by Mark Gimenez
"State constitution requires a balanced budget," the lieutenant governor said. "No exception for when Wall Street assholes screw up the world's economy."
"Only two ways to balance the budget, Governor," the speaker said. "Raise taxes or cut spending."
"Dicky… it's an election year."
"So we cut spending." He opened a notebook. "I figured that, so I've taken a shot at the cuts. First, we fire ten thousand state employees."
"Hell," Jim Bob said, "we got two hundred forty thousand. Fire a hundred thousand."
"And we gut the public health programs. Twelve million to prevent teen pregnancies-"
"Like that worked," the lieutenant governor said. "Our teen pregnancy rate is the highest in the nation. Cheaper to give away condoms at school."
"Abstinence-only, Mack," Bode said. "That's official state policy."
"That's official state bullshit. TV ran a story the other night about high school girls in East Austin, showed them kissing their babies goodbye before they went to their senior class prom. They ain't abstaining, Governor."
— "ten million for the colonias — "
"Shit."
"— two billion from higher ed-"
"Christ, the UT president's gonna be over to the Mansion crying in his beer-he's sitting on a fifteen-billion-dollar endowment and he bitches every time we cut a dollar from his appropriations."
"If he's got a hundred million to spend on the football team," the lieutenant governor said, "he can pay his own fucking way. Hell, if we spent that much money on our team, we'd beat UT like a redheaded stepchild."
Mack Murdoch wore his Texas A amp;M class ring as if it were a Purple Heart.
"Dicky, is the House on board with the 'guns on campus' bill? My boys at A amp;M are chomping at the bit."
"Mack," the speaker said, "I'm a little concerned that a kid who gets a B on a term paper might pull his piece and drop his professor."
The lieutenant governor shrugged. "One less Democrat in Texas."
Bode gestured at the speaker's notebook. "What else is on your list?"
The speaker had taken notice of Bode's grim mood.
"It's fun to talk about cutting spending out on the campaign trail, Governor, not so much actually doing it. And we haven't even gotten to the big budget items, K through twelve and Medicaid."
Bode exhaled. "Tell me about Medicaid."
"Bottomless hole and getting deeper by the day. Fifteen billion a year, a third of the budget. Six out of ten births in Texas are Medicaid babies, we're adding two hundred fifty thousand more people to the rolls each year. Just to keep up, we need three billion more. Every year. Forever."
"Why do poor people keep having kids they can't afford?" the lieutenant governor said. Then he answered his own question. "Because they don't have to afford them. We do. Problem is, won't be long before there ain't enough working people to pay for all the poor people."
Bode stared out the window at Texas twenty thousand feet below. Mack Murdoch was a cantankerous old fart who drank too much bourbon, but that didn't mean he was wrong. The great State of Texas was poor and getting poorer by the day. By the birth. Texas' population had exploded by 4.3 million during the last decade-twenty-five percent of the total U.S. population growth-and ninety percent of those new Texans were poor. They were making a poor state desperately poor. The future of Texas was not bright and shining. It was Mississippi.
"I'm telling you, boys," the lieutenant governor said, "this is the end of civilization as we know it. And with our demographics, Texas will be the first to go." He sighed. "This used to be a great goddamn state." He held up his glass as if to toast. "To Texas."
Bode and the speaker didn't join him in the toast. The lieutenant governor shrugged then downed his bourbon. Bode turned to the speaker.
"Tell me about K through twelve."
"Ten billion."
" Ten billion? Shit, Dicky, that's what, thirty percent of the education budget?"
"Thirty-seven. And another two billion for pre-K."
"We're gonna cut twelve billion from public schools?"
The speaker turned his palms up. "That's where the money's at."
"What's that mean?"
"We cut art and music classes, PE, libraries, band… we'll try to save football and coaches. We won't be able to save the teachers. We'll have to fire thousands. Tens of thousands."
"Tens of thousands?"
