What with the Revolt of the Arab Street in full swing, national economies tottering on the brink of default all over Europe, and the US Congress having taken to funding the federal government in two week increments, I’ve haven’t had a day off since February 13th, and neither has Gretchen, for that matter. Not that we have the least inclination to feel sorry for ourselves – we’re making money hand over fist, and who can complain when you’re doing that while thirty million Americans are hopelessly unemployed?
Nevertheless, working ten or twelve hours a day for weeks without a break can be pretty taxing. So I was definitely enjoying my namesake, a Tom Collins martini, at the Round Robin Bar after I left the office this evening, when my brother-in-law Hank called me and asked where I was. It was less than twenty minutes later that he had ensconced himself on the bar stool next to me, doing everything he could to make me regret I hadn’t told him I was at Red Hot Johnson’s over in Anacostia instead.
“So,” Hank asked as he perused the Round Robin’s impressive collection of top shelf liquor, “what’s good here?”
“Everything,” I assured him.
“In that case,” Hank grinned, motioning to the bartender, who recognized his presence with a curt nod, “I’ll have a Long Island iced tea. Make it a double, and, uh… he’s buying,” Hank quickly blurted, indicating me. I reacted to the bartender’s inquisitive look with a wink and a nod.
“Thanks, Tom,” Hank said as the bartender began making his drink. “Money’s kind of tight these days.”
“No problem,” I sighed. “After all, you’re married to my sister. And speaking of tight money, how’s your job search going?”
“Not so bad,” Hank told me in a rather unconvincing tone. “But nothing’s… ah… materialized yet. Which is why I wanted to talk to you, actually, because I had this really, really awesome idea on Thursday.”
“A really, really awesome idea?” I echoed back at him. “On Thursday?”
“Yep,” he vouched, “right after I heard Newt Gingrich announce he’s running for President.”
“Now hold on there, Hank,” I corrected, “strictly speaking, that’s not exactly true. If he had actually announced he intends to run for President of the United States, then he’d have to deal with the Federal Election Commission. So he didn’t.”
“Well,” Hank allowed, “okay, he’s formed an exploratory committee. Same thing, pretty much.”
“No,” I insisted, “that’s not, in fact, actually so. If he did, he’d lose his million-dollar-a-year contract with Fox. So he didn’t do that; and, what’s more, forming an exploratory committee isn’t pretty much the same thing as announcing you’re running, either.”
“Oh, Jesus, Tom,” he protested as the bartender set his drink in front of him, “why quibble about a bunch of friggin’ semantic technicalities? I mean, he did something or another that’s like announcing or forming an exploratory committee or whatever, didn’t he? You heard about it, right? What would you call it?”
“I’m not sure,” I confessed. “As a matter of fact, I don’t think anybody is, least of all Newt Gingrich.”
“Well, whatever it was he did,” Hank proclaimed as he hoisted his Long Island iced tea, “it like, totally inspired me!”
“To do what?” I asked dryly.
“To start raising money for him,” Hank proudly announced, “that’s what!”
“So,” I mused, “instead of looking for a job, you’re going to spend all your time trying to raise money for Newt Gingrich to run for President?”
“Exactly;” Hank confirmed between sips, “that’s what I was thinking. I figure if I spend a few weeks pouring huge piles of money into his war chest, that will get this attention, after which, he’ll hire me to work on his campaign. Then, after he wins, he can reward me with a big political appointment in his administration.”
“So,” I observed, “I take it you’ve given up on trying to ride Joe Miller’s coat tails into a nice, fat position as Senate staffer?”
“It turns out,” Hank ruefully griped, “the coat he’s most likely going to end up wearing doesn’t have tails.”
“No?” I inquired, eyebrows upraised.
“Uh-uh. Looks like it’s going to have a lot of straps and buckles;” Hank grumbled, chasing his troubles down with a healthy swig, “and really long sleeves.”
“And you actually believe,” I demanded, “that Newt Gingrich is any less crazy?”
“Newt Gingrich,” Hank shot back, “is a total genius! He’s smarter than Rush Limbaugh! Why, I bet he’s even smarter than Glenn Beck!”
