Treasury Department gets creative in budget fix

October 10, 1:43 PMSeattle Political Satire ExaminerC. Y. Bermant

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A variation of the common "Nigerian Scam" landed in electronic mailboxes this week, and was promptly deleted or dispatched to spam folders. However, the message sent from "Ministry of Treasury Henry Paulson" was not what it appeared to be.

That is to say, it was real. Paulson's over-enthusiastic staff crafted the letter and sent it to a test group of about 5,000, telling of the need to distribute $800 billion from the treasury. The recipients were told to send "all of your bank account, college fund account numbers and those of your children" to an e-mail address.

The plan, according to a Paulson aide, was to "take as much money out of the accounts and then play upon their patriotic duty to let us keep it." It was scuttled when it was clear that it violated a little-known Federal statute, that the government is allowed to steal money from taxpayers but must do so in a deceitful way. The scam, it turns out, was just too direct for government work.

The same bunch of geniuses then proposed telethon model to cover the deficit, where "pledge drives" will interrupt services every few months and ask the citizen to cough up some change--preferably everything that is in their pocket at the time. For instance, a spokesmodel would stop traffic on a busy bridge during rush hour, and speechify for 15 minutes about how people need to contribute money to road maintenance.

Paulson has given that one the big ix-nay, mostly because recent polls show that NPR annoys rather than inspires most people, along with the fact that no one carries cash anymore.  In the meantime he has encouraged his junior executives to continue pushing the tax envelope.

"I sure wish they had used this kind of imagination when the crisis started." Paulson said. "Then maybe we wouldn't be in this mess today."

This is the complete text of the e-mail sent out under the name of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson:

DEAR AMERICAN:
I NEED TO ASK YOU TO SUPPORT AN URGENT SECRET BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP WITH A TRANSFER OF FUNDS OF GREAT MAGNITUDE.
I AM MINISTRY OF THE TREASURY OF THE REPUBLIC OF AMERICA . MY COUNTRY HAS HAD CRISIS THAT HAS CAUSED THE NEED FOR LARGE TRANSFER OF FUNDS OF 800 BILLION DOLLARS US. IF YOU WOULD ASSIST ME IN THIS TRANSFER, IT WOULD BE MOST PROFITABLE TO YOU.
I AM WORKING WITH MR. PHIL GRAM, LOBBYIST FOR UBS, WHO WILL BE MY REPLACEMENT AS MINISTRY OF THE TREASURY IN JANUARY. AS A SENATOR, YOU MAY KNOW HIM AS THE LEADER OF THE AMERICAN BANKING DEREGULATION MOVEMENT IN THE 199 0S. THIS TRANSACTIN IS 100% SAFE.
THIS IS A MATTER OF GREAT URGENCY. WE NEED A BLANK CHECK. WE NEED THE FUNDS AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. WE CANNOT DIRECTLY TRANSFER THESE FUNDS IN THE NAMES OF OUR CLOSE FRIENDS BECAUSE WE ARE CONSTANTLY UNDER SURVEILLANCE. MY FAMILY LAWYER ADVISED ME THAT I SHOULD LOOK FOR A RELIABLE AND TRUSTWORTHY PERSON WHO WILL ACT AS A NEXT OF KIN SO THE FUNDS CAN BE TRANSFERRED.
PLEASE REPLY WITH ALL OF YOUR BANK ACCOUNT, IRA AND COLLEGE FUND ACCOUNT NUMBERS AND THOSE OF YOUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN TO WALLSTREETBA ILOUT@TREASURY.GOV SO THAT WE MAY TRANSFER YOUR COMMISSION FOR THIS TRANSACTION. AFTER I RECEIVE THAT INFORMATION, I WILL RESPOND WITH DETAILED INFORMATION ABOUT SAFEGUARDS THAT WILL BE USED TO PROTECT THE FUNDS.

YOURS FAITHFULLY MINISTER OF TREASURY PAULSON

(For real Editor's note: This text is taken verbatim from an unattributed post. There is no intended copyright violation, and will identify the author here if he or she wishes. What we will not do is send our numbers to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov.)