299 Days: The Preparation

Chapter 26 That’s Our Money. We Need It.

Even before he was sworn in as the State Auditor, Rick Menlow was thinking about his next step. After all, there would be an election for Governor in four years.

Many Republicans who were stunned and thrilled to actually have one of their party in a statewide office of some kind, constantly told Menlow that he should run. Day in and day out, all Menlow heard from people around him was how he should be the next Governor. He could save the state of Washington from its current problems. He could do it, they kept telling him.

During one of the transition meetings after he won the Auditor’s election, Menlow brought up the subject with Grant and the other WAB staff.

“Should I run for Governor in four years?” He asked them.

“Of course,” said Ben. “You’d make a great Governor. You’ll have to kick ass during the next four years as the State Auditor, but it could be done. The next election should be a good time to be a Republican, at least nationally. The Ds run everything now so they’ll get the blame when all of this stupid socialist shit quits working.”

Brian and Tom agreed, and talked about things Menlow could do as the State Auditor to improve his chances for getting the governorship.

Menlow looked at Grant and asked, “If I’m the Governor, what role would you like in my administration?”

Grant thought a while. No one had ever asked him that question. “I wouldn’t mind being a judge,” Grant said finally. “That way, I could help get things back to the Constitution.”

Menlow smiled. “I will keep that in mind.” Now Grant’s career was linked to Menlow’s fortunes, exactly as Menlow wanted. It was the oldest trick in the political book: obtain loyalty from a subordinate by promising career advancement to the subordinate when the higher-up wins the next election. Subordinates had been known to do amazing things for that promised plum position after the next election.

There was one non-WAB person in the room when Menlow started charting his course to be the Governor. Menlow made his campaign manager, Jeanie Thompson, his communications director. She handled the press and ran the Auditor’s communications efforts. She was in charge of publicizing the good things the office would be doing.

Jeanie was very young, in her mid-twenties. She had just graduated from college. She was an attractive woman, with black hair and green eyes. She tastefully used her good looks to charm the men and get her boss’s agenda out to the public. She backed it up by being smarter than hell.

Jeanie was a conservative true believer. “Conservative” was the term people used for people like Jeanie and Grant who simply believed less government was better; conservative didn’t necessarily mean a social conservative. There were almost no social conservatives in the Seattle area. Conservatives like Jeanie and Grant simply wanted less government. They had strong views on social issues, but didn’t want the government imposing social views on people because they had seen how abusive government was.

In fact, it would be more precise to call people like Jeanie and Grant “libertarians.” They were moderate libertarians who weren’t all the way out there on privatizing fire departments and cutting the military by 95%. People like Jeanie and Grant just wanted to return the government to its past role of carrying out limited and well-defined powers as provided in the Constitution. Was that so radical?

Of course, the liberals used the term “conservative” as an insult. They fully wanted people to think that a conservative was a social conservative because social conservatism was so unpopular in the Seattle area. Oh well. Let them use whatever phrase they wanted, Grant thought. People like Jeanie and Grant knew what they believed, even if the liberals were trying to define them as intolerant people.

Because she was so young, Jeanie realized the problems big government created. She hadn’t lived through a few decades of watching government slowly build up. She hadn’t had decades of being told how necessary all of these programs were. In her short life, she saw a snapshot of how America was.

And it had way too much government. Unsustainable amounts of government. Baby Boomers were voting themselves benefit after benefit — and handing the bill to her generation. The younger the people were, the less they bought into the big government viewpoint. But that didn’t mean that younger people were libertarians. Most were apathetic. Government was huge and stupid and that’s how it was. They would rather play video games.

Being a conservative in the Seattle area was hard. The socially intolerant connotations of the term conservative equated to being a hateful person. This meant that a conservative had to be his or her own person.

For Jeanie, this meant being herself and not giving a damn what people thought. Since she was far more libertarian than socially conservative, Jeanie partied her ass off. As she put it, “I put the ‘party’ in the ‘Republican party.’” Grant was the same way so they got along just fine.

Grant would have beers with Jeanie, and the handful of other conservatives in Olympia. Jeanie would come over to the Matson house. She didn’t have kids so she loved seeing Manda and Cole. Grant even invited her to the very special WAB Super Bowl and Fourth of July parties. She fit in perfectly into the tiny, tiny conservative social circles of Olympia.