“What evidence,” I skeptically pressed, “do you have for that?”
“Okay,” Hank gamely responded, “Gingrich realizes, for instance, that the widely held perception the 1995 federal government shut down was a political disaster for the Republicans is totally wrong!”
“No kidding?” I humored. “So the American public didn’t blame the Republicans for the shut down and subsequently punish them at the polls in the 1996 elections?”
“Absolutely not,” Hank confidently asserted. “They only lost a few seats in Congress and none of them were due to public anger at Republicans for the shut down.”
“Says who?” I challenged.
“Newt Gingrich,” Hank shot back. “That’s who! And furthermore, the 1995 federal government shut down laid the ground work for an historic budget deal – one which kept spending growth below three percent and ultimately lead to a balanced federal budget!”
“You don’t suppose,” I suggested, “that might have been due to President Clinton’s tax increases on the wealthy, combined with the economic stimulus of the Internet boom?”
“No,” Hank told me, accompanied by several emphatic shakes of his head, “no, no, no! It was the fiscal discipline imposed by the Republicans that did it!”
“Says who?” I inquired again.
“Says Newt Gingrich!” Hank stoutly replied.
“So, let me get this theory of his straight,” I requested. “First, in the spring of 1995, the House Republicans, lead by Speaker Gingrich, with the help of three score and twelve Blue Dog Democrats, passed a constitutional amendment mandating a balanced federal budget. Then it went on to the Senate, where it failed to pass. So then, they go for Plan B, which was to construct a balanced federal budget for fiscal year 1996 and pass that instead. But when they couldn’t, they shut down the federal government…”
“Not them!” Hank excitedly interjected. “It was Clinton! Not the Republicans! President Bill Clinton shut down the government!”
“Clinton?” I asked. “He shut down the federal government in 1995? Who the hell is saying that?”
“Newt Gingrich!” Hank proclaimed.
“So how,” I wondered, “does Gingrich figure Clinton did it?”
“By threatening to veto the Republicans’ balanced budget,” Hank explained. “That’s how.”
“And you think,” I sought to confirm, “this sort of reasoning proves Newt Gingrich is a genius?”
“Yeah,” Hank confirmed. “It does. Because the 1995 federal government shut down crisis ultimately lead to the first four consecutive balanced budgets since the Coolidge Administration, and what’s more, paid off over four hundred and fifty billion dollars of the national debt, too!”
“But then,” I pointed out, “according to your reasoning, shouldn’t Bill Clinton get credit for that instead of Newt Gingrich?”
“No…” Hank stammered, “because… uh… hey, Tom, I seem to be out of Long Island iced tea here. Can I order another drink?”
“Sure,” I murmured with an air of resignation, “be my guest.”
“It’s not just his intellect,” Hank expounded as he gestured to the bartender, “it’s his courage, too. Gingrich isn’t afraid of another federal government shut down.”
“Why should he be?” I asked. “He doesn’t work for the federal government, and I’m sure someone who has his kind of money can do without its services for a few weeks, too.”
“What I mean,” Hank persisted, “is that Gingrich knows it’s more important to be a good conservative and stick to your principles than it is to keep the egg heads at NIH playing around with their test tubes; or the National Endowment for the Arts handing out money to people who throw cow dung on pictures of the Virgin Mary; or for the Department of Education to keep doing everything they can to keep Intelligent Design out of school science classes; or keep the Grand Canyon and the Washington Monument open for tourists who ought to be supporting free enterprise by visiting Disney World instead; and, you know, stuff like that.”
“You’re aware, of course,” I noted, “that if Gingrich and his cronies had gotten their way and the United States Constitution had an amendment in it that says the federal government can never engage in deficit spending, there would have been no way to keep the economy going after the housing bubble burst, the credit markets froze and the stock market crashed. And then, instead of just having to share a house in Fairfax with your brother’s family in order to have a roof over your heads, nobody there would have an income – not only you would be out of work, but Rose, your brother and Shannon, too. That house would be vacant property owned by a failed bank and you and everybody who lives there now would be living out of your SUVs and minivans.”
