Weekly Comments: Money-saving advice backfires in Washington

COLUMBUS: Remember a couple of weeks ago I suggested the President could save some tax money by staying home rather than flying everywhere on Air Force One. Well, the next day he stayed in Washington, and Air Force One went to New York without him, costing us $330,000. I also hinted at how much Speaker Pelosi could save if she didn’t fly on an Air Force plane to San Francisco every weekend. Would you believe it, this weekend instead of California she flew to Iraq.
Folks, I meant well, but that just shows you a fellow offering free advice to the government has to be absolutely clear to get the desired results. I thought I wrote in plain English, but I guess not. Instead of saving, those two little episodes cost you over a million dollars.
From now on, before I send any money-saving tips to Washington, I’ll hire an accountant and a lawyer. As kind of a dry run, I sent a draft of this commentary to my accountant. She replied, “The New York flight cost $328,835. Plus 29 cents to print the digital photo.”
So you’re already better off by $1164.71. But if I get around to engaging an attorney, we’ll be back in the hole again.
Last week President Obama said that he was slashing his previously announced $3.4 Trillion budget. Because of the tough financial condition of the country, he had assembled all his top economists and ordered them to report all unnecessary or frivolous government expenses. They did, and it adds up to $17 Billion to be cut. That leaves only $3,383,000,000,000 to run the country. Then Congress got wind of it, and said, “You cut the wrong $17 Billion.”
Now if that wasn’t enough comedy, Saturday night the President entertained the Washington press corps at their annual dinner. The gather every year to raise money for charity and grade the president on his humor. They raised a lot of funds, and it’s a good thing because among the neediest people next year will be unemployed Washington journalists. President Obama was quite funny, actually a whole funnier than the comedian hired to follow him. Of course, he had better writers, and more of them, than she did. While she tried to get laughs by comparing Rush Limbaugh to Osama Bin Ladin, the President compared Dick Cheney to Dale Carnegie, saying that Dick was writing a book, “How to shoot friends and interrogate enemies.” You can’t go wrong joking about Vice Presidents.

Historic quotes from Will Rogers:

“With the politicians horning in, our comedian business is overcrowded.” WA #524, Jan. 8, 1933
“Where other Vice Presidents have done nothing but make speeches, Jack Garner just fishes. If all politicians fished instead of speaking publicly we would be at peace with the world.” DT #2251, Oct 20, 1933