bizarreville

With the government getting scarily close to hitting the brick wall on its debt ceiling, parties on both sides have been scurrying to work out a deal of some sort.  Hundreds of suggestions have been served up, but all have been plundered by the opposing side as “moronic and totally unacceptable.”  It appeared that neither side was willing to budge and financial chaos was only days away.

That is, until Representative Carl “The Codger” Coddington made his suggestion on the House floor.  Carl fidgeted in his chair during most of Thursday’s session, looked very agitated, then finally blurted out that they should agree to go ahead and raise the Debt Limit by a Buck 2.80.  Perhaps showing total exhaustion from the weeks of wraggling, both sides erupted in wild cheers of excitement.  A scribe hurriedly wrote up a blurb of legislative prose, and both sides approved it with a verbal vote on the spot.  Crisis averted.

No one, however, exactly knew what the real definition of a Buck 2.80 was.  Did it represent some sort of real number, and if so, what was that number?  If it was a number between 1 and 3 dollars, it would only keep the government financially solvent for 13 nanoseconds…and while that was “some” progress, it was perhaps not quite “enough” progress.  Attempts to interview congressmen to get an answer were met with snide rebuffs, retorting, “Don’t get so damn technical!” as they popped open the champagne bottles on the floor.

One news reporter said he uses the term all the time.  “Anytime some nitwit relative asks me how much I paid for a new jacket or fishing rod, I just tell them ‘About a Buck 2.80,’ and that usually shuts them up so that I can get back to doing whatever I was doing.  Buck 2.80, brilliant move!”

Another reporter said he uses it, too.  “Last week, some idiot doing a survey stopped me, asked a bunch of lame questions, then quizzed me how much money I made.  I told him about a Buck 2.80, and he gave me a deer-in-the-headlight stare that was hilarious.  Yeah, Buck 2.80…that’s the answer to the Debt crisis.”

The next day, it was written into the Congressional record that the new Debt Limit is $16.7 trillion plus a Buck 2.80.  Global financial markets rallied on the news.

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction, even though we wish they were true.

The Bizarreville Congress has left to take a well-deserved vacation after months upon months of difficult, physically demanding wheel-spinning, accountability dodging, high horse riding, wagon circling, and ball fumbling.  Anyone who has ever ridden a bicycle knows how much energy it takes to overcome a rider who is continually dragging his feet…it can be extremely tiring.  Add to that the mental stress/strain of people who really and truly want to make important things happen, but are just too stupid to figure out how to do it.  Grueling.

“People who call us a bunch of lazy, good-for-nothing sleep walkers do not begin to understand the tough physical and mental challenge of our jobs,” one Bizarreville congressman commented.  “Take Immigration Reform…imagine yourself sitting through days and days of all-day meetings, debating the same crap about border security walls, pathway to citizenship amnesty, and local enforcement crazies over and over again ad nauseum.  You tell me anyone who would not desperately need a month long vacation after that torture.  Brother, you won’t find anybody.”

Some have argued that they should take the rest of the year off, talk to their constituents, contemplate their navels, hit the beach, and come back with some sort of notion on what to do.  Others have said, if they did that, most would probably get accosted by their citizens, left beaten-up in roadside ditches, and not make it back for the next round of votes.

One congressman had a novel idea, suggesting that the public just give them all “early retirement” packages, just like corporations do to rid themselves of deadwood.  “We need to embrace the Best Practices from our friends in Free Enterprise, rather than trying to always reinvent the broken wheel ourselves.  I would be willing to be a guinnea pig, or trial balloon, and accept a package myself.”  Unfortunately the congressman dozed off before he could complete his thought process.

Disclaimer:  All stories in Bizarreville are fiction.  Some seem a little more real than others, though.  Notice:  Get ready for our all new book, “Bizarreville Campfire Stories”, available at Amazon.  It is a collection of 36 fun stories of hyjinx and satire, the kind of stuff you will love.  More coming soon.

Despite bi-partisan dissatisfaction, the President signed the new Truth in Lawmaking Act in a poppy garden ceremony yesterday.  The new law will require that legislators and other government officials be completely honest in development and communication of new laws, budgets, and other mischievious political dealings.  As expected, both parties issued scathing rebuttals, with threats that the Act could unravel the very framework of the legislative body.

