A Funny Stimulus “Package” Metaphor

I've been listening to the critics of the stimulus program quite a lot lately, and I've noticed one metaphor that keeps creeping into the description of what the stimulus program is doing in its bare essence. The metaphor being used most is “the government takes money out of your left pocket, and puts it into your right pocket,” or vice versa. But I've been writing about this, and “spending multipliers,” and “tax multipliers,” etc, for some time, and I've come to realize that the metaphor isn't quite complete. It's missing that little something that makes it just a length or two or six more memorable. Or if you're someone like me, more memorable still.

The government can't take money out of your left pocket, and place it into your right pocket, without creating a bureaucracy in the middle to make sure it's all in position. Sooo, exactly, what does that make them? The dic%$ in the middle! We get our pockets ransacked, while they give us the shaft.

Hey, let's play a game of “right pocket, left pocket, who's the dic% in the middle?”

Thanks, dic%$, now stop stroking me, and get your hands, uh, multipliers out of my pockets.

This “stimulus package” might make us feel good because we're “doing something;” but we'll be lucky if we get to see a tiny, little stimulus-induced bump in our, um, economy at all.

Biggest and best "stimulating" regards,

Your left fu#*ing pocket