A Solution to Our Government Shutdown: Name My Cat Dictator

So the government is shut down, and a better one doesn't seem likely to open in its place anytime soon.

But maybe it should.

While Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell are locked in a room pretending to negotiate as their respective staffs try fruitlessly to tell them apart, we, as a nation, should collectively tell them "never mind."

Instead, imagine their surprise when they come out of their little room look around and, once they pull their heads out of their respective backsides, discover they've been replaced.

By my cat.

That's right. In the new system I hereby propose, there will be no more parties who care more about getting elected than about governing, and who refuse to negotiate because they know the other party will get blamed for the shutdown. There will be no extremists who dispute that accepting a validly enacted piece of legislation they don't happen to like is the price of living in a democracy. 

Instead of dysfunctional mess in which we currently find ourselves, I propose our nation cede all its governing power over to one source: Trouble, my housecat. 

The benefits of this idea barely fit onto this page.

TroubleCat wastes no time deliberating. She knows what she wants, and she goes after it.  For example, if she wants foreign aid, she scratches my leg and meows incessantly until I give in and give her some of my chicken.

Vladamir Putin would be no match for this negotiating tactic.

In our current government, beneficial legislation gets derailed because neither party wants the other to get credit for passing it.  What little does eventually get passed is so corrupted by special interests who fund our legislator's re-election campaigns that it no longer benefits the population at large.

These problems would end if Trouble were in charge. Give her a piece of legislation that stinks and she will poop on it.

Give her a piece of good legislation and she will possibly still poop on it, but she will at least riffle through it and scratch it up first. And if you focus a laser pointer on its relevant points, she will give it her undivided attention, at least until a bug flies by.

This is progress over what we have now.

The advantages don't end there. Trouble would hold no press conferences and would never appear on cable talk shows to refuse to answer the hosts' questions directly. She would not waste time on dumb proposals that have no chance of passing just to appease her political base. While she couldn't find Iraq on a map, at least that means she wouldn't go to war with it.

Her health care plan consists of lots of naps. And no matter what struggles she might face, she will always land on her feet.

Most importantly, the constant and exhausting stalemates between two political parties who can't work together would cease if we just named Trouble our Cat Dictator for Life.

For all nine lives, for that matter.

Trouble would get things done. For example, she would personally increase our nation's paper bag and laundry basket inspection programs, which would in turn dramatically decrease the number of bag-and-basket-related deaths, assuming she could ever find her way out to sign the bill.

Also, she would have to learn to learn how to hold a pen in her mouth and sign things.  But this seems more likely than Republicans and Democrats ever working together.

Of course, I realize that this plan is not without drawbacks.

Some might be alarmed at the idea of Trouble having her finger over our nuclear arsenal. Fortunately, she doesn't have opposable thumbs so this is not a significant concern.

Some might fear she could easily be bought off for a mere can of Fancy Feast. But I can assure anyone concerned that the moment she finishes her treat, she will be back to the same self-centered creature she always was, having no concern or loyalty to anyone but herself.

Others might contend that a cat with a below-average IQ, even for cats, is not the most qualified candidate to have dictatorial control over the free world. But this argument overlooks that fact that she is the only cat who has volunteered, through her master's proxy, to serve.

Detractors might argue that Trouble would probably not realize she was leading the free world, even if she was put in charge.

Some might even go so far as to contend that she doesn't actually care about anyone who lives outside her house, and any positive actions she took for our country would probably be completely accidental.

But this hardly differentiates her from our politicians, and at least she is fluffy and cute.