Careful examination of government spending records and budgets has revealed a radical priority shift at both the state and federal levels. “Old” government programs aimed at highway maintenance, effective public schooling, industrial safety regulation, and major crimes investigation have been largely curtailed in favor of a new, radically more ass-painy, initiative.

It’s a move that some are calling groundbreaking and all are calling ball-breaking. The already massive County Dept. of Jerking Me Around (CDJMA) has received vast new powers and a corresponding increase in funding. This is combined with an unprecedented increase in federal spending in the Office of Smashing Any Chance of Just Letting Me Be (OSACJL) particularly the Ripping the Fun Out of Life in an Ever Growing Web of Red Tape and Bullshit Task Force (RFOLEGWRTBS). To some these increases, coming at the expense of the dept. of health and the dept. of education, were controversial. Others have complained that what little resources remain have been funneled to the Central Borough for the Formation and Creation of Enormously Cumbersome and Unintelligible and Unusable Acronyms (CBFCECUUA). But most are too exhausted or complacent to do anything but despondently shrug their shoulders at a government that is mostly interested in the invasion of other countries and vastly disproportionate responses to the largely arbitrary offensives of its citizens.

No representative of the aforementioned government offices could be reached for comment before press time. Their voicemail boxes were full and we were given the following instruction, that we call back on a prime numbered day occurring during an eclipse of Jupiter between the hours of 1:30 and 2:15 am Greenwich Mean Time. Following these instruction we reached an intern who, while very friendly, was unable to either answer questions or take a message.

We were able to speak to a Huntington County Police officer on condition of anonymity. We asked if the new policies had any effect on his job. “Well, this has always been a pretty quiet area. Every once and a while we’d bust up a meth-lab, but most of the time I’d just check in on senior citizens to make sure they were doing okay, or go around making sure kids didn’t get into too much trouble. Has that changed at all? Well, now I mostly park the cruiser under a shaded tree near an intersection and wait for people to roll stop signs. Five more years and I get my pension. I’m going to sell t-shirts down at the shore.”

We also managed to speak to a meter checker for the PPA, who when asked the same question said, “Listen pal, I already started the ticket.”

Receiving Me? will of course have more on this story as details emerge.