As part of his crusade to reduce the burden on the taxpayer and lower the national debt David Cameron has today announced plans to make costing the government money a crime. "Just because people pay taxes, people think they can spend taxes," he said. "It's just not on."
The planned bill, which the coalition hopes to get through Parliament within the current term, will make it a crime to be young, old, sick, unemployed, pregnant or giving up smoking. "The harshest penalties will clearly be reserved for young unemployed mothers who are pregnant again and trying to stop smoking," explained the Prime Minister. "But really we've got to be harsh on all these people. I mean, Labour wanted to spend money on schools! It was a crazy, irresponsible idea."
When asked whether CEOs in the arms industry will also be criminalised the Prime Minister explained that they did not fall within the remit of the bill. "What you've got to understand is that there is such a thing as good government spending," he said. "There are all sorts of things we politicians need to spend money on. But spending on people is bad government spending, because they don't deserve it. If they did deserve it, why would they need help?"
The impact of the new law will be far-reaching. It is estimated that an extra 50,000 police officers will be needed nationally to enforce the law. An extensive privatised prison-building program is also envisaged to cope with the increased number of criminals. "The building of the prisons alone will create thousands of jobs to keep Eastern Europeans out of the domestic building trade," explained the Prime Minister. "And the running of the prisons will create tens of thousands of permanent jobs for people with inadequate educations."
A leaked memo from the Treasury estimates that the number of jobs created if the proposal become reality will roughly equal the number of jobs being lost as a result of public sector cutbacks. "We wish the Treasury would stop leaking like a sieve," said a Conservative spokesman. "But in this case it shows that we really do understand how to fix Britain's economy without endangering jobs."