“Expensive as this program is-it is much better to have these people in jobs than out on the street"

[kpete]

Borowitz:




Sixty-four unskilled workers will report to new jobs in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday as part of a federal jobs program that provides employment for people unable to find productive work elsewhere.

The new hires, who have no talents or abilities that would make them employable in most workplaces, will be earning a first-year salary of $174,000.

For that sum, the new employees will be expected to work a hundred and thirty-seven days a year, leaving them with two hundred and twenty-eight days of vacation.

Some critics have blasted the federal jobs program as too expensive, noting that the workers were chosen last November in a bloated and wasteful selection process that cost the nation nearly four billion dollars.

....................




the rest:
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/unskilled-workers-report-new-jobs?intcid=mod-latest

[NV Whino]

1. I think I would rather see them on the streets.

[calimary]

4. Hear hear!

Although I'd go one step farther. I'd rather see some of 'em in jail. Or in the loony bin (mr. gohmert...).

[NV Whino]

10. Can't argue with that.

[AlbertCat]

21. Indeed!

They might learn something about the human race.

[merrily]

2. Sorry to be so literal, but is it really better? And for whom?

I'm thinking the possibilities of the whole David and Goliath thing has not been explored adequately.

What if, Republicans picked their top dozen Senators and Democrats did the same, with the Vice President being the tiebreaker, if needed, and eliminated all the staffs, the consultants, the lawyers, etc., and all the bloody fact finding trips, Senate dining room, etc., would the results really be that different?

I was thinking about David and Goliath recently with respect to wars. Either every side picks a champion, like David and Goliath, or we go with some Star Trek-like method, where a computer decides how the battle went and X number of people surrender to be killed.

I'm nonviolent, and would much rather no wars at all. However, if y'all continue to insist, we may as well try to minimize collateral damage to people, property and potentially good programs. The same applies to the costly chair warmers in D.C.

Modest Proposal, tongue in cheek. Sort of.

[niyad]

12. you do realize borowitz is satire, yes?

[merrily]

14. Not sure why you think my post was inconsistent with

knowing the OP was not a serious piece that was intended to be taken literally.

My post began with an apology for responding to the OP literally and ended with the statement that my own post was itself mostly tongue in cheek.

[fadedrose]

3. It sounds so "Roosevelt"

Whose trees are still standing . . .

[eggplant]

5. Do the outgoing people have to train their replacements? n/t

[Mr.Bill]

9. What makes you think

they would be qualified to do that?

[merrily]

16. The question that occurred to me was, train them to do what?

They do have to learn procedure, I guess. And where the dining room and gym are.

[Mr.Bill]

20. And don't forget

where the nearest toupe shop is.

[merrily]

22. Only for those who don't have enough hair for an elaborate comb over.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

6. Congress is the PR department for the capitalists and military.

[kpete]

7. Zappa:

[merrily]

15. Respect to Zappa,

but don't entertainers who are worthy of the name both please people in some way and generate revenue?

[tkmorris]

25. Yes

Not really seeing any inconsistency there.

[merrily]

26. Congress pleases people and generates revenue?

[nxylas]

11. The Onion already did this gag

http://www.theonion.com/articles/us-government-to-save-billions-by-cutting-wasteful,17171/

[merrily]

17. Supposedly, great minds think alike. Either that, or the New Yorker believes in recycling.

Waste not, want not.

[nxylas]

18. Probably an occupational hazard for a satirist

Borowitz can't be expected to remember every article published on other satirical websites.

[merrily]

19. It's also kind of where the mind tends to go naturally.

[AlbertCat]

23. The Onion already did this gag

Uh.... they're really not the same.

Borowitz's is a succinct satire about the incoming congress as a jobs program for those without skills.


The Onion's is a fake article about the Senate being a wasteful government program.


Similarities are there, but they are not the same gag.

[stage left]

13. I don't know.

It takes skill to be as stupid as some of these guys are.

[blackspade]

24. There is a claim that this is satire....

but it's not.