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News-Sentinel.com Your Town. Your Voice.
Opening Arguments

Bunk

The nonsense in Indianapolis continues:

The Indiana Senate tweaked a budget proposal Monday and changed a backup plan that would keep state government running even if lawmakers don't enact a new budget by the June 30 deadline.

[. . .]

The Senate changed the backup plan so that government spending at current levels would continue for two years if a budget agreement isn't reached. Outnumbered Democrats said the contingency plan should only last one month to pressure lawmakers to pass a new state budget.

One month or two years -- not much difference there! Wonder why they couldn't agree on a budget?

Hoosier lawmakers can't get together because of all the bunk they spew. "Bunk" is a little-used word these days, probably because it sounds so quaint and old-fashioned, but we really ought to bring it back for exclusive use in describing politics, which is the word's origin. It comes from Buncombe, a county in North Carolina. When Congress was contentiously debating the Missouri Compromise, all representatives were asked to keep their comments short and to the point. Felix Walker of N.C. declined:

It was then that North Carolina Representative Felix Walker rose to address the House. His colleagues, knowing Walker's reputation for prolonged and irrelevant oratory, pleaded with him to cut it short -- at which point Walker infamously confessed, “I shall not be speaking to the House, but to Buncombe”. It was remarked that his pointless speech "was buncombe," the saying stuck, and soon "buncombe" became synonymous with vacuous, irrelevant speech. As the new meaning of buncombe grew in use, its phonetic spelling "bunkum" was adopted and eventually shortened to the now familiar word "bunk."

Our geniuses in Indianapolis can't speak to each other because they're too busy speaking to us -- the constituents in Allen County or Marion County or Lake County that can get them re-elected. We can only disabuse them of such bunk at the ballot box.

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