$838 Billion Bailout Passes Over GOP Calls for More Witchburning

(Reuters) Washington D.C. - Three Republicans joined all the Democrats in the Senate to pass a modified economic stimulus bill that now moves on to a Congressional Conference Committee, despite GOP demands to increase funding to "Witch burning," "Humor-letting," and "Divination."

"This bill is a bloated, unnecessary waste of take payer money," said Minority Whip Senator John Kyl on the floor of the Senate. "Time and time again and throughout history we have seen that witch burning, humor-letting, and divination are the only solutions to economic problems.

Minority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell was on Fox News later in the day echoing a similar theme.

"The Democrat party thinks that spending money on health care, energy, education and infrastructure -- investments that they say with 'save jobs' and 'create new jobs'. But this is just a misguided pork-barrel bill. What America really needs are things that will put money back into the consumer's pockets. Witch burning is just what we need for this economic crisis."

President Obama brushed off such comments calling them "antiquated" and "heathen."

Republicans have pointed to the rise of the world economy at the end of the Middle Ages, which was a high point for so called "black economic arts" and foreshadowed an increase in wealth over the next century. In the 1970s, the Austrian school of economics perfected this theory, which came to include such spells and incantations massive tax cuts and minimal government oversight. Practitioners are said to keep the spirit of the late President Ronald Regan in an amulet hidden in the mountains of Transylvania.

Nobel Prize winning Economist Paul Krugman called the use of witch burning as a stimulus to the economy "laughable."

"Some people argue that the burning of witches will create jobs, first, by creating which burning technicians and, second, by removing people, that is witches, from the job pool. The problem, of course, is that there aren't nearly enough witches or even practitioners of Wicca out there to burn. You'd have a bigger impact if you started burning Episcopalians or Presbyterians."

Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, in a statement to the New York Times rebutted Krugman's claims saying, "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu Rl'yeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!"

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down over 380 points, driven mostly by collapsing Wizard related industries and the Banking sector.