"Fifty, sixty, some projections say a hundred. Thousand."
"A hundred thousand teachers?"
The speaker gave a grim nod. "A third of the work force. And they won't take it lying down. They'll march on the Capitol. You piss off a middle-aged woman, you're in big trouble."
"I know. I'm married to one."
"We'll have to amend the law to permit larger class sizes, maybe twenty-five kids per class, maybe thirty-five. Maybe fifty-five."
"Fifty-five kids per class?"
"Governor, we net eighty thousand new students every year. So we need a billion more each year just to tread water. Even with this budget, we'll still be drowning before the next biennium." The speaker blew out a breath. "It's what they call, unsustainable."
"Twelve billion, that'll gut public education."
"We could cut football," the speaker said, "stop building those fancy high school stadiums."
"Cut football? In Texas?"
"We could drain the rainy day fund."
"The tea partiers would go apeshit, vote us out."
"We could apply the sales tax to services. We've got law firms in Houston and Dallas grossing a billion a year and not paying a dime in taxes."
"Then they'll go apeshit," the lieutenant governor said.
"So?"
"So it'll never get out of the Senate."
"Why not?"
"Every one of my senators is a lawyer."
"Can't school districts raise their local property taxes?" Bode said.
The speaker shook his head. "Everyone's already maxed out the tax rate, and home values keep falling. Taxes are plummeting and costs are skyrocketing. Not a good scenario for the future of education."
"We've already got the highest dropout and lowest graduation rates in the country."
"First in executions, last in graduations," the lieutenant governor said. "The state motto."
Bode ignored him. "What else can we do?"
"Reform the property tax," the speaker said. "Eliminate the exemption for private country clubs and ag. We've got ranchers and farmers sitting on land worth millions, but paying a few hundred bucks in taxes. Urban taxpayers are subsidizing rural taxpayers."
Bode shook his head. "Not politically doable. Those ranchers and farmers would torch the Capitol."
"We could pass that real-estate sales reporting bill, make the closing agents report the price of all property sales."
"Which does what?"
"Right now, there's no reporting, so there's no comps for commercial property. Buildings worth a hundred million in Dallas and Houston are on the tax rolls for a fraction of that, so developers are paying only a fraction of what they owe in property taxes. Across the state, we're talking billions in lost school taxes."
"The business lobby will say we're raising taxes," Jim Bob said.
"We're collecting taxes due. Homeowners are paying at one hundred percent market value, but developers are paying at twenty-five percent. That's not fair."
"This is politics," Jim Bob said. "Not preschool."
The speaker looked to Bode; he just shrugged, as if to say, The Professor's the boss on all things political.
"Then we fire teachers and close schools."
"How many schools?"
"Hundreds."
"Any in Austin?"
The speaker nodded. "My wife's on the school board. They're talking five hundred teachers and nine schools."
"You know which ones?"
"Matter of fact, she sent me an email yesterday, begged me to raise taxes and save our schools."
"Wives are naive like that," Jim Bob said.
The speaker opened his laptop and tapped the buttons.
"They'll have to close Oakwood, Barton, East Austin-"
"Shit. That's Lindsay's school. She volunteers there. I read to those kids."
"You read to kids in East Austin?"
Bode nodded. "Ms. Rodriguez-she's the teacher-she's working her butt off, trying to educate those kids. They close her school, what happens to the kids?"
"Bused to another school."
"What about the teachers?"
"Fired."
Bode downed another shot of bourbon.
"Christ, closing schools, firing teachers, making women get sonograms to have an abortion-if a mistress wasn't enough, this'll make Lindsay divorce me for sure."
"Oh," the speaker said, "we can all forget about conjugal visits next session."
"Hell," the lieutenant governor said, "I ain't had a hard-on since nineteen-eighty-nine. June."
"Thanks for sharing," Jim Bob said.
"Prostate?" Bode said.
"Yep. They yanked it out, left me insolent."
