by Adam Yoshida
Hampton took the President's hand. "So I have gathered, Mr. President," he replied.
"We don't have it all put together yet – and we don't know if it's the only reason... after all, there's rarely one reason in these cases – but it seems that one of the things that Wayne Gerber was dealing with during the last days of his life was a very serious situation over at the Treasury."
The President turned on his tablet and handed it to Hampton.
"Basically, it seems that the Department of the Treasury made a number of errors and, as a result, we're effectively over the debt limit as of about forty-eight hours ago. We have a bond auction coming up where, in fact, we don't have the necessary Congressional authorization to issue the bonds as a result."
Hampton flipped through the document for a minute before looking up.
"Well, if we could make this happen as quickly as possible, I think that the Congress – even the present Congress – would be amenable to allowing for an emergency extension of the limit. The consequences otherwise..."
"I don't want to go back to the Congress," the President replied firmly. "I am sick to death of their grandstanding and their demands that we cut back on things that the people need – that the people elected me to provide – in the name of their manic efforts to preserve the fortunes of the rich. That's not why I was put in this place and that's not what I'm going to do."
"Laws on the books limit the ability of the Federal Government to issue money. There are statutory caps that limit the silver and gold coinage that may be authorized by the Secretary of the Treasury. However, under present Federal law, there is no similar limit placed upon the authority of the Secretary of the Treasury to issue coins in platinum. However, the Secretary does explicitly have the authority under the law to issue such coins."
The President opened the top drawer of the Resolution desk, pulled out another document, and handed it to Hampton.
"The plan is simple: the Secretary of the Treasury... I'm sorry, the Acting Secretary of the Treasury, will be instructed to issue a single platinum coin with a face value of $2 Trillion. That coin, being legal tender, will then be used to purchase back some $2 Trillion in debt presently held by the Federal Reserve, thus reducing the outstanding debts of the Federal Government to a figure well below the legal limit. The office of the White House Counsel has reviewed all of this in detail and have assured me that it is all very legally viable."
"I know that you just flew in, but I need you to go back to New York and oversee this process. It will all have to be handled with a special degree of discretion in order for it to come off without a hitch."
"Of course, Mr. President," Hampton almost-automatically replied.
Twenty-seven minutes after Daniel Hampton left the White House to return to New York, first word of the President's decision to avail himself of the so-called "Platinum Coin option" reached the Hill. No one could expect such potentially explosive news to be kept secret for long.
"What the President and his cronies are proposing is a complete subversion of the Constitution," Senator Bert Quilty thundered in Terrance Rickover's office as the Republican leadership from both sides of the Hill contemplated their response.
"What the President supposes is that, because a distant Congress once passed these long-ago programs, he now has the right to use whatever means are at his disposal to fund them. At least, that seems to be the legal and Constitutional doctrine on which his actions are based," one aide noted.
"I think," Rickover declared quietly, "that we all need to take a step back for just a moment and think about our next steps here."
Rickover tapped his fingers on his desk for several moments before he resumed speaking.
"The Speaker needs to be in on this," he finally said.
Vice President Kevin Bryan wasn't on the inside of the Warren Administration. The former one-term Governor of Virginia had been added to the ticket, back when Henry Warren was a Governor of New York with a tough-on-crime reputation, to secure the support of quarrelsome progressives. Governor Bryan had taken advantage of the one-term limit imposed upon Governors of Virginia to create a national profile for himself by swinging dramatically leftwards immediately after being elected as a pro-business moderate. Critics argued that he had wasted his four years in Richmond engaged in endless and pointless rounds of grandstanding that had, in the end, prevented him from actually accomplishing anything as Governor. Cynics argued that he had, in fact, accomplished exactly what he had set out to do when he decided to run for Governor: he had transformed himself from a no-name State Senator into a national figure practically overnight.
His Presidential campaign, however, had faltered when big-money Democratic donors, scared by his rhetoric and his popularity among the grassroots left had instead turned in droves to the popular New York Governor with a famous name and a winning smile. That had angered Bryan. However, that anger had turned to a sort of quiet glee when the mid-summer polls began to show the Presidential candidacy of Governor of Vermont on the Green Party ticket was beginning to pick up steam and those same men, together with that smiling Governor, had had to come to him and beg him for help.
Of course, he had told them, he was always glad to help. He had been born a Democrat and would die a Democrat. He would help to put Henry Warren into the White House. But he had terms. First, he had campaign debt – that would have to be taken care of. Second, he would have to have real influence once they were elected. Yes, yes, they had all agreed. The debts had disappeared. The influence, however, had proven to be far more elusive. The Warren people had staffed the White House with their own folks, even going so far as to pointedly ignore his polite suggestions that loyal and qualified supporters be rewarded with various Under-Secretary level positions. A less-determined man might have responded to this rejection by sulking. Vice President Bryan, however, had gone to work.
