Billions in Pocket Change

Columnist/funnyman Dave Barry -- who's never been a big fan of the federal government -- chimes in this week with a piece on efforts to audit federal finances. Here's his reaction to reports that agencies can't account for billions of dollars in federal spending:

When you’re sucking in and spewing out money as fast as the federal government, you have to expect that here and there a billion dollars is going to fall between the cracks. I bet if federal employees took just a few minutes out of their work schedules to look around, they would quickly find a lot of this so-called “lost” money.

FIRST FEDERAL EMPLOYEE: OK, I’ll just check behind the cushions of this federal employee’s lounge sofa here and ... Hey, here’s some! Looks like a total of, let me see, two ... three ... four ... Wow! It’s $17 million!

SECOND FEDERAL EMPLOYEE: So THAT’S what happened to it!