“We would not!” Hank objected. “We’d be living at Motel 6 or some place like that. And besides, I’m sure that Gingrich’s balanced budget amendment to the Constitution would have an emergency clause in it.”
“Any balanced budget amendment with an emergency escape clause,” I contended, “is no balanced budget amendment at all.”
“Oh yeah?” Hank stared at me with a puzzled expression. “How come?”
“Because,” I elaborated, “the first time that anything which could possibly qualify as an emergency comes along, Congress will invoke the escape clause and balanced budgets will go right out the window. And that’s where they will stay, too, because after the first time they find a reason to use the emergency clause, I guarantee you, Congress will get very good at inventing more and more excuses to use it, over and over again. So forget about it, Hank, if that constitutional amendment mandating a balanced budget isn’t completely iron clad – no exceptions, no loopholes, no nothing – it won’t be worth doodly squat.”
“Well then,” Hank stated stoically, “I guess we’ll just have to bite the bullet and suck it up then – no emergency clause. And I’m sure Newt’s figured that out, too, since you did and he’s really smart, same as you are.”
“So, if President Gingrich and his ideologically pure followers were get their way,” I concluded, “and another major financial meltdown – like the one we’re supposedly recovering from now – suddenly happens again, the United States economy will just… collapse.”
“Maybe it will,” Hank conceded. “Maybe that’s the price of freedom.”
“What freedom?” I demanded. “The freedom to starve to death in the streets, perhaps? Hank, do you have any idea what kind of opportunities it would present for our economic adversaries if our central government couldn’t use deficit spending to avert a major depression?”
“Huh?” Hank stared blankly at me for the second time.
“Is Newt Gingrich going to make the English, the French, the Germans, the Japanese – the Chinese, for Christ’s sake – pass balanced budget amendments? Hell, the English don’t even have a constitution to amend! If we’re the only major industrial country that can’t engage in deficit spending, and we go into another major recession, you know what’s going to happen? I’ll tell you what – while we’re flat on our backs and paralyzed, those other major industrial countries are going to roll us over and rape us, that’s what. We’ll end up being colonies again, reduced to penury and agriculture. And all because President Newt Gingrich got his precious balanced budget amendment. What price ideological purity, oh faithful true believer? You want your grandchildren immigrating to Shanghai to clean toilets at night just so people like Newt Gingrich can brag that America lives within her means and doesn’t owe anybody anything?”
“You’re exaggerating,” Hank accused. “There’s no way that’s going to happen. America’s the greatest country in the world and it’s going to stay that way. All Newt Gingrich is going to do is make it awesomely better.”
“Okay,” I shrugged, “very well. Moving on then – I take it you’re not concerned about Newt’s position on global warming?”
“Global warming?” Hank snorted. “He’s against it, of course.”
“Aren’t we all?” I japed.
“Damn it, Tom,” Hank complained, “yeah, sure, nobody’s for global warming. What I mean is, he thinks it’s a big fraud, like those Limey scientist who got caught lying about it with all those e-mails and stuff like that.”
“Actually,” I informed him, “Newt Gingrich appeared in a public service announcement where he said that the United States ‘must take action to address climate change.’”
“What?” Hank’s jaw dropped a good two inches. “When?”
“In 2008. And it gets even more interesting,” I assured him. “He appeared in that PSA with none other than Nancy Pelosi.”
“But… but… she’s a devil worshiper!” Hank wailed. “A bona-fide, card-carrying Satanist – I heard it on Fox! Newt would never… Aw, come on, Tom! You’re making that up, aren’t you?”
“Nope.”
“Climate change…” Hank mumbled disconsolately. “Nancy Pelosi… How… what… no, no, no… this isn’t happening. This can’t be happening. One, two, three, wake up… One, two, three, wake up…”
“Plus,” I reminded him, “Gingrich is a conservative family-values candidate who’s been married three times and committed adultery at least once while he was at it.”
“Global warming…” Hank’s eyes had glazed over. “Nancy Pelosi…”
After waiting for a couple of minutes to no avail, I simply walked away and left him there like that. I was done with my martini, anyway, and the last thing Hank needed was another Long Island ice tea.