Archive for the ‘Economy Humor’ Category

The GOP Pitch (Limerick)

Monday, April 30th, 2012

The GOP Pitch (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Republicans made a huge mess.
Dems’ fixes they’ve tried to suppress.
Yet Republicans crow:
“The recovery’s slow.
Dump Obama. We’ve earned that address.”

Limerick Ode To Mitt “They’re All Just Jealous” Romney

Wednesday, January 11th, 2012

According to Mitt Romney, people who challenge Wall Street and economic unfairness are driven by “envy.”

Limerick Ode To Mitt “They’re All Just Jealous” Romney
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Distribution of wealth on your mind?
Take exception to it and you’ll find
That according to Mitt
You’re an envious twit.
To inequities, Romney is blind.

Limerick Ode To The Not-So-Super Committee

Monday, November 21st, 2011

The blame game is going strong with the customary false equivalencies.

Limerick Ode To The Not-So-Super Committee
By Madeleine Begun Kane

The Super Committee’s derailed,
And now we are being regaled
With tales blaming Dems
Sold as “media gems.”
It’s “balanced” reporting that’s failed.

Limerick Ode To Standard & Poor’s Chutzpah

Tuesday, August 9th, 2011

Paul Krugman does a great job pointing out S&P’s chutzpah in downgrading U.S. debt:

America’s large budget deficit is, after all, primarily the result of the economic slump that followed the 2008 financial crisis. And S.& P., along with its sister rating agencies, played a major role in causing that crisis, by giving AAA ratings to mortgage-backed assets that have since turned into toxic waste.

Nor did the bad judgment stop there. Notoriously, S.& P. gave Lehman Brothers, whose collapse triggered a global panic, an A rating right up to the month of its demise. And how did the rating agency react after this A-rated firm went bankrupt? By issuing a report denying that it had done anything wrong.

Limerick Ode To Standard & Poor’s Chutzpah
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Dear Standard & Poor’s, I’m impressed
Cuz you ought to be under arrest.
You caused the recession
With junk bond aggression.
Now you’re pounding your downgrading chest?

Yet Another Debt Ceiling Limerick

Saturday, July 30th, 2011

Yet Another Debt Ceiling Limerick
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Republicans love to proclaim
That uncertainty’s bad — that’s their game.
But one thing’s for sure:
Their proposed crisis cure
Leads to chronic uncertainty. Shame!

Limerick Ode To Timid Mitt Romney

Thursday, July 28th, 2011

Not only does Mitt Romney have a bad habit of flip-flopping on issues, but he appears afraid to pick a position on the key issue of the day — the debt ceiling. Does he embrace John Boehner’s debt ceiling plan? Nobody knows (except maybe Mitt’s hairdresser) because Romney refuses to commit:

Limerick Ode To Timid Mitt Romney
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Dear Romney, it’s time to take heed:
The job of a leader’s to lead.
So for once be a man:
Do you back Boehner’s plan?
Not choosing’s a cowardly deed.

Debt Ceiling Limerick Trio

Tuesday, July 26th, 2011

Here are three more debt ceiling limericks:

Our nation’s in trouble galore,
And the last thing we need is some more.
Yet pols in DC
Feel free to decree
“I shall get what I want. This is war.”

*****

I have many large bills to defray,
But our debt ceiling says we can’t pay.
“Increase me,” it squeals,
But my wife says, “No deals!
We’ll default. It’s the Washington way.”

*****

As the pols in DC vent their spleen
Over actions that should be routine,
Our land’s on the brink
Of a crisis some think
Was created on purpose. Obscene!

*******

John Boehner’s Patriotism Deficit

Monday, July 25th, 2011

Does John Boehner give a damn about our country? Or is he motivated purely by politics. The answer’s obvious.

John Boehner’s Patriotism Deficit (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

John Boehner has made his aims clear
As the debt ceiling deadline draws near.
Doing good ain’t his role.
“Stop Obama’s” his goal.
What a cavalier, faux budgeteer.

Limerick Ode To Unbalanced Republicans

Monday, July 18th, 2011

Obama threatened to veto that cockamamie Republican “cut, cap, and balance” bill.

Limerick Ode To Unbalanced Republicans
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Dear Republicans, please cut your crap.
Enough with your “balance,” “cut,” “cap!”
While you’re busily bashing
Obama, you’re crashing
Our credit and markets. What pap!

Paul Ryan, Educator???

Saturday, July 16th, 2011

The debt ceiling absolutely, positively must be raised to avoid a fiscal meltdown, and the Republican leadership knows it. But they’re saddled with a bunch of ignorant, “Tea Party” Congress-critters whose votes they desperately need.

Ironically, the job of educating them about debt ceiling realities has fallen to Paul Ryan, the Prince of Budget Misinformation.

Here’s what I’m wondering: The “Tea Party” nuts bought Paul Ryan’s lies. Will they believe him when he speaks the truth?

Paul Ryan, Educator???
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Though the GOP leadership’s tryin’
To get Tea Party votes, they ain’t buyin’,
Cuz they’re itchin’ to spike
Any debt ceiling hike.
Now the burden to school them’s on Ryan.

Limerick Ode To A Republican Mess

Thursday, July 14th, 2011

Limerick Ode To A Republican Mess
By Madeleine Begun Kane

The debt ceiling battle keeps going,
And the risk of default keeps on growing.
The GOP team
Caused a crisis supreme.
And we’re all sure to reap what they’re sowing.

