Dateline: November 23, 2011
Aug 11, 2011 at 11:30 am
Super Committee Fails To Reach Agreement, Sets up Super-Duper Committee
After months of tense negotiations, the super committee of 12 legislators formed by the Budget Control Act signed earlier this year were unable to reach agreement on further deficit reduction.
However, the committee did agree on the formation of a “super-duper” committee, tasked with coming up with what members described as a “really great plan that solves a lot of stuff.”
The agreement stated that the new committee should be “even more super than we were—that’s why we added the word “duper” to their title, even though “duper” isn’t really a word.”
In order to increase the likelihood of a substantive agreement, the new committee will have half as many members as the super committee—3 from each party instead of 6. In addition, the rules state that if the super-duper-committee fails, another committee will form with half-again as many members.
When it was pointed out that this would mean one-and-a-half members from each party, reporters were reminded of numerous Democrats who have achieved notoriety from just the waist down.
The deadlock of the super-committee was widely predicted back in August of this year, when Republican members were forced to take blood oaths not to allow any revenue increases in the deal.
Criticized for their unwillingness to budge on revenues, Rep Hensarling (R-TX) responded, “It wasn’t just the blood oaths–we also did pinky-shakes.”
Early concerns that committee Democrats might cave on this issue were assuaged when it was learned that leadership had implanted spine-stiffening electrodes that triggered high-voltage shocks whenever the words, “OK, we’ll trust you to get the revenues part later” were uttered.
Stock markets reacted strongly to the news, with the Dow rising 600 points before falling 600 points, as it has everyday so far this year.
12 Responses to “Dateline: November 23, 2011”
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About
Jared Bernstein’s areas of expertise include federal and state economic and fiscal policies, income inequality and mobility, trends in employment and earnings, international comparisons, and the analysis of financial and housing markets.
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Awesome.
Wonderful. You can foretell the future!
When I first started reading this post I thought you were going to have the committees increase in size until they got to include all of congress.
Do you write for The Onion in your spare time?
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious committee! Then Mary Poppins can clean up with magic.
I didn’t know you were moonlighting as Thomas Friedman.
I was trying to remember a quote about 3 being the largest size committee that can get anything done, but I found this instead:
“A committee is a group of people who individually can do nothing, but who, as a group, can meet and decide that nothing can be done.”
Fred Allen
And this seemed exactly on point.
Thanks for the great posts and attempts to make people listen to reason.
Political fiction????
great!
Replace “Democrats” with “Congresspersons” and it’s funny. Remember: I learned everything I know about anonymous gay airport sex from the Republican Party.
Looks like Mr. Bernstein is venturing into my world, the world of The Dismal Political Economist
http://dismalpoliticaleconomist.blogspot.com/
and doing a very nice job.
Welcome Sir
Since you mentioned Rep Hensarling (R-TX) by name, I’ll shoot you a little view into one town in Hensarling’s district, Dateline November 23rd:
After facing on again, off again water supply through their mostly cracked and failing water mains, residents of Kemp are still waiting for the lord to answer their prayers from August, when following their governor, Rick Perry’s lead decided instead of actually repairing the broken water mains, it would be better, and cheaper to just ask the lord to fix it for them.
Hensarling’s office held firm that if the lord didn’t see fit to repair the water mains, who was he to go against the lord’s will…
Hensarling’s office also stated that further cuts to government spending would surely encourage the lord to fix the pipes…
“The agreement stated that the new committee should be “even more super than we were—that’s why we added the word “duper” to their title, even though “duper” isn’t really a word.”
Yes it is, and its appropriate:
A Dupe is an easily deceived person. A Duper is the one who deceives that person.