Levels of Power

by Mike Gilmore

  The marines politely smiled at the striking woman. “You bet, Mrs. Warden. It will be our pleasure.”

  The marine who had spoken to her quickly hopped out of the passenger seat and offered a hand to Alison. She took his place in the golf cart. He quickly reseated himself on the backbench, and they were off. Neither man mentioned that the president had sent word to have someone follow his press secretary at a discreet distance in case she got lost.

  Chapter 3

  Camp David, MD

  Sunday, June 14, 2015

  2:15 p.m.

  Alison burst into the cabin and hurried into the main room to rejoin the three men. The president glanced at his watch to see how tardy his press secretary was. Warren Fletcher simply wore a small smile. Lewis Drake stopped talking about his latest proposal to the president to see who was causing him to lose his train of thought.

  Alison did not wait until Lewis finished his comment or allow him to pick up the thread of his conversation. “I’ve got it. I’ve got the idea that will bring the voters back to your camp, Mr. President.”

  She didn’t even stop to remove her sweater or retake her place on the sofa that she had claimed on the Friday before. Ignoring the angry look from the campaign manager, she jumped into her idea.

  “Mr. President. What is your biggest strength? What do you know about as much as any other person in government or business?”

  She waited several heartbeats; she did not really want an answer. Her face glowed, her nearly full smile showing perfect white teeth. She simply said one word. “Money.”

  Harold Miller had spent many years on Wall Street before the political bug hit him and had accumulated hundreds of millions of dollars. Stock deals, mergers and acquisitions, and financing for business expansion all ran through his offices in New York City. By all standards, he was the wealthiest person too ever occupy the Oval Office. To date, they had always tried to downplay his great wealth so as not to turn off the middle class in America. How can a wealthy president identify with middle-income voters and their struggle to pay their home mortgage and college education bills for their children? He had always followed the advice of his previous advisors—never talk about personal wealth.

  Alison knew she had spoken a “dirty” word within the Miller presidency, but she plowed ahead with her idea. She asked the same question. “What is your biggest strength? Money … and that is where you can nail the Democrats. You will use your many years of experience on Wall Street to propose a simple piece of legislation to fix one of the biggest tax problems, which upsets every middle-income person in the country.”

  She waited to see their reactions. Fletcher still had the smile on his face. He had hired Alison Warden to help the Miller White House out of an embarrassing situation last year when a cabinet secretary had fathered a child by a woman who was not his wife. He could tell by the gleam in her eyes that Alison had something big to spill.

  Lewis Drake was still fuming about being interrupted and had not been focusing on her words.

  President Miller was trying not to lose his temper at the mention of his great wealth. He hoped his press secretary was going to make some sort of sense with this wild outburst.

  Alison still wore a wide smile. Some people did not realize her beautiful face fronted a brilliant mind. “Every year the press runs a number of stories about how American and foreign corporations pay no or very little income tax. Some of these companies will make hundreds of millions of dollars and not pay one red penny, while middle-income Americans pay any number of taxes. Payroll deductions for federal, state, and local income taxes. Car tag taxes, property taxes, and school taxes. The list continues, item after item. When they hear the stories about these companies that make millions and pay no taxes, they go through the roof.”

  Her body was quite warm from her excitement and the constant pacing in front of the three men. Alison quickly removed her sweater and tossed it on the empty seat on the couch as she continued to explain her idea. She forced herself to calm down just a little. “You will propose a new tax on the gross income of all American companies that make an income above a certain amount of money. We don’t want to hurt the small self-employed people, only tax the largest corporations.”

  She paused for a few moments to form her next thought. “I suggest any company that has gross sales over fifty million dollars. I did a little research on the Internet last night, and I came up with almost eleven trillion dollars in US sales. If we charged a tax rate of .0025 percent, a quarter of one percent that would bring in over twenty-eight billion in new tax revenue.”

  She paused again in case the president, Fletcher, or Drake had any questions. They simply continued to stare at her, as if she was speaking in a foreign language. She thought that perhaps they considered her idea too ridiculous or simply unworkable.

  Warren Fletcher was the first to speak. The elderly political operator moved around the room to stand next to Alison. His slender six-foot frame towered over Alison by several inches. “Yes. Middle-class Americans will love the idea. A Republican president who grew up on Wall Street finally brings the big oil companies and giant tech companies to task for all the years they have made money and not paid their fair share of taxes. Alison, I think it’s a great idea.”

  Lewis Drake spoke up—and loudly—against the idea. “Mr. President, if you take this idea and run with it, then corporate American will take you to the woodshed. Campaign funds from some of your major donors will dry up very fast. This could be disastrous for the campaign.”

  Alison jumped back into the conversation to defend her idea. “Lewis, corporate America doesn’t walk into the voting booth on the first Tuesday in November. Middle-class American taxpayers do, and when they do, they will have finally witnessed an American president standing up to the high and mighty and telling them their free tax ride is over.”

