Borrowing a page from Arizona’s state-budget playbook, the Obama administration has announced it will rent out rooms in the White House to raise money to offset the rising federal deficit.

Recently, Arizona announced plans to sell up to 50 state-owned government building and then lease them back over a period of decades before eventually repurchasing them. In essence, the plan calls for Arizona to mortgage the buildings that house its state government.

Since many find the idea of paying rent on buildings previously owned free and clear by taxpayers distasteful, the Obama administration is being careful to differentiate its own plan from Arizona’s.

“We’re not changing ownership of the White House,” explains White House spokesman Robert Gibbs. “If we did, for one thing, that might affect my employment, so that was a non-starter.”

Instead, several rooms in the White House will be opened up to the public, in Bed and Breakfast fashion. However, customers shouldn’t expect backcountry prices. According to a promotional pamphlet released by the White House, lodgings in the esteemed Lincoln Bedroom can be fetched for $95,000 per night.

“This is an appropriate price point commensurate with our need to address the deficit and the costs incurred in securing temporary security clearance and agent staffing for our valued guests,” said Gibbs.

He added, however, that the White House was working on discounted packages in which “for a modest fee, inner city and rural poor folks can be our guests as well.” These guests, Gibbs confirmed, would be housed in battered FEMA trailers that are veterans of the New Orleans campaign. The trailers will be  “strategically hidden from view” on the White House grounds.

Despite discounted pricing, Gibbs stressed the guests housed in trailers will “still be able to tell their friends, families and what-not that they spent the night at the White House.”

While patrons of the trailer package will be limited to the confines of their accommodations plus a 150-second tour of a rosebush dating to the Reagan administration, clients of the Lincoln Bedroom package will enjoy a much more lavish experience, including meals prepared by the White House culinary staff and an invitation to observe “no less than one” staff meeting. (Guests wishing to take advantage of the latter will have to sign non-disclosure agreements).

Lincoln guests will also be guaranteed to have their photos taken with at least one cabinet-level administrator, and possibly the president if he’s available. In a lighter touch, they will also be given blacklights and invited to participate in a “spot the stain” competition in which contestants vie to see who can find the most Clinton-era blemishes that still adorn certain furnishings, carpets and draperies.

In reply to critics who say the ploy threatens to cheapen the White House, Gibbs said, “This may be a cheap gimmick, but we’ve got a very expensive problem, which is the out of control deficit my boss has created – I mean that he inherited from Bush.

“We’re already booked solid into the first half of Obama’s second administration, and calculations show this could generate nearly $1 billion over two full terms. That money is going straight back to the taxpayers.”