Fools

P.T. Barnum once said, “You can fool some of the people all of the time and you can fool all of the people some of the time but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”

The Stump County Chronicles are a satire about an imaginary county located in rural Virginia. Stump County, population 999, is filled with imaginary people who are struggling with real life problems as they attempt to move into the 20 century. The writer, Half Whitt, is imaginary. He works for the imaginary newspaper, The Sneezeville Sentinel.

Well, I hate to say it but it looks like old P.T. was wrong. Just look at this fiscal cliff thing. Any durn fool knows you can’t borrow your way out of debt but we’ve been electing folks for 50 years who keep trying. That goes for Republicons, Democraps, In-dependants, rogues and scoundrels, thieves and crooks and those Tea Party folks who want to cut everybody’s gov’mint checks but their own.

That fiscal cliff has been building since our officials decided to start spending more than was coming in. Every year it has gotten higher and every year the crash we are facing gets worse. Yo Mama took it to a new level and that fiscal cliff is now twice as high as it got in the first 236 years America has been here.

Last year when the Democraps and the Republicons couldn’t agree on how to fix it they agreed to move the road directly to the cliff. The plan was that with the road going over the cliff they would be forced to make some difficult decisions before December 31, 2012. Well, instead of using 2012 wisely they just kept ignoring the problem and kept driving at full speed towards the cliff. Then just before Christmas they realized we were going over.

Keep in mind they built that cliff. They built the road so it would go over the cliff and they were driving the car that would take the nation over the cliff. The first thing they did was start blaming folks. Then they started up a media campaign about all of the bad things that would happen when we wrecked. “Milk prices will double!!!!!!” Aiaiaieeeeeeee. Then they built a circle so they could drive in circles without going over the cliff and now they are building the cliff higher.

That cliff is still there. It is getting bigger, it is getting higher and we still are going to have to go over it.

Old Uncle Samuel has been doing the same thing for most of his life. About 62 years ago he realized he couldn’t live like he wanted to on what he could earn. Every year he borrowed a little bit until he was having to borrow to pay the interest on what he had borrowed. Then he got some of those credit cards and maxed them out. When he realized he was facing a fiscal cliff, he got some more cards in his kids’ names and maxed them out. He’s been borrowing to live and borrowing to pay interest and borrowing to borrow most of his life.

Ten years ago he got some more credit cards in his grandkids’ names and put them so far in debt it will take them the rest of their lives to get out. This year he started working on putting his great-grand kids in debt.

The best thing he can do for future generations is to learn to live within his means and to pay his debts. If he won’t do that then he needs to run over that cliff at high speed and give the kids a chance to pick up the pieces after he’s gone. The way he’s going now they don’t stand a chance.