  Harold Miller had been silent during the entire discussion. As he had said earlier, he wanted his people to have a free rein over the conversation and not hold anything back from the discussion. Finally, he could not contain the question in his mind.

  “Warren, how do we sell this to Congress and corporate America to try to keep them in our corner?”

  Fletcher’s blue eyes stared out from his heavily lined face as he looked from the president back to Alison and then over to Lewis Drake. The campaign manager still had a deep scowl on his face.

  Once again, Fletcher was wearing his old hat as the former Republican Party chairman. “What does every company want from the government in control of any country where they do business?”

  He was still standing next to Alison. He waited only several seconds before supplying his own answer. “Stability.”

  He waited for a reaction. His smile spread across his face. “Without stability they will not risk any stockholder money to build company infrastructure or other investments. They need to know up front that the local national government will not step in and privatize their assets.”

  They could all tell from his expression he was warming up to Alison’s idea. “The United States government has provided stability for 239 years, and they’ve had a free ride for the entire time. If they want to see the federal government stay stable and provide a secure country for their own economic growth, they need to financially support the government with their fair share of taxes.”

  Alison took a step closer to Fletcher. She laid her right hand on his left shoulder to indicate another thought had entered her mind while he had been speaking. “We also mandate the new taxes be applied one hundred percent to the federal debt. Twenty-eight billion will be a drop in the bucket against the fourteen-trillion-dollar debt, but the American public will eat the idea up.”

  Miller looked to his campaign manager. “Lewis, are you still against the idea?”

  Lewis now displayed a small grin. A heavy cigarette smoker, he coughed once into his right shirtsleeve to clear
his lungs. “We can push this through the House of Representatives. It is a tax bill and must originate from the House side of Congress. We have control of the House, and we can make this happen. The fun part will be the Senate and the Democrat’s very small control over the Senate Republicans. The Democrats must vote for the bill or face an angry electorate in the polls next year. Either way the vote goes, Mr. President, you win. If the bill passes, you pound your chest because your administration has made corporate American pay its fair share of taxes. If the Senate votes it down, you can pound the pulpit that the Democrats care more about corporate America than middle America. It’s a campaign speech you can make every day until November 1, 2016.”

  Chapter 4

  Washington, DC

  Tuesday, November 24, 2015

  8:15 a.m.

  The president leaned toward his desk and roughly gathered the newspapers; he folded them together for the cleaning staff to remove. The newspapers would end up in the recycling bins in the White House basement.

  The four people at Camp David had spent the balance of the weekend fine-tuning Alison’s idea. They even decided to use an idea from one the president’s most antagonistic foes in Congress.

  South Carolina Senator Randy Fisher had arrived in Washington by way of special appointment by the governor of the state. Having saved the country from the nuclear device planted at the state fairground and survived the two gunshot wounds fired by the terrorist; he was the country’s newest hero. One of the first rules he had adopted in his Senate office was the one-hundred-page limit on any new legislation. During interviews, he often stated if Congress could not write the bill in one hundred pages or less, it was probably too expensive for the country to bear.

  Miller had to smile. His new Corporate America Fair Share Tax Bill had made it to the House of Representative on August 17. His team had spent weeks since the three-day weekend rewriting the bill several times to get the wording letter perfect in only ninety-seven pages. The response had been everything they had hoped. Americans across the country were immediately enthralled by the idea that finally corporate America would pay its fair share of income taxes.

  E-mails, telephone calls, and letters flooded the offices of the members of the House of Representatives. Any congressman who discussed the bill at a town hall meeting and mentioned they should really take a closer look at the negative consequences of the bill were almost booed off the stage. The American public had been watching corporate America use its high-priced lawyers to avoid paying taxes for years, and now they wanted their revenge.

  The House of Representatives, under the direction of Republican Speaker Larry Frye from Iowa, sent the bill to the Ways and Means Committee, and several Democrats attempted to bury the bill behind other legislation considered more important.

  However, the American press knew a good story when it was right in front of them and continued to pepper the Speaker and the committee chairperson about the status of the Fair Share bill. As with many pieces of legislation, for the sake of brevity the press and politicians alike referred to the Corporate American Fair Share Tax Bill by a shorter name: the Fair Share Bill.

  Never in recent years had the members of Congress felt such pressure from their constituents to pass the Fair Share Bill. Any House member who voiced disapproval about the bill found their local office the focus of irate citizens who accused the representative of protecting big business over middle-class citizens. Carefully working within the laws, citizens groups obtained permits to “walk the line” in front of the representative’s office until he promised to support the president and the new piece of legislation.

  The Ways and Means Committee finally voted the bill out of committee and back to the full House on November 13 with its recommendation for passage by the House. The committee vote was fourteen yeas and only three nay votes. The three negative votes were by Democrats who had an almost certain chance of reelection by their voters at home.

