Is the public trust a public trough?

Dear Mr. Berko: Several weeks ago you shared your delightful thoughts with members of our civic club in West Boca. Your short remarks on "why politicians spend money" were topical and hilarious. Would it be possible to excerpt those comments from your speech and send them to me? And could I have your permission to publish those comments on my blog? You also spoke about Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's efforts to spend $500 million on education to eliminate obesity in America. I would also appreciate an excerpt of that comment as well as permission to publish those comments on my blog. Your answers to the obesity epidemic appear so logical that I can't imagine why it hasn't been done before.

J.S.

Boca Raton, Fla.

Dear J.S.: Your request is among the many I've received from remarks I've made while speaking to readers in four cities plus Boca. But I'm not comfortable publishing my remarks on obesity or the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.Unlike Don Imus and a few others, I want to keep my job.

But because politicians are fair game I have no compunction about publishing the following remarks and giving you permission to blog them. Here they are:

Giving politicians access to public money is like appointing a coyote to be in charge of a henhouse. To know the psyche of a politician you must first understand the essence of the word "politics." The first syllable (poli) is a Greek adjective meaning a "large number" and (tics) is a noun that refers to a genus of insect we know as "blood-sucking parasites." These politicians are easily identified by their red power ties, ample girths, costly haircuts by Formica, egos that dwarf the sun and a scar behind their left ear from which the truth gene has been surgically removed.

The politicians are Type A, mesomorphic life-forms with abnormally high testosterone levels and a genetic structure that is eight to 13 chromosomes shy of being a sensitive, caring, socially conscious and personally responsible human being. Empirical evidence seems to suggest that the overactive pleasure centers of their brains require continually increasing levels of nourishment. As a result, these dominant mega-vertebras parallel the spending of public money as a form of eating or sex or both.

These chromosomally challenged life-forms honestly believe (they really do) that spending public money is a personal entitlement. This strange logic enters through their frontal lobe and ricochets wildly like a metal marble in a pinball machine between the medulla oblongata and the hippocampus until it comes to rest. These politicians fiercely compete among themselves to spend every possible dime and dollar in the public through. In fact, many of these fellows equate the size of a particular body part to the amount of public funds they are able to spend. As in the case of most dependencies, the satisfaction levels required for satiety continually increase. In fact, history suggests that Nero was the quintessential example of a politician whose appetite morphed into destructive sensory overload

Please address your financial questions to Malcolm Berko, P.O. Box 1416, Boca Raton, FL 33429 or e-mail him at malber@comcast.net.