idea of what this is worth these days, is about half a dollar more than you will be making per hour as you serve Happy Meals to little snotball kids such as yourself for your entire adult life.
No, don’t cry, Jimmy! I’m sure you’ll be fired once the manager finds out that you’ve been embezzling more than your fare share of free smiles! Please stop crying. Dear God. If you don’t stop crying this frequently then when you grow up they only women you’ll have in your life will be your sister and your… Hey… So this is your mother?
Uh, anyway! Knowing that this sort of money is available, Special Interest groups often travel around the offices of different congresspersons and, rather than making an appointment, circle around the area, vulture-like, until a congressperson comes out. At this point they have him cornered, and are forced to explain the objective of their cause until the victim either gives them a large amount of money or begins to show signs of self-inflicted brain damage. In order to get this money, they promise that in exchange they will provide him with some very useful services. Yes, Jimmy! Just like your sister in the park! Not that Uncle Willy would know about that!
Next, children, we’re going to talk about the budget! Now, I know that it sounds boring, and, believe me, it is! But if we’re going to learn about government, we’re going to need to know how a budget is kept.
First of all, what is a budget? Can anyone tell me?
No, Jimmy, that’s a bird. Anyone else? No? All right, then.
A budget is an amount of money which is allocated to a project, but which disappears rather quickly due to waste, surveying, planning, embezzlement, bribes, escort services, and the project leader using top secret Air Force experimental vehicles to fly to his summer home in Beijing. Unfortunately, this means that there are very few resources left over (after doing preliminary research, charting figures, investigating legal repercussions, etc.) for the project manager to complete the actual work, so he has no alternative but to go to lunch.
So, children, to put it in a context that comes much “closer to home”, let’s consider an analogy involving your school. Let’s say that once a month your school has a Pizza Day. Due to the fact that this somehow makes the average student even fatter than they were before, the overwhelming weight change causes many areas of the floor to give in and cause the students to break through the floorboards and enter the realm of Hades, from where the Dark One has installed a special two-way portal in case He feels that you are in need of an even more rigorous gym teacher. The cost of repairing the floor is necessary, but not accounted for in the annual budget as it was planned (its highest expense being a total of $106 000 for coffee in the teachers lounge).
Here lies the challenge. How do you use your budget, which has barely enough money for teaching supplies, to fix this drastic problem? Easy! You simply “overlook” it. After all, the holes aren’t all that big, plus for every student that falls through one, there are at least six Chinese students standing by to replace him. In all likelihood nobody will even notice; if they do, then you can blame everything on the ESL teacher. How is he going to know what you’re saying?
This small example, taken to some extremes, is how virtually everything in government gets done. It’s also how most of the corporate world works, which is why these days virtually every physical object is manufactured in Japan. And it’s because of the effort of brave Special Interest groups that we now live in an America in which every man, woman and child has the facility to get their llamas rehydrated. We have truly entered a Golden Age.

THE PROBLEM: Money is being spent very unwisely and occasionally for personal gain in many areas of the United States government, notably congress.
WHAT I AM GOING TO DO ABOUT IT: Once elected, I’m gonna buy me a Ferrari.

 

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