The White House, the DNC, the DCCC, and the DSCC had wanted him to go to big-dollar fundraisers and to help the party's big guns. He had pointedly ignored them. For five years, rather than focusing on races for Governor and the Senate and on padding the coffers of eternal incumbent Congressmen, he and his staffers had looked for struggling Democrats who might be put over the top by a Vice Presidential visit or fundraiser. He'd even reached down into local and state races. It was amazing to see the genuine gratitude of some kid running for the State Senate in Kansas when the Vice President of the United States unexpectedly took a personal interest in their campaign. Now, some of those kids were already Congressmen. Soon more would be. And, Bryan was certain, they would remember who had put them in their current place.
The President hadn't even bothered to directly tell the Vice President about his plans to adopt the Platinum Coin option – one that the Vice President had long advocated in private. Instead, word had reached him third-hand via some staffer.
Well, he thought, let's make sure that this isn't easy for anyone.
Speaker of the House Michael Halverson was, by all accounts, a kind and gentle man. The seventy-two-year-old fourteen-term Congressman from Indiana was generally liked by his colleagues and, though he was a down-the-line conservative on the issues, rarely displayed a trace of anger or rancor in his conduct. Old "Grandpa Mike" had been an asset on the campaign trail in recent years, being notably difficult for Democrats to demonize.
"If this is true -- and I believe that it is -- then we need to head it off at the pass," Rickover told Halverson as the latter sat behind his desk.
"If it is true, I think that we can wait to hear what the President has to say and then figure out how we respond," replied the Speaker.
"With all due respect, Mr. Speaker," said Rickover, "that just isn't the case here. The President's action will be irrevocable and will provoke a terrible battle over its legality and Constitutionality. It may have far-reaching effects on global markets and on our own economy. The time to act is now."
"Ok. Ok," said Halverson, "let's call the President and see what he has to say."
"I think that we need to meet him face-to-face immediately," replied Rickover.
"I'm going to call and see what happens," said Halverson, picking up and dialing the phone directly.
"This is Speaker Halverson," he said once someone picked up on the other end, "I would like to speak to the President... No, I really do need to speak to him as soon as possible... Miss Jensen..."
"Can I have the phone?" Rickover whispered as Halverson waved him away.
"...I understand that these are busy times, but there are urgent matters... No, believe me I know..."
"Give me the phone," Rickover whispered, with a harsher edge.
"...It's just that there are some disturbing rumors that we have been hearing here and some of the members of my caucus... No, no..."
Rickover grabbed the phone from the hands of the Speaker.
"Alexis," he said, "you tell the President that the leadership of the United States Congress is on its way to the White House to meet with the President of the United States. If he doesn't want to speak with us, he can fucking turn us away from the gates of the White House in the view of the all of the fucking media in the world."
He slammed down the phone.
Within ten minutes, Halverson, Rickover, and Tara Gregory, the youthful Senate Majority Leader, were on their way to the White House in the back of a single limo.
"Listen," said Rickover, "this is no time to temporize. I know how you two both feel, but I'm not going to take any shit from that motherfucker."
"Terrance..." said Gregory softly.
"No," repeated Rickover, "this is no time for compromise. We can have a temporary resolution through both Houses this afternoon. There's no need for an end run around the Constitution that would grant this President, in essence, unlimited spending powers."
"I am not going to bow down to these threats," the President declared as he, Jensen, and Emerson sat in the Oval Office.
"That asshole is lucky that I even allowed him a meeting on a day like this," the President continued, "with poor Wayne Gerber's body still in the Goddamned morgue, they want to play political games. Fuck no. Fuck no."
"Mr. President," Emerson spoke, "if they are willing to play ball here, that might be the best move..."
"I am the President of the United States, elected by the people of the United States," Warren repeated, "and I will not be blackmailed. Not by some fucking terrorist in a turban and not by some fucking jumped-up Virginia Congressman who thinks that the fact that Rush Limbaugh and Fox News like him makes him the voice of the fucking people."
"The Congressional delegation is here," the voice of the Person Secretary to the President.
"Send them the fuck in," snarled Warren.
The Speaker took the lead as he, Rickover, and Senator Gregory fanned into the Oval Office.
"Mr. President," he began, "I'm sorry for taking your time on what I know to be a difficult and tragic day. However, myself and the rest of the Congressional leadership have been being hit every few minutes by new rumors that there's something really big going on over here, with regard to the nation's debt, and we felt it best to get it sorted out straight away."
"Yes," the President replied quietly seething, "today is a very tragic day in many respects. It is very regrettable that events, and, although this is not the time or the place to assign blame, perhaps certain persons drove Wayne Gerber to such a terrible end. Thank you for your concern and for taking time out of your own days to come by and pay your respects."
"Uhhh... Yes, Mr. President," replied Halverson, "as I said, this is a tragic day... But we do have some issues that need to be discussed immediately."
"Ok," replied the President, quietly tapping the desk with his knuckles.
"The rumor mill says that we're about to hit – or perhaps have already hit – the debt ceiling, far earlier than our negotiations so far have anticipated and that you're about to attempt some sort of wide-ranging move to get around or dispense with the ceiling altogether."
