Rep. Hensarling, let's see if you can answer some simple economic questions...

[jmowreader]

1. Jesus sent his disciples to ask for contributions to His ministry. They brought back 100 talents. Jesus then spent 40 talents throwing the moneychangers out of the temple, 40 talents buying wine for the Wedding Feast at Cana, 40 talents for bread and fish to feed the multitudes, 40 talents on leprosy cures and 40 talents on supplies for Himself and His disciples. When the bills came in at the end of the month, Jesus realized he had half as many talents to pay his bills as he needed. Should Jesus:

a. Reduce His future spending to match the amount He takes in?
b. Increase the amount He asks His contributors to pay, so as to make the amount of money He takes in match the amount He needs to spend?
c. Sell Jesus Bonds to investors, and allow His successors to worry about paying the interest?
d. Blame the shortage on the Democrats' desire to hire doctors for the poor rather than his spending more than he took in, then do nothing further?
e. Throw the next Messiah Election to the Democrats, and let them take the blame for His bad bookkeeping?

2. Jesus decided the easiest thing to do was to sell Jesus Bonds. He sold 2400 talents' worth of them--enough to meet the needs of His ministry for one year. Three months later, a dam collapsed. A new dam will cost 360 talents--not coincidentally the exact amount He is paying to provide wine to wedding feasts at Cana. To rebuild the dam, Jesus should...

a. Tell the King of Cana he has to start buying his own wine.
b. Sell more Jesus Bonds and pass on the interest payments to His successors.
c. Ask the contributors who were getting rich growing wine grapes in the water provided by the dam to help pay for it since they were getting most of the benefits from it anyway.
d. Blame the dam collapse on the Democrats then do nothing further?
e. Throw the next Messiah Election to the Democrats and let them take the heat for rebuilding the dam?

3. Jesus sold still more Jesus Bonds to finance the building of the dam. Six months later, the wine growers tell Jesus, "our taxes are too high. If you cut our taxes in half we will hire more people to make wine." Jesus should...

a. Cut their taxes in half because they promised to hire more people.
b. Totally eliminate their taxes because if cutting them in half will create some jobs, eliminating them should create lots of jobs.
c. Point out beer and tequila have cut the demand for wine by 53 percent worldwide over the past 20 years so why in hell would anyone want to increase the wine-making workforce?
d. Blame the decrease in wine manufacturing on the Democrats then do nothing further.
e. Throw the next Messiah Election to the Democrats and let them try to figure out how to increase demand in the wine market.

4. Jesus cut the winemakers' taxes in half. They responded by firing half their workforce, citing market demands. Jesus should:

a. Throw the winemakers in jail for perjury.
b. Reinstate the old tax rates because they were superseded on false pretenses.
c. Hire the idled winemakers and open a government winery so as to put the lying vintners out of business.
d. Blame the Democrats for all the job loss, then do nothing further.
e. Throw the next Messiah Election to the Democrats and let them deal with the unemployment problem.