Jeanie had a boyfriend, Jim. He was in early thirties and worked for the Department of Revenue, or “DOR” as everyone in Olympia called it. He was DOR’s database expert who kept the state tax computer system humming along. Jim was also an officer in the Washington National Guard and worked on their computers.

Jim and Grant worked out at the same time at the gym and they got to know each other well. Jim must have trusted Grant because one day, after a hard work out, he used the “R” word with Grant. It wasn’t “Republican.”

Jim looked around to make sure no one in the area could hear him. “You know, Grant, things are getting so bad there might be a revolution in this country. People won’t take all the taxes and bullying.”

Revolution? Grant had thought it but never heard anyone else say that word.

“Don’t get me wrong — I don’t want a revolution,” Jim said.

“I’m in the Guard. I will have to put anything like that down. I have an obligation to.” He paused and looked Grant right in the eye. “It’s coming.”

Jim looked away because he couldn’t handle how serious this conversation was getting. He resumed a normal conversational tone. “The things I see at DOR would blow your mind. They just make up rules and nail people for cash. It’s a racket. Unreal. I can’t believe people are just taking this. They can’t keep on getting screwed like this for long. They will rise up at some point.” Jim appeared relieved by getting this off his chest.

“I’m trying to find another job,” he whispered. “I can’t stand what DOR is doing. But I know the DOR computer systems like the back of my hand. I run them. That knowledge doesn’t transfer easily into any other job. What I do is too specialized.”

A guy who thinks there will be a revolution is the guy in charge of the state tax computer system? That seemed like a bit of a security breach.

Grant wanted to help Jim but knew he couldn’t really. “I’ll keep my ears open for you, Jim.” Then talk turned to “safe” topics like sports and celebrities that were destroying their lives.

On the way back to the office, Grant drove by Nancy Ringman, the old Auditor’s Chief of Staff. She hadn’t been immediately fired by Rick Menlow, but after a few months, she finally left the Auditor’s Office.

Nancy landed on her feet, though. Her good friend, the Governor, appointed her to be the head of the Campaign Finance Commission. That agency, commonly called the CFC, was the one that enforced the state’s campaign financial disclosure laws. This would give her the power to investigate candidates and political contributors for not reporting contributions. The CFC was famous for investigating Republicans but looking the other way at Democrats. Great, Grant thought. Nancy’s experience at the State Auditor’s Office covering up Democrats’ illegal activities makes her perfectly qualified for the CFC.

Running the CFC was about the same level of job she had at the Auditor’s Office. In fact, she was probably making more money. But that’s not what she wanted. She wanted to run the Auditor’s Office the way she wanted to run it. She didn’t want to start again in some other agency. She had been pissed for weeks.

Nancy was cold to Grant the few times he saw her in the neighborhood where they both lived. Vicious was actually a better word. One time she couldn’t hold it back and ripped into Grant about “Republicans not caring about the work we do” or something. Grant thought she might try to hit him, which was a pretty silly thought, but she seemed that mad. How weird, Grant thought. What a hateful little monster. Oh well. Grant could care less what she thought, but he was struck at how angry she was. He figured he better steer clear of her for a while.

As a government insider at the State Auditor’s Office, Grant now got to see it close up. It was even worse than he knew when he was on the outside.

Grant spent most of his day going to meetings at which nothing got done. During one all-agency meeting in the Governor’s Office about what state agencies would propose to the Legislature in the next legislative session, there was a request for suggestions to deal with the ballooning public employee pension crisis. The Governor’s legislative director, Sean Patterson, kicked it off.

“Well,” said Sean, a distinguished looking fifty-something man with silver hair and an impeccable suit, “our state and local government pension funds are $16 billion in the hole. The unions won’t budge. The Governor doesn’t want to ask any more of them. You understand.” They all did, except Grant. Well, he understood why, but he didn’t agree.

Grant blurted out, “How is this sustainable?”

Silence.

Most people in the room didn’t know who Grant was, let alone that he worked for a Republican. They assumed he was some uninformed staffer covering a meeting for his boss.

Sean, who knew that Grant was an opponent, said coolly, “The system was set up when times were better.”

“But didn’t anyone have a plan for if the good times didn’t last?” Grant asked.

More silence. Now Grant was getting some glares.

“Let me be honest, Grant,” Sean said in a mildly condescending voice. “The system wasn’t designed to last. It was temporary. It got us through some elections, OK? We all knew it wouldn’t last, but the end came quicker and harder than we thought. OK?” He said “OK” as if to say “you made your point, you little snot nose, now let’s move on to the meeting that I’m in control of.”

