As you may recall, an epic battle between good and evil has culminated with Speaker of the House John Boehner (below right) threatening to cut funding to NPR and PBS.
That is to say, Congress is debating the implementation of Sesame Street Death Panels. Scary stuff. I guess it has something to do with a budget crisis?
So I started thinking about how we might be able to save Elmo. President Obama's 2012 budget includes $451 million for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. That doesn't sound like so much. Perhaps we might trim a few benjamins from elsewhere in the budget?
Hey, I know, let's start with the House of Representatives! How much do you think their yearly budget is? I have no idea either. If you can find an actual dollar figure anywhere, please let me know. It's almost as if that information is being intentionally buried for some reason...
Oh well. Let's do the math:
223,500 That's the yearly salary for the Speaker of the House
+
386,800 That's the yearly salary for House Majority and Minority Leaders (193,400 x 2)
+
75,168,000 Yearly salary for the Representatives (174,000 x 432)
+
32,625,000 That's an "office expense account" for "computer and related services" (75,000 x 435)
+
1,502,490,000 Whoa! That's the staff. Each Rep has 22 aides making up to $156,848 a year. Oh, and that's a 2005 figure, by the way. (157,000 x 22 x 435)
Which all adds up to the spectacular and astounding figure of
$1,610,893,300
Well, well. Looks like we started looking in just the right place! (Although honestly, I bet there are plenty of right places. That's part of what makes this whole Elmo de-funding plot so diabolical, don't you think?) Okay, time to trim the fat!
Hear me out for a moment: A recent study from Princeton University finds that money does buy happiness, "up to about $75,000 a year. The lower a person's annual income falls below that benchmark, the unhappier he or she feels. But no matter how much more than $75,000 people make, they don't report any greater degree of happiness." Well, that sounds fair.
Let's pay each of our Representatives $75,000 a year. And since that number is the Big Happy, we'll pay each of the 5 aides (They're lucky I'm allotting them that many!) working for each Representative the same $75,000 a year. Computer and related services? Are you kidding me? I'll give each Rep $12,000 a year for "office expenses."
Hopefully they'll be able to survive on that, which still adds up to an over $200 million bill for the taxpayers. A small consolation may be the many perks they receive in the form of domestic and foreign travel expenses, Franklin Privileges, and, ahem, "outside employment income," which I'm sure doesn't involve anything illegal, immoral, or depraved.
So, let's see, how much money would we save... add that... carry the one...
$1,409,923,300?!
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!
So we could save $451 million by killing Elmo, OR we could make a few completely reasonable changes to the obscene amount of money that we're pouring into the House of Representatives and save ourselves $1.4 BILLION. I say we go ahead and fund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and then with what's left over we can help fund all of the other child and family friendly services that are on the chopping block, such as
- Community Health Centers
- Food and health care assistance for pregnant woman, infants, and children
- Head Start preschool classes
- Financial aid for low and middle income college students
- Planned Parenthood
- Housing vouchers for veterans
Yes, government is too big and spends too much money. But before we start cutting programs that aid the poorest and most helpless amongst us, let's try to identify some areas where money is being wasted without any benefit at all to the general population.
John Boehner gets a hard on every time he hears a child cry. Nothing illegal about that, exactly. But let's not let his disgusting kink destroy the fabric of our society, if at all possible.
Now, I wonder how much money we're wasting on the Senate?
You're next, motherfuckers.
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