Govt plan will get bailout money back from Americans

Satire from CAP News :

WASHINGTON (CAP) - In the wake of the $700 billion financial market bailout plan approved by Congress last week, the U.S. government is working hard to figure out how to get the money from United States citizens.

"We were originally thinking of just sending out bills for $2,000 each to every man, woman and child in the country," said Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. "Then we realized that people would probably just not pay them, like they don't pay their mortgages. That's how we got into this mess in the first place!" he laughed.

"Umm, that, and the complete deregulation of the trading of commodities futures," he added, more seriously.

With that in mind, the Treasury Department is mulling several different options. One is garnishing the wages of all U.S. employees, which would cost the average American "only $38.46 per week" for the next year, said Paulson. The problem with this plan is it exempts unemployed people - including the poor and the homeless - and children, who tend not to work.

"If we're going to hand over close to a trillion dollars to the Wall Street firms who almost ruined the U.S. economy, it really wouldn't be fair if the young and the homeless didn't pull their weight along with every other American," said Paulson.

But a more likely scenario, said Paulson, would involve raising income taxes and issuing an executive order that would electronically withdraw the amount of all Bush tax cuts from the bank accounts of every person who received them. "Let's face it, that money was like a gimmee," said Paulson. "We hate to be Indian givers, but desperate times and all that."

Though disappointed at the thought of people having to give up their tax cuts, President Bush reluctantly agreed, saying the move made sense during this time of economic turmoil. "Besides, we never said keepsies," he pointed out.

That plan will also reduce the level of manpower needed to go to people's homes to procure the money directly, should they not have bank accounts to raid. "That type of activity has to be targeted or else it becomes very expensive," noted Director of the United States Secret Service Mark Sullivan, whose agency will direct the newly created Bailout Fund Retrieval Task Force.

"It wouldn't make sense if it costs the government more to remove the money from a senior citizen's mattress or from a lockbox buried in her backyard than she actually has in there," said Sullivan. "The taxpayers deserve better planning than that."

Meanwhile, one thing the beneficiaries of the bailout want people to know is that they appreciate the taxpayers' sacrifice. "This has been a very humbling time for me," said Lehman Brothers CEO Richard S. Fuld, Jr., whose company declared bankruptcy last month. "Thanks to this bailout, I'll be able to start taking huge risks with other people's money again, and for that I am grateful."

Then he flew off on the private jet he bought with the $34 million bonus he received last year, before his company went under.