A state of disobedience

Washington, DC

The President's office was bright with the sun, but dark with anger and—more than a little—with despair, frustration and sheer worry. Things were simply not supposed to happen like this; not to her, certainly. Rottemeyer had never in her worst nightmares envisioned the kind of resistance she had generated in Texas, the kind of hatred. She thrived on being loved and worshipped. Indeed, every step of her life had been devoted to purchasing love and worship; albeit generally with other people's money. This change in her fortunes was both unexpected and deeply demoralizing; not least demoralizing to the Cabinet that had had such faith in her.

Privately, Rottemeyer thought of her Cabinet as the "Four F's": "flunkies, flics, flacs and fairies." The first three described, respectively, those who did her job for her, those who arrested those who made her job more difficult, and those who dealt with the press. The last, the "fairies," were scattered about the first three groups, each "fairy" representing cash payment for the unquestioning support given Rottemeyer by much of the extremely influential gay community.

As the herd of "Four F's" droned on, Rottemeyer had rotated her chair around, in seeming contempt for her Cabinet. Still, eyes fixed elsewhere, her ears listened intently to what was being said . . . listened, and didn't like what they heard.

Treasury spoke last and to the President's back. "To my mind, Madam President, the most dangerous things the Texans have done are fiscal. General McCreavy can worry about their having increased their defense forces. I am not worried about that. Ultimately, even she agrees we could handle that problem, if not easily.

"The attorney general fears a breakdown of law and order across the country. That's specious nonsense; sorry. The Texans appear to be doing a fine job of controlling crime within their borders without any federal help. Though, with recent round-ups there, I concede that some Texan criminals are fleeing that state for the other forty-nine.

"The surgeon general's office worries about abortion rights. I think we can safely say that any Texan woman who wants an abortion can easily go to Oklahoma or Louisiana to get one. Women in New York, contrarily, seem safe from being forced to go to Texas to prevent them from having one. They can already not have one, even in New York, if they wish.

"The secretary of state worries about our influence in the world waning when we cannot exercise full power here at home. I submit to you, Madame President, that if we fail to exercise full power at home then to hell with our influence in the world.

"But this nullification of the income tax and other taxes? The grabbing of the Western Currency Facility? These are potentially disastrous."

Rottemeyer swung her chair around. "Explain," she demanded.

Treasury sighed. He knew the President was fully aware of what he was about to say. Yet, still, it had to be stated, and clearly.

"Texas provides something like seven point six percent of federal revenues. A good portion of that goes back to the state, of course, in the form of federal aid. Yet, overall, taxation of Texas and Texans is a profit-making endeavor for the federal government. About a six-cent profit on the dollar. Money from there, other less populated and more conservative states too, goes to paying for social programs all over the rest of the country. Madam President, your continued popularity with the voters depends on those programs."

Around the table heads nodded soberly. Few in Willi's Cabinet had any real illusions that her popularity and power—their own power as well—was, except for a small hard core, anything but bought and paid for through federal largesse. Certainly they had no doubt that it would not survive a significant decrease in federal payouts.

Treasury looked from face to face. Yes, he saw. He had the Cabinet's agreement, by and large. Even the attorney and surgeon generals, State and Interior, agreed.

"We can continue to print money, of course, and write checks that have no tax money to back them. That doesn't matter, per se. Yet the effect of doing so will be increased inflation, indirect taxation if you will. And that will also cost influence with the voters."

Rottemeyer scowled, "Can it, Seymour. In about five years. But these are all leisurely emergencies. Their consequences can't possibly be felt till this issue is resolved.

Plenty of time to head off that problem. Next?"

Treasury tried to go on in that vein. "But Madame President, my predictions—"

"Doesn't matter much what they predict, Willi," drawled Carroll. "I can tell you what our time limit is just like that," he said, snapping fingers. "We have until the next congressional elections to settle this problem. Not one day longer."

With this logic Rottemeyer agreed. They had until the next election.

Turning to Carroll, she asked, "Suppose everything Treasury says is true. The increased taxation, the inflation, the shortened revenues; why wouldn't the states around Texas side with us to bring that state back into the fold and reduce their own burdens?"

" 'Cause they hate our guts, Willi. Simple as that. Did you know that Louisiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Alabama and Mississippi have put guards around the houses of the state commissioners you appointed over them? 'To secure their persons,' that's pretty much what those states say. Horseshit! They're under house arrest plain and simple. Arizona's and New Mexico's legislatures went into special session last night to debate nullifying the income tax in those states. I don't think those measures will pass, not yet. But, Willi, they hate us. And if we don't control this thing we're all going to end up with ropes around our necks." Carroll laughed aloud to see three cabinet members unconsciously reach fingers up to massage necks still unstretched.

