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."
Chapter Ten
From the transcript at triaclass="underline" Commonwealth of