The Comics in the White House

It was a beautiful spring day. Along the river the crab apples were in full bloom, so I pulled my car to the curb, got out and walked down the Riverwalk.
After a few blocks I ran into Max Angst sitting on one of the park benches along the walk.
“How are you, Max?” I said as I came up to him.
“Completely bemused and amused. We have a pair of stand up comedians in the White House.” He answered.
“I saw Mrs. Bush’s act at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner on television. She was funny. But why do you say the President is a stand up comedian?” I asked.
“I listen to his speeches,” Max answered, laughing.
“Could you be more specific?”
“Okay! A few days ago he said if those working under his privatizing program for Social Security were worried about the safety of their investments they could invest in Federal Bonds. That’s hilarious,” Max responded.
“Why so?”
“ It may be the most cynical remark in US history, for one thing. The country is bankrupt. We’re borrowing two billion dollars a day just to continue functioning. He clearly is thinking of defaulting on one of the largest debts owed by the government, the Social Security Trust Fund. He regularly denies it exists. So now he wants young workers to invest in bonds he can’t afford to redeem. Is that not cynicism to the nth degree?”
“If you were in his place what would you do, Max?”
“Art, the United States spends four times as much on the military than any other country on this planet. We have bases all over the world and our fleets dominate the seven seas. I don’t remember Congress or the people of the United Sates authorizing the Administrative branch of our government to create a world wide empire. This empire reached an apex of opprobrium when it invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. Wars the country could not afford at the same time it was handing out huge tax breaks to the wealthy.”
“Opprobrium, Max?”
“ Look it up; I had to.”
“Give me a break!”
“Oh! Okay. Opprobrium is behavior deserving of scorn But, the point is we should rein in this empire, cut our defense budget in half and tax our wealthy fairly. Then we could afford to redeem our bonds and keep the Social security System functioning.”