Taxpayer Relief Coming Says Homeland Security

[Note: This is Part One in a two-part series]

The Surveillance State division of the Department of Homeland Security announced today that the blueprint of their plan for letting taxpayers entirely off the hook for the agency’s services by close of fiscal year 2014 is just about finished.

Explained SS director Jay Davis, “With our countless taxpayer-funded fingers on untold pulses we’ve literally been picking up loudly and clearly the terror over the growing national debt that conservative politicians and economists and pundits of all stripes have instilled in the hearts of their fellow Americans.

“So in a massive undertaking we’re calling Operation Car Wash, the SS division will be taking the lead in the government’s temporarily taxpayer-funded efforts to make its agencies, both those we acknowledge the existence of and those we don’t, self-sustaining in two years’ time.”

Explained the SS division’s fundraising Chair Wendy Galagher, “Think of it as the mother of all bake sales, only we’re not selling red velvet cupcakes for a quarter. At ten dollars a pop, we’re going to sell intelligence directing literally millions of Americans to the exact whereabouts of their lost keys as an example, or to the roadside location of their kid’s dead pet cat or the kid’s dementia-addled grandma or grandpa.

“Let me put it this way. What would you pay for a government service that any time of the day or night could immediately refresh your memory regarding any and all passwords you may have forgotten--a service, by the way, that could render the infamous goose chase after the remote control or even ticks on the family dog a thing of the past?”

According to SS marketing director Terry Michels, in a promotional campaign with the slogan “We’ve Literally Got Your Back,” the agency will be making a one-time free of charge offer to provide all Americans unsolicited information regarding up to two iffy-looking moles on parts of the body not easily self-inspected.

Said Ms. Michels, “We’re particularly excited about the Mother’s Little Birdy Special we’ve got in the works. For a reasonable fee, SS can at long last make American mothers’ maternal omniscience the real deal. No more relying on educated guessing and a woman’s intuition to convince American children there’s no place they can hide their activities.”

Added SS director Davis, “Wendy’s also put together some very attractive package deals that will allow Americans to be automatically apprised of everything from whether something is stuck between their teeth or whether their breath smells to whether a dress makes them look fat. She’s also working with the folks over in Government-Government Relations to perhaps arrange tax credits for purchases of some kinds of our services.”

Not everyone, however, is seeing this development as an unqualified plus. Consumer rights groups, for instance, are expressing concern about the potential for abuse in this new program.

As Tim Dugan from the Center for Science in the Public Interest put it, “What’s to keep SS from jacking up the price on all the information it’s gathering on us? I mean, where’s the free-market competition? It all just seems a little anti-American to me.”

In related news, the US Department of Education today announced that its plan for becoming self-supporting involves auctioning school systems across the country off to the highest private bidders.