Buzz Ballad, redux: One Month

This originally appeared in the Tatler in July of 2011, during the debt ceiling negotiations. Sadly, it remains timely.

One Month
—by the Barenaked Powergrab, with apologies to the Barenaked Ladies and “One Week“

It’s been one month since I said that we
Faced a deadline to raise the debt ceiling
Five days since we started to negotiate
Your proposals were unappealing
Three days since I left the room
I didn’t like having to answer your questions
Yesterday said I’d talk to you
There’s a couple of trillion I’d like to borrow

Come on now and hear the warning
You know global warming
Mandates that we convert to green jobs
Though high-speed rail cannot fail, all alone it’s of no avail
We have to pay bad mortgages to buy votes from the mob
Competing interests I play off
I give them all payoffs
I’m about conciliation

Media has my left flank
There’s many to thank, they all help me get out my message
They’re all so willing to be shilling
As I stop domestic drilling
I like unions, that’s why I shower them with favors
They all supported Obamacare
Even as they were well aware
With their contributions they all would get a waiver

Everything I do is rushed on a short deadline
It has always worked out for me just fine
I’m the kind of guy who sloughs off all his workload
Can’t understand what I mean?
Well, you soon will
I have a tendency to go out to the golf course
I have a history of taking vacations

It’s been three years since I was sworn in
As President I have never signed a budget
Past a year since car companies
Got bailed out by ignoring bankruptcy
More than three months since I decided
To go into Libya without getting a go-ahead
Yesterday I said that I’d talk
But you’d better be willing to give me a trillion

Come on and give in ’cause Cloward Piven
Is gonna change the way that you’ve been livin’
Government whirlin’ like a dervish
Agency service
Expands so much it makes you nervous
Like FDR I’ve got some real big plans
Like Shaft I’m the man
Like Lenin, saying what is to be done

Like small businesses I make jobs
Okay, I don’t make jobs
But if I did they’d have a living wage
This time jobs will be shovel-ready
People will all be working steady
If you just cave and give in to me on every new thing
Gotta trust in me, recovery
Is soon to be, it isn’t me if the promises
That I’m making have a false ring

It’s been one month you’ve tried to buck me
With spending cuts instead of raising taxes
Five days since I sneered at you and said
“You are the ones who put us in this deep doo-doo”
Three days since the last go-round
If I keep saying you’re at fault, then what can you do?
Yesterday said I’d talk to you
There’s a couple of trillion I’d like to borrow

There’s a couple of trillion I’d like to borrow
There’s a couple of trillion I’d like to borrow
Obama plan, hocking tomorrow