Political Satire: Having trouble surviving these times? You’re not alone. Join us in columnist John F. Di Leo’s exploration of an alternate universe, where we imagine the impossible:
Joe Buckstop, an aging, corrupt old fool, somehow becomes president in his basement, and every night, an aide has to bring him his soup and discuss the events of the day as he prepares to receive his nightly meds…
Note: We continue from Volume Two, as Joe Buckstop’s soup aide, young Rhett Snapper, discusses the pending Infrastructure Bill and a whole lot of unpleasant truths…
Infrastructure, Daycare, Reality, and North Carolina Fish Stew
Dateline, May 13. Begin Transcript:
“Good evening, sir! How’s the day treating you?”
“Day’s over. It’s night now.”
“Oh, then, sir, how’s the evening treating you so far, sir?”
“No better than the day, kid.”
“Well, sir, maybe a good bowl of soup will help.
“Not likely. Put it down here, kid, we’ll see.”
“Rhett, sir.”
“Huh?”
“My name is Rhett, sir. Not Kid. Remember?”
“Sure, Rhett. Whatcha got for me tonight?”
“It’s called North Carolina Fish Stew, sir.”
“Looks like a bowl of soup to me.”
“Me too, sir. Probably looked like soup to the Cook, too, sir, that’s why she served it. Looks good, huh?”
“What’s in it?”
“Fish, potato, tomato, onions, and bacon, sir!”
“Mmm. Bacon. Hmm… Are there crackers?”
“Of course, sir, right here. Soup, crackers, napkins, spoon, sir. Everything’s here for North Carolina Fish Stew, sir!”
“Mmm… pretty good. What kind of fish is this?”
“Schafkopf, sir.”
“Come on, man! That’s not a real fish!”
“Oh, sorry, sir… Sheepshead, sir. I used the German word, Schafkopf, sir.”
“Oh.”
“I wonder why she decided to make this one today, sir. Could North Carolina have been in the news or something, sir?”
“Ohhhh…..”
“You know what I mean, sir? How your cook sometimes picks a soup where the ingredients or the place has been in the news? I noticed that after a couple weeks. I think it’s neat. Not sure if she even does it consciously. I think she hears news stories in the morning and then by afternoon that’s the direction she’s looking when she starts her menu planning, sir.”
“I don’t want to think about it.”
“Why not, sir? What’s up with North Carolina today, sir?”
“Oh, they’ve got an obnoxious congressman causing trouble, kid.”
“Rhett, sir.”
“Huh?”
“Rhett, sir. My name is Rhett. Not Kid.”
“Oh, yeah, right, Well, that’s what’s in the news. They talked about it in the meetings today. Just an annoyance, I guess, but still.”
“Still what, sir?”
“Huh?”
“You said something in North Carolina is annoying, sir.”
“Oh, right. Some congressman entered a nuisance bill today.”
“What about, sir?”
“Defining what infrastructure means. Cocky jerk.”
“Why would you need a bill to define infrastructure, sir?”
“Exactly my point! You don’t need to define it!”
“Well, sure, sir, everyone knows what infrastructure is, sir. It’s roads and bridges, maybe some utilities, parking lots, seaports… everyone knows that, sir!”
“Come on, man!”
“What is it, sir?”
“You sound just like that Greg Murphy!”
“Who, sir?”
“Greg Murphy. He’s the congressman introducing that damned bill.”
“Well, what’s wrong with that, sir? Sounds reasonable to me. Gotta have agreed terms to have a nation, after all. We have to speak the same language or we’d be a Tower of Babel, you know, sir?”
“Oh, shut up you lying dog faced pony soldier!”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“Can’t you see he’s attacking my bill?”
“What bill, sir? I thought you did everything by executive orders, sir?”
“No, no, there are some things you have to do through Congress, blast it.”
“Oh, I see. What’s this one, sir?”
“Our infrastructure bill. The nation’s infrastructure is crumbling, and we need to spend the money to fix it!”
“Makes sense to me, sir.”
“It’s expensive, but it has to be done! We’ve run the numbers, and we know it’s the right amount to spend!”
“If you say so, sir.”
“People need jobs, and infrastructure spending is a good fast way to put people back to work!”
“Ummm, actually, cutting off entitlements is an even better, faster way to put people back to work, sir.”
“Huh?”