State consciously removed his fingers from his neck in embarrassment. "There's one way to bring them around, Madam President; a foreign war or crises. That would not only justify any measures we care to take, but would also justify . . . excuse anyway . . . any new taxes or inflation. Moreover, Texas is full of patriotic types, whatever their objections to our philosophy of government. If this crisis were to turn into a disaster . . ."

McCreavy's face grew instantly red and hot. "Are you suggesting we ought to send American troops somewhere to get killed just to turn the Texans' anger away from the President and toward some foreign group?" she asked, furiously.

Rottemeyer made her familiar pat-pat pacifying motion with her hand. "Calm down, Caroline. He's merely pointing out an option."

To State, Rottemeyer said, "Look at the options. See if there is, in fact, some place in the world we need to become engaged in anyway. Look for a place where there is likely to be resistance."

Appalled by the thought of a foreign war, Treasury spoke up again, carefully clipped words still coming out with hesitation. "Madam President"—oh, what the hell, they were old friends—"Willi . . . I know the whole idea is . . . oh . . . say . . . a little 'distasteful' to you. To any of us here, really. But there is something to be said for just letting Texas go. If they'll actually go."

Carroll, whose ancestors had once been forced—most unwillingly—back into the Union, make a spitting sound. "That's the most asinine thing I've ever heard . . . no offense."

"None taken," answered Treasury in a tone that clearly conveyed the message "asshole." "But, again, consider the benefits. Right now we might not survive the next election with Texas. But without? Without all those Democrat votes in the House and Senate that may as well be Republican? Without all those individual 'Democrats' voting for a Republican President. Madame President . . .Willi . . . at least consider letting them go; kicking them out of the Union if they won't toe the line. It would shift the balance of power so far towards our way of thinking that the conservatives would never, never return."

Carroll's voice, in imitation of Treasury's "asshole" tone, countered, "Did you even take history in high school? It is precisely because of what it would do to the balance of power in the country that we can't, can't, CAN'T let Texas go."

Clasping hands together and rubbing palms, he turned his gaze back to Rottemeyer. "Willi, you don't want to hear this anymore than I want to say it. But the only thing keeping thirty-six other states in the Union is the mere chance that, come next election, they can get rid of us. If Texas goes out, there will go their last chance of getting us out. And so they will leave too. And it won't be like the last time."

Of McCreavy he asked, uncharacteristically using her rank, "General, is there a chance in hell that you can force thirty-six states in the lower forty-eight back into the union with the remaining twelve? Didn't think so. Is there a chance you could keep them from overrunning us?"

McCreavy sighed. She seemed to be doing that a lot lately. "I could defend Hawaii . . . provided we were willing to become part of the Empire of Japan. But you exaggerate the dangers. Surely not more than thirty states would actually join Texas," she added, somewhat sarcastically.

"Okay, thirty," Carroll conceded. "Does that change anything?"

"No."

"Jesus, why did this have to happen to me?" asked Rottemeyer of the room.

The question was rhetorical. Nonetheless, Carroll answered. "Because we moved too fast, Willi."

"Maybe . . . just maybe. But you've already said we have to move fast now . . . and that we don't have any choice about Texas. So we're going to bring it back under control. On my command. Soon.

"In the interim," Rottemeyer continued, "here's what we're going to do. General McCreavy, I want you to pull . . . what was that group? Third Corps?" Seeing McCreavy's nod, she went on, "Pull Third Corps out of Texas and into the surrounding states. Reinforce them with everything we have. You can pull one division out of Germany and any troops we have here in the States. They are to prepare for an invasion . . . no, call it the 'liberation' of Texas. They are not to commence hostilities without my say so. I also am going to at least prepare to take State's advice. I want you to prepare a contingency force for some contingency overseas. Don't argue with me about that, Caroline."

Rottemeyer noted with satisfaction that McCreavy jotted every word down into her notebook and did not argue the point.

Jesse Vega looked up expectantly as Rottemeyer turned her attention towards her. "Yes, Willi?"

"Jesse, I want you to take control of and assemble all federal law enforcement personnel and assets in the states around Texas and any that escaped from Texas before they began rounding up our people. I mean all of them: BATF, FBI, EPA and the Presidential Guard, Secret Service." Rottemeyer did not much care for using her Guard's common name, PGSS.

"How long will that take?"

McCreavy thought furiously. In theory we could move fifteen or twenty thousand troops in three days. Theory's shit. In practice double that? Nah, never happen. Double it again and round up to an even two weeks. Then . . . maybe.

Vega, likewise, contemplated the difficulty of overcoming sheer bureaucratic inertia, cope with interagency rivalry and jealousy, and came up, similarly, with about two weeks . . . maybe.

Exchanging glances, McCreavy and Vega seemed to come to an agreement. They said, almost simultaneously, "About two weeks."

