Columns

By LEE HAMILTON
Center on Congress
With the formal release of President Obama’s budget, the pieces are finally in place for a reprise of the Washington drama we’ve all come to know.

There will be high-stakes negotiations, lines in the sand, and enough intrigue to keep Beltway insiders riveted by every piece of breaking news.

The rest of us, though, are already worn out. In repeated conversations with ordinary people, I’ve been struck by the immense frustration I’ve encountered.

It’s spring, and the buzz around my neighborhood right now involves carpenter bees and what to do about them.

For years, I’d adopted a live-and-let-live attitude, leaving the bee battling to my fierce red heeler, Merlin. In his younger days, he used to put on quite the air show, leaping, twisting, snapping and snarling at the bees, who you could almost hear snicker as they gyrated in the air just out of reach.

In recent years, I’ve noticed the carpenter bee holes in the framework of my big shed beginning to expand.

Some weeks ago, we penned an article captioned “What mischief will legislature produce?”

Although that august body will not adjourn sine die for some days yet, they have already established a new record for Acts of ignorance, shame, and disgrace that will be hard to equal, but no doubt they will strive to do so just next year.

Consider, if you will the following efforts, some of which have passed, some which have not yet been acted upon and some of which are lying in abeyance awaiting an opportune time to rear their ugly heads and become public Acts.

Gentle reader, you no doubt are familiar with the hymn, “Will the Circle be Unbroken?” We, of course, know not the answer to that question about the future, but we do know that as to the present, the answer is definitely “no,” for we find that with each passing year our circle of friends and acquaintances is broken in more and more places.