Among other stumbles President Obama has recently been using a locution that aggravates dealers, magicians, limo drivers, whores and other fine Americans engaged in the vice trade; he has casually been using Las Vegas, presumably because of its gambling-based economy, as a foil to the rest of the nation. But Vegas will not go quietly into that neon it’s-all-good night. Vegas and Nevada (even Harry Reid!) has taken to heart some other ill-phrased advice from the White House. They are punching back twice as hard!

Try THAT in Russia! Or even France. The most combative performance was turned in by the mayor who turns a phrase more biting even than that famous curmudgeon Penn Jillette, but it is far from merely invective, not that there’s anything wrong with that. There actually is substance; and not just one substance, firmly underlying the pushback which calls into question the substance beneath the push.

Mr Obama decries the practice of “blowing” money in Vegas. Presumably he is refering to gambling or “gaming” the more family-friendly term. But is that money “blown”? That is to say, does it just evaporate into the desert air with no benefit accruing? Arguably, yes, but this is not an argument consistent with the Obama philosophy on stimulus, for one example among many. Do we recall the bloviations of Axelrod and others paid to speak for the Obamistration that the very spending of the 757 billions (now ballooned to 850) would produce a stimulative effect? The economics on this are not complex but not seriously addressed then, so they won’t be now. Remember though that the particular projects envisioned, the famous “shovel-ready” smorgassbord were defended from charges of waste or even non-existence by claiming that getting that money OUT, just getting it spent was the object. Earmarks, those demonic concoctions of yesteryear were a-okay here since any actual net benefit to the nation is incidental. It is the knock-on effects that we are striving for; it is not the eight dollars an hour paid out to the shovel operator, no. Rather it is the purchases of the shoveler that goes into the 7-11, to the landlord and to the baby-mama that will propagate, multiply (at something like four-fold) and boost sales, then tax revenue and right back into the national coffers! Seriously, this is the plan and it was as much the plan of the Bush Stimuli as that from Team O.

Has it worked? Hell no. But that could be because the spending was, sadly, not fast enough. That again is the public argument anyhow for those diligent enough to pursue it. Do not object to this argument though, for its leading competitor is that the spending was not LARGE enough so let us address instead the speed.

So you have about 300-odd billions, derived from the sale of Treasury bonds, sitting around the crib. Much more than that has already gone out the door to worthy projects, some in non-existent districts or zip codes of the fifty-seven states but no matter, it is gone and forgotten but the problem is that even by the loose standards of Washington there is no more shoveling to be done. Things that even plausibly could be called “investments” have all been fully funded… man, they are OVER-funded and to a point that even the bloated ticks of the bureaucracy cry out, No mas! We could have funded the recent extension of unemployment benefits from this pile but no, the way the bill was crafted that was left as an open-ended liability so an automatic appropriation for that accounts for the staggering (unlegislated) increase above. We still have this tremendous problem: We can’t spend this hoard fast enough!

Brother Barack, the answer to your prayers lies in the Nevada Desert. The good kind of Vegans have been curing this illness for nearly a century. And with virtually no side effects. That money is just pfft! Gone! Of course it finds its way to the 7-11 just as well as the shovelers paycheck but much, much faster. A national Vegas Vacation would have the same mathematical impact as any other sort of spending but if we do not make Zigfried and Roy’s tiger payment, what will we get? A thousand visitor’s centers at our parks? A new agency to correct the curve of our cucumbers? Studies of the sexual habits of various animals? Friends, these are the best possibilities, the worst options are too chiling to contemplate but rest assured that each and every enterprise, building, event, agency or excavation funded from these monies will also be a monument to some politician somewhere that he will use as a demonstration of his indispensability. Just THAT effect is far too pernicious to allow.

So the solution is simple; load up Air Force One and anything else that can fly out of the glaciating capitol with whatever Washington types are thawed and beat it down to Vegas. I know this more or less rewards the Federal whores for emptying our pockets but that is done and done. At least with this course of action we will also be rewarding hard-working American whores practicing honest trade. And if you need an excuse beyond the public good, my birthday IS just around the corner.

Not that I want to go. I don’t care for Vegas. I just want to see you doofs gone.

For the sake of the nation.

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