McCreavy then added, "That's just to get the troops—and I mean just the troops and their individual arms—somewhere useful. Getting their heavy equipment out of war stocks, bringing it up to speed, issuing it? Madame President, that's going to be another thirty days. Minimum."

Rottemeyer seemed to ignore her. "Can you drum up a propaganda campaign in two weeks? A good one?" she asked Carroll.

"Child's play, Willi." He snorted, disdaining the very notion that he might have trouble with something so simple as twisting and distorting the truth.

"Good. Make it child's play. Make it suitable for the 'children' who make up the bulk of our support. I want them clamoring for me to 'do something' . . . to 'save the children.' " The sheer innocence and naivete of many of her supporters brought a smile to her face.

"Now at the end of those two weeks I am going to order you," she said to Vega, "to round up 'dissident, criminal elements' in Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and—especially—Arkansas. I will not be averse if you grab my ex-husband if he happens to be in Arkansas with one of his bimbos. Most particularly do I want you to shut down the irresponsible press that might be against us in those areas. Toss them into prison with the general population. We'll see how they like being made non-anal-retentive.

"At the same time as we begin the round-up, I want the borders with Texas shut down. I mean shut! No food in or out. No manufactured goods, in or out. No telephone service; no mail service. I want that border locked tighter than a drum. If there's a way to stop water from flowing, do that too.

"We'll give them maybe three or four weeks of that, then we'll invade. I don't care how you do it, but be ready by then," she said, with determination, to McCreavy.

* * *

After the meeting, McCreavy called aside Treasury to ask what it was he had been trying to make the President see.

The secretary shrugged helplessly. "Oh just this, General. With Texas in control of the Western Currency Facility at Fort Worth, they are able and likely to exacerbate the inflation problem without any help from us. I really do not see where they even have a choice. We can expect them to float their quasi-rebellion on a sea of paper . . . the value of which—until we can change the money format . . . and this will take quite some time—will be subtracted from us."

"Yes, so?" she asked. Economics was never her forte.

"Well between increased taxation and indirect taxation through inflation, we stand a very real chance at some point in time of other states following Texas' lead. And that nobody can really predict. It's almost outside the realm of economics. But you can imagine the spiral that it could cause in the areas least loyal to the President." Treasury meant, of course, "most disloyal." But why add to the tension, after all?

"At some point in time, if this spreads, we will no longer be able, fiscally able, to function as a nation. Certainly not as the kind of nation we in that room envision us as being.

"In particular, the one tax nearly everyone pays is the Social Security tax . . . that and Medicare. Already, we are diverting general revenues to support the Social Security system. Every worker who drops out from paying SSI and Medicare tax makes this burden more insupportable. No, we are not going to have to close down the system. But some economies may have to be introduced. For example we might need an emergency pro temp price freeze on all medical commodities. Nothing bad would happen for a year or two. For that matter we could draft doctors by the battalion and pay them army wages."

McCreavy's face took on a scowl. She knew Willi and her party were not in the business, had never been in the business, of economizing when it cost political power to do so. Dangerous, dangerous, whispered a voice in the back of her mind.

"There is some good news," continued Treasury. "It isn't all bad. Take the corporate income tax. Of course anyone in the know has long since realized it's a sales tax on consumers. Many corporations even make a small premium on collecting it, much as they do state sales taxes, although unlike state sales tax this premium is not sanctioned by statute. So the larger corporations are unlikely to relocate to Texas to escape it. But some that are already in Texas will no longer be paying. That's going to hurt too. We'll have to raise the rate on the others a bit . . . meaning more inflation as that higher rate gets passed on. For some marginal industries, though, it just acts like another damned cost. Publishers? The rest of the entertainment industry and all of the support they give our cause? If people are strapped and stop buying their product, the party loses.

"One other troubling thing. The gift and estate tax never brought in more than perhaps two percent of federal revenues directly. Much of that went to collecting the tax itself. Still, much of what the estate tax did not take, it did not take due to clever but expensive lawyering. Thus we managed to obtain quite a lot through income taxation on legal fees. Since Texas has also nullified the gift and estate tax, we expect to see money flowing into Texas to preserve it from estate taxation. This brings it out of our hands and hurts estate planning lawyers who are among the party's biggest supporters and defenders . . . to say nothing of contributors. Lastly, that money could and probably will serve as loans to help keep Texas solvent."

"How long before we begin to feel the effects?" asked McCreavy.

"My people are working on that very question now, General. The problem, again, is that it is not entirely an economic or fiscal issue. Much will depend on people's perceptions. And those my department can neither predict, nor much affect."

Treasury's face took on a somber mien. "Still, I can't help but note that the Great Depression took a matter of days to wreck the economy. This might, or—admittedly—might not, be as bad as that. It's fair to say though, General, that when you invade you had better win quickly."