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Caliche Busters and Government Work

When I was young and both stronger and smarter than I am now, I put my might and brain to work doing nothing useful, unless it might be thought that hand/foot/eye coordination might come in handy.  Those were skills to be learned and practiced.  

 I found an iron bar our grandfather had shaped in his blacksmith shop.  He took old car, truck, or wagon axles, and made tools from them for digging post holes.  He sharpened one end to a tip, and the other to a blade.  Washington State, like many places, had a hard layer of soil, probably created by water and limestone, or some such materials, that made digging holes a miserable chore.  The bar chipped through the natural concrete so that a shovel could take it up.  

 I found Grandpa's iron bar, and since I was young and dumb and strong--or so I thought--decided to punch a hole down to hardpan and ultimate truth.  I knew how to do that.  Raise the bar vertically with both hands, and then slam in straight down.  On the second try, aiming for the hole created by the first try, I hit the toe of my shoe, right across the bit toe.  

 Years later, during a previous time in Tucson, I bought a commercial version of Grandpa's iron bar.  Home Depot called it a caliche buster.  It was designed to break through a layer of concrete-like soil in Sonoran Desert soil.  Still later, in Minnesota, I discovered that the same kind of bar had another, more locally meaningful name, but it served the same purpose.  

 Someone has given the Republican members of Congress caliche busters.  They are lined up, like gandy dancers, hammering away at their big toes.  

 "Let's refuse to cooperate with the President!"  Wham!  Right on a toe!
"Let's vote against anything the President wants, even if we want it, too!"  Wham!
"Let's refuse to raise the debt ceiling for the money we agreed to borrow!"  Wham!
"Let's make our own majority leader look like a fool!"  Wham!
"Let's put a gun in every teacher's desk!"  Wham!
"Let's defend the income of the richest SOBs in the country!"  Wham!
"Let's cut off our own health care benefits!"  Wham!
"Let's balance the budget by making the poor pay for it!"  Wham!
"Let's call the Democrats communists!"  Wham!

 "Let's take a break here, and go home for Christmas, and say we aren't coming back until the Democrats agree to get their own caliche busters and help us with this work!"  Wham!

 "Any of you guys able to walk?"

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