October 14th, 2013
Debt Limit Fiasco gets settled
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.
