WASHINGTON (AEP) – NASA announced today the discovery of oil on Mars. Special geologic sensors on one of the two Mars rovers have confirmed the existence of well over 1000 billion barrels of high-quality light sweet crude in easily accessible locations under the Martian surface.

As a result of today’s discovery, Congressional leaders confirmed today in a hastily-called news conference that they had lined up sufficient support from both sides of the aisle to eliminate all benefits payments to Social Security and Medicare recipients. The FICA and Medicare payroll taxes will remain in place and the funds used instead for immediate Martian oil drilling projects and shipment of the crude to Earth.

The bill is expected to sail through Congress, and President Bush has already indicated he will sign it. “This will guarantee security for America and the world for thousands of years,” said Bush.

“Clearly, the need for this money to go toward an immediate program of Martian oil retrieval far outweighs any other uses it may have,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“This is the most exciting development we could ever have imagined,” said Democratic presidential candidate and front runner Hillary Clinton. “This will ensure not only the sovereignty and security of the U.S. for generations to come, but of the world as well.”

“God is clearly smiling on the United States,” said Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

“There’s simply no way we can finance oil drilling on Mars, and Social Security too,” said expected Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson. “Eliminating those programs in favor of oil recovery is clearly in the best interests of the American people.”

Several Congressional Democrats, speaking off the record, said however that the proposed legislation did not go far enough and that school lunches, tax breaks for the blind, and disability payments for quadriplegics should all be eliminated as well.

Some environmental groups have expressed concern over the effects of burning even more fossil fuel on the Earth’s delicate environment. There is not believed to be any truth to a report, unconfirmed at press time, that several leaders of the environmental movement in the U.S. had been arrested and sent to Guantánamo Bay.

Ben Heart, founder of the advocacy group Not Mars Too and suspected by the U.S. State Department of being a member of Al-Qaeda said that, “I realize no one is living on Mars yet, but given what we’ve already done to one planet, is it absolutely essential that we do it to another?”

“Who cares?” said Clinton. “We’re talking about oil here.”

A retired military analyst says the discovery of Martian oil could finally give the U.S. the freedom to use appropriate force in Iraq. “We need to bomb the entire goddamn Middle East,” says Col. Dick P. Blood (Ret). “We don’t need their oil anymore anyway.”

Other voices in Washington were urging restraint. “Let’s just bomb the parts of the Middle East with no oil, and distribute anthrax blankets to the rest of the dirty bastards,” said a liberal peace activist.

There was, however, one sector of the economy in strong opposition to the soon-to-be-official Martian drilling project. The Nuclear Energy Institute issued a press release saying in part that, “The burning of oil is not only unclean, it is morally wrong.” They also say the U.S. should immediately convert all automobiles to run on Uranium.

The Martian oil reclamation project is going ahead though, and reportedly Halliburton has already been issued the first no-bid contract for extraction. The company’s stock shot up one million points on the rumor.

“This is a momentous occasion,” said Bush. “Now we not only own the world, but the universe too.” NASA now hopes to find oil on Venus within the next few years, and missions to Mercury, Neptune, and Pluto are already being planned. There’s also talk of exploring the system around Alpha Centauri, the nearest star to our own Sun at a scant 4 light-years away.

“No distance or expense is too great when oil is involved and cash-strapped taxpayers are footing the bill,” said Pelosi.