It’s Funny That Way
10th January 2015
Richard Fernandez looks at government in the modern world.
At a time when Medicaid payments to doctors are being slashed because federal funds are drying up; when insurance premiums are being raised to provide “subsidies” for others, when the Armed Forces Budget is being cut to the bone and beyond, it is astonishing that people at the highest levels of government can still talk about giving people something for nothing.
The shocking thing isn’t that Obama would propose a free lunch. What is really scandalous is that he may actually think the thing exists.
But that’s the world we live in. Venezuela is a country where nobody in authority knows where things sold in stores come from. Washington is a town where nobody knows how anything is paid for. The New York Times is a paper where nobody knows what anything is called. The FBI is probably the best off of the bunch. All they have to do is figure out what to charge David Petraeus with.
The public stage is filled with the sound and fury of people who still think they are in charge. Most have risen to the pinnacles of their professions according to an insular set of rules which signified something once, but which have become vestigial without anyone noticing. “Who sent you?” And so it goes. None of them have realized they’ve become passengers on a vast ship they’ve forgotten how to sail. For them things just seem a a little different lately, and are even a little worried, but they can’t tell you why.