In Mel Brooks's immortal "Blazing Saddles," the gentle townfolk of Rockridge get their first glimpse of the new sheriff, a hip freed slave foisted upon them by Governor Lepetomane ("the leading asshole in the state"), and decide to string him up. In the late, great Cleavon Little's achingly funny rendition of Sheriff Bart, the new law man pulls his own gun on himself and begins dragging himself toward the safety of the jail. "One move and the n___r gets it," Sheriff Bart tells the stunned crowd. One of the morons watching announces that they'd better do as they're told, because "he's not bluffing."
For reasons that probably say more about my peculiar thought processes than they do about reality, I was thinking of Sheriff Bart while contemplating President Obama's (our hip, sharp, first African-American President) budget of $3.5 trillion. With a $1.75 trillion deficit. This makes for pretty easy mathematics: half of the money the federal government needs in fiscal 2010 (beginning Oct. 1 of this year) will be borrowed. 50%.
The budget was announced after last Tuesday night's speech, where Prez O was as sharp, masterful and on top of his game as Sheriff Bart. ("Baby, you are so talented," Bart says to himself after he sits down in the sheriff's office. "And they are so dumb.") More than to a little extent, the budget verges on the unbelievable (even though, as I've admitted, I love it). While it's presented as business as usual, I think we can admit one thing. If any other country in the world presented a budget where it proposed to spend $3.5 trillion while borrowing half of it, we would realize that country had gone fully belly up. It would be seen as the last gasp of a hyperinflationary, completely out-of-control banana republic on the verge of complete collapse. No one would go near the place with a loan. Foreign countries doing business with the nation would pull up stakes and head for the exits one step ahead of expropriation. Terrified visitors would clog the airports, as in "The Year of Living Dangerously." The government would fall, to be replaced by a military junta run by guys in green fatigues.
But not here. Borrowing half the federal budget from...well, whom? Or from what? Where do you come up with that kind of dough? No matter. We remain serene. The Sheriff Bart gambit works, or has worked so far, because the rest of the world stands in for the Rockridgers that Gene Wilder's Waco Kid called the "simple people of the land...you know, morons." We're holding the gun to own heads and the world doesn't want to take the chance that we're bluffing. Everyone is suspending belief, and credulity, in order to wish along with us that the United States escapes this self-inflicted hostage crisis.
"Do what he say-ay, do what he say-ay," the terrified Bart yells to the town folk as Bart drags himself off to the safety of the jail. That's right, World. Do what we say-ay. Otherwise, we gets it. And we're not bluffing.
Now we know who the money is being borrowed from, or at least could be - the US Federal Reserve Bank! Which means they basically print money in order to buy US Treasury bonds. At least we don't have to worry about whether China stops buying our bonds. Fed Chairman Bernanke has admitted recently the Fed will be buying US Treasury bonds! Now if he would only fess up about the two trillion dollars of SECRET LOANS the Fed has made since last year. Could they be to the US Treasury also? How long before the value of Monopoly money exceeds that of US currency?
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