by Danny Dunn
They all laugh and enjoy their momentary victory.
The EVA then proceeds to the Senate, which goes through similar but less dramatic resistance. Senate leaders register their protest in terms of how this is being shoved down their throats. They talk about slippery slopes and what this could lead to, but they can see the writing on the wall and know that if they are singled out, they will lose their soon to be $2M per year jobs and go along with the program.
The NAP puts together committees to implement the voting rules, which is a no brainer in terms of making it easy to vote. The much harder job was making so hard to vote.
The of last 27 incumbents still under their lobbyists, big donators, and deep pocket groups hire a political law firm to fight the Hyper Track law first in the lower courts, and the lower courts refuse to hear the case citing that the president is acting within the parameters of his special powers. They add that the house and senate are a mess that needs cleaning up, and neither has not been acting on behalf of the people and that the president is, in fact, carrying out the will of the American people.
The firm requests that the Supreme court hear their case, and the Supreme court ignores their request and adjourn until October.
Tom submits his next bill, which is called The Clean Houses Act.
The president delivers a speech to the American people. As promised, I am about to deliver our bill to clean up corruption in our house and senate. I would like to share the statistics on crime and corruption by our congress and senate.
The first chart shows the number of cases per year by case type. As you can see from the last 10, the numbers are growing substantially. Notice that bribery and corruption, Campaign and election crimes are way up, as are ethics violations and sexual harassment and abuse.
The chart below shows the consequences of the crimes above. What is very concerning to me is that there are zero exclusion and zero expulsions since 2010. There are lots of resignations. That means senators and Congressmen have been found guilty of misconduct like campaign and elections, Bribery and corruption, sexual harassment and abuse, and ethics violations but were allowed to resign so that they get to collect their extremely generous pensions along with a multitude of very lavish benefits. That stops with this bill. The message is this. We are willing to pay very comfortable salaries to our politicians to help rebuild America, but we will not tolerate anyone using their office and the power we entrust them with to use their power to cheat, lie, steal or harass others. And if you do, you are not just risking fines and jail you are risking your pension and benefits. The good ole days of well buddy you got caught, so it is time for you to retire and live out your rich and comfortable life is over.
Keep in mind these are not suspect, accused, tried, these are only the ones where the perpetrator was found guilty. So, in this scenario, a corrupt politician can perpetrate any number of crimes to get rich, harass and abuse and when they get caught, just say oopsy, OK, I will leave and collect my great benefits now. Not on my watch.
It includes the following.
Increase Senator and Congress salary from $174,000, per year to $2,000,000 per year
No insider trading – punishable by fines up to $2M and imprisonment for up to 10 years
No family and friends profiting from insider information – punishable by fines up to $2M and imprisonment for up to 10 years
No contribution of over $100 from anyone - punishable by fines up to $1M and imprisonment for up to 10 years.
No contact or cooperation, interaction, planning with CPACs for 10 years
No politician can vote if they have a family member that would benefit from their vote
No lobbyists allowed in the house or senate for 10 years.
No congressman, senator, or their employees, agents, or contractors are to accept contributions, favors, gifts, including trips, meals, entertainment of any kind. Punishment by fines up to $2M and imprisonment up to 10 years.
No congressman, senator or their employees, agents, or contractors are to meet with any person, group, or entity know to be in the business of soliciting favors, special considerations, or other means of favor in return for money or other forms of payment to the congressman or senator or any of their employees, agents, or contractors.
Willfully lying to anybody shall constitute grounds for prosecution
Accepting any contribution which is dependent on a condition of any kind
All unused campaign funds are to be donated to charity.
No Congressman, Senator, their employees, contractors, or agents will hold any position in either house if they have been found guilty of misconduct in the following areas over the last 10 years.
Bribery or corruption
Sexual harassment and abuse
Ethics
Campaign and elections
Any Congressman, Senator, their employees, contractors, or agents still in office 30-days after the passage of this bill will be expelled from office without pension benefits.
Tom announces that upon enactment of this bill, the president will launch a corruption investigation to ensure there are no existing forms of corruption in place. And offers amnesty for any senator, congressman, and their employees, agents, and contractors should they resign in the next 30 days.
Tom submits his Clean Houses Act, and the bill is submitted to the house and is read aloud. There is little resistance to this one as the remaining incumbents realize the game is over.
Ten of the sitting representatives and 50 of their employees and consultants and contractors retire with full benefits from the house. Twelve Senators and 100 of their employees, contractors, and consultants resign as well, citing how the senate and house are being run by a dictator, and they want no part of it.
Emergency elections are held, and NAP candidates win in every seat.
The third Hyper Track bill Tom submits is the bill he promised to the college students across the country. Which he is calling the Tuition Fairness Act.
The bill includes
All of the “too big to fail” banks are to loan out a minimum of 1% of their loans in the form of student loans to keep their standing as a US financial institution.