The law had been initiated after a nationwide referendum.  87% of the public favored a truth in lawmaking rule; the other 13% turned out to be government employees.

The law will no longer allow congress to call a reduction in the amount of funding increase a “cut”.  A cut will have to be a cut, which is defined in the Act as an actual reduction versus current spending.  A “sizeable cut” will require a 15% real reduction or more.  A “huge cut” will require a 30% hacking.  A reduction in the amount of increase will hereafter be called a “smaller increase”.

Politicians will be forced to quit claiming job losses or job gains from sequesters or any other program.  A recent Bizarreville University study determined that all such claims suggesting there is a relationship between numbers of jobs and political actions of one type or other are “meritless poppycock”.  The study left open the possibility that there could, in the future, conceivably be a specific directed government program aimed at truly incentivizing an industry to build new manufacturing plants and create real, long-lasting jobs…but doubted it would ever happen, since it has never happened before.

The President pointed out that he has always supported the whole notion of truth and honesty.  An Aide had to pull him aside mid-speech, and tell him that he could no longer get away with that kind of comment any more.

States and local legislatures would be forced to comply with the new law, as well.  The concept of a temporary one-cent sales tax, used in the past purportedly to help build new schools and hire better teachers, but really used to line the pockets of cronies with ill-conceived new sidewalk programs, would be specifically prohibited.  The new Act states that any local lawmaker even suggesting such a program would be immediately impeached and forced to do 120 days of dog park cleanup duty.

The new law even extends to rogue Homeowner Association Boards who recklessly implement increases in annual dues, based on lies and deceptions.  Many such Boards were discovered to have hired inept association managers who were almost as bad as congresspeople in their lack of financial prudence, cost discipline, transparency, and character traits.  Some were found trying to jam through increases with fictional accounts of problems in order to fund their swelling budgets.  One manager, who was discovered trashing perfectly good flowers at the entrance gate in order to change-up the color scheme, threatened to leave the association and run for congress if any action was taken against her.

A spokesman for the Liberals decried the new law, stating that it infringed on the legislature’s “inalienable right” to massage facts, contort reality, and hide the fine print…so important to the lawmaking process.  He said that it would throw 200 years of history in the legislative commode, a commode that is already stopped-up with some big ones.

A Conservative spokesman said, “Ditto”.

A respresentative of the Homeowner Association Managers Union said they plan to continue to bend the truth regardless of the new law.  They claim that they are an independent governing body protected from intrusive federal regulation.  A network pundit, former judge, just laughed and said, “See you knuckleheads in Court.”

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction, in spite on any obvious similarities.

Once upon a time, there were 2 congressmen.  These fellows, at one time in their lives, were very smart people.  But the draining effect of serving many years, decades, in congress emptied all their intelligence juices into the congressional sewer, forcing them to act like mindless numbskulls.  Somehow these bozos continued to get re-elected, probably because their constituents were as dumb as they were.  So they muddled through their legislative jobs, showing up occasionally, and voting Aye or Nay on stuff, normally not paying much attention to what the stuff was.  Some pundits, evaluating their lacklusterness, called them gutless weiners.  This hurt their feelings, and they claimed that such a characterization was a distortion of the truth.

One gloomy day, the two were wandering aimlessly and found themselves on the brink of a fiscal cliff.  One congressman asked the other, “Do you think we should jump?”

“That’s a good question,” the second congressman replied.

“I wasn’t really asking you to give me a letter grade on the quality of the question, sir,” the first responded.  “I was asking for your position statement.”

“I’m standing.  Right here, next to you.  Can’t you see that?  I know you have eye problems, but this is ridiculous.”

Both congressmen, in fact, had serious eyesight problems.  Neither could see much beyond his own nose.  But the first man confidently spoke that there was a pond at the bottom of the fiscal cliff that would break their fall and prevent serious injury.  He said that he thought they should go for it.

The second congressman hesitated.  He gazed across the narrow plateau, and noticed another fiscal cliff on the other side.  They both walked over, and saw what appeared to be a very deep, catastrophic drop-off into a pile of craggy impailing rocks.  “Why don’t we jump off this fiscal cliff instead?  We would get a lot less wet.  My wife gets so upset when I come home with soaking wet clothes.”

