The Plan

A fictional story about Washington politics, by Jack Lee

A conversation is overheard by the fly on the wall in the hallowed halls of the Rayburn building next to Congress.

D- Okay this is how it goes John. This is a simple three part plan. First, we stall in negotiations to give the perception we’re both battling it out (chuckle) over our partisan differences. You can say we’re totally un-moveable on tax hikes and we’ll say you’re trying to shut the government down!

Then in phase two, we’ll both start scaring everyone about the horrible things that will happen IF we go over the financial cliff! We can both play the blame game while pretending like we’re heading into a major showdown. We’ve got to get the citizens really worked up and afraid of what’s coming.

But, John…before this second part is over you must get those four Tea Party Republicans off your key committees, I don’t care how, but they must go or they will ruin the whole plan.

Now here comes phase three; Just before we go over that imaginary cliff, somehow we miraculously reach an agreement and we call for a press conference. That’s when we announce in the most dramatic way possible, “For the good of the nation, we each gave a little and came to…” That patriotic stuff always works and then its a done deal. That my friend is the plan how we get our tax hikes for more pork and you get your token cuts and we’re all guaranteed to get re-elected. .

R- You know Harry sometimes this job is like a license to steal, only better! Just hope the voters never figure it out.

D- Well, we’ve been running these scams for years and they’ve caught on yet; voters are dumber than a stump.

Note to the readers: Of course this story is just a piece of pure fiction… something like this could never really happen.

Headlines: Dec. 4 (Bloomberg) — Four Republicans who opposed Speaker John Boehner on spending and budget issues won’t return to the Budget or Financial Services committees when the next session of Congress begins in January, according to a House Republican leadership aide.

The Republican Steering Committee removed Walter Jones of North Carolina and David Schweikert of Arizona from the Financial Services Committee, said the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Justin Amash of Michigan and Tim Huelskamp of Kansas were removed from the House Budget Committee, the aide said.

Amash, Schweikert and Huelskamp were elected in 2010 with support of the Tea Party movement. Their reassignments drew a protest from FreedomWorks, an umbrella group for the Tea Party movement.

(No I didn’t make this part up…)

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/business/bloomberg/article/Four-Republicans-Who-Opposed-Boehner-Removed-From-4091091.php#ixzz2EFtiLgPl