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SURPLUS MISSING, PRESUMED GONE
D.C. Police Lead Investigation
Washington, D.C. - (GNS) - A surplus in federal dollars that existed only months ago was determined to have vanished yesterday, and no one is sure where it went.
     Washington D.C. Police have been asked to investigate.
     "We know the surplus was here in the spring," said D.C. Police Chief Maxwell Smart, "but it's not here now."
     Smart suggested it slipped from everyone's notice when they were distracted by the Levy-Condit scandal.
     "We're combing the woods in Maryland," he said, noting that the woods in Maryland is the first place they look for anything missing. He conceded they have never found a surplus there before.
     "But there's plenty of condoms," he said.
     Democrats said the surplus was spent by the president; Republicans said it "went away because the economy slumped."
     "We know the president spent it and we know the economy is slumping, but that just gives us reasons for the disappearance, it doesn't tell us where it is," Smart said.
     Smart said the Bush Administration was prepared to offer a $300.00 reward to any American who finds the surplus.
     Descriptions of the surplus vary, which will make finding it more difficult, said Smart.
     "The Office of Management and Budget projected a fiscal 2001 surplus of $158 billion, only $1 billion above the tax receipts that flow to Social Security. The revision is $123 billion less than the last estimate in April but the surplus still will be the second-largest ever," Smart said.
     "The forecast envisions a similarly tiny non-Social Security surplus of $1 billion in fiscal 2002, which begins Oct. 1. That represents a $58 billion drop from the April estimate, for an overall surplus of $173 billion next year that is almost entirely Social Security." he explained.
     "I think that means we're looking for $58 billion, but I'm not sure, because the White House Budget Director, Mitch Daniels, says 'we're awash in money'."
     Smart said units of the D.C. police would be deployed to the Potomac river and other waterways, fire hydrants, laundromats and sewage plants.
     "If we're awash in money, then that's where the clues will be," he said.