WASHINGTON (Rooters agency) – The President and Congressional leaders are at odds over the details of implementing the President’s pledge to give $3 billion over four years to help people in poor, low-lying countries buy life jackets and rafts.
House of Representatives Speaker John “Stone Age” Bomber said that Congress “would insist” that all life jackets and rafts purchased with US funds given to the Global Flooding Corporation (GFC) be produced in the United States.
Senator Much McCoalface, who will be Majority Leader in the new Senate, declared that it was important not to confuse “legitimate foreign aid, most of which is not legitimate” with “the blasphemous idea that God might allow another Flood.”
“If you don’t believe God’s promises,” Senator McCoalface added, “you aren’t likely to believe mine. And where would that leave us?” He therefore thought it unlikely that the Senate would vote for such assistance unless the production of the jackets and rafts involved burning large amounts of coal. “That’s also a way to make sure the assistance is really needed.”
The White House, while seeking to be conciliatory with the incoming Republican majority – government offices in Washington have been instructed to print everything in large letters and, where possible, provide pictures – has reacted angrily to rumors that it is planning to fund the GFC contribution by cutting defense spending.
Responding to these rumors without saying where he thought they had come from, White House Press Secretary Jed Lee Earnest specifically rebutted the suggestion that money for the contribution might come from cutbacks on spending for the Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Klutz.
“The idea is absurd,” Earnest said. “If we were to take $3 billion from the aircraft carrier program, that would use up a significant part of the money set aside for the unexpected cost over-runs on the Gerald Klutz. Important American corporations might have difficulties as a result.”
He added, “The $45 billion, plus over-runs, committed for our three new aircraft carriers is part of our commitment to NETO [Nearly Everywhere Treaty Organization]. These carriers help us to deter the threat of Soviet attack.”
However, several members of Congress from both parties pointed out, anonymously, that $3 billion, shared equally among the election funds of all members of the House and Senate, was more than $5.6 million each. “With that, “ one of them said, “I wouldn’t have to suck up so much to all those CEOs to get reelected.”
The most recent comments from Earnest indicate that the White House is seeking accommodation with the new Congress: “No one should play politics with this. I would call your attention to what the President said in his recent speech in that country down there in that other hemisphere. He said that each country must do its part.
“Our part is to produce great quantities of carbon dioxide and make sure we have the military means to impose the worst consequences on someone else. Three billion is small potatoes if it helps us get away with that. Surely no Republican or Democrat will disagree.”
News From Somewhere 