Tuesday, November 22, 2011

The real reason why the Super Committee failed.

Democrats + Republicans +
the American education system =
FAILURE
Washington, DC - The Super Committee, the group of 12 Senators and Representatives who were to cut 1.2 trillion dollars from the budget, has failed. It is common mistake to think that the Democratic and Republican members couldn't agree on the proper mix of budget cuts and tax increases to make a deal work. However, the real reason why the Super Committee failed is much more disturbing: politicians can't do math.

The Newest Newsy News had several anonymous informants that kept track of the goings on within the secretive committee. Within minutes of the group's meeting it became crystal clear that no one had mastered even third grade math. Committee co-chairs Rep Jeb Hensarling (R- Texas) and Sen. Patty Murray (D- Washington) shuffled about the budgetary forms and proposals awkwardly and then passed out the forms to the other members. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D- Maryland) gazed at the papers in confusion until one of his interns noticed that the pages were not in numbered properly. Each packet had three sheets that were supposed to be page twenty, and somehow page seventy followed page fifty-five.  Sen. Jon Kyl (R- Arizona) immediately suggested making a sub-Super Committee to rectify the numerical pagination problem.  After a lengthy speech by past presidential hopeful, Sen. John Kerry (D- MA), on the issue no one in the room understood exactly where the senator actually stood on forming the sub-Super Committee. What was agreed on, however, was that dinner time was fast approaching. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Penn) proposed a motion that the interns should number the pages and that the Super Committee should order out Chinese food. The group agreed unanimously on both suggestions. Sen. Max Baucus (D - Montana) was elected to place the order, but then was swamped by the various requests of special dinner #2, pork dinner #11, and Sen. Rob Portman's (R-Ohio) insistence that the lunch special #16 was still a valid choice at 7PM. Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Cal) pointed out that the menu clearly stated that lunch specials were only valid until 3PM. Rep. Becerra was then mercilessly was made fun of and labeled "nerd" and "brainiac" because he could read and possessed some knowledge of numbers. It was finally decided that the group order pu-pu platters in order to avoid numbers entirely.

After the first traumatic day of the Super Committee there was a super-secret vote on how to carry on the business at hand. It was unanimous: blow off work all together. Rep. Dave Camp (R-Michigan) brought in a few xbox 360s he bought with tax payer money. The group spent the rest of its time publicly complaining on how they couldn't agree on the pressing issues facing the country while privately blasting away the aliens in Halo.