  The full House of Representatives reluctantly took up the issue voted out of committee on Friday the 13th. Larry Frye was not a superstitious person, but he truly wished the president had left this bill on the drawing room floor. Unfortunately, that was not the case, and the full House began its deliberations.

  The writing on the wall was clear for all the House representatives to see; perhaps the voting was already determined. The members knew the feelings of their constituents. On Friday, November 20, just before Congress recessed for the Thanksgiving holiday, the House of Representatives passed the measure by an overwhelming 369 to 66. Within minutes of announcing the vote results, the House recessed.

  Next, the measure would move to the Senate, controlled by the Democrats. As a whole, the smaller chamber of Congress had been strangely silent about the Fair Share Bill. Perhaps they were hoping to see the House vote the bill down and save them from the same pressure faced by their brothers and sisters on the other side of the Rotunda in the Capitol.

  Chapter 5

  Washington, DC

  Tuesday, November 24, 2015

  2:15 p.m.

  Capitol Hill and the congressional office buildings emptied quickly. Most members of Congress left Washington for home and their plans for the Thanksgiving holiday with their families. Many hoped to forget the last few months and the Fair Share Bill for a short time.

  In the Russell Senate Office Building, the suite of offices assigned to Cameron A. Saunders, Chip to his friends, was empty except for his private office. The Republican junior senator from Virginia was sitting behind his desk talking with his two favorite Republican senators. The five-foot-ten, 145-pound senator was two weeks past his forty-second birthday. He possessed thick, dark blond hair and had a ready smile for almost any person, friend or stranger. When he was a young man still in high school, his hair was dark. After graduating from Richmond High School, he spent his summer vacation working on his uncle’s tobacco farm. The summer sun bleached his hair to a light blond color. Over the years, the blond color darkened slightly but never went back to the dark brown of his youth.

  The second senator was John R. Laird from Ohio. The tall, slender fifty-three-year-old senator was married with two grown children, his son now a Methodist minister and his younger daughter a schoolteacher, married to another teacher. Between his two offspring, he was a grandfather four times.

  In his early thirties, Senator Laird’s dark black hair he was born with slowly turned prematurely white. He had considered dyeing it back to its original tint, but his wife convinced him the new color gave him a very distinguished look, so his hair stayed natural.

  Senator Laird had entered politics after making a small fortune in the wholesale beer distribution business. He had owned the franchise for a number of popular brands in his home state. Until he was in his late forties, he ran a business that required fifteen trucks to supply the taverns and restaurants within his protected market area. Only after growing tired of the business did he look to his second passion after his family: politics. He ran a clean campaign, won the primary election, and went on to unseat a Democratic senator who had run afoul of the IRS and the Senate Ethics Committee.

  The third senator in the room was Roberta “Rickie” L. Hanley from Florida. The forty-six year-old single woman was not gay; she just had not yet found Mr. Right. Five-foot-two and 125 pounds, she wore her hair in a pageboy style. She still took delight in the male eyes that looked her way when she jogged through the National Mall most mornings before coming to the Senate. She was a native born Floridian and spent her entire life in the Sunshine State, and she had lots of passion for the elderly citizens retiring in her state. They were the largest segment of voters that put her into office.

  The three senators had several things in common besides being members of the Republican Party. They were first-term senators, and all came to Washington in 2012 after defeating the incumbent Democrats in their homes state. More importantly, they were the biggest success stor
ies for the Tea Party movement in the first national election for the new political party. Their movement’s slogan: “No more taxes … Not now … Not ever!”

  The three had been discussing their position on the Fair Share Bill. It was a tax increase, and they were trying to decide if they would hold to their campaign promise to vote against any new tax.

  Rickie sat in a straight chair in front of Chip’s desk. “This bill will pass no matter what we say or how we vote. That is a forgone conclusion. We can sit here all day and discuss what we say or do on the floor of the Senate, but we are only three votes against the rest of the Senate. The bill will pass in the Senate, the same as in the House.”

  John Laird sat on the sofa. He had wanted to be out of Washington and on his way back home to Ohio and his family by then, but Chip was adamant the three meet before they left Washington. “I agree with Rickie. We have no chance to sway enough senators to vote against the tax bill. It is going to pass. I wish we could stop it but I don’t see any way to convince enough of the other members to see it our way.”

  Chip Saunders adjusted his body into a more comfortable position in his office chair. He had been listening to his friend’s words carefully. They were correct. They had no chance to stop the vote for the bill.

  “You are both correct in your assessment. If the bill comes to a vote it will be passed by the Senate and become law.” He gave them a small smile; they could see his eyes light up. “But what if the bill never came to the floor for a vote? What if it got tied up on the Senate floor before it was assigned to the Senate Finance Committee?”

  Rickie and John looked at each other and then back to their leader. Chip, willing to take risks and step into the public eye, had always been the strongest of the three. Some members of the Senate called him the show horse; others were the workhorses.

  John Laird asked the question on both his and Rickie’s minds. “There is only one way to stop this from going to committee. Are you talking a filibuster?”