Christopher Buckley - Boomsday

“Science project?”

“Really. Uh-huh. What is the name of the course that you’re doing this…project for?”

“Fluid dynamics?”

“Fluid dynamics. Terrific. So this would be to measure the effects of, say, Prandtl-Glauert condensation?”

“Right,” Boyd said. “Definitely.”

“Well, it’s wonderful that you’re buckling down. Boyd…”

“Yeah?”

“Nothing,” Frank said. “Call your mother, would you? Just tell her we had a good talk. Would you do that for me?”

“Cool. No problemo.”

“Do you need money?”

“Yeah,” Boyd said, brightening. “Sure.”

Frank stripped five hundred-dollar bills off his billfold.

“Hey, thanks, Frank.”

“Good to see you, Boyd.”

Twenty-five million dollars. Twenty-five million five hundred dollars. But look at how seriously he was applying himself to…fluid dynamics. Learning all about Prandtl-Glauert condensation. What a wonderful addition he would someday make to the Cohane Aviation Division.

The national situation continued to decline: plunging stock market, soaring prices, inflation running at 18 percent. This last factor, combined with six consecutive quarters of negative growth, officially signaled stagflation. The U.S. Treasury was furiously printing dollars, while the dollar itself had lost 40 percent of its value over the last six months. The Federal Reserve, meanwhile, had announced yet another hike in the prime rate, to 14 percent. Amid this calamitous economic news, the Congress adamantly-some said magnificently-refused to cut federal spending, with the result that the year’s deficit was now projected at $1.1 trillion.

The foreign situation was encouraging. U.S. and Mexican troops were now taking potshots at each other across the border, inasmuch as Mexico had declared a destino manifesto policy of free emigration. The border to the North was similarly vexed. In the wake of the U.S. embargo on Canadian lumber, paper goods, gypsum, and beer, rogue units of Canadian Mounted Police were now harassing American truckers-on the American side of the border. In the Persian Gulf, never a quiescent body of water for Uncle Sam, U.S. Navy ships were blockading the Strait of Hormuz in an effort to drive up the price of Alaskan crude oil. (A bold move, to be sure, initiated by the Alaskan congressional delegation, now wielding disproportionate influence in the Capitol.) Meanwhile, a small but powerful cabal calling themselves the “geo-cons” were clamoring for U.S. military intervention in Tahiti, Taiwan, Tashkent, Tibet, and any other country whose name began with the letter T .

Amid this tumult, President Peacham set about the business of running for reelection. By all indications, it was going to be an uphill battle. Thus far, the best his people had been able to come up with by way of a campaign slogan was, “He’s doing his best. Really.”

Randy and Cass went about the business of the Transitioning commission. Cass was engaged; Randy was bored witless, at least at the outset. To him it was just an obstacle standing in the way of his appointment to the vice presidency. He had been in Washington long enough to know, in his heart of hearts, that presidential commissions are for the most part things to be ignored, a vermiform appendix to the body politic. It was always the same.

Important personages are appointed to the commission, with instructions to-by all means-study the problem in all its complexity, get to the root of it, and report back to the very highest levels of government. Six, nine months go by, with occasional fifteen-second sound bites on the evening news of commissioners sternly telling witnesses that they were not coming clean with the commission; the witnesses replying that, really, they’re doing their best (give us a break). In due course, the commission delivers its report. There is a day or two of news coverage. The media reports the findings, that the United States is about to run out of molybdenum, or be overcome by bacteria emanating from geese; or that filthy, disgusting Arabs have no right to own American seaports, no matter how moderate they are; or that the government has no disaster plan ready in the event an asteroid the size of Rhode Island lands in the Pacific Ocean; or that the CIA failed to detect the cold war, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Tehran embassy takeover, Grenada, Iran-contra, Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, Bosnia, the attack on the USS Cole , 9/11, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Oh Shit, Now What?; or that really there was no excuse at all for launching those cruise missiles against Papua New Guinea.

These revelations are duly followed by grave tsk-tsk ing and chin rubbing and hand-wringing about how these vitally important issues are still being mishandled and even ignored by the government. The commissioners are officially thanked for their diligent efforts and given commemorative paperweights with the wrong middle initial. The president and the relevant cabinet secretaries and government officials pledge to give the commission’s recommendations “the most serious consideration” (which is to say, none whatsoever), and everyone goes back to ignoring and mismanaging the vital issues.

Six months later, one of the ex-commissioners writes a pained and well-argued op-ed piece in The New York Times , complaining that nothing-not one single recommendation-has been acted upon. Whereupon a junior White House press secretary issues a pained, not-very-well-argued statement saying this is simply “not the case.” Moreover, that as a result of the commission’s “fine work,” a number of things have been done, though he is not at liberty to go into the details. Moreover, further study is needed, as this is-“indeed”-an issue of vital importance not only to the nation, but to all nations. And that’s the end of it.

The TATA Commission, on the other hand, was proceeding rather differently. The proceedings themselves were eminently watchable. One pundit pronounced it a new kind of reality TV show, where instead of being voted off the island, you were voting to kill the contestants.

The pros and cons of Transitioning, which had started policy life as a notional “meta-issue,” were being fiercely debated on live television and beamed into millions of American homes. The names of the commissioners, most of whom had been obscure Washington lobbyists and special interest advocates, were now familiar, and none more than Randolph K. Jepperson, Cassandra Devine, and her sparring partner, the Reverend Gideon Payne. As these pugilistic spectacles wore on, the public’s view of Transitioning was evolving. More senators had come over to the pro side, though the anti side was hardening. But a surprising 38 percent of the American public now favored having the option of being legally euthanized in return for huge tax breaks and subsidies. Posters were going up: UNCLE SAM WANTS TO KILL YOU !

“The chair recognizes Foggo Farquar, chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers,” Randy said. “Mr. Farquar, good morning. You were asked by this commission to study the economic impact on the U.S. Treasury of the Transitioning proposal?”

“Yes, I was.”

“And what were your findings?”

Mr. Farquar took out a large binder whose contents were projected onto a screen in the hearing room.

“The so-called Baby Boomer population cohort,” he said, “numbers approximately seventy-seven million people born between 1946 and 1964. Given the rate at which they are currently retiring and withdrawing funds from Social Security, as well as the Medicare and Medicaid systems, we estimate”-the next slide showed a series of bar graphs, all the color of deep red-“that Social Security will exhaust its resources approximately two and a half months from now.”