“But it’s about 10 times as big a drop.  We could get seriously skewered on those rocks at the bottom.”

“But it would take longer for it to happen.  I bet it would take almost a minute before we were shish-kabobed.  Over there on your cliff…you would get totally soaked within 3 seconds.”

“Yeah, you’re right.  I wasn’t thinking.  You know it’s really great when we work together in a bi-partisan way to solve a tough problem.  We learn so much when we work together.”

They hugged each other, and took a flying leap.  It took 43 seconds for them to get bludgeoned, far short of the one-minute prediction.  A mountain climber who witnessed the leap said they seemed happy and excited most of the way down.  He said one yelled “Cowabunga” at about the halfway point, but the other fellow yelled something that sounded like the F-word.  He was not sure if that was a positive kind of F, or a negative F…probably the latter.

Back at the Hall of Congress, the fellow congressmen of their 2 fallen comrades commended them for their bravery, and passed a resolution that history should not regard them as gutless weiners.  One freshman congressman asked why they felt the need to jump at all?  But he was pulled aside and reprimanded by a senior legislator for his lack of sensitivity in this moment of grief.

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction.  Are you surprised?

When the President instructed all citizens to jump off the Fiscal Cliff, Johnnie was reluctant.  He had been a staunch supporter of the Chief Exec, even voted for him in the November election.  He particularly liked the way the President said he was going to go after those nasty rich guys who had good jobs but were not paying their fair share of taxes.  Johnnie knew that those guys were going to have to jump off an even bigger, steeper cliff.  And, well, it served them right for being so damn greedy.  But as Johnnie approached the precipice, he began to wonder…began to question this brand of leadership:  trust me, I’ve got your back.  Johnnie looked around and did not see anyone with a life line that would take care of his back, his front, or any other body part for that matter.

Johnnie had been watching the TV news.  His favorite station, Channel 7 Marxwitness News, had interviewed a left-leaning senator who confidently explained that it was not really a fiscal “cliff”, more of a fiscal playground slide.  “Well then why do they call it a cliff, if it’s only a slide” he thought.  “And why, when I look down this fall-off does it look like I will need an EMT squad when I hit bottom?”

He inched forward, loosening a few pebbles that tumbled down the cliff…bouncing along on the jagged rocks until they finally launched themselves for uninterrupted treks to the bottom.  Is that how he would tumble…carom off a few rocks, causing some minor bruises and lacerations before being pushed away from the rocky surface for the bullet train to the bottom?  Or would he snowball down the cliff, painfully tumbling round and round like some Hanna Barbera cartoon character?

Johnnie backed away for a minute.  He began to wonder why it was necessary that he jump off the cliff.  After all, he had done nothing wrong, nothing unscrupulous.  Well, there was that one time that he padded his expense account on that training trip…but he would gladly refund the $3.50 now to avoid this calamity.  His neighbor Fred was a lot more unscrupulous.  Fred even lied on his resume about that time he got canned…said it was his own decision to leave the company.  Baaah, he was drop-kicked like a worn-out rugby ball.  He ought to be jumping off the cliffs of Dover.

Then he remembered the President’s speech last week, explaining how jumping was everyone’s patriotic duty.  Johnnie, if nothing else, was certainly a patriot.  He knew he could never go back into town and have everyone accuse him of being an unpatriotic piece of chicken crap.  It would be a life of shame, hiding from ridicule and finger-pointing of fellow citizens…turning away from the whispers and head shakes from friends who thought they knew him better…being uninvited to Thanksgiving football watching by embarrassed family members.  Being called a Jumpless Wonder.  No, that would never do.

Johnnie looked down the face of the cliff one more time.  Hey, he thought… he might just get a little banged-up, but come out surviving.  He could buy himself a tee-shirt proudly saying “I survived the Fiscal Cliff jump”.  He could wear that shirt to Thanksgiving Day football next year.

He gulped hard, inched a little bit forward…a little more…a teensy bit more.  Then the alarm went off.

An aspiring Senate candidate was accosted yesterday by a gang of unhappy fellow party members, disgruntled over the nominee’s refusal to drop out of the Senate race after making some legendary stupid comments about rape and abortion.  The candidate was reportedly hospitalized to treat various brutal insertions into bodily cavities, and for some psychological treatment for trauma.  He is expected to recover in time for the Fall election.