"Well," said the President with a smile, "I suppose that the rumor mill isn't always inaccurate."
He gestured to Jensen, who began to hand out a short piece of paper to the guests.
"This practice of using the debt limit as a tool of extortion has gone on for long enough – and has had enough tragic consequences. Forty-five minutes ago I directed the Secretary of the Treasury... I'm sorry, the Acting Secretary of the Treasury, to mint a platinum coin with a face value of two trillion dollars that will, in turn, be used to buy back two trillion dollars worth of securities presently held by the Federal Reserve, thus placing the Federal Government well under the statutory debt cap. This is a maneuver that I am prepared to repeat should it prove necessary. As you can see, this is fully in conformance with the laws passed by the Congress."
"Mr. President," Terrance Rickover spoke up, "I have to tell you that I consider this action to be both illegal and unconstitutional and intend, as a leader of the Congress, to resist it. Whatever technicalities of an ancient law that you may cite, the doctrine that you now espouse, if enacted..."
"It has already been enacted," insisted the President.
"...if it should be sustained, would grant the President essentially unlimited spending power and, in that this spending power would be financed by the progressive debasement of the currency, it would also grant the President essentially unlimited power to tax as well."
"That is not true," Alexis Jensen interjected, "nothing that the President has done or will do exceeds the limits of either existing Federal Law or the Constitution. This has already been reviewed by the Office of the White House Counsel..."
"Bullshit," replied Rickover, his finger stabbing through the air, "I don't give a shit what your in-house lawyers have managed to write up. The idea that the President can have, under the Constitution, an unlimited power to create and spend money flies directly in the face of everything that the Founders intended..."
"The question," said the President, "is not what a bunch of lone-gone white men thought, but what is allowed under the law."
"Emphatically, this is not permitted by the law or the Constitution as it stands," said Rickover. "Whatever loophole you may claim to have discovered, it is plainly not within the original intent of the law as passed and will not stand up to any sort of reasonable judicial review. It would make a mockery of the separation of powers under the Constitution and would throw markets into chaos..."
"You find your lawyers and we'll find ours," stated the President.
"The majority in the Congress will not stand for this attempt to rule the country by decree," said Rickover.
"A majority may not: but until you have two-thirds of the votes, and you don't, there's not a fucking thing you can do to stop this."
"Mr. President," Rickover stood up and looked the President directly in the eyes, "the House of Representatives will not stand for such a blatantly illegal usurpation of the authority of the Congress under the Constitution. You would be wise..."
"I am operating under the Constitution," the President insisted. "The money that I plan to spend has already been authorized by the Congress and I am raising the money in accordance with the laws that have been passed by that same Congress. As I said already, you may attempt to repeal them but such repeal will only be passed into law over my veto. You may not like me, but elections have consequences."
"Mr. President, if you persist in this attempt to execute an end-run around the Constitution and the laws of the United States, I will personally introduce a resolution in the House of Representatives calling for your impeachment for abuse of power," said Rickover.
"Just fucking try it, Terry," the President replied.
Carly Richards, the junior Senator from Rhode Island, knew full well that she owed her seat in the Senate to the Vice President. Four years earlier, when she had been a mere State Representative running in a contested six-way primary, it had been the Vice President who had reached out to her. It had been the Vice Pre
sident who had carefully directed money her way until, with a month to go before the Democratic primary, she had become a serious contender for the seat. And it had been the Vice President who had then endorsed her, setting off a chain of events that put her over the top and made her the victor in the primary which, in heavily-Democratic Rhode Island, was tantamount to winning the election itself.
Given this, she had always expected to be asked for the occasional favor by the Vice President or his allies. Still, when the request came, it surprised her.
After her proposed amendment to a transportation bill had failed to gain the necessary votes to obtain cloture and end debate, she did what had been asked of her and rose in the Senate.
"Mr. President, I rise to a point of order."
"The Senator from Rhode Island is recognized," said the Vice President, operating from the Chair.
"Mr. President, I would assert that the sixty-vote requirement to end debate, not being mentioned in the Constitution, is unconstitutional so far as any measure related to the Constitution obligations of the Senate is concerned."
The Vice President paused for a moment before responding, "The Senator's point is well-founded."
Around them the Senate exploded into chaos.
CHAPTER FOUR
Counteroffensives
"What the fuck!" President Warren screamed into the phone as the Vice President stepped off the Senate floor. It was a conversation better had in person, but the President had been too furious to wait even a second.
"Mr. President, I know that this comes at an inconvenient time," Vice President Bryan drawled, "but I had an obligation, as the President of the Senate – a role handed to me by the Constitution of the United States – to rule in accordance with my own conscience and with my own best understanding of the Constitution."
"You've fucked us, Kevin!" the President shouted. "Now the Senate can pass through whatever the fuck the House wants!"
"You still have to sign it, Mr. President," Bryan responded, "or you can veto it. That's how the Constitution works."