At the rate the new congress hit the ground Tuesday, I expect the Affordable Care Act and the EPA will be ancient history by the time you read this.
Good riddance, some might say. Why waste money on healthcare for everybody when everybody dies anyway. What's that, a 100% percent failure rate? What imbecile would invest in a loser like that?
And if the environment wants to be safe, it should get a gun and protect itself like a real American. Right?
Now I realize, good reader, these things might not have come to pass. Maybe they haven't gotten that far yet. It may surprise you that I'm not writing this five minutes before your Friday morning coffee. It's true.
This weekly column is actually compiled days, sometimes weeks, before becoming real through the magic of ink and recycled plant parts. If you must know, my stunning accuracy and insights each and every Friday can only be attributed to the unbeatable one-two combination of crystal ball and ouija (pronounced "wee-jee") board. Now you know.
Regretably, the crystal ball is in the shop this week to be polished. Try getting a crystal ball polished before new year. So I'm winging it a bit, using some algebraic equations to factor out the possibilities. Given their jackrabbit start, the possibilities are impressive.
Less than a day in, those bold leaders have already made rule and general accounting changes that could cut about a million folks from social security disability benefits. A million people magically healed!
Local con games aside, most people on SSI are actually disabled and need it.
So inflated with their early progress, Senate Majority Leader McTurtle boldly credited the November elections for the eleven million jobs added to the economy in the previous three years. His clock runs backwards! He would have taken credit for falling gas prices, but that would not amuse his bosses. Much better to claim cheap fuel is bad for the economy, which he did last week. And speaking of, surely they've built that tar-sand pipeline by now. That's priority number one for the Koch party.
Yes, with this full head of steam, no telling what those guys and gals have pulled off by the time this prints.
For all I know, they've repealed the 14th amendment. Then there's that pesky right to vote for renters. That one's gotta go by the 2016 elections.
Now wait SJ, you're probably saying, none of those things have happened. Well, none except for that little Social Security rule change. But besides that, there's still an EPA and a 14th amendment and what do you mean we're all gonna die anyway?
Well I'd say you're right. Of course none of those things have happened. I know that. There's one little thing standing in the way of every one of those items on the grand ornery party's fantasy list. And before my crystal ball got cloudy, there was one clear scene repeated over and over.
It was of a twice elected president of the United States with rising approval ratings doing the will of the people and wielding a veto pen.