Capping tuition fees to meet the rate of inflation only
Colleges locking tuition rates on accepted students until the end of their attendance, including post-grad students.
Capping student loan interest rates to match prime home mortgage plus 2%. This is to include existing loans.
Extending the default term from 9 months to 18 months
At the time of default, the amount freezes, and there are to be no additional fines are interest accumulation after the loan is in default at 18 months.
The banks file a lawsuit against the government claiming that any law passed under the Hyper Track program is unconstitutional. The court rules that the Hyper Track program is, in fact, valid and upholds the government’s program.
The banks file a second lawsuit claiming that forcing them to loan to students is also unconstitutional. The court rules that as long as the government is requiring only as part of their conditions for the banks to use their money, then the banks can simply decide not to use the government's money.
End Chapter 53
Chapter 54 – Rats Are Such Nasty Little Creatures
While the student loan fairness act is in process, Tom, Zaria, Will, Corey, and Breezy and their new Senate partners work on their next act. They have two new Senators to add to their group as well as several very prominent businessmen. They discuss rebuilding the country from the ground up. And what needs to be done to make that possible.
Tom asks if everyone brought their homework in. They all pull out a document that they wrote before they arrived. Tom asks them to turn it face down and pass it to me. They all send the pile to Tom.
Tom reads the first one, which is to strengthen education. The second suggestion is to balance the budget, which appears 5 times in the stack, one is cut military, and another is to cut spendin
g by 10% across the board.
The overwhelming opinion is the budget. Spending a single additional dime on anything is just adding to our biggest problem. They all agree. We promised a 10% reduction in the budget. The two biggest cuts include Tom has two of the Pongettes attend the meeting to gather, parse, and sort the data to put up to the big screen and onto the screens embedded into the conference table.
They send the US budget up to the screen, not a single person in the room says anything. They all just smile and look around at each other. There are lots of charts to choose from, but this one highlights the pink elephant better than most.
Everyone in the room starts to grin because no one wants to be the first to speak. Zaria says, wow, that used a lot of blue printer toner, and everyone in the room laughs. One of the senators asks Zaria what her opinion is. Zaria looks at Tom for permission, and Tom grins and says, let’s hear it.
Zaria says she understands how things got to where they are. My views on this are more extreme than what will work, so I will take an approach I think will work without freaking out the country. We cut 20% of our military expenses. One of the business leaders gasps and says OMG Zaria, tell me one of the drastic ones and laughs. Zaria smiles, I know, and she giggles.
I think at this point, I would like to know our level of confidentiality. Tom looks around the room and confirms that everyone understands these are secret discussions and that no one is to leak any of what is discussed in this room. Everyone in the room agrees. Tom then turns to Zaria and tells Zaria that even everyone swearing to secrecy, leaks still happen, and all he can really do is have them shot and then banned from the White House for life. Everyone chuckles.
Zaria puts up another chart
So, let me ask you this, Edmond. If this were a business and the military is the product, and part of their business model was to take care of their customers, what would you do?
Edmond replies that he would charge his customers for taking care of them.
Zaria says that one of the first things she would do is to start charging everyone we are taking care of. If they don’t pay, we put them on credit hold and stop servicing their accounts.
Second, I would sell off all our technology that we are about to make obsolete with our own new technology to our partners. All weapons, by the way, should have an ID system built into them we can control. It should be impossible for any weapon we ever make to fire on any US target, including planes, vessels, or other targets, and we should be able to shut the weapon off any time we want.
Three, I would take over purchasing. Stop talking to the military about dollars and talk to them in terms of what they need, and we procure it. I have gone through the expenses on the internet, and we can chop off 15% from expenses just by taking over purchasing.
We invest heavily in the Laser Canon technology and small drones. Both are very cost-effective technologies with amazing dollar-for-dollar capabilities.
Those three action items can cut 30% from the budget without lessening our ability to defend ourselves and our partners. The Generals won’t like it if you present it in dollars and won’t like losing purchasing control, but they will like having newer technology.
I defended my island from an all-out attack by my planet’s most powerful military force with a laser cannon and trust me any country that has this can defend themselves from pretty much anything. Lockheed Martin is working on one, and it is a technology with incredible potential.
A senator says, “so that is how you defended yourself at the compound? But they bombed the houses of Tom and Will.”
Zaria looks at him and smiles. And we reported that Tom and Will were killed, they stopped bombing and here are Tom and Will sitting with us at this table.
The room is silent.
Anyway, Zaria says, “superweapon aside, between charging for our defense services, selling off old technologies, developing smaller more agile weapons, and taking over purchasing I calculate you can cut 20% from the budget while making our country stronger.”
Tom asks, “Will, what are your thoughts.
