Expanded Universe (67 page)

I used official figures without comment to show where we have been the past 70 years . . . and how we got into the mess we are in. But, while I think our government is more nearly honest than some others (see "Inside Intourist" Afterword, page 395), there is a lot of hanky-panky in those official figures. Example: Social Security taxes go into the general fund and are spent. If Social Security were
in fact
insurance (the basis on which the gimmick was sold to us by FDR's "New Deal"), the receipts would be segregated and invested and not shown as income . . . 
OR
a competent insurance actuary with staff would calculate the commitment and it would show in the National Public Debt.

(The fact that a debt is amortized over the years doesn't stop it from being a debt. It was an amortized mortgage that got me into this racket. The prospect of years and years of future monthly payments spoiled my sleep.)

The only way the Government can go on paying Social "Security" to my generation is by taxing you young people more and more heavily . . . and each year there are more and more old people and fewer and fewer young people. It won't help to run the printing presses faster; that causes food to rise in price, rents to go up, etc.—and people over 65 start putting pressure on Congress . . . and there's an election coming up. (There's
always
an election coming up.)

One thing I learned as a wardheeler was that (with scarce exceptions) people in my age group want one of two things: 1) They want to keep on clipping those coupons and collecting those rents and they don't give a damn what it does to the country, or 2) they want that raise in Social Security (Townsend Plan) ("Ham & Eggs") (you name one) and they don't give a damn what it does to the country.

(I don't claim to be altruistic. Just this pragmatic difference: I am sharply aware that, if the United States goes down the chute,
I
go down with it.)

I use the term "
Federal
Public Debt" because what is usually termed the "Public Debt" is by no means our total public debt. There are also state, county, city, and special-district debts. It is difficult to get accurate figures on these public debts but the total appears to be larger than the Federal Public Debt. I can't make even a wild guess at the Social Security commitment . . . but our
total
public promises-to-pay have to exceed two trillion dollars. How much is a trillion? Well, it means that a baby born today owes at least $4,347.83 to the Federal Government alone before his eyes open. (No wonder he yells.) It means that the Zero Population Growth family (who was going to save us all—remember?) of father, mother, and 2.1 children owes $17,826 in addition to private debts (mortgage, automobile, college for 2.1 children).

Of course papa won't pay it off; that debt will grow larger. But it will cost him $2000 a year (and rising) just to "service" his pro-rata; any taxes for which he
gets anything at all
—even more laws—is on top of that.

A trillion seconds is 31,688 years, 9 months, 5 days, 8 hours, 6 minutes, and 42 seconds—long enough for the precession of the equinoxes to make Vega the Pole Star, swing back again to Polaris, and go on past to Alpha Cephei. Or counting the other way it would take us to 29,708 B.C. . . . or more than 25 thousand years before Creation by Bishop Usher's chronology for creationism.

I don't understand a trillion dollars any better than I do a trillion seconds. I simply know that we had better stop spending money we don't have if we want to avoid that Man on Horseback.

But I don't think we will stop "deficit financing," the euphemism that sounds so much better than "kiting checks."

You may have noticed that 1970 figure for public employees (not my extrapolation for 1980, but the official 1970 figures straight from the United States Bureau of the Census).

That figure does not include the Armed Forces. It does not include some special categories. It is easier to learn the number of slaves imported in 1769 (6,736) than it is to find out exactly how many people are on public payrolls in this country. And it is not simply difficult but
impossible
to determine how many people receive Federal checks for which they perform no services. (Or food stamps. Are food stamps money?) But one thing is certain: the number of people eligible to vote who
do
receive money from some unit of government (aid to dependent children, Supreme Court justices, not growing wheat, removing garbage, governors of states, whoever) exceeds the number eligible to vote but receiving no pay or subsidy of any sort from any unit of government.

