Barack Obama campaigned viciously against the deficit spending of the Bush administration. Now, on the eve of his inauguration, as his transition team is pushing an 850 billion (with some estimates pushing past one trillion) dollar stimulus, news breaks that the Obama inauguration will cost over 150 million dollars (over three times the cost of Bush’s last inauguration). The festivities will last twice as long, stretching out over four days instead of the typical two.
President Bush had to declare a state of emergency to help the District of Columbia pay for this gross spectacle. This is the first time in history that a state of emergency has been declared at the federal level for an event not centered on a natural emergency. This hurricane is human made.
We’re over a trillion dollars in the hole. We’re most likely about to add another trillion to that tally. Does this big top inauguration even remotely match the dire portrait the Obama administration has painted of the American economy? What possible sense does this insane spectacle make?
Bread and circuses, my friends.
This phrase first appears in the ancient Roman work the Satires of Juvenal. In case you are not familiar with the passage to which I refer, here it is:
“… Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: panem et circenses (bread and circuses).”
