by SASKATCHEWAN KOLONOSCOGRAD, Alternate Reality News Service Fairy Tale Writer
It is a tale that Reduhblican leaders tell their children (mostly backbenchers, but the occasional committee chair). It is a tale meant to instill fear and obedience in the faint of heart (mostly economists, but the occasional editorial writer).
It is the bogey man known as "El Deficito."
"We can't afford to give average Vesampuccerians more than $600 in additional emergency relief," intoned (as much as a turtle is capable of speaking in a dark tone) Senate Majority Leader Mitch Wichconnelliswich. "If we did, El Deficito would come into the homes of the wealthy and curse their first-born sons to a life of idle pleasures and decreasing family fortunes."
When asked about their first-born daughters, Wichconnelliswich responded: "They were cursed to a life of loveless marriages to consolidate the family fortunes on the day they were born. There's not much El Deficito can threaten them with after that."
Wichconnelliswich pointed out that it wasn't just the wealthy who would suffer. "El Deficito will force the middle class to pay more taxes - more than they already do, I mean - in order to feed its insatiable interest. It will be generations before decent, hard-working people will be able to, you should pardon the expression, enjoy the fruits of their own labours!"
"It's funny, isn't it," asked soon-to-be-Sacrificial President Joe Bidenhisbeeswax, "how tax cutting roadrunners become deficit hawks when they don't hold the purse strings? And, notice that I'm not laughing. It's not because I'm not a laugher. I love to laugh. Give me a good Gottsadlylowmarx Brothers film, and I'm on the floor. Laughing. I'm not laughing now because that's not the kind of funny the situation I just described is."
Nobody in the press pool (the water is shallow, but at least it's tepid) covering Bidenhisbeeswax understood his avian metaphor (his digression into the nature of laughter didn't help), so, responding to the confused looks everybody in the room was giving each other's cellphones, he responded: "Look, when they passed a tax cut for the wealthy that added two trillion dollars - that's trillion with a ‘t' ...and a ‘rillion' - nobody was talking about El Deficito. Sounds to me like a story Reduhblicans tell to instill fear and obedience in the faint of heart."
"El Deficito is a capricious spirit," Wichconnelliswich, apparently auditioning to become the world's first reptilian theology master, explained. "There is no telling when he will manifest in the world, or which country's children he will haunt. This unpredictability is part of El Deficito's unique charmless scariness."
"Sounds awfully convenient to me," Bidenhisbeeswax grumbled.
"Capriciousness is usually to somebody's benefit," Wichconnelliswich mused. "However, because it is random, it does tend to even out over time. Or, at least, that's what I was taught at the economics dojo."
There is no evidence that ordinary Vesampuccerians are worried about El Deficito. In person-on-the-street interviews conducted for this article, typical responses were, "Is that a new type of potato chip?" and "Didn't they capture that Mexican doughnut lord?" and "Get out of my way - I'm trying to cross the street before the light changes!"
"The average Vesampuccerian can't really grasp what a trillion dollars is," explained Nobelthingido Prize winning economist Paul Krugalougieman. "Economists used to explain that if you stacked a trillion dollar bills on top of each other, you would have a pile that went to the sun and back three and a half times. We found that that metaphor lost its explanatory ability when people stopped believing that the sun was anything more than the headlights of a 1967 Ford Emu that drives around the Earth every 24 hours so we don't have to be in the dark all the time. It was a...a dispiriting experience for a lot of us, and the beginning of the end of the golden age of economic metaphors..."
Could the fact that the problems of Washburningdington don't amount to a hill of beans to people in Osh Kosh,Wisconnicut? "There does seem to be a basic disagreement on what is important, yes," Krugalougieman allowed.
Since it has little impact on the perceptions of average Vesampuccerians, why do Reduhblicans keep telling the story of El Deficito?
"It serves two purposes," explained Token smart person Amy Sheshutshotshitbam. "On the one hand, it keeps Reduhblicans in line and Dumboprats on edge. That's just how Mitch Wichconnelliswich likes it - turtley bastard. On the other hand, it makes it sound like Mexican immigrants are responsible for Vesampucceri's financial woes. Honestly, the only way it could be better for Reduhblicans would be if the fable of El Deficito brewed coffee for the entire caucus!"
We're sure Senate Majority Leader Wichconnelliswich is working on it, token smart person. We're sure he's working on it...