Economic Stimulant Package?

Although the government is only now admitting that the economy is in a recession, our friends at the North Pole have seen this coming for years. "We've being trying to put the 'recess' in recession, but I'm afraid even Santa has had to make some cut-backs this year," one elf told me, asking only that he remain anonymous. "Our latest rounds of lay-offs have sent 63 elves and 2 reindeer packin'."

My elf source has not confirmed which reindeer were let go, but I believe it was Dasher and Dancer, as I spotted both in downtown Cleveland earlier this week. Dasher was outside UPS, presumably wondering what "brown could do for him". Dancer's parents neither confirmed, nor denied that their son had been fired by the big man up north, but they did say "with a name like Dancer, how would YOU expect to find work outside the North Pole?" Santa Claus could not be reached for comment.

In other news, a typo on Capitol Hill has raised some serious questions about what the government can do regarding the downturn of the economy. One congressman was overheard saying, "I don't know how it got in there, but it's too late to call a special session of congress now with the holidays just a few days away." I am of course referring to news that the House and Senate both passed an economic "stimulant" package instead of the intended "stimulus" package. "I thought it sounded funny at first, but when no one else said anything I went along with it. It seems that for weeks now we have been debating, not whether to bail out Americans with money, but with high doses of caffeine. Well, what's done is done," said the House Majority Leader. Indeed, Congress has already purchased millions of cans of caffeinated sodas and energy drinks for the sole purpose, (and I quote from the bill) "for immediate distribution to all American Christmas stockings, to be consumed in haste for the provision of an economic stimulant."