Nathaniel

Shockey

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March 11, 2009

Obama and the Mythical White House Money Tree

Apparently, one of Barack Obama’s senior advisors convinced him, shortly after his election, that there literally was a money tree growing in the White House backyard. (This advisor had not yet been discovered as a tax dodger.) He knew that if Obama were somehow convinced that the U.S. government had access to large quantities of cash, there was no stopping how much power they could amass – I mean, how much good they could do.

Obama, always the cold calculator, did not respond with any sort of botanic skepticism. He simply responded by saying, “Excellent. The first thing we need to do is to plant several more of these money trees using seeds from the first one. Assuming we get plenty of rain for the next few years, let’s get to work on a gazillion-dollar stimulus package to help struggling Americans.”

While the advisor was initially delighted to see how promptly Obama accepted the existence of a money tree, Obama’s quick and extreme decision-making forced a moment’s pause for deduction. First, does he seriously believe me about the money tree? And second, if a money tree could produce other money trees, wouldn’t he think that we’d have tried that already? Third, how much is a gazillion? And fourth, where the hell are we going to get all the money that he expects to find blossoming on an entire orchard of imaginary money trees?

By mid-February, even the crafty advisor had no idea how they’d find a gazillion dollars to represent this newfound White House crop. With great reverence, humiliation and trepidation, he told the president that the money trees were not reproducing nearly as well as he had hoped.

Obama, always the cold calculator, immediately came up with a solution. “First, I don’t believe for a second that this problem comes from the money trees. Any tree shrewd enough to create real currency would certainly be clever enough to reproduce. You know what’s happening, don’t you?”

The advisor shook his head.

“It’s that blabbering kook Rush Limbaugh,” Obama said. “Someone probably told him about our money trees. Everyone heard him say he wants me to fail. Put up hidden cameras all around the orchard.”

Unable to fathom how Obama could think that the White House would create a secret money tree crop without implementing some sort of security system, or that his only dissenter was an outspoken radio talk-show host, once again, the senior advisor was flabbergasted.

By the time March had rolled around, the senior advisor had done so much hard thinking about the money trees between, and sometimes even during, rounds of golf that he found himself occasionally glancing out the back window of the White House to make sure there really weren’t any trees producing dollar bills. One night, at the ungodly hour of eight in the morning, he awoke in a cold sweat after dreaming that giant, angry trees were chasing him while hobbits, perched in their branches, threw rocks at him.

“Enough!” he shouted. It was time to tell Obama that he had made up the money tree.

“Mr. President, sir, I don’t know how to put this.”

“Go ahead, my most trusted advisor.”

He shuddered at hearing the word trusted. “The money tree doesn’t exist. I made it up because I thought that, if we could somehow produce money out of thin air, we might actually do some good in this world.”

Obama, always cold and calculating, thought about this for a moment. Then a light flickered in his eyes. “So where did we get that gazillion dollars, then?”

“That’s the other thing, sir. We don’t even know how much a gazillion dollars is. One of your staff had the audacity to question whether or not it was even a real number. Don’t worry, though, sir. We fired him.”

“Well, it’s about time we all started being honest with each other,” Obama said. “We did just pass an $800 billion stimulus package, and if I’m not mistaken, we just came up with a budget that features a $1.7 trillion deficit. I have to ask, where do we plan on getting all this money? Does any of this even exist? Are you sure there are no money trees?”

The advisor brightened up, as the truth always has a way of removing heavy burden. “Sir, we’ve discovered bonds. They’re a lot like hand-written IOU’s, except we print them on luxurious-looking pieces of paper in a beautiful font and sell them to the most dangerous countries we can think of. You’d be amazed at what they go for on the black market.”

“Huh. I always wondered how that worked,” Obama said. “Well, I guess Rush is off the hook this time. In the meantime, let’s not adjust our budget just yet. I’d like our scientists to, for a moment, halt all stem cell research and focus on discovering what I like to call a money tree.”

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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