The Circus is Back in Town (Blogophilia 47.8)

My name is Another Government Employee and I’m a politics addict.
Not really, but I spent 25 years of my life in bureaucratic drudgery keeping various social services running. As part of my job and a survival technique, I paid close attention to the circus that is the State Legislature as they convened every year. A motley crew of moral trapeze artists and clowns they are, too. My co-workers and I would hold contests for the most asinine bills and made book on whether they would pass. Most of them wouldn’t, but spring wouldn’t be complete if there wasn’t a pitch for the Official State Turtle or Squirrel.
Of course, there would also be tracking of bills directly affecting my employer and our budget. Anything thing that smacked of entitlement was fought over like a ham bone in a dog kennel. If something really nasty got proposed, I would be tasked with doing the worst case scenario projections and hope the bill would die in Committee (more than half the time, it did.)
If you want to see truth whitewashed to oblivion, a legislative committee is the place to go. There are picayune points and pointy metaphorical knives, each trading places with the other. The inner city reps raise the image of Martin Luther King in vain for votes, while the rurals stick to the old St. Andrews Cross. Then you have the lobbyists wining and dining the aides to get the language tailored for their benefit. Of course, this being the South, no Kennedy is ever mentioned.
For that matter, neither is Jimmy Carter.
So, they had the annual “Wild Hog Supper” Monday and we get to start this whole mess over again. While I happily laugh and hope they won’t go after my pension.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Topic-Jonathan Harvey
Pic-Craig Fallon
Pic guesses: Hawk Girl, Super hero, Superwoman, warrior, Viking, Death, conqueror.


 01/21/2016

Just because I can, let me edit this with a well written Creative Loafing article detailing some of the idiocy.

Stop Laughing at the Legislature

Comments

  1. Michael ToddJanuary 12, 2016 at 7:38 PM

    That was an interesting behind the scenes look at a world of confusion.

    ReplyDelete

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