You bet your morass it’s a mess

Things are going badly in Springfield, says Rich Miller, who lists problems, including:

Unemployment is rising, yet a jobs-producing capital construction bill for our roads, bridges, schools and mass transit is stuck in limbo.

Reading along, I thought he was going to say a tax-reduction bill was in limbo, or such bill is not being discussed.  But he refers to state spending that would produce jobs. 

Reasonable state spending perhaps, on roads, bridges, etc., assuming those are not bridges to nowhere, and incidentally jobs-producing.  But as it stands, his reference smacks of statist solution to economic problem.

He also says:

Nothing — literally nothing — is being accomplished because the governor and the speaker want to crush each other.

Literally as opposed to when he says nothing but doesn’t mean it?

And finally, he speaks of the “intractable morass” that calls for solution.  Ouch.  Morasses are for avoiding, not solving, and in any case we have here a familiar metaphor matched with the non-metaphorical “intractable.”  Stay non-metaphorical, I say: it makes for precision.