The Budget Is a Moral Document

What goes into caucus and committee and what comes out of caucus and committee what dialogue travels the halls of Congress and what dialogue is absent from those consecrated halls what is debated on the floor stays on the floor and what rises to the ceiling stays on the ceiling a high wire act in a circus of clowns and puppets trip over each other to raise money for themselves what elevates the heavy gavel of procedure and what brings that mighty wooden gavel down who is written out of trade partnership agreements and who is written into trade partnership agreements what is left out of national security legislation and what is written into security legislation it has the shape and style and sound and appearance of democracy but some fingers and toes are missing cloaked in rhetoric and petulant rant representatives buzz from one special interest flower to the other pushing debased agendas and empty proposals with impunity unaware that every single meeting and motion and voice is attached to the life of a determined and diligent citizen dependent upon their conscientiousness and empathy clichés and bromides shift fast between nattering teeth ranks close in and capacity for clear hearing thins out tabloids and blogs are the prime sources of knowledge and gravitas is a slow steamboat on the Mississippi commentators and pundits flap thick wicked tongues giving lip service to Constitutional principles and purpose all thriving in a happy broadband land where drones drop bombs far away as we sleep in peace and comfort turn up the Wi-Fi have another pitcher of brew no need to ponder the wretched who make it possible for all of us to live