Everyone likes to be liked: it’s not a partisan issue (yet). But, Congress is currently polling worse than child molester, earthquakes, Vanilla Ice making a comeback and meteors hitting Russia (which, outside of Russia, is actually polling pretty high). With the sequester looming, which will make deep, unpopular cuts, Congress has decided to do something to make people like it again, and maybe even support the sequester.
Claire McCatskill of Missouri has proposed a bill that says that, in the case of sequestration, every American will get a free ice cream sandwich or ice cream sundae with three scoops and two toppings. The projected cost of this measure is around $1.5 billion. But, she says, “that’s nothing compared with the pain we’ll feel when we’re all voted out of office soon.”
Republicans and Democrats were split (hehe, get it?) about exactly what types of ice cream would be included in the bill. Some Congressmen are questioning whether same-sex sundaes should be allowed, or if people will have to have all different types of flavors in their sundaes. “We don’t want to send the wrong message to our kids that eating two scoops of one type of ice cream is okay.”
A couple of old school Republicans from West Virginia didn’t want to include ice cream sandwiches or chocolate and vanilla sundaes because, “we didn’t want to encourage that type of behavior.” But they were quickly shouted down by other Republicans who told them not to, “say those types of things in public.”
John Happyfeet, the chief lobbyist from the ice cream industry, said, “this is in part our doing. We feel like we’re constantly overlooked by other, more powerful lobbies. We consider this a giant coup, and hopefully when people see Carvel and Baskin & Robbins they start to quiver a little.”
Michelle Obama, although publicly supporting the bill (for fear of public retribution) privately opposes it because, “we’re already fat enough, do we really need to give people MORE junk food. And for FREE?”
The answer from the people around her was an unequivocal yes.
The President has yet to make a statement about the bill. Sources say he’s a little irritated that this was put in place to increase the chance of a sequester, but at the same time, is happy people won’t be as pissed off about it.
Jay Carney remarked, “we don’t like the application to this bill, but at the same time, we think it sets a pretty good precedent. We’re going to start introducing riders to every unpopular bill including free ice cream or free soda or something like that, so people aren’t as angry about it.”
Michelle Obama was at the press conference and she was heard saying to an aid, “you’ve GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!?!”
The Clavin Notes 