WASHINGTON, D.C. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Standard & Poor’s (S&P), despite admitting to an egregious mathematical error of over $2 trillion -- which further revealed that the very people pronouncing credit worthiness on the United States had no understanding of basic budget estimate analysis -- went ahead and downgraded the nation’s rating anyway. As a result, markets panicked, stocks plunged, and the Dow Jones industrial average finished down 634.76 points in the final hour of trading. President Obama sharply criticized S&P, and senior administration officials accused the financial services firm of sabotaging the markets in the face of an admitted error. Representatives from Standard & Poor’s blamed “No Child Left Behind” for the substandard accounting skills of their analysts, but refused to restore the country’s AAA rating. “It’s not that we don’t want to,” one spokesperson explained. “We just don’t know how to change entries in the system. Our IT guy is out all week on jury duty.”

In an interesting response to the shake up, President Obama announced that all 12 members of the congressional “super committee” tasked with deficit reduction would be replaced with military leaders and a delegation of special forces personnel. “I can’t reveal all the details of the roster change at this time,”Obama said, “but they’re on their way to Standard & Poor’s right now.”