Have you read the Federal Register lately? Have you
ever
read the Federal Register? Under powers delegated by Congress certain
appointed
officials can publish a new regulation in the Federal Register and, if Congress does not stop it, after a prescribed waiting time, that regulation has the force of law—it
is
law, to you and to me, although a lawyer sees nuances. I have vastly oversimplified this description, but my only purpose is to point out that "administrative law" reaches into every corner of our lives, and is the major factor in the enormous and strangling invasion of the Federal Government into our private affairs.

I can't see anything in the Constitution that permits the Congress to delegate its power to pass laws . . . but the Supreme Court says it's okay and that makes my opinion worthless.

I'm stopping. There are endless other gloomy things to discuss—the oil shortage, the power shortage (not the same thing), pollution, population pressure, a projected change in climate that can and probably will turn the problems of population and food into sudden and extreme crisis, crime in the streets and bankrupt cities, our incredible plunge from the most respected nation on Earth to the most despised (but we are nonetheless expected to pick up the tab). Bill Gresham was right but he told only half of it: you not only don't get rich peddling gloom; it isn't any fun.

So now come with me—

The new President had not been in office ten days before it became clear to his own party as well as to the "loyal opposition" that he was even more of a disaster than the defeated candidate had predicted. Nevertheless the country was shocked when he served even fewer days than the ninth President—killed in a crash, his private plane, himself at the controls; dying with him his three top aides: White House chief of staff, press secretary, appointments secretary.

No U.S. or Canadian news medium said a word about alcohol or incidents in the dead President's past; they treated it as a tragic accident. Papers and TV reporters elsewhere were not as reticent.

The Speaker of the new House saw the ex-Vice President first (even before the oath of office) as the Speaker's seniority in line of succession enabled him to do. He came right to the point. "I am ready to take this load off your shoulders. We both know that you were picked simply to support the ticket; no one ever expected to load you down with
this.
Here's how we'll do it: You resign at once, then we'll meet the press together—after I'm sworn in. I'll do most of the talking. I promise you, it won't be a strain on you."

"I'm sure that it won't be. You're excused."

"Huh!"

"You may leave. In fact I am telling you to leave. I thought you had come to stand beside me as I take the oath . . . but you have something entirely different in mind. You would not enjoy staying; I would not enjoy having you stay."

"You'll regret this! You're making a mistake!"

"If a mistake was made, it was made at the Convention. By you and five others, I believe; I was not present. Yes, I may regret it but this is what I undertook to do when I accepted the nomination for the Vice-Presidency. Now get out.
Pronto!
"

The new President sent for the Director of the Budget forty minutes after the swearing in. "Explain this to me."

The Director hemmed and hawed and tried to say that the budget was too technical for anyone not in public life before—

—and was answered, "I'm accepting your resignation. Send in your deputy."

It was almost a week before this call was made: "Admiral? This is the President. If I come to your home, do you feel well enough to see me?"

There was a tussle of wills that the Admiral won only through pointing out that it was never proper to subject the President of the United States to unnecessary risk of assassination . . . and that with his new car, fitted for his wheelchair, he still went to the Pentagon twice a week. "I'm old, I admit; I was born in 1900. But I'm not dead and I'm quite able to report to my Commander in Chief. And we both know that threats have been made."

The President won the next argument. On being wheeled in the Admiral started to get out of his chair. "Do please sit down!"

The old man continued to try to rise, leaning on the arm of his nurse. The President said quickly, "That was expressed as a request but was an order. Sit down."

The Admiral promptly sat back down, caught his breath and said formally, "Ma'am, I report—with great pleasure!—to the President of the United States."

"Thank you for coming, sir. In view of our respective ages . . . and your health, I felt that it was a time to dispense with protocol. But you are right; there are indeed a flood of threats, many more than get into the news. I don't intend to be a target . . . at least until we have a new Vice President sworn in."

"
Never
be a target, Madam. You would be mourned by everyone, both parties. Uh, if I may say so, you are even more beautiful in person than you are on the screen."