One question asked by a television reporter, after hearing about this attack, was whether the act was going to be considered legitimate rape or illegitimate rape.  Rape experts have been sought to help answer the question, but they have said that precedent is not clear on this type of personal violation.  If the act had been done by opposing party members, the experts believe that it would have most certainly be classified as “legitimate”.  But since it was done by people from his own party, they say that it is most likely going to be considered illegitmate rape, thereby carrying much less punitive sanctions, perhaps merely a hand slap and a stern lecture from a social worker.

The candidate has responded that, while he may be walking funny for the next few weeks, he plans to stay the course in his Senatorial bid.  Public outcry has suggested that this will provide a landslide win for his opponent, who is already the incumbent.  The candidate admitted that he misspoke in the interview, and that he was fairly ignorant on the subject…but that in no way should ignorance disqualify him from being in the Senate.  Many agree.

Asked how he will physically cope with the tough demands of campaigning, he answered that doctors have told him that the male body has ways to shut down this kind of pain.  He said he expects to be dancing the Charleston by October.

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction, even the ones you wish were true.

Dear Mr. President,

As I sat in that House gallery, listening to your stirring State of the Union speech, I could not help but be inspired by you once again.  You are the leader who speaks to my heart…speaks like no one else has ever done.  Every word was like a little nugget of gold, flowing from your lips like warm butter dripping off an English muffin on a Saturday morning.  It was dreamy.

When you spoke of nailing those millionaires by jacking up their taxes, I was reminded of my poor old late grandfather.  He was never a rich man.  But he worked hard…worked especially hard around April 15th to dodge taxes, claim false deductions, and contrive loopholes.  He helped our family by providing us with a nice living.  We never had much, but you know what?  We didn’t know any better.  That is until my friend Sheila told me about how her grandfather bought her a brand new pony for Christmas, while my grandfather gave me a garage sale little doll that wreaked like motor oil.  Like it had been sitting in a garage on the auto accessories shelf, or something.  I hated my grandfather for a while, until he told me about stall cleanup duty…then my doll didn’t seem so bad, and the smell was less putrid.

When you talked about leveling the playing field, I was reminded of my brother-in-law.  He is a man who prays and goes to church every day, but for reasons beyond his control, he has been unable to hold a job.  True, he hasn’t really pounded the pavement to look for a job, but he has managed to make it over to the unemployment office religiously to pick up his unemployment check and food stamps.  He is like many who continue to be victimized by the evil people on Wall Street, and just need a few enhanced entitlements to get by.  He, and his drinking buddies who are sadly in a similar fix, just want a little safety net to pay the bar tab and maybe give the bartender a small tip…hey, maybe shoot a game of pool.  Is that too much to ask from those greedy rich people?

I was enchanted with how you managed to blame everyone except yourself for the pathetic state of our Union.  I, myself, struggle so much when I screw something up, and often end up shouldering the blame.  I just can’t seem to find someone convenient to blame, some way to dodge the bullet, some way to spin the event so that I come out harmless.  But when I watch you do it, I become inspired.  My goodness, you’ve had one of the worst performance records since Herbert Hoover, yet you never have taken a single ounce of blame.  I loved the way you blamed that old nasty Bush for your problems for 3 years, blamed Republicans in Congress for being non-cooperative.  And watching you spin those facts to make it sound like the economy is healthy…if only I could have your talent.

Your “America, Built to Last” reminds me of our nation’s automaking industry and how it needs to be rebuilt.  I bought a Chrysler last year, and it’s been in the shop about 30% of the time.  Hell, the rearview mirror fell off.  But I guess that’s what you mean when you challenge us all to focus on the manufacturing industries here…build more junky cars and sell them to the Chinese as payment instead of cash.  It will not only help the automakers, but also the after-market companies that have to make replacement parts for the crap that keeps on breaking.  The bottom line is that it is all about jobs:  good overpaid jobs for underworked workers.  You’ve got my support.  I just encouraged my sister to go out and buy a Buick.  She asked me why should she buy such a piece of total crap.  And I said:  Because it’s your duty.

Thank you again for such an uplifting speech, and I look forward to re-electing you for at least 4 more years.  I understand the Mission, and you have my full support.

Sincerely,

Nancy P.

