“Interior Department spending $139,000 to upgrade doors in Secretary Zinke’s office.” — Chicago Tribune
“Ben Carson’s HUD Spent $31,000 on a Dining-Room Set for His Office.”
— New York Magazine
Fellow Americans:
For eight years the Democrats squandered your taxpayer dollars. They overspent on big government programs and threw around cash like out-of-touch élites.
But now that the GOP has returned to power, we are bringing sanity back to our budget. We pledge that we are going to bring an end to this waste; indeed, we are going rein in spending absolutely everywhere — everywhere, that is, except the opulent renovation to our offices.
This promise — and this Extreme Makeover: Bureaucracy Edition — starts today. We are eliminating partisan food stamps and importing Parisian footstools. We are going to reduce the budget for the National Parks and increase the budget for natural parquet flooring.
Say goodbye to the Clean Water Program, and say hello to those Japanese refrigerators that can text you when you’re low on orange juice.
My friends, change has arrived like the slabs of Italian marble we helicoptered in from Venice. We are overhauling this American budget as though it were a shabby government reception area that is badly in need of an original Jeff Koons balloon in the likeness of Steven Mnuchin’s head.
Rest assured: The days of wild spending and IKEA furniture are over. Indeed, we are prepared to cut expenditures across the board — except at Room & Board, where we have just ordered a crate of $6,000 leather mouse pads.
These cuts will entail some painful decisions. Will we fund Medicare or Medicaid? Do we eliminate NASA or the CDC? Should the throw pillows for our Chippendale fainting couches be lined with fox fur or Russian mink?
But we do have a system. We will go line-by-line through the budget until we slash all the programs that don’t benefit the American public. And then we will go page-by-page through the Crate & Barrel catalog until we find a coffee table that’s the same price as a speedboat.
All of this deficit-slashing and divan-ordering may look easy. But I can tell you that from where I sit — in a throne that belonged to Louis XIV which has been retrofitted with those electric massage rollers from Brookstone — that reducing spending can be quite taxing.
For sure, there will be hardships — both for Americans who depend on the eliminated programs, and for the staffers who will be temporarily relocated as we install our new manatee aquarium.
But we wouldn’t have it any other way. We’re not afraid of a little hard work, or of paying the guy who designed Richard Branson’s super-yacht to transform a nearby children’s library into a Members Only squash court.
We think we are on the right track. And we are beyond excited to sign more cuts into law, and not only because we just outbid Charles Koch in a Sotheby’s auction for a ballpoint pen made from alligator bones.
Rather, we truly believe in fiscal responsibility. If we all work as one Amerian people — the deficit hawks together with the high-end interior designers of Alexandria — we can not only make a difference, but we could also make Architectural Digest’s annual list of the world’s most expensive foyers.
These fiscally minded changes are as long overdue as our white-glove delivery of artisanal coffee stirrers from Malta.
But rest assured: The dark days of government waste — and government buildings that do not have an IMAX theater — are over. We are going to spend your tax dollars wisely; and if not, you can show us the $139,000 door.
Sincerely,
The GOP