RIVER CITY JOURNAL: WHATEVER HAPPENS, FIND SOMEONE TO BLAME

We've been doing it since

the beginning of time. The

only thing that's changed

is who takes the fall.

It all started when Eve blamed the snake.

Ever since then, we humans have been quick to blame and reluctant to assume responsibility for what we do.

For thousands of years, the blame game spurred creativity and ingenuity. Warriors blamed being taken into slavery on bad omens. Crop failures were blamed on insufficient human sacrifices. Floods were blamed on angry rain gods. Generals blamed miserable marching slobs for battleground defeats. Economic disasters were blamed on silly policies and crazy politicians. Mothers blamed their flat layer cakes on unruly children who bounded into the kitchen at precisely the wrong time. Fathers blamed their job losses on mean bosses. Even dogs were in the line of fire for lost homework. Cats, of course, have always escaped blame. After all, what can you blame on a sleep-eat (not necessarily in that order) life form?

Then came the computer.

For about a quarter of a century, most everything could be -- and was -- blamed on a computer. Didn't get the golf clubs you ordered? Computer was down. Credit-card statements fouled up? Computer glitch. Bank statement all out of whack? Computer went nuts. IRS audit? Definitely the computer.

Now there is a new culprit taking the blame for almost everything. Have you noticed? These days things get all fouled up because of "the budget."

In most cases this seems to be a reference to the federal budget -- or non-budget, to be more precise -- or budget cuts that really aren't cuts at all.

For example, the local IRS office has reduced its staffing to assist folks during the busy tax-preparation season. Budget cuts, they said. Nonsense, says Congressman Emerson, who is partly responsible for handing out the federal dollars. Not only did the IRS get more money, it got more money for additional staffing.

Go figure.

Meanwhile, dozens of governmental agencies and their minions are taking to the budget blame like mustard on a hot dog. Can't see the doctor at the nearby VA hospital? They cut the budget, you know. No new bridge over the Mississippi River? Budget cuts. Medicare bills piling up? They gutted Medicare. Not enough teachers? Education is always at the bottom of the heap.

All of these excuses are wrong. Dead wrong. If the budget is being cut so much, why are we spending so goldarned much more? If the budget is being keelhauled, why aren't my taxes going down? Aside from a few isolated cases where a bold governor -- say the governor of Michigan -- has held sway over runaway taxation, finding a government that has actually cut anything since the Civil War would be like finding a 100-carat diamond in the gravel at the bottom of Cape La Croix Creek.

Well, at least at the bottom of any part of the creek that isn't covered with concrete.

Concrete paid for with tax dollars.

Tax dollars that not only weren't cut but were supplemented again and again as that project's cost mounted.

Or what about the new federal building planned for Cape Girardeau? Less than a year ago cost estimates were in the $15 million range, including land acquisition, construction, furnishings, metal detectors and stripes on the parking lot. Now the estimates are hovering in the $30 million range. And no one has yet studied the cost differentials of one possible site over another.

Not even the federal government.

The federal government that is spending my money.

Which they keep cutting. Or so I hear.

Whew. I feel a lot better. I would feel even better if some editor hadn't cut the space today. This would have been a lot longer and a lot better otherwise. Blame it on some heartless editor.

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.