"Impotent," Jim Bob said.
"That, too."
"You miss it?" Bode said.
"My prostate?"
"Sex."
The lieutenant governor sighed. "Every day."
"Can we focus here?" Jim Bob said.
"Hell, Governor," the lieutenant governor said, "might be a good time to jump ship and make a run for the White House. Course, going from governor of a broke state to president of a broke country ain't exactly a promotion."
"You gonna do it?" the speaker said.
"Thinking about it."
"Can you beat Obama?" the lieutenant governor said.
"I beat Oklahoma."
"Governor," the speaker said, "you'd be leaving us at a bad time."
"Texas wasn't broke when George W. was in the White House," the lieutenant governor said.
"Now we're broke because he was in the White House," the speaker said.
"If Bode gets elected president, our budget problems are over. We'll be rolling in federal funds."
"I'll give all of New York's money to Texas."
"That ain't cheap," the lieutenant governor said, "running for the White House. It ain't like here in Texas where one John Ed Johnson can fund your campaign."
"Can you say Super PAC?" the Professor said. "Supreme Court threw out the limits on contributions to political advocacy groups. Freedom of speech. So all the candidates are forming Super PACs, shadow campaigns collecting hundreds of millions. This election, money's gonna decide who wins."
"Money can't vote," the speaker said.
"The hell it can't. We're going to round up twenty billionaires contributing fifty million each."
"Twenty times fifty," the lieutenant governor said. "That's a hundred million."
"A billion. You gotta carry the one."
"Oh."
The speaker shook his head. "The country's broke, but rich folks are still willing to bankroll a presidential campaign."
"Money's made in Washington, Dicky, because that's where the laws are made."
"Still, twenty billionaires…"
"Nineteen. John Ed is number one."
"He's in?"
"He is if he wants his condemnation bill signed by the governor. Speaking of which, we need you boys to get behind John Ed's bill, push your members to pass it next session."
"Jesus, Professor," the speaker said, "a special bill giving a billionaire the power to condemn folks' land?"
"You want to tell John Ed no?"
The speaker sighed in the face of political reality.
"No."
"Good."
"Well, Governor, until you move into the White House," the speaker said, "we've got to find some way to balance the budget."
"We raise taxes, Dicky," the lieutenant governor said, "we'll be looking for jobs with those teachers."
"Then we cut twenty-seven billion from the budget," the speaker said.
"Damn, Dicky," Bode said, "there's no other way to balance the budget?"
"Only one."
"What's that?"
"Five-dollar-a-gallon gas."
"What do you mean?"
"When gas spiked to four dollars back in oh-eight, our oil and gas taxes spiked, too, generated an extra five billion for the rainy day fund. I figure five bucks a gallon for a year, maybe two, we could balance the budget without taxes or cuts."
"You run the numbers on that?" Jim Bob asked.
"Yeah. Five bucks would do it."
"Like the good old days when oil and gas paid all the bills in Texas," the lieutenant governor said. He raised his glass again. "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."
He was drunk.
"Goddamnit, Mack, no Goldwater quotes. We're trying to save our fucking state."
Bode drank his bourbon.
"God, I hate this."
"What-governing?"
"This economy gets any worse, we'll be shutting the state down. Last one out, turn off the lights."
He poured another bourbon.
"We've got to keep this quiet until after the election," Jim Bob said. "Word gets out we're going to gut the budget, voters will be marching on the Governor's Mansion. Now is no time for the truth."
"Amen to that," the lieutenant governor said.
"Sam Houston came to Texas in eighteen-thirty-two because he saw Texas as the land of promise. It was. It is. There is still a place where freedom reigns and government does not-that place is called Texas. My fellow Republicans, welcome to Texas!"
