July 8, 2003 – The first year went by, and the Feds played wait and see.  When the second year went by, they began to keep on eye on things.  Now, into the third year of supposed tax cuts without any money actually showing up in the pockets of the American people, the FBI has put themselves to the task of trying to locate the missing trillion-plus dollars.

"You figure it's pretty hard to just misplace that much money," said FBI Director Robert Mueller.

Jimmy Anston, a construction worker from Fayetteville, Arkansas first approached the FBI with his complaint about two years ago.

"I just dun got that paycheck," said Anston, "and was expecting - I mean, not a whole trillion - but the news said it was a trillion dollar tax cut and we would see it, and then I got that paycheck and it was just damned the same.  I was ready to kick the beaks off chickens, I was so gone off."

Across the nation, millions of Americans have called in similar complaints.

"It seems in general," said Director Mueller, "that nobody ain't seen shit.  It's one thing if the tax cut was passed quietly and nobody was told to expect all of this money to use to turn the economy around."

The American citizens, said Mueller, know their important role as over-shopping consumers, and were fired up to get back out spending billions on stuff they don't need just to keep the economy going.  But the money never showed up.

"I can save Georgie's ass about blowing 9/11, and probably from the whole WMD thing as well.  But rule one is don't mess with people's pocketbooks.  If you exaggerate weapons intelligence, half the people don't understand what you're saying in the first place, and the other half don't care if it turned out different than you said in the end.  But if you tell people you have money coming, that money better show up."

It hasn't.  Not enough for people to be able to prop back up the economy.  Not enough, in fact, for people to buy an extra loaf of bread.

"The taxes got cut, see," said Ross Perot, who was so angry when President George H. W. Bush broke his pledge for no new taxes that he ran for President as a Reform Party candidate in 1992.  "See, the taxes got cut, but the cash didn't show.  Now I don't have to add up 2 and 6 to know that chicken just don't hunt.  See?"

Perot, however, said that unlike when the elder Bush broke his word, he is not actually all that angry that the junior Bush turned out to be a liar like his father.  The Texas billionaire said that, in fact, he himself has seen a windfall beyond anything the early oilers had dreamt of.

"I'm saying it's like a duck bein' given enough acorns to last a thousand winters, see?  If you don't see, don't vote for me."

Presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer said in response to a reporter's question on the subject, "Hey, listen, can you just keep it down a bit.  Most people don't seem to have noticed yet.  They know about the deficits, but think we gave them all sorts of money to spend in return.  If they ever stop to think about how much they did or didn't actually get and see for most it wasn't jack, they might be a bit... um... angry with us - and I want to leave all the angry questions until after July 14, when Scott takes over."

Fleischer has resigned his post and will be stepping down after July 14.   The Moderate Independent will follow-up when new White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, takes over on July 15.

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