Crumpets and compromise

Early one morning on Capitol Hill, an emergency meeting of Republican leadership is called to order...

"All right, if everyone would please take a seat, we can get started. I'd like to thank you all for gathering on such short - "

"Hey, who catered this thing?"

(Loud grumbling.)

"Order, order! Settle down! The good folks from - "

"What is this? Tea?"

"The good folks from the True Patriots and Red-Blooded Americans Tea Party Alliance, Last Refuge of Scoundrels Chapter, were kind enough to provide refreshments for us, and we - "

"What are these? Crumpets? For crying out loud, we put up with their tricorn hats and their silly wigs and their caterwauling about the deficit - "

(More loud grumbling.) "Like we had something to do with that!"

"The least they could do is bring some decent food! I'm famished. Is there a lobbyist in the house?"

(Gavel sounding.) "Order! Order! Look, if you're still hungry when you're done, I'm sure you can find a fundraising breakfast somewhere nearby. Or maybe Charlie Rangel's defense fund is offering a continental."

"Watery tea and dry crumpets! Grand Old Party indeed."

"Now, if I may proceed - as you know, our internal polling shows we're having a little trouble convincing voters we should extend the Bush-era tax cuts for households earning more than $250,000 and individuals earning more than $200,000 a year."

"Those are our people! Working people."

"Our polls show we lose even more support when voters learn that keeping the cuts for the $200,000-and-above crowd will cost us $55 billion a year and not help reduce the deficit."

"But we can't raise taxes on the high-income now! We need them to create jobs!"

(Chanting.) "Trick-le down! Trick-le down!"

(From the back of the room) "So why aren't they creating those jobs now? I mean, they already have the tax cuts, right?"

(Hissing.) "Socialist!" "Marxist!" "Keynesian!"

"Order, please! Well, obviously, the $200,000-and-above crowd will start creating those jobs very, very soon. We must be patient."

(From the back) "But corporations are earning pre-recession profits, and they're not rehiring. They're sitting on more cash than they've had in 50 years!"

(Hissing.) "Who the devil is saying that? Who let Paul Krugman in here?"

(From the back) "Only 2 percent of people in that $200,000-income range are small-business owners. So instead of extending the cuts for everyone, why not keep the Bush tax cuts for the middle class and extend new tax breaks to small-business owners who hire new employees? It would bring relief sooner, and it would have less impact on the deficit!"

(Silence.)

"But that's what Democrats are proposing."

(From the back) "So compromise!"

(Silence.)

"Uh, that's not the way we roll. We filibuster. We say no. We hint that the president is a foreign-born Muslim commie who hates white people."

"And, by golly, we drink tea whenever the people destroying our party tell us to!"

(Chanting.) "By gol-ly! By gol-ly!"

(From the back) "That's all nonsense. And we should have compromised with Democrats over extending benefits for the jobless!"

(Hooting.) "Let them eat crumpets!"

(From the back) "It was the right thing to do! And it was smart politically, too."

(Chanting) "Trick-le down! Trick-le down!"

"Order! Order! Will someone remove the RINO from the room so we can finish?"

"And order us some real breakfast food while you're at it! This scone is as hard as my head."

Daryl Lease is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot. E-mail: daryl.lease@pilotonline.com.