“Um, you know, well, there are millions of jobs across the country that aren’t getting filled because welfare and unemployment and stimulus all add up to the same as they’d be earning if they were working, sir. So they don’t work, sir.”
“Come on, man!”
“Well, sir, my mom works at a mall, and she says they’re advertising for jobs at 150% of the minimum wage, and nobody even applies, sir.”
“A hundred fifty times the minimum wage? Wow! How can a store pay that much?”
“No, sir, 150% of minimum wage, sir.”
“That’s what I said!”
“No sir, 150% is like saying ‘half again over’, sir. So they’re offering half again over the minimum wage, and nobody applies, sir.”
“Only half of minimum wage? Is that even legal?”
“Huh? No, sir, I said half again over, sir. Half again over. That means 100% of the minimum wage, plus half of that again. It’s one and a half times the minimum wage, sir.”
“Oh.”
“Do you need a calculator, sir?”
“Oh no, if I can’t follow your talking, I sure can’t follow a calculator.”
“Umm, okay.. so anyway, sir, The minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, and they’re offering that plus half again, sir. That means $7.25 plus about $3.63 or so, which is about ten, uhh, eighty-eight, so … umm… let’s call it just under eleven bucks an hour. Well, sir, benefits are darned close to that already, sir. Why work a 40 hour week to get a paycheck when you could get almost as much for no work at all, sir?”
“Oh, never mind that. What counts is that we need to rebuild our infrastructure.”
“Well, yes sir, if we can afford to, sure… but I don’t see the problem with a bill that puts in writing what everyone already knows is true, sir. I mean, infrastructure is roads and bridges and utilities and ports. Everybody knows that, right? So what harm does it do to put that in writing, sir? Might be a bit of a waste of time, but it’s not like it’s harmful, sir.”
“What do you mean, not harmful? Nothing I want to do could get done if that thing passes!”
“I beg your pardon, sir? You want to spend money on infrastructure, he wants to list what you’re spending it on. Big deal. Six of one, half dozen of the other, sir.”
“No! Look, kid, here’s the deal. We have a spending bill. And Murphy wants to block it. We can’t have that!”
“Well, sir, I must be missing something. What, is your bill more focused on bridges than roads, or more on utilities than ports, or what, sir?”
“Murphy’s cockamamie definition wouldn’t allow any of the targeted spending we need to do!”
“Really, sir? I don’t understand. Like what, sir?”
“Well… like uh… like community college.”
“Hmm… well that’s a local thing, but it’s still buildings and parking lots, so i suppose you could probably still give grants to states to build new buildings even if there was a definition… “
“Who said anything about building college buildings? I want to make community college free!”
“Huh? Free? It already practically is, sir! Local areas and their counties and states fund the lion’s share of it. They don’t need federal money, sir. Tuition at those places is cheap, sir!”
“Well, we want it to be free!”
“What for, sir?”
“We just do, that’s all!”
“Oh boy. Okay, sir, well, what else?”
“Childcare.”
“You want to build childcare facilities with infrastructure spending, sir? Gee. It might be put to better use as ports and rail hubs, but… okay…. if you say so… I can’t see why a definition bill would stop you from building a childcare facility and calling it infrastructure, sir…”
“No, they’re already built, you dummy! They don’t need to be built. They just need to be paid for. We’ll write grants to make childcare free!”
“Um, sir, do you have any idea of how much that would upset the economy, sir?”
“Who cares? The important thing is getting it done!”
“Um, I don’t see, how you can call this infrastructure, sir..”
“And nationwide paid-leave! People need time off!”
“How do people who aren’t working need time off, sir?”
“Huh?”
“Well, sir, if the problem is that people aren’t working, then they obviously don’t need time off, sir. What problem are you trying to address here, people not working or people working too much, sir?”
“Huh?”
“I don’t see how a nationwide family leave bill can be called infrastructure, sir…”
“Pre-K!”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“Pre-K! Pre-kindergarten! Kids need school!”
“Before they can read or write, sir? What good is school before kids can read or write, sir? What are they going to do, take notes in pictograms, sir?”
“What?”
“This sounds like a labor and education bill, sir. And I don’t think the constitution allows for any of that anyway, does it, sir?”
“Hey! Cut it out, you lying dog faced pony soldier!”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“The constitution allows it! Of course it does!”
“Where, sir?”
“Well, in the general welfare clause!”
“The what, sir?”
“The general welfare clause! ‘To promote the general welfare!'”
