Posts Tagged ‘Fiscal Crisis’

Having It Both Ways (Limerick)

Monday, December 29th, 2014

Having It Both Ways (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Claim “Obama’s economy’s” sick?
Then take credit for upswings? How slick!
But my dear GOPers,
It doesn’t take seers
To know that you really must pick.

Boehner’s Plan B Gets A Failing Grade (Limerick)

Friday, December 21st, 2012

John Boehner’s Plan B scheme seems to have backfired, forcing him to cancel the vote and endangering his speakership.

Boehner’s Plan B Gets A Failing Grade (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

John Boehner had hoped that Plan B
Would embarrass Obama, you see.
It collapsed on the Speaker.
Job tenure? A squeaker!
Boehner’s stunt gets an F, at most D.

Senryu For Obama

Wednesday, December 12th, 2012

Here’s my response to this New York Times article about the “fiscal cliff” negotiations between Obama and Boehner:

Senryu For Obama:

John Boehner’s con game:
Can’t muster votes. Give me more.
Don’t be fooled again.

Medicare Mishigas (Limerick)

Monday, December 10th, 2012

In the “fiscal cliff” negotiations, Republicans are irrationally demanding a hike in the Medicare eligibility age — what Nancy Pelosi refers to as “a trophy that the Republicans want.”

As Ezra Klein explains, this would not save money or help solve the health care cost problem, and it would hurt lots of people. Unfortunately, Republicans seem to favor symbolism over substance, and raising the Medicare eligibility age would be “a signal that they won something big on entitlements.”

Medicare Mishigas (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

GOPers want change that ain’t sage:
Raise the Medicare-el’gible age.
This does harm — won’t address
The health care cost mess:
It’s the fruit of entitlements-rage.

Open Limerick To President Obama

Tuesday, December 4th, 2012

Open Limerick To President Obama
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Dear Obama, I welcome your stance
In the “fiscal cliff” deal-making dance.
If the 1st comes sans deal,
Our nation will heal.
Hanging tough is the way to advance.

#My2k Limerick

Thursday, November 29th, 2012

#My2k Limerick
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Obama’s new hashtag is meant
2 help middle class taxpayers vent
Via tweets 2 demand
That their tax hike is banned:
#My2k’s needed 4 rent.

(You can find the story about Obama’s social media PR efforts and this “fiscal cliff” related hashtag here.)

Open Limerick To The Mainstream Media

Wednesday, November 28th, 2012

Dear Members Of The Media:

When a Republican refuses to consider any tax rate hike whatsoever … even for millionaires and billionaires … that’s an extremist position. So it would be nice if you’d stop acting as if the few Republicans claiming sudden independence from Grover Norquist’s tax pledge are moderates, when they’re still refusing to consider any rate hikes.

To put it another way, a slight compromise in one’s extremism is still extremism:

The way the whole “fiscal cliff” thing (itself a contrivance based on the Republican view that expiration of the Bush tax cuts and imposition of defense spending cuts would be an apocalyptic development) is being discussed in the MSM is a depressing vindication of the huge strategic advantages of partisan extremism. If you are crazy enough for a while, then agreeing to be slightly less crazy looks statesmanlike.

Open Limerick To The Mainstream Media
By Madeleine Begun Kane

The press is again just a dupe
In the make-believe compromise loop:
A mere marginal move
By extremists can’t prove
That they’re aught but a lunatic group.

Thanksgiving Limerick For DC Pols

Tuesday, November 20th, 2012

Serious fiscal negotiations are (or at least should be) going on right now in Washington DC. And whether you think we’re facing a “fiscal cliff,” or more of a “fiscal incline,” here’s a Thanksgiving message to Washington politicians: Please talk turkey and work something out that makes sense for our nation.

Thanksgiving Limerick For DC Pols
By Madeleine Begun Kane

It’s time for some serious talk.
Please don’t bitch or complain, and don’t balk.
Our issues are great—
Act before it’s too late.
So kindly talk turkey. Don’t squawk.

Limerick Ode To Republican Schadenfreude

Monday, June 4th, 2012

Limerick Ode To Republican Schadenfreude
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Watch Republicans feign being sad
When employment news comes, and it’s bad.
How they try not to grin—
They’re more likely to win!
If you vote GOP, you’ve been had.

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?

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 The Math-Challenged Media

Tuesday, April 12th, 2011

Paul Ryan’s budget plan is both radical and fraudulent. But that doesn’t prevent an astounding number of journalists (who presumably count with their fingers) from treating it with respect and referring to it as “serious” and “bold.”

Limerick Ode To The Math-Challenged Media
By Madeleine Begun Kane

The math-challenged journos who laud
Ryan’s radical plan and applaud,
Say it’s “serious,” “bold,”
But his plan has no hold
On reality — naught but a fraud.

Limerick Ode To A Government Shutdown

Thursday, April 7th, 2011

Limerick Ode to A Government Shutdown
By Madeleine Begun Kane

The thought of a government shutdown
Should be quickly, decisively cut down.
But I fear that we’re screwed
Cuz of Washington’s mood:
Boehner’s party has turned into Nut Town.

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.