Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of food, clothing, electricity, gas and oil, the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off.
WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.
My take on this:
The government wouldn’t turn off the light at the end of the tunnel because it’s part of an earmarked project attached to a critical spending bill. It would then get moved to somebody else’s budget, where it would be lost in the crunch. No one would realize everybody had left that tunnel for the bigger tunnel, and left the light on. Somebody might come thru at some point and change the incandescent bulb for a compact fluorescent, but the paperwork would get lost, so no one would still know it was left on.