“That’s not what that means, sir!”
“Huh? Of course it does!”
“Um, no, sir, begging your pardon, but… that’s in the preamble, sir.”
“So what? It was ratified, wasn’t it!”
“Well, yes, sir, but it doesn’t provide anything, sir. Anything at all, sir.”
“What are you talking about?!”
“Well, sir, the preamble basically just says, basically, ‘in order to do our part to be good for the country, our government is going to work like this.’ And then it says how government works, in the seven articles. The preamble isn’t part of it, sir.”
“Sure it is!”
“But it’s not, sir. Wishing won’t make it so, sir.”
“Hey!”
“It’s like my dad says, sir, ‘you can wish reality away every night of your life, but every morning it’ll still be there, whether you want it or not,’ sir.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, kid.”
“Rhett, sir.”
“Huh?”
“Rhett, sir. The name is Rhett, sir.”
“Oh. Well, look, we have a bill to get going and this punk is trying to stop it.”
“Well, sir, to be fair, he does have a point. Nothing you’ve mentioned to me is infrastructure, sir.”
“Come on, man!”
“Now, we do desperately need most of our ports to be expanded… some of them need to be doubled, sir. To handle the post-Panamax class of ships.”
“The what?”
“The post-Panamax class of ships, sir. You know, the really big ones, that hold ten or twenty thousand containers, sir.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Well, sir, all the ports have long waiting lines because they’re too small for the volume of intermodal cargo, sir.”
“Inter what?”
“Inter modal, sir. it means containers that move from truck to rail to ship without having to be unloaded, sir. They lift the container off a truck and set it down on a railcar, or they lift it off the railcar and set it on the ship. All the seaports are looking at two to four week backlogs right now because they’re all overwhelmed, sir. Both the ports and the rail hubs all need expansion, all over the country. It’s mostly a local and state and even private sector thing, but…. if the federal government wanted to spend on our infrastructure, that’s what the country needs, sir.”
“I lost you at, uhh, inner muddled.”
“Intermodal, sir. Intermodal.”
“Don’t care. The teachers’ unions need these expansions and they’re going to happen.”
“I see, sir.”
“And this punk Murphy can’t stop me. He can slow me down, but he can’t stop me!”
“I see, sir.”
“I’m gonna go out and sell this program. I’ll take it to the American people, that’s what I’ll do! I’ll talk directly to the people and tell them what they have a chance to get!”
“Well, sir, best of luck with your non-infrastructure infrastructure bill, sir. I’ll sure never understand it.”
“Well, that’s okay. You’ll understand these things when you’re older.”
“I doubt that, sir, it’s not like I’m going to turn thirty or forty and suddenly wake up one day and forget how the English language works, sir.”
“Hey! Look, when I was in Scranton… don’t know if you knew this, but i grew up in Scranton…”
“Sir, even in Scranton a gift certificate for a babysitting service for 3-year-olds wouldn’t be called infrastructure, sir.”
“Oh? Well, then, what would they call it in Scranton, Smarty-Pants?”
“They’d call it a gift certificate for a babysitting service, sir.”
“Well, why???”
“Because that’s what it is, sir. Words mean things, you know, sir.”
“Well, you’ll regret that when you see the next stimulus!”
“Wait, you mean you’ve got another stimulus in this thing too, sir?”
‘Well, sure! We need it!”
“Maybe we do, maybe we don’t, sir, but whatever it is, sir… it’s not infrastructure.”
“Well, in this basement, kid, what I say goes! And I say it is infrastructure! And do you know why? Because I won the election!”
“Oh, sure, you keep telling yourself that, sir. Go ahead. Enjoy your soup, sir, I’m going to finish up tonight and then give a dollar to that homeless man on the park bench outside, sir.”
“What for?”
“Because he’s just as convinced that he’s Napoleon, as you are that a gift certificate for a month of babysitting is infrastructure, sir. Enjoy your soup.”
Copyright 2021-2024 John F Di Leo
Excerpted with permission from Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volume Two, from Free State West Publishing, available in paperback or eBook exclusively on Amazon.
John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based international transportation and trade compliance professional and consultant. A onetime Milwaukee County Republican Party chairman, he has been writing a regular column for Illinois Review since 2009. His book on vote fraud (The Tales of Little Pavel) and his political satires on the current administration (Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volumes I, II, and III), are available in either eBook or paperback, only on Amazon.
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