WASHINGTON, D.C.–President Obama announced today that he has authorized a fact-finding commission to determine the feasibility of extracting valuable resources from video games.

“It has come to my attention that dozens of popular games are filled with resources that could be used to help reduce the current deficit and that securing these resources could provide gainful employment to America’s youth,” stated Obama during a White House briefing.

Noting Fed Chairman Bernanke’s dismissal of such revenue enhancing activities last year (a story that IGNN broke), the President acknowledged that some technical issues remained to be solved.

“As I understand it,” said Obama, ” converting in-game treasure to real-world commodities is still a bit of an issue. So, in conjunction with the fact-finding commission, I’m also authorizing the immediate expenditure of one billion dollars to research universities across the nation to help study and ultimately remove this critical obstacle to America’s economic recovery.”

The President went on to list the potential benefits of his plan, such as extracting stalactites of pure gold from Lode Runner, priceless gems from Bejeweled, not to mention picking and selling fruit from Animal Crossing, which had the added benefit of providing low-cost, healthful snacks for economically stressed Americans.

“We can’t afford to ignore these resources any longer,” the President added forcefully. “And fortunately, there is an army of available, skilled workers who can efficiently gather this wealth for the benefit of the entire nation. Of course, the youth of America will have to stay home from school as they shift their efforts toward saving the national economy, but that seems fitting since in the long run they will be saving their own futures, a task which we, the present generation, have already begun by paying untold trillions to the good folks on Wall Street whom, I’m told, have something to do with ensuring the financial future of every American.”

Melvin Pollis, a third-grade teacher from New Hampshire, wasn’t sure if the plan would put him and his fellow educators out of a job. “On the surface, I have to agree that the plan seems to make sense, but what worries me is that if all those kids are out of school saving our financial butts, who will we teachers teach?”

IGNN has learned that Pollis is not alone with concerns about Obama’s bold plan. Republican House minority leader John Boehner (whose name–in spite of appearances to the contrary–isn’t pronounced “boner”, at least according to him) called the plan, “preposterous, silly, mad, insulting, socialist garbage worthy of the sort of backward thinking one might expect from a complete retard-o-mundo-puss.” Boner went on to explain that a retard-o-mundo-puss was a well-known term for a “dreamer” back in his home state of Ohio and that it had nothing to do with the “r” word or, for that matter, any words that might be defamatory toward any living group of humans or other vertebrates.

Upon hearing Boner’s explanation, newly minted Senator Scott Brown, (R-Mass) commented that he’d never actually seen a talking orange before and perhaps there might be some economic benefit from squeezing the hell out of it.

A spokesperson from Lode Runner publisher Tozai Games responded to the announcement positively, saying, “Woo hoo!”

Estimates from the Congressional Budget Office suggest that the windfall from all video game resource extractions over a calendar year would be significant. A CBO staffer said that if every American boy and girl between the ages of 10 and 18 worked 40 hours per week playing games and recovering resources, the total annual take would be on the order of 157 trillion bit/cents, which translates into $12.53 or the rough equivalent of the entire economic output of Arkansas for one million years.