January 28, Paying Our Bills

 

Republicans don’t want to pay our bills,

Instead, they’ll make Joe swallow bitter pills.

They’ll make a hostage of our country’s debt;

Demanding budget cuts to cure our ills.

 

It’s not the first time they have made this threat;

Eventually they’ve dropped the threat, and yet,

It seems they may be serious this time.

One wonders what reward they hope to get.

 

Not paying bills is standard Trumpist slime;

In other instances, it is a crime.

Republicans seem really not to care.

So, why is this a hill they want to climb?

 

What is it that’s so wrong with Medicare?

Or other social programs they’ll strip bare?

Must legislation be so turbulent?

Paralysis of government?  Beware!

 

We know right-wingers don’t like government.

The threat they’re making is no accident.

But they won’t say exactly what they’ll cut.

Right now, they’re simply being querulent.

 

Right wingers know they’ll hurt their voters, but

They’ll go ahead and kick them in the butt,

They say they’ll rid us of the Income Tax,

Which gives rich donors a complete tax cut.

 

They say they’ll give the IRS the ax,

Replacing income with consumption tax,

A thirty percent tax on all we buy,

A tax on food and clothes and Cadillacs.

 

But, here’s a fact right-wingers can’t deny.

They’ll smite the poorest people, hip and thigh. (1)  

When prices of the basics rise a third,

The problems of the poor all amplify.

 

• Judges 15:8. In the story of Samson, “…he smote them (the Philistines) hip and thigh, with great slaughter.”  A metaphor for merciless destruction.