Nation To Solve Economic Crisis by Hitting Up Coinstar

President Obama and congressional leaders announced today that the nation's economic crisis will be solved by making a single trip to a nearby Coinstar machine. With wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and years of unprecedented domestic spending, the nation has built up more than $5 trillion in loose change over the past several years, in treasuries, federal banks and oversized coffee mugs across the nation's capital.

"Every purchase the nation makes gives us some change, "said treasury secretary Tim Geithner. “Those rockets the department of defense buys do not always come out to an even dollar amount. What do you think happens to all those pennies, nickels and dimes?" Gueithner cited a single empty Whitman's Chocolates box in the Pentagon that alone had accumulated over $100 billion worth of loose change.

The total dollar amount of the accumulated coins is undetermined, but estimated at roughly $5 trillion, enough to wipe out the national debt, fund the Iraq and Afghanistan wars for several years, and pick up a box of that new cereal we've been meaning to try.

The Army Corps of Engineers is organizing transportation of the loose change to a Food Giant in Glen Burie, Maryland. After pouring the change in a metal tray and lifting the tray so the coins slide down the shoot, the nation will wait for the Coinstar machine to calculate the total amount of the transaction. It is estimated that roughly $75 billion in foreign coins and defective U.S. coins will wind up in the rejection slot. The estimated five tons of lint will be made into quilts and given to orphanages.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, has been entrusted with executing the momentous transaction. "I have to be careful here," said Mullen, "if I accidentally push 'donate to charity' instead of 'cash voucher' we'll really be screwed."

After receiving the nearly $4.5 trillion voucher (after the standard Coinstar 8.9 percent deduction,) the nation will feel obligated to make a small purchase at the popular supermarket, instead of just cashing it all in.

President Obama explained, "We'll probably just buy some peanut butter, because we're always running out anyway. And we might even pick up a magazine because we're feeling kind of rich. I mean, this was money we didn't even realize we had."

Fiscal conservative Ron Paul criticized the plan, saying the 8.9 percent Coinstar processing fee was "a waste of taxpayer money." Congressional leaders, not keen on rolling $5 trillion worth of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters into little paper rolls, decided that Coinstar would be the most attractive option.

This story originally appeared on Glossynews.com.