Comrade Bush Announces New 5-Day Plan

Washington, D.C. (Izvestia) - Comrade Bush, Premier and General Secretary of the Party, used the occasion of a state visit from Italy to announce in the Rose Garden today that Comrade Paulson's First 5-Day Plan for the Economy, which has not been tried, has not worked, and that in conjunction with other countries in the World Comintern, a new 5-Day Plan to save the world's economies would immediately be put into action.

Rumors circulated high in the Political Bureau that Comrade Paulson was now in disgrace because of his inability to make his First 5-Day Plan work during the first two days.  It is likely that he will be arrested and sent West for reeducation, after which he will become an internal exile.  Comrade Bush announced the details of the Second 5-Day Plan under which the Union of Socialist States of America will invest directly in the People's Bank and receive preferred stock representing the People's interests, with instructions to the Capitalist Running Dogs in nominal control of the People's Bank to start lending immediately to the proletariat.  

"The harvest looms," Comrade Bush intoned.  "The potatoes of the West will rot black in the ground if the peasants do not receive the money they need to fuel their tractors, to scythe the grain, and to load nature's bounty aboard the railroad cars that will carry this precious cargo to the tables of America's peasantry."

 

Italian Premier Berlusconi wept openly at his own rostrum, clearly moved by the poetry of Comrade Bush's words, not to mention his surprising grasp of Marxist ideology.  "Che uomo," he murmured, dabbing at his eyes.

"In this paradise of the proletariat which America is now and forever shall be," Comrade Bush boomed, warming to his subject, "the People's Congress and the Supreme Leadership shall join with the working class, clasping hands and marching forward until the final victory over the bourgeois and revanchist mercenaries of Wall Street and the decadent capitalists.  The banks shall be the People's! The great counting houses of New York shall be the People's! Insurance companies shall be the province of the Proletariat!  Transportation in the air, on the rails, shall be in conveyances owned by the mighty peasantry of the USSA!"

A great roar went up from the usually disinterested press.  In the general feeling of glasnost, even a question from a reporter was allowed.

"And Comrade Bush," the reporter asked, "health care as well?  The People shall finally have the socialized medicine they so desperately need, in this new era of the State providing all?"

"No," answered Comrade Bush.  "That will remain private."