White House Announces New Pencil-pushing Standards

WASHINGTON -- Aiming to keep the focus on creating out-of-control bureaucracy, President Barack Obama put a plug in for administration efforts to make pencil-pushing more overwhelming while using less energy.

"I know pencil-pushing may not seem sexy, but this simple action holds enormous promise because 97 percent of our future economy in America depends on having the most efficient bureaucratic tools as we take over more businesses and create more government offices," the president said, standing alongside Energy Secretary Steven Chu at the White House.

Obama said the new efficiency standards he was announcing for pencil- pushing would result in substantial savings between 2012 and 2042, saving taxpayers up to $22.17 annually, conserving enough energy to power every U.S. agency for 10 seconds, reducing emissions equal to the amount produced by 166 cows a year, and putting every single coal-fired power plant out of business.

The president also said he was speeding the delivery of $346 million in economic stimulus money to help hire more bureaucrats to run the Wicked Witch of Congress’ cap and trade energy bureau and to help write new and even more confusing amendments that can be dropped into any House legislation at 3:09 a.m. on any given morning before a crucial vote.

Republicans took issue with Obama's pitch.

"This guy’s a friggin’ menace. Clearly his goal is to keep the public’s mind on ‘energy’ while he creates the biggest government this country’s ever known," said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. "We have to admit there's a gap between this guy’s big floppy ears, government spending that can sustain itself, and the amount of bureaucrats we need."

The White House added the event to the president's schedule at the last minute, just three days after the House narrowly approved the first “pile of shit” energy legislation billed as curbing global warming that actually taxes future consumer energy consumption by as much as a gazillion percent, following furious lobbying by White House advisers and the usual personal extortion by the president himself.

White House spokesman Robert “Ahhhhh” Gibbs said Monday that in phone calls to reluctant Democrats in endangered districts, Obama "threatened to cut them off at the knee caps and drop them into Lake Michigan if they didn’t explain to their constituents and to the American public any load of crap necessary to get this bill through the House."

The measure's fate is less certain in the Senate, where Democrats lack the 60 votes needed to block a certain filibuster and will likely face a public duel at 40 paces on the Senate floor with Global Warming denier (and one of the few sane people in Washington at this moment, if those words strung together even make sense) James Inhofe (R-Okla).

Still, in an interview with a small group of reporters, Obama energy adviser Carol Browner said: "I am confident that this unreadable (and….HAHAHAHAHA…unread by the House, I might add!) legislation will pass the Senate." But she repeatedly refused to say exactly when the White House expected the Senate to pass the measure (when the polar caps melt, perhaps?), and she wouldn't speculate on whether Obama would have legislation sent to his desk by year's end.

The White House is working to keep energy in the spotlight even as Congress takes a break this week for some little holiday that, to them, is all about barbequing and blowing your hand off with M-80s and getting a free day off every year for nothing. Obama has spent the past few days pressuring the Senate to follow the House or he’ll kidnap them and set them free unarmed in his Chicago neighborhood to see if they can survive.