How To Blow $50 Billion Without Even Trying

By Margaret Feldstein

Last week the government announced that it will have a $50 billion budget surplus. The pols immediately began arguing over how best to spend it. How often do we get our hands on a windfall like this? Here are some ways we could just blow it!

1 Build a taxpayers' monument; list all 270 million of our names

2 Purchase a castle in Germany to time-share: we'll each get 1.36 minutes

3 Stand a national round of drinks every Friday for a year

4 Buy Bill Gates. We'll share his future income--and he can do tech support

5 Give Victoria's Secret diamond-studded bras to 50,000 taxpayers

6 Make safety glamorous: cover U.S. fire hydrants in gold leaf

7 Finance 46 minutes per citizen on the Psychic Friends Network

8 Five words: down payment on space Titanic

--By Margaret Feldstein