Disclaimer:  all stories and letters in Bizarreville are fiction.

A new candidate has thrown his hat in the ring for the Republican nomination.  His name is Bill Shmunk, a retired individual whose career spanned small business management, teaching, local political office, and janitorial work.  He certainly is a jack of some trades, not quite all trades, but some.

Shmunk claims that he is the most conservative candidate in the race, perhaps the only true conservative.  The others, he claims, are conservative paupers compared to him.  Shmunk has bold ideas to solve the nation’s problems:  fiscal problems, national security, border problems, and various social problems…line them up, Bill has a solution.  He has developed a 10-point Contract with Bizarreville that is sure to turn the race on its ear:

1. Stop calling handouts “entitlements”.  No one is entitled to anything.  Start calling them Sponge Payments.  Give Spongers pictures of real taxpayers when they pick up their checks and freebees, so they know who they’re sponging off of.

2. Allow food stamps to only be used for purchases of spam, chicken salad, lima beans, bran flakes, and day-old bread.  Allow food stamp patrons to fill up water jugs at the spigot outside the supermarket door.

3. Adopt a national defense philosophy of “Speak Loudly, but carry a small stick”.  Talk harshly about plans to obliterate enemies, but cut most military spending to the bone to save money.  Scare off rogue nations with empty, but very graphic, threats.  Give soldiers lots of medals to keep spirits high, but reduce funding for free plane rides.

4. Institute a special Hollywood star and Media superstar income tax surcharge of 20 percent.  These are people who constantly advocate higher taxes, so they should be permitted to pay them.

5. Force all Mexican illegal aliens to eat plain American food.  No hot sauce or jalapenos added.  Require id checks before any guacamole can be purchased.

6. Immediately terminate 50% of all government workers.  Tell you what, make it 70% of the highly paid staffers.  Call it a RIF, brought to you by Chainsaw Bill.  Figure out how to do the nation’s nonsensical bureaucracy with fewer people.

7. Require all CEO’s of companies getting bailouts to immediately report to their closest elementary school, and write on the blackboard 1000 times, “I promise I will never ask for a taxpayer bailout again.”

8. Do not permit discrimination, with the exception of people who own cats.  Allow blatant discrimination and profiling of cat lovers, including having them drink from separate water fountains.

9. Stop all efforts to nationalize health care, a concept which entails long lines at the doctor’s office, long waits in waiting rooms, rude receptionists who can never get you in for an appointment, mediocre patient care with quick focus on writing a prescription and getting you out the door, confusing claim filing and bill paying, snotty attitudes…wait a minute, that’s what we’ve got now!

10. Adjustable term limits for congress people, based on how well they score on the knucklehead-o-meter.  Each legislator would get 1 knucklehead point for every idiotic thing he/she says or does while in office.  A score of 3 or less would allow running for 1 more term.  A score of 7 or more would require immediate impeachment.

Shmunk believes he has the message that will resonate with the conservative masses, and right-of-centers.  He feels that his bold, creative programs, while somewhat controversial, are needed to get the nation on the right course.  He feels he can win, because the other guys are too blase`.

When asked about the liklihood of alienating the nation’s cat lovers with his tongue-in-cheek discrimination program, he responded, “What tongue-in-cheek?”

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction, even some of the candidates.

Leaders in the Bizarreville Congress got very perturbed this week when they learned that Congress’ approval rating reached a new low.  But they were even more concerned with the numbers:  a zero percent approval rating for the first time in history.  Naturally, they responded that there must be an error in the polling procedure…that there is no way that a zero was feasible, at least one person should have said they liked and approved of Congress.

“We’re confident in our reported numbers,” Ogden Murkrud of the Murkrud Poll responded.  “In fact, we expanded the number of people surveyed from our usual sample of 2 thousand surveyees to 237 thousand people.  But we were unable to find one single person who thought Congress was worth a crap.  One fellow, when asked whether he felt Congress was doing ‘adequate’, initially responded ‘Yes’.  However, turns out the respondent thought he had been asked if Congress ‘out to quit’.  He apologized, and said he needed to change the batteries in his hearing aid.”

