After reading Erin's story and the comments my thoughts centered on the musical Lil Abner.

The lyrics to one of the songs are as poignant today as they were sixty years ago.

The Country's in the Very Best of Hands – Li'l Abner and Marryin' Sam

Them city folks and we-uns
Are pretty much alike
Though they ain't used to living in the sticks
We don't like stone or cement
But we is in agreement
When we get started talking politics

The country's in the very best of hands
The best of hands
The best of hands

The treasury says the national debt
Is climbing to the sky
And government expenditures
Have never been so high
It makes a fellow get a
Gleam of pride within his eye,
To see how our economy expands
The country's in the very best of hands

The country's in the very best of hands
The best of hands
The best of hands

You oughtta hear the senate
When they're drawing up a bill
Whereases and Towits are crowded in each codicil
Such legal terminology
Would give your heart a thrill
There's phrases there that no one understands
The country's in the very best of hands

The building boom, they say
Is getting bigger every day
And when I asked a feller
How could everybody pay
He come up with an answer
That made everything okay
Supplies are getting greater than demands
The country's in the very best of hands

Don't you believe them congressmen
And senators are dumb
When they run into problems
That is tough to overcome
They just declare a thing
They calls a moratorium
The upper and the lower house disbands
The country's in the very best of hands

The voters is connected to the nominee
The nominee's connected to the treasury
When he ain't connected to the treasury
He sits around on his thigh bone

He sits around in this place they got,
This big congressional parking lot
Just sits around on the you know what
Up there they calls 'em their thigh bone

Them bones, them bones
Gonna rise again
Gonna excercise a franchise again
Gonna tax us up to our eyes again
When he gets them off of their thigh bone

The country's in the very best of hands
The best of hands
The best of hands

The farm bill should be
Eight-nine percent parity
Another fellow recommends
It should be ninety-three.
But eighty, ninety-five percent who cares about degree
It's parity that no one understands
The country's in the very best of hands

Them GOP's and democrats
Each hates the other one
They's always criticizing
How the country should be run
But neither tell the public
What the others gone and done
As long as no one knows
Where no one stands
The country's in the very best of hands

They sits around in this place they're at,
Where folks in congress has always sat
Just sits around on their excess fat,
Up there they calls 'em their thigh bones

They sits around till they starts to snore
Jumps up and hollers
I has the floor
Then sits right down where they sats before
Up there they calls it their thigh bone

Them bones, them bones
Gonna rise again,
So dignified and so wise again
While the budget doubles in size again
When it gets them off of their thigh bone

The country's in the very best of hands
The best of hands
The best of hands

The money that they taxes us
That's known as revenue
They compound up collaterals
Subtracts the residue

Don't worry about the principal
And interest it incrues
They're shipping all that stuff to foreign lands
The country's in the very best of hands

Jill