Will smiles. And says for the first time, I see the equation as Zaria has pointed it out. It seems as though the US evolved into the world keeper of the peace, but decades ago, the country should have turned that into a business. To see our people living the way they are, just to protect the rest of the world doesn’t seem fair. Will asks if he is the only one to get that out of what Zaria said.
Corey says he still wants to hear from Zaria how her little island survived an all-out attack by the most powerful military force in the world. That statement is amazing. Well, I guess first that step one is to agree that promising more stuff is foolish if we don’t tackle the military. Personally, I came in thinking a 10% across the board cut except for education and veteran support. So that was my entry thought. But after this meeting, I am for fixing the military. As if we didn’t have enough teams out to kill us.
Zaria suggests that we should give much thought to how to approach the military, so when we leave the meeting, they want to thank us and not kill us. Zaria smiles.
I had no intention of doing this. The mission of my existence is to promote peace and equality. It is a very slippery slope to introduce a weapon to an existing civilization because it is one of the very few things I could do to promote world war or world domination. However, I think I might see a way to reduce US expenses with an actual defense only system. I think what I would like to do though is to speak about it with Tom and Will and for us to drop that for now. But I do believe the things I mentioned are viable on their own.
Tom says, will I feel like a shrink for saying this, but our time is up. This was great, and I appreciate your time and look forward to our next discussion.
Tom, Zaria, and Will get to the residence, and Tom tells her he is dying to hear it. Zaria says that we can defend all of the smaller countries with her laser cannon. She can protect it from reverse engineering. She can render the product useless for offensive use. But she wants to be the one to implement it. I can also defend the US by the way from all weapons. Are you sure you can protect it from being reverse engineered? Zaria says positive. And how was it that you defended your island from an all-out attack from the greatest military power on your planet?
Zaria says that she left it out of the movie and asks if they want to see it. They both say absolutely.
Zaria gives them the setup to it and starts from when the alarm goes off, and the 22 ICBMs with neutron bomb warheads are headed their way.
They watch the video and are amazed. Will says, so they were going to throw you off your own island 6 days before the meteor hit to save their politicians and wealthy. Yes, she says. Some of that stuff doesn’t change; she says and smiles.
Wow, what a life you have had so far, Tom says. Zaria says that yes, it has been quite a ride. The three of them talk about the laser canon, and Zaria tells them that since the weapon is mainly electronic that she can control.
But here is what the military will do. The military will want the weapon and will try to reverse engineer it. The military will want the weapon plus all their money. They will resist the concept that having their weapons will enable them to operate on a smaller budget. Zaria tells Tom and Will that they need to consider human instincts more than the capabilities of the weapon. Controlling the military is more the issue.
Tom suggests that they have a discussion with their secretary of defense and have a conversation with him about testing this weapon and the concept of using it to reduce our military expenses in other countries. Zaria, what do you think would be his response?
Well, he will not trust me, he will not trust you and will, he will resist and not embrace any reduction ever. He has enormous pressure on him to fight reduction by his generals. He will pretend to entertain the idea and then go back to his generals and figure out ways to stop us at any cost. No matter how much sense it makes, he, and they will fight you to the death. In this case, the word ““they”” would mean �
�our,” and she giggles.
Will says, well, that sounds promising, and laughs. When do we have him in?
Tom asks Zaria if there is a way to make it work. Zaria responds yes, but it will take time and some convincing. We have their dream weapon. We just need to convince them to embrace the fact that they don’t get 100% control of it.
The next day they have the Secretary of defense in Retired four-star General. He has served for 35 years. He has a degree in economics and has a very measured approach to new ideas.
Zaria suggested she not be in the first meeting and for Tom and Will to feel him out first. The secretary enters the oval office where Tom and Will greet him, and they sit on the couches. Tom asks how things are going.
The Secretary smiles and says maybe it has been a bit calmer in my area than in yours, he says. Tom laughs and says yes, it has been pretty eventful indeed over here.
The secretary says with a smile, “is my area the next to heat up, sir?”
Tom and Will laugh, very much to the point Tom says, “Well sir, we have you here to run something by you and to hear what you have to say about it.”
Tom explains that he would like to improve some things in the country but that he and some others agree that spending more money on anything that puts them more in debt doesn’t make sense.
Then we put up a pie chart of the US budget and, well, you know. You have a degree in economics.
Zaria offered up that she has a defensive weapon that could solve our military budget issue. Will and would like to have a very private discussion with you as to how this could happen in such a way that we keep the world safe and do it for less money so we can balance out the budget.
The Secretary asks if it is the weapon that defended against the attack at Pong’s compound. Tom tells him yes. The Secretary says that will all respect sir, the military was able to bomb your house. Tom explains that allowing the house to be bombed was a strategic move and not a deficiency in the weapon. The secretary smiles and tells Tom and Will that he just won a bet then and smiles. I will collect when this is declassified.
