Treasury Sec’y Blows Entire $7 Billion For Saving Economy On Drunken Weekend In Vegas

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson today emerged, sleepless and unshaven, from the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, and acknowledged to a hastily arranged news conference there that he had blown the entire $7 billion intended to ease the banking crisis on a drunken, debauched weekend at that hotel and casino.

“I was on my way to the bank with the check,” Paulson admitted, each arm around a leggy, barely dressed dancer barely more awake than the Treasury Secretary. “And then the thought hit me—I could go to Vegas, double the money, and save the economy in half the time.”

Paulson travelled from Washington to Las Vegas on a commercial flight, checked into the Bellagio using his own American Express card, and “deposited the check, drawn on the U.S. Treasury for $7 billion, into the ‘cage’ or cashier’s booth on the casino floor at the Bellagio.”

Casino hosts, alerted to the unusually high deposit, welcomed Secretary Paulson to the casino, moved him to a suite usually reserved for the Sultan of Brunei, and, according to Paulson, “plied me with drinks and hookers, and then hookers and more drinks.”

Paulson started cautiously at the craps table, where his holdings were up to $10 billion by 1 a.m. Saturday, but after a few hours in his suite with “at least a dozen, maybe more” young women, he returned, wild-eyed and unrestrainable, to the $1 million-a-hand private baccarat area, typically frequented by Asian industrialists and, until recently, Charles Barkley.

By early Sunday morning, Paulson was down close to $3 billion, at which point Bellagio officials, by now aware of the source of the money, sought to intercede with the Treasury Secretary and get him away from the casino floor.

They were unsuccessful.

“I should have quit when I was still at the craps table,” a rueful Paulson told reporters, still wearing the same business suit he had worn when he checked in two nights earlier. “But I just felt unstoppable. Like something out of a movie.”

By Sunday afternoon, the disconsolate Paulson had lost the entire $7 billion and was asked to leave the high roller suite he was occupying, since the Sultan of Brunei was due to arrive that evening. All but two of the prostitutes and strippers in his hastily arranged entourage decamped as well, having been “tipped” more than $2 million each.

“I want to apologize to the American people,” a somber Secretary Paulson told reporters, blinking rapidly in the bright Las Vegas afternoon sun. “What I did was wrong, and now Congress will have to find another $7 billion with which to bail out the banks.

“On the other hand, I’ve never had so much fun in my whole life. Want to be Treasury Secretary? Just make a million dollar contribution to the Republican Party. But to be a high roller for a weekend at the Bellagio? Priceless.”