Cut the Police

Lyrics ©2017 by Bill Roper
Music: Tom Lehrer, "Send the Marines"

The Cook County soda tax was placed on hold by a local judge. The next act in our morality play proceeded as usual, as the Cook County government issued dire warnings about the draconian cuts that would be required if this relatively small in the whole budgetary scheme amount of money wasn't available.

This included, of course, a fifteen percent cut in personnel for the Cook County Police, because the first thing that they always threaten to cut is the police. I'm sure they'd threaten to cut the fire department too, except that Cook County doesn't seem to have a fire department to cut, based on my brief Google search. That's all controlled by various municipalities and townships. Well, you threaten where you can...

In any case, I am old enough to remember Tom Lehrer. For those of you who don't, here's the original.

The soda tax was repealed not too long after this. Apparently, there are limits to what people will put up with.

When someone starts attacks
Upon our latest tax,
We’ve got to find a way to make them cease.
It’s such a simple threat --
It hasn’t failed us yet!
So first, cut the police!

No one out there will care
If we find we cannot spare
The funds to pay some aldermanic niece.
We’ve got to make them see
All their cash belongs to me.
What do we do?  We cut the police!

We must preserve
The jobs that we deserve.
Patronage protected,
All their rights respected,
They’re the ones who help us get elected.

We swear that there’s no fat.
No, we’ve cut all of that.
What’s left is how democracy is greased.
It’s time that you all learned
We’d rather let the city burn.
So please don’t say you’re overtaxed,
You’ve still got shirts upon your backs.
Our tax collector’s getting lax!
So when in doubt, cut the police!