"Not mourned by everyone, I'm certain, or I would not have to be cautious about assassination. As for that other, I'm not beautiful and you know it. I know what I have. I project. But it's not physical beauty. It's something that a pro—a professionally competent actress—does with her whole being. Her voice, her expression, her hands, her body. A gestalt, with regular features the least important factor. Or not present, as with me."

The President smiled, got up and went around the big desk, leaned over the Admiral, kissed his forehead. "But you are an old dear to have said it."

He cleared his throat, noisily. "Ma'am, what is your opinion in the matter against that of millions of men?"

"We've dropped that subject. Now to work! Admiral, why is it that there has been so much difficulty with nuclear power plants ashore but never any trouble with your nuclear submarines?"

The President slapped her desk, glared at the leader of the delegation. "Stop that! Han'kerchief head, you've come to the wrong church. In this office there are
no
Blacks—or Blues, Whites, Greens, or Yellows—just Americans. Besides that, you claim to be a Black representing Blacks. Hmmph! That's a phony claim if I ever—"

"I resent that, Mrs. Ni—"

"
Pipe down!
'Madam President,' if you please. And one does
not
interrupt the President. I said your claim was phony. It is. I'm at least three shades darker than you are . . . yet I'm smooth brown, not black." She looked around. "I don't see a real sooty black in your whole delegation. Mmm, I see just one darker than I am. Mr. Green, isn't it? That is your name?"

"Yes, Madam President. From Brooklyn."

"Any white blood, Mr. Green? Perhaps I should say 'Any Caucasian ancestry?' "

"Possibly. But none that I know of, Ma'am."

"We're all in that boat . . . including all whites. A person who claims to be absolutely certain of his ancestry more than three generations back is accepting the short end of a bet. But since you are from Brooklyn, you can help me pass a word. An important word, one that I'll be emphasizing on the networks tonight but I'll need help from a lot of people to let
all
the people know that I mean it. A Black who gets elected from Brooklyn has lots of Jewish friends, people who trust him."

"That's right, Madam President."

"Listen to my talk tonight, then pass it on in your own words. This nation has split itself into at least a hundred splinter groups, pressure groups, each trying for a bigger bite of the pie. That's got to
stop
!—before it kills us. No more Black Americans. No more Japanese Americans. Israel is not our country and neither is Ireland. A group calling itself La Raza had better mean the human race—the
whole
human race—or they'll get the same treatment from me as the Ku Klux Klan. Amerindians looking for special favors will have just two choices: Either come out and
be
Americans and accept the responsibilities of citizenship . . . or go back to the reservation and shut up. Some of their ancestors got a rough deal. But so did yours and so did mine. There are no Anglos left alive who were at Wounded Knee or Little Big Horn, so it's time to shut up about it.

"But race and skin color and national ancestry isn't all that I mean. I intend to refuse to see
any
splinter group claiming to deserve special treatment not accorded other citizens and I will veto any legislation perverted to that end. Wheat farmers. Bankrupt corporations. Bankrupt cities. Labor leaders claiming to represent 'the workers' . . . when most of the people they claim to represent repudiate any such leadership. Business leaders just as phony. Anyone who wants the deck stacked in his favor because, somehow, he's 'special.'"

The President took a deep breath, went on: "Any such group gets thrown out. But two groups will get thrown out so hard they'll bounce! I'm a woman and I'm Negro. We've wiped the Jim-Crow laws off the books; I'll veto any Crow-Jim bill that reaches this office. Discrimination? Certainly there is still discrimination—but you can't kill prejudice by passing a law. We'll make it by how we behave and what we produce—not by trick laws.

"I feel even more strongly about women. We women are a majority, by so many millions that in an election it would be called a landslide. And
will
be a landslide, on
anything,
any time women really want it to be. So women don't need favors; they just need to make up their minds what they want—then take it." The President stood up again. "That's all. I'm going to devote this term to those 'unalienable rights'—for
everybody.
No splinter groups. Go tell people so. Now git . . . and don't come back! Not as a splinter group. Come back as
Americans.
"