Surveyed citizens seemed most upset about the so-called “Nothing from nothing equals nothing” debt/spending deal reached last week, which helped trigger a mega-drop in the stock market.  A group of 3rd graders from Stankville Elementary were asked if they could help the President and Congress figure out how to solve the nation’s increasing money problem.  “Stop spending so much,” one student replied.  “When my pet turtle Freddie started bloating up like an overblown balloon, I thought he was gonna die, with turtle guts spewed all over my bedroom.  I was really scared cuz I really like Freddie, even though he kinda stinks.  But so, I decided to stop feeding him so much turtle food every day, and now he’s back to normal.  My mom just said to keep him on a diet…whatever that is.  Anyway, he’s unbloated now.  And now he doesn’t even stink so bad.”

Congress is now in recess, and going back to their homes to figure out how to re-boost their approval ratings.  One congressman said he’s going to schedule some free bingo tournaments with his constituents.  He said he accumulated some great giveaways, procured with some extra earmark funds he had stashed away. “Freebies always put people in better moods,” he said.  “I think I’ll be back up in the 10 to 12% approval rating by September.”

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction, but you knew that, didn’t you?

The President met with senior leaders of the Bizarreville Congress all weekend attempting to forge a government spending/debt reduction deal in order to allow the Debt ceiling to be raised.  The sides continued to be far apart due to the enormous number of sacred cows that were unwilling to be compromised.

Congress asked the President to put an end to all the stupid wars around the world that had no apparent mission, no tangible benefit, and were wasting money by the hundreds of billions.  The President responded that useless missions were a fundamental promise he made to citizens during his campaign, and he could not back down now.  He pointed out the progress made in Funkistan to unseat the ruthless dictator Elmo Shlabba.  “Yes, sir, but who gives a crap about Funkistan?” commented a congressional leader.  “The only thing they contribute to the world economy is that they produce 1% of the world’s lima beans.  Who in the hell likes lima beans??  They taste like bird doo-doo.”  The President responded that there was more to the situation than lima beans, but admitted he did, in fact, like lima beans.

The President then turned the tables and insisted on the need for new tax increases.  “It’s been years since we’ve had a good, old-fashion, healthy tax increase.  If you go too long, taxpayers get complacent and forget about their responsibility to cover entitlements to those less-motivated.  These poor people are entitled, by their birthright in Bizarreville, to be able to sponge for a living.  And somebody’s got to pay the ever-increasing tab.  You don’t turn a blind eye to these people, and ignore them just because they’re lazy.  That’s not who we are.”

Opposition party leaders rebuked the idea of tax increases, stating that their Tea Party constituents feel they’ve been taxed enough already.  But the President promised that his proposed tax increases would not apply to everyone…only those people that had a job.  He further proposed that he would require all businesses to give every employee a 10% raise to compensate for their increased taxes.  “That way,” he said, “No one is really hurt.  We make everyone whole, and guess what?  The National Debt gets chiseled away.”  The opposing leaders said they might be able to live with that stipulation, but counter-proposed that the increase be 15%, just to be on the safe side.

But Congress still wants a meaningful reduction in stupid government spending and lame, nonsensical government bureaucracy that produces no intrinsic national value.  The President commented that they have tried doing that before in the past, but inevitably it ends up going nowhere.  “The bureaucracy kills all bureaucracy-killers, and furthermore, adds new bureaucracy in the fight.  Every spending-reduction initiative results in more spending.  Every streamline attempt creates new turbulence.  It’s a bureaucratic paradox…a Bureaudox.  Best just to give up, stay the course with the status quo, and not fuss.”

Congress seems to be weakening their position on spending cuts, now that the Bureaudox concept has come to light.

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction, even the ones that seem real.

The Bizarreville Congress continues to argue and debate spending and taxing scenarios ad nauseum, and wily congressmen are digging deep to gin up new schemes with clever-sounding, catchy names.  The most recent one, proposed by Senator J. Ribbletart Twadd, is what he called “Cut, Cap, Balance, Toss, and Mop”.  It includes an element to please everyone…or displease everyone.  No matter.

