Days from stepping down as director of the Office of Management and Budget, Peter Orszag can now add another feather to his cap: he has inspired someone to write a song in his honor.
After delivering a 25-minute speech at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, Orszag was heckled during the question-and-answer session by a man who identified himself as Rick Lopez.
Out of an audience of a couple hundred, Orszag called on Lopez to ask a question. Instead, Lopez launched into a song heckling Orszag and President Obama’s health care plan to the classical tune “Funiculi, Funicula.”
A transcript of the song, with Orszag’s interruptions in parentheses:
Yes, hello. My name is Rick Lopez, and I work with LPAC. And, uh, I just wanna say, I’ve always been inspired by bean-counters who are willing to come out and impose really brutal austerity, and you, it’s gonna butcher the poor, but what of it. And my question is, what do you think of this song that was inspired by you that I wrote?
It goes…
[Singing]
Peter Orszag and Larry Summers, they’re fascist pigs
They’re fascist pigs
[Mic is killed]
They say health care’s a burden on the budget
It’s bullshit, it’s bullshit
(All right, well thank you for that)
We spend $22 trillion on Wall Street, on Wall Street
(I don’t think there was a question in there, but if we could go to Ruth [Marcus] that would be great. Could we just get her a microphone?)
And now, they cut it out of freakin’ health care,
(Sir, if you wanted to record that, I’m sure we would be delighted to…)
Ain’t that some shit, we’re [indistinguishable]
(Ok, I guess we’re just gonna let him sing…)
Shareholder, value health care
Is for Nazis, were you well aware
It will kill you, it will kill you, it will kill you, it will kill you
Obama’s health care plan is Hitler approved
Obama’s health care plan is Hitler approved
Austerity
Orszag played off the incident with humor.
“I clearly chose the wrong person for the second question,” Orszag joked after the man had been escorted out of the room.
Orszag then called on Ruth Marcus, columnist for the Washington Post, and said that “all questions must be in song.”
Lopez claimed that he works with the LPAC, the political action committee founded by Lyndon Larouche. LPAC denies that Osama bin Laden was behind the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, calls for Obama’s impeachment and features a picture of Obama with a Hitler mustache on its website.
LPAC confirmed that Lopez is a volunteer organizer with the committee.
The Brookings aide in charge of distributing the microphone tried to take back the mic, but Lopez would not give it back. Lopez’ microphone was then cut off after three lines, but his voice was strong enough to carry throughout the room.
William Gale, a Brookings economic scholar, then tried to steer Lopez out of the room – but not before Lopez belted out the last few lines.
The event was being taped for C-SPAN broadcast.