Opinion

A sequestration soliloquy

Rick Robinson Author, Writ of Mandamus
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Act III, Scene I

Hamlet enters the House chamber and is granted unanimous consent to revise and extend his remarks:

To sequester, or not to sequester: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of automatic cuts,
Or to take arms against a sea of growing federal programs,
And by opposing end them? To cut: to spend;
No more; and by a cut to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand tax increases
That uncontrolled spending is heir to, ’tis a debt ceiling increase
Devoutly to be wish’d. To cut, to spend;
To spend: perchance to create a new program: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that new spending of revenue what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this latest fiscal cliff,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long political careers;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of automatic budget cuts,
The politicians wrong, the voters contumely,
The pangs of despised talking heads, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the congressman takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would sequestration bear,
To grunt and sweat under an automatic cut,
But that the dread of something in midterm elections,
The undiscover’d cut from whose bourn
No program returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those cuts we have
Than fly to other programs that we know not of?
Thus sequestration does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great spending,
With this regard their supporters turn awry,
And lose the name on the ballot. — Soft you now!
The fair Sunday morning news shows, in thy orisons
Be all my PAC donations remember’d.

Rick Robinson is the author of political thrillers which can be purchased on Amazon and at book stores everywhere. His latest novel, Manifest Destiny has won seven writing awards, including Best Fiction at the Paris Book Festival.