Adam Seidel, AP
Washington - Joe Mauer, catcher for the Minnesota Twins, was recently estimated to be valued over 900 billion dollars by the congressional budget office. This estimate was reached by comparing Joe Mauer's economic value to the recently passed economic stimulus package, which cost almost 800 billion dollars. According to President Obama, this package would create or save approximately 600,000 jobs. The CBO estimated that Joe Mauer is responsible for the creation of about 125,000 jobs annually, causing a permanent increase in employment by about 720,000 jobs.
Because of this, the CBO has passed unusual legislative recommendations along to congress and the Obama administration.
CBO director Douglas W. Elmendorf said on Monday, "if the Obama administration wishes to consider a second stimulus package, they should seriously consider eschewing all public spending programs and infrastructure improvements, and really focus on America's greatest asset, Joe Mauer." The CBO has estimated that the US government could clone Joe Mauer at a cost of about 20 billion per Joe after an up front investment of about 80 billion dollars over two years.
Republican House Minority leader John Boener responded immediately to the findings. "While the Republican party generally opposes genetic experimentation and all forms of human cloning, based on the evidence here, we would have to fully support such a plan. As a party standing for family values and wholesome morals, we could not find a more admirable American than Joe Mauer. We believe anyone standing against adding additional Joe Mauer's into the economy to be un-American."
Some critics raised concerns that other American men would be devalued by the excess of Joe Mauer's. Lawmakers have planed to add an equal amount of cloned women into the economy to offset the lower appearance of non-Joe Mauer men. These women will be a mixture of Megan Fox, capable of creating millions in entertainment dollars each after her movie 'Transformers 2' became a smash hit despite no actual outstanding qualities, and former Joe Mauer girlfriend Chelsey Cooley.
The measure, sponsored in the house by Erik Paulsen (MN-3, R) and co-sponsored in the Senate by Al Franken (MN-D) and John McCain (AZ-R), is seeing broad, bipartisan support, but is expected to face stiff opposition and perhaps a veto by President Obama, who is a White Sox fan. Obama said he was concerned by the lack of Paul Konerko and Hawk Harrelson included in the legislation. The bill is expected to have enough support, however, to override the veto in both chambers, as everyone but the douchebags from New York, south Chicago, and Boston seem to be supporting the bill.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was optimistic about passage of the legislation, and said it will be given top congressional priority, even above that of health care reform, legislation strongly tied to the future electoral success of her party.
"We figure that having a bunch of Joe Mauer's running around has a good chance of increasing everyone's health anyway, and we expect many of the cloned Joe's to become pro-bono surgeons with their wide variety of natural talents and high levels of compassion. We also expect the Joes to lower carbon emissions by 25% over two years since Joe Mauer's body converts CO2 into oxygen similar to a tree."
Housing for the Joe's was expected to be a problem until the real Joe Mauer offered to spend the offseason building log cabins for all the Joes next to his in rural Minnesota.
"Me and Justin Morneau have been looking for a project for the offseason, and this seems like a good enough idea. Maybe building a few hundred thousand log cabins in a couple months will even improve my core strength and help me muscle a few more dingers over the left field wall."
Asked how he felt about becoming the savior of the US economy, Mauer simply shrugged, said "Aw Shucks," and politely offered reporters a bottle of Land-O-Lakes Grip-n-Go milk several times.
Provisions have been placed in the bill to accommodate only one special interest group: the newly formed Major League Pitchers for Hope organization. Under the law, no cloned Joes will be permitted to become major league baseball players. Said MLP4H chairmen Roy Halladay, "it just wouldn't really be fair to face Joe more than a couple times a year."
At the current rate, the first Joes are expected to come off the line in early 2011.