In his latest back-page column for National Review, James Lileks offers words of encouragement to the Obama administration’s budget writers:
Thus this brilliant budget, which jacks up spending to $46 trillion over the next ten years. (The official term for a number that large is a “Zimbabwe.”) Granted, there are cuts. The Zeppelin Corps will be merged with the Dirigible Reserve, for example. As the president noted in a speech to Ohio Blacksmiths Local 203, the Equine Motivational-Instrument Security Act, which has been subsidizing buggywhip production since 1901, will be rewritten so we’re doing more with less ? the subsidy will be cut 50 percent, and the government will partner with buggywhip producers to find new ways to inspire horses, using our 21st-century understanding of brain chemistry and animal psychology. “There are those who say the federal government shouldn’t be in the business of making horses run faster,” the president said, his chin tilted up to indicate resolve in the face of strawmen. “I say a nation crisscrossed with high-speed stagecoach lines is equipped not just to help business compete. They will also carry the mail and provide easy access to jobs for tomorrow’s schoolmarms.”