Limerick Ode To Economic Sabotage

Thursday, June 23rd, 2011

Are Republicans deliberately undermining and sabotaging the economy and jobs creation to make sure Obama’s a one-term President? Of course they are!

Limerick Ode To Economic Sabotage
By Madeleine Begun Kane

The Republican scheme: Block a rally!
Cuz a surge in the job market tally
Helps Obama retain
His prize seat; paycheck pain
Will ensure an Obama finale.

How About A Hypocrisy Ceiling?

Thursday, April 21st, 2011

I love Mat Miller’s new definition of chutzpah:

Republicans who vote for the Ryan plan that adds trillions in debt and who then say the debt limit goes up only over their dead bodies!

That brings me to my latest Limerick:

How About A Hypocrisy Ceiling?
By Madeleine Begun Kane

The GOP debt-ceiling balkers
Are naught but hypocrisy hawkers.
Their plan adds eight trillion
(Not million or billion)
To the debt in a decade — Big Talkers!

Radical Budget Haiku

Wednesday, April 6th, 2011

I didn’t think I could do it. But I’ve summed up the Republicans’ radical (Paul Ryan-authored) budget plan in a single haiku:

Republican plan:
End entitlements, send wealth
to entitled rich.

*****

UPDATE: Prompted by a poetry site to include this trio of words in a poem (adamant, fabricate, peculiar) I challenged myself to fit them all into a single haiku:

Republican pols —
peculiarly adamant
fabricators.

Political Haiku and Tanka Too

Saturday, April 2nd, 2011

White House and Congress
bought and managed by donors —
puppet theater.

*****

An epidemic —
political hypocrites —
Today’s GOP.

*****

Unlimited cash
from corporations to pols —
democracy dies.

****

Economic growth
still not translating to jobs —
Republicans shrug.

*****

Republican cuts
to budget sure to kill jobs —
Boehner: “So be it.”

*****

Deliberately
destroying economy
seemed unthinkable.
No longer a silly thought —
GOP election goal.

******

Author’s Note: These haiku and tanka were inspired in part by the following prompts: puppet, epidemic, unlimited, growth, and silly.

Republican Priorities

Monday, March 21st, 2011

Republican Priorities
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Shall we immunize children? Heck no!
Supply food to the starving? No go!
Cuz Republicans say
That we’re broke ev’ry day,
As they help out the rich on skid row.

Brace For Another Pounding From Pound-Foolish Policies

Thursday, March 17th, 2011

Ezra Klein makes some good points about Republicans and their penny-wise and pound-foolish budget-slashing:

There are three categories of spending in which cuts lead to more, rather than less, spending down the line, says Alice Rivlin, former director of both the Congressional Budget Office and the Office of Management and Budget. Inspection, enforcement and maintenance. The GOP is trying to cut all three.

This is no surprise coming from Republicans who worship at the altar of Ronald Reagan. After all, back in 1989 the GAO had plenty to say about the damage done by Reagan’s short-sighted cutbacks:

Charles Bowsher, head of the General Accounting Office, told Congress yesterday that Reagan-era budget cuts created a climate of lax oversight and mismanagement. He said Reagan’s effort to save some money through budget cuts is likely to cost another $150 billion in the 1990s.

“We have been penny wise and really pound foolish,” Bowsher said.

That leads me to my latest limerick:

Brace For Another Pounding From Pound-Foolish Policies
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Preventative spending is wise —
Lessens risk that disasters arise —
Forestalls flooding and fraud,
Outbreaks, tragedy broad.
Cut such spending? Huge costs in disguise.

Broken Priorities (Limerick)

Monday, March 14th, 2011

Steve Benen has some great comments about Republicans and their hypocritical “we’re broke” weaponry:

In December, when Republicans wanted an $858 billion tax-cut package, we weren’t broke. How much of that package did the GOP suggest we pay for? None of it. Not one penny. The costs were simply added to the deficit, and are the driving force behind the rising deficit estimates for this year, which have sent the right into such hysteria.

But now we’re so broke, we’re told, that we have no choice but to make brutal cuts to education, medical research, infrastructure, job training, and national security, all of which is projected to cost the economy hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Broken Priorities (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Republicans claim that we’re broke,
But you know that they’re just blowing smoke.
Help Big Oil and the rich?
Then they pull a big switch,
And our budget’s no longer a yoke.

Political Haiku Quartet

Tuesday, March 1st, 2011

Styrofoam is back.
“Green the Capitol” is gone.
Job, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs?

*****

Rotund Rush Limbaugh
says Michelle Obama’s fat—
that’s hard to swallow.

*****

Freedom from taxes
demanded by those who crave
what taxes give them.

*****

The mental midget
mentioned an affinity
with Rush — no surprise.

*****

Showing up to vote—
a yearly exercise in
unrequited hope.

*****

(More political haiku here. And more Rush Limbaugh humor here.)

Limerick Ode To John “So Be It” Boehner

Thursday, February 17th, 2011

No doubt you’ve heard about John Boehner’s “so be it” nonchalant reaction to the loss of federal jobs. It seems Boehner’s finished feigning compassion.

This calls for a limerick, don’t you think?

Limerick Ode To John “So Be It” Boehner
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Boehner’s known for his grief-stricken sobs,
For emoting through loose tear duct knobs.
Yet his eyes remain dry,
He refuses to cry
For Americans losing their jobs.