Finally it was time to finish, to wrap myself in an American flag and go out on soaring rhetoric and a good old fashioned American dream.
"These are more than proposals; these are the legacies of a great American President! We here all knew his plans and dreams! We know that he wanted to make this nation a greater and stronger nation! We know he wanted our people safer. We know those things because those are the same plans and dreams we have. We must build and protect President Bush's legacy, not for his sake, but for ours! It is not I alone who calls on Congress to act. It is the American people who call on Congress to act!"
Everybody was back on their feet now, roaring and applauding. There is nothing like appealing to the better natures of people who generally don't have them. I should know. I was one of those people.
"Great opportunity comes from great challenge. America is a nation that thrives on great challenges. Our history is that of one challenge after another, and in each case we have risen stronger than before! Now is no different! This is our challenge! This is our opportunity! This is our time! We will not falter! We will not fail! We will succeed!"
I was roaring it out to them now, and they were on their feet applauding and cheering. It was more like a campaign speech than a policy speech, but it was my opinion that a campaign speech was what the country needed now. Eventually they wound down, and settled back into their seats.
"Earlier, I said that the state of our union was strong, and that it would remain strong. I was wrong when I said that. What I should have said is that the state of our union will become stronger. Our nation possesses a strength unknown by our enemies, and envied by our friends. We will pay the price of freedom, and enjoy the strength of freedom, and harness the power of freedom. Now, with the grace of God, we move forward. Thank you and God bless you all."
And that was it. They were back on their feet and cheering, and both Denny and John leaned over from behind to pound me on the back and shake my hand. I was curious what the Democrats would do in their response, and I knew a tape recorder was catching it back at the White House. Tomorrow we would go over it with a fine tooth comb. In the meantime, I could make a quick judgment by looking up to the gallery. Marilyn was still a Democrat, and from what I could gather, was training her daughters up in that evil creed. I caught her eye, and could see her smiling, sandwiched between and hugging the girls, and all three had tears in their eyes. Maybe it had worked after all.
Chapter 148: A Summit at Camp David
The speech had timed out at about forty minutes, which was considered short. Bill Clinton averaged well over an hour! I think that was because A) I limited myself to the most critical items I wanted to work on, and B) I'm not as good a speaker as Bill Clinton. I figured the longer I yapped, the more likely I would be to fuck up somehow. I finished the speech a bit before 10:00 PM, but between the congratulations and shaking hands, we didn't get out of the Capitol until after 11:00. The twins were heartily exhausted by then, especially with the knowledge that they would have to fly home at the crack of dawn to get to school on time.
I would like to state that in my glorious power, I took my carnal pleasure with my wife, using her for hours in triumph. That wasn't quite true. She was as tired as the girls. They all headed up to the Residence, while I took a last minute call. By the time I got to our room, Marilyn was snoring on the bed, with Stormy spooned up next to her. I chuckled and stripped off my suit, and crawled in next to Stormy.
We were all up early, with the girls grumbling and grabbing for some Danish as Marilyn chivvied them out the door. I kissed them all good-bye, and went about my bachelor lifestyle. By 8:00 I was in my office, with Ari and Josh giving me a critique on the night's performance. Generally the reviews were positive. The Democratic response had gone about fifteen minutes, and the only complaints they had were with some of the spending bills I had proposed. They wanted more government spending, predictably. Otherwise they stressed the need to draw together as a nation, and pledged to work with me in a bipartisan fashion, if I would do the same. Likewise, the network anchors and pontificators thought I had done a good job, especially at rallying a country still in shock.
We didn't have the final polling numbers in yet, but in general, I was still in the high 80s for popularity. My money, suitably washed and run through the RNC, could afford us a level of polling few White Houses could previously afford. We would get hard numbers by the end of the day, and the various networks would have theirs by their evening broadcasts.
On the other hand, some of the chickenhawks were complaining I wasn't going far enough in protecting the nation. Cheney was leading a chorus of neoconservatives who wanted a much tougher response to the threat of Islamic terrorism. We needed a Cabinet level department responsible for defending the Homeland, with a stated mission of letting nobody in who could harm us. In addition to a vastly upgraded intelligence network, they would throw in everything we already had doing these jobs, such as the Coast Guard, Immigration and Naturalization, airport and port security, and so forth. In addition, we should be aggressively using our armed forces to drag the rest of the world into the 21st Century, starting with everybody who was a Muslim.
In effect, they wanted a complete second CIA, FBI, Army, Navy, and Air Force to create a wall around us, while the first team would go out and conquer the world and make it safe for America. If somebody asked who would pay for it, the answer was simple, oil revenues from gratefully liberated nations would pay. It would be cheap and easy!
Meanwhile, the economic choices I was making were clearly both inadequate and wrong-headed. The only thing that could get the nation running properly was a massive and immediate tax cut, like what George Bush had proposed. I had touched on this the other night, but only to report that the Bush tax cuts would need to be postponed, so that we could pay for the investments we needed to make, both the internal infrastructure and research projects, as well as to overhaul our military. In the coming year we would probably be in a deficit situation, after three years of budget surpluses. I had spun this by stating that George Bush would have never have gone along with a deficit unless we had to; he had been a staunch supporter of the balanced budget, and his first year in office had proved that! I kept quiet my personal belief, that tax rates would probably stay where they were for the foreseeable future; we were going to get back to a surplus situation and go back to paying down the national debt if I had anything to say about it.
Cheney and crew thought differently. Massive tax cuts would be so wonderful that the economy would explode with activity! Deficits would melt away. If something needed to be cut, start slashing all the stuff not defense related, like education and health and social subsidies. If we really needed to cut spending, I should cut entitlements. Oh, and I should also defund any regulatory agencies, since only unfettered capitalism really worked.
I had already commented to Josh, when he brought this up. "They're right, you know. The only way to really cut the budget is by scaling back entitlements. Social Security and health spending are going to break us someday."
"Mister President, we are nowhere near that.", he protested.
"Not now, Josh, but that day will come. It will come a lot faster if we don't have the revenues to pay for it."
"So, do you plan to cut entitlements?"
I shook my head. "I think I'd rather slit my throat on national television. The Democrats are never going to go along with it, and neither will our party. The real problem is that everybody loves these programs; they just don't want to pay for them. There's a reason we put these things in place. No, as long as we stay out of a deficit situation, I'm not brave enough to tackle that stuff."