“Understood,” Grant said. He had to show some respect, or he’d be thrown out of the meeting. He needed to stay in that meeting to gather more intelligence; political intelligence.

The main subject of the meeting was the recent revenue shortfall. For some reason that no one in the room could understand (except Grant), raising taxes had resulted in less economic activity and therefore less tax revenue. They were baffled.

“We need the money,” Sean said. “That’s the bottom line. How do we go get it?”

“Let’s raise the income tax on high-end earners,” was someone’s predictable suggestion.

“Well, we’ve done that a lot lately,” said the Governor’s political director, whose name Grant had forgotten. “The ‘high-end’ earner is now getting down to the upper ends of the middle class.” The political director did not want her boss, the Governor, to run for re- election after raising taxes a zillionth time.

Sean shot back, “That’s our money. We need it.”

“Your money?” Grant said with obvious anger. “It’s not your money, it’s theirs.” Grant looked Sean right in the eyes.

Silence.

Everyone stared at Grant. That was twice now that Grant had said something inappropriate. Grant wanted to leave the room but knew he couldn’t. He had to be there for all the Ed Oleos, Big Sams, and Joe Tantoris. But he had nothing more to say. He had just said all he needed to.

After Grant recovered from saying something that stunned the whole room into silence, he started to think about what had Sean had just said. Oh God, Grant thought. It’s true. These people really think the people’s money is the government’s money. The people work for the government. The people need to work harder so the government can get more. Grant had always thought they believed it, but there in that conference room they had come right out and said it. It was true. He was seeing it with his own eyes. It was frightening.

Right then and there Grant decided that he couldn’t be part of this. He also realized — with absolute certainty now — that the government was worse than even he had thought. These people were thieves.

How could these thieves keep doing this and not get caught?

Grant had a second epiphany: the idiot sheeple kept voting for the thieves. The sheeple got scraps from the thieves and were too scared to stand up for what’s right. It was kind of like his mom letting his dad hurt people because she was too weak to stand up. Same thing, bigger scale.

Grant struggled to stay in his chair and make it through the meeting. When the meeting was finally over, he walked back from the Governor’s Office to the nearby Auditor’s Office on the capitol grounds. All the post-election euphoria about getting to help people from the inside had thoroughly worn off by now. Little by little, the old staff that remained in the Auditor’s Office were thwarting the new Auditor’s reform agenda. Grant knew this would happen. Now the old staff was rallying and making it impossible for the new Auditor and the handful of his new people to get any reforms done. It was getting ridiculous. Grant needed to do something about it.

He walked into Menlow’s office, and closed the Auditor’s door. “Rick,” Grant said to Menlow, “you need to fire some people or they’ll derail you.”

The Auditor did not like this. Before Grant had made it back to the office, Sean had called Menlow to tell him about Grant’s “divisive” remarks at the meeting. Menlow needed Grant to quit causing him problems. Grant’s “helping the citizens” thing had gone a little too far.

Menlow calmly replied, “Grant, I need to govern. I’m no longer running for this office when I needed to promise reforms. I need to be practical now. Maybe you could be a little more cooperative with the staff here.”

Grant understood perfectly what Menlow was saying. “Play ball” was the message he was sending to Grant. This was the beginning of the end of Grant’s government employment. Good riddance.

There was no reason to be a jerk to Menlow; it wouldn’t change anything. “I will try, Mr. Auditor,” Grant said. There was some silence and then Grant added, “I’d better get back to work.” Time to start the exit from the Auditor’s Office and get back to WAB. Grant had tried to reform the system from the inside. At least he tried.

Grant looked for Jeanie so he could vent to her. She was a hardcore conservative so she would see his point of view.

Jeanie seemed to have been expecting Grant to talk to her. Had Menlow told her about the meeting?

Grant told her what had happened and that he needed to leave the Auditor’s Office. “Jeanie, how can you stand all this?”

“I dunno, Grant,” Jeanie said with a sigh. “I need this job.

There aren’t too many slots for a Republican communications director in this state.” Her voice turned jokingly sarcastic to make the point, “Oh, wait, there’s only one and I already have the job. I need to keep it.”

Grant could see where this was going. He had stupidly put his faith in a politician and a political system. This system was not fixable. At least not without massive change. An election here and there couldn’t do it. It would take something bigger. That terrified him.