Congress needs a chainsaw and a hammer

COLUMBUS: Our new president-elect continues to fill his administration. The reason he can act so quick on these appointments is he only asks one question: did you serve as an apprentice under President Clinton? Of course, many of these folks are young and have some new ideas. Mr. Obama has promised to add some diversity by also looking for a few old-timers who served under President Roosevelt.

Meanwhile, Congress and Secretary Paulson are digging up another Trillion to patch up the economy. If they want to fix this financial disaster Congress would do better with a chain saw and a hammer. Use the saw to cut off extraneous spending. Then line up everyone responsible for creating this mess, take the hammer and hit ’em right between the eyes. You may dent the hammer, but it’ll do more good than all the loans you’ll pass out in a year. If Congress is wielding the hammer properly, quite a few blows will be self-inflicted.

The Big Three automobile companies flew into Washington for a loan but went home empty handed. They arrived in their own private airplanes. GM came to Washington with seven of ’em, and Congress embarrassed them into sacrificing two planes. Brother, you know your reputation is rock bottom when you can be embarrassed by a Congressman. GM ditched the planes, but based on a 1955 agreement, they must keep paying the pilots and crew for life.

Those executives should have borrowed a Smartcar for the trip. Can’t you picture all three automotive CEOs scrunched together in one of those buggies, pedaling from Detroit to Washington.

Mr. Ford started a bank one time. If he wanted a government loan he should have kept the bank and quit automobiles.

American Express started calling itself a bank so it could get in on the gravy. Citibank was already a bank, but it loaned out more money than it had in the vault and has nothing left but empty buildings. They want the government to loan ’em enough so they don’t have to give up the name.

Maybe I’ll become a bank, too. How does this sound? The Will Rogers National Bank of Claremore. Mr. Paulson, please send your generous $5 Billion payment to me at Claremore, Oklahoma. Yes, I understand that the government now owns 49 percent of said bank. That’s ok, I think I can get by on 51 percent of $5 Billion.

Historic quotes from Will Rogers:

(From a live radio broadcast from the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, with several Senators in the audience) “I always feel kinda funny when I come here to Washington and stand before you, because we are both in the same line of business. I have got to go some to compete with you guys with this humorous business. I want to compliment you. Generally people ask me, ‘Will, where do you get your jokes?’ I tell them I just watch the government and report the facts.

I don’t know what you are doing, and I know blamed well you don’t know what you are doing. But Mr. Roosevelt is so frank, he disarms you with his honesty. He has so many plans that he don’t know what he is doing, but he says, ‘If they don’t work, I am going to try something else.'” Radio, May 21, 1933