The proposition starts with a healthy, aggressive series of spending cuts.  There will naturally be the low-hanging fruit cuts of obvious goofy programs like Ant Hill Architecture Study.  But then it will get to the major cuts in all government agencies, resulting in layoffs of millions of pencil-pushing spreadsheet shufflers, thumb-twiddling admino-funk journeymen, and other office seat warmers.  Large staffs of finance clerks will be replaced by Bob from AccountTemps, and HR departments will be appropriately vaporized.  Congressmen who have enjoyed bulging staffs of administrative uber-flunkies with lavish budgets will be trimmed down to sharing Dorothy, the husky girl Friday who got lost around Tuesday.

The second element would be to Cap the Debt Ceiling.  Most legislators are in agreement on this element…the question is:  what limit?  A straw poll was taken and the ranges varied, but it seemed like consensus could be reached by calling the cap $1 quadrillion…a good round number, and certainly a cap that would allow the millions and millions of people currently sponging off the system to ween off.

Balancing the Budget is the tough one.  Congress members become brainwashed early in their terms of office that there is no need to balance, never has been a need to balance…why start now?  They are indoctrinated into the Backscratching culture, the Whats In It For Me negotiating whine, and actually take night classes on Financial Bumblenomics 101, 102, and Advanced Wasteage and Pissaways.  The thought of balancing is so abhorrent to them that it leads to the 4th element:  Toss.

Tossing of Cookies will most certainly happen as these addicted spendaholics are faced with the Balancing grim reality…the end of spending freedom as they knew it.  That internal stress/strain will pull hard on their abdominal muscles, causing massive stomach acid release, and the inevitable projectile Chow Blow.  The good news is that soon the blowing and dry heaving ends.  The bodily systems learn to adapt to the new reality of living within means.  The contracted muscles and popped-out veins begin to return to their normal state.

All that remains is the Mopping.  This could be a tough issue, given the pink-slipping of would-be moppers among the congressional flunk staff.  But that’s when the Constitutional process comes in…a new Constitutional Amendment which requires senators and congresspeople to mop up their own stinky vomit.  It is quite certain that this amendment would quickly receive the 75% state passage votes, and become law of the land.

While the Cut, Cap, Balance, Toss, Mop proposal seems logical, almost a slam-dunk in its attractiveness, it still faces some uphill battles convincing the Congressional Old Fart caucus, who may struggle seeing its merits.  Stay tuned.

All stories in Bizarreville are fiction, even the sensible ones.

The recently organized Special Presidential Committee on Debt Default has recommended that Bizarreville go ahead and just default on its National Debt. The default recommendation was unanimous among the 10-member assortment of ex-CEO’s that steerred their companies into bankruptcy proceedings, Economic college professors who are some of the country’s most brilliant minds buy have never done any real work, and a couple bankruptcy lawyers that are often seen hawking their services on TV.

“What’s the big deal?” one ex-auto industry CEO asked. “Hey, I’ve been there and it’s a non-event really. You declare bankruptcy, you stiff a few stockholders and bondholders, reorganize, throw a few execs under the bus…guys you probably wanted to deep-six anyway…call ourself the New Something-something, and it’s over before you know it. People make such a big deal of thw whole thing. Goodness sakes, it’s nothing…easier than a bicuspid root canal.”

The other committee members echoed the same sentiment. Professor Arnold Shanklard of BVU explained that the intrinsic correlation between the macro-eminent deviation matrix integer and the hypo-inflationary, pre-activated Neverland supply coefficient produces a nominal basis point rise or fall, which can be reverse de-stimulated or even repressed by global refunkatory initiative injection. That, in a nutshell, he explained, says it all. The other committee academics nodded at each other in agreement, and decided to jointly write a paper that proves their theory with plenty of graphs, that they plan to publish in the Bizarreville Business Journal.

Some critics are not so quick to suggest Default would be painless, and have even suggested the possibility of a global financial structure collapse. But the doomsayers admitted they thought the old Y2K scare was going to cause a financial system collapse, and the more recent world potato chip shortage was going to be calamitous…the former, of course, being a total non-event, while the latter just causing a spike in cheeseball consumption which eventually corrected itself.

It is likely that we will know the implications shortly. Negotiations with Congress have stalled due to their insistence on not having the proposed Bathroom Use Tax as part of the budget balancing program. “You just cannot tax the piss out of people,” a senior congressman lamented. “You got to draw the line somewhere on these so-called ‘creative’ taxes, and say we’re not going to take it anymore.”

Disclaimer: all stories in Bizarreville are fiction, even the scary ones.