Obama defends new "A Millionaire a Day!" program (stimulus bill)

In a statement, the Barack Obama administration has defended a new program that was inserted into the stimulus bill at the last moment. Under the program - officially known as the "A Millionaire a Day!" program - Obama will make a randomly-chosen American citizen (or resident) a millionaire each day for the next four years, leading up to the Grand Prize drawing on November 7, 2012, where 100 lucky American citizens (or residents) will each walk away with a cool one million dollars, conditional on the outcome of the election.

GOP opposition to the plan was initially fierce, until the program was doubled-down to give away two million dollars per day: one person given a million, nine more given $100,000, and 100 given $1,000 each. Despite that, some Republican leaders also raised issues with ACORN being used to collect the names of entrants and draw the winners, but their concerns were allayed when Obama promised to spend up to 10% of his time visiting so-called "red states". Some hardline conservatives had issues with the funding for the program, until Obama revealed that some of the latter monies to be given away will be obtained from the float on the original loan from the Chinese military and Hutchison Whampoa Ltd.

As soon as Obama revealed that winners would be able to receive 120% of their winnings in consumer goods such as pink cadillacs and WalMart gift certificates, GOP opposition soon faded. Many GOP leaders have since come out in support of the plan, especially after it was announced that American TV icon Ed McMahon will be touring the U.S. with the president to hand out the winnings.

Halliburton has announced that it was the recipient of a no-bid contract to administer the program.

Sat, 02/14/2009 - 05:53 · · Importance: 1