Governor Bode Bonner stood on the dais framed by Texas and U.S. flags and two huge video screens on which his image was displayed for the ten thousand conservatives crammed into the Houston Civic Center. He was giving the opening speech at the Republican political action committee conference, the best opportunity for Republican political candidates to audition for votes and money. Donors, fundraisers, bundlers, PACs, politicians, billionaires, and corporate executives had come to buy and sell political favors. Bode walked off the stage to thunderous applause. Of course, most of the audience were drunk by now.
A political event held in Houston, Texas, meant country-western music and money. Lots of money. And liquor, of course. And cowboy boots and ten-gallon hats. Texans "playing Texan," as Edna Ferber called it, twanging and drawling and spitting out "y'all" and "howdy" like they were getting paid by the "y'all" and "howdy." Ranger Hank stood to the side of Bode and fit right in wearing his cowboy uniform. Jim Bob leaned into Bode from the other side and whispered, "Ralph and Nadine," just before a heavy-set, middle-aged couple arrived. The man stuck his hand out to Bode.
"Howdy, Governor. Good shooting."
Bode shook his hand and slapped his back.
"Ralph, how you doin,' buddy? And Nadine, you're looking as pretty as ever."
She outweighed Bode by fifty pounds.
"Governor," Ralph said, "I sure like what I heard on Fox News last Sunday. You've got my full support."
Jim Bob pulled out a small notebook and a sharp pen. He looked at Ralph.
"How much?" he said.
"How much what?" Ralph said.
"How much support?"
"Oh, well…"
"We need fifty million, Ralph."
"Damn, Jim Bob, that's real money."
"You've got three billion."
"Well, sure, but…"
"We're forming a Super PAC. We have room for only twenty donors, Ralph. Buy-in is fifty million."
"And what do I get for my money?"
"What do you want?"
"Hell, I got everything I want."
"Must be something… a law, a regulation, an environmental waiver …"
Ralph glanced at Nadine then across the room.
"Honey, look, that gal over there, is that one of the Kardashian sisters?"
Nadine's head shot around.
"Where?"
"At the bar."
"Oh, my gosh. It might be."
"Better go check it out."
Nadine scurried off. Ralph turned back.
"I want to have sex with my mistress in the Governor's Mansion, in the same bed Sam Houston slept in."
"But that's my bed," Bode said.
"Done," the Professor said.
He jotted in his notebook.
"I got you down for fifty million, Ralph. I'll get back to you with wiring instructions and a date for your sleepover."
They all shook hands.
"Thanks, Ralph," Bode said. "Have fun."
"Long as the whiskey holds out," Ralph said.
He left. Bode watched after Ralph.
"Ralph is so damn ugly, when he was a kid his mama took him everywhere with her so she didn't have to kiss him goodbye. Can you imagine what his mistress looks like?"
He then turned to Jim Bob.
"Make damn sure to burn the sheets."
A tall, white-haired man arrived next. Paul Saunders, the senior Republican senator from Oklahoma. His breath was ninety proof.
"Senator, good to see you," Bode said.
"Governor. You've had an interesting couple of weeks. Reckon shooting those Mexicans will be enough to get you into the White House?"
"Maybe."
"Maybe not. Obama got Osama, but his pop in the polls lasted one news cycle. Even so, that's an expensive journey. We can help you."
Senator Saunders headed the Republican reelection committee. He held the purse strings to the Establishment money.
"We're forming our own Super PAC," Jim Bob said.
The senator exhaled heavily.
"Goddamn Supreme Court. We get the law all fixed so we can control the flow of campaign money, then they toss the law out like yesterday's newspaper. 'Unconstitutional,' they said. 'So fucking what?' I said. Never stopped us before. Hell, damn near every law we pass is unconstitutional if you want to get technical about that sort of thing."
"Why are you coming to me?" Bode said.
The senator sipped his drink.
"Palin."
"She scares the hell out of you boys, doesn't she?"
A senatorial groan.
"More than you can imagine. She refuses to play ball by our rules. She thinks she doesn't need us, that she can tell us to go to hell. You know what would happen if every Republican politician started thinking like that?"