“Then why are you asking? Shit, why does anyone ask? Congress is there to make money, and to make money, we pass bills that will make our donors happy. Even if we know they won’t make it all the way through the process, our donors are satisfied. It shows them we’re on their side.”
“Donors, interesting you mention them. Donors are behind the arms deal.”
“Of course, they are. They’re for whom we all work.”
Lee stood still for a moment, but then he moved again, and again, his mind started spinning, his words eager to keep pace. “We long for a time that laborers worked for as little as possible, so we could pocket more of the profits. They went to church, gave what little they had to the collection plates, then went right back to work the next day, maybe twelve, maybe fifteen hours. There were no entitlements like Social Security or Medicare. Welfare came in the form of work camps so we rich could make even more money off their backs. Prisons were for the ultra-poor, or other races, so if the ministers couldn’t keep everyone controlled, the law could.
“Everything worked in our favor then, as it does now, but we didn’t have to hide so much then. Now, everything must be hidden, or made, to our own bases, to feel normal or patriotic. Working for scraps is patriotic. Unions are evil, entitlements for those who need handouts, not for those who work so hard, their bodies are broken long before they should be.”
“Senator, if you know all this, why are you still there?”
He turned to Hill and moaned, “It was expected of me.”
For once, Hill didn’t condemn him for that. “We all have them, the bulk of carrying expectations by our parents. But now, now that you know it all, work for us. You see, I lied. It’s not just an arms deal. We’ve discovered what a lot already knew. They want to change our country. The very ones that scream of freedom and sacrifice are the ones that are making the laws that will soon have us in a bad place.”
“I know that. There’s nothing I can do.”
“There might be. A lot of my fellow agents have seen the worst crimes we can imagine coming from members of Congress. Up until now, unless crimes became very public, we were to look the other way. A request from the very top. Homeland Security the same. What we want to do is start to open things up to the public and show them the people they’ve been electing.”
“It would be a start. See, Hill, the problem with that is, it doesn’t matter how great someone is when elected at first. The corruption gets to them. It’s not all, no, but it happens more than anyone would like to think. We throw out scraps of legislation that the voters can take as a small victory, but then, we claim too much opposition on the bigger ticket items.”
“Like gun control, health care, I could go on.”
“Yes, exactly. I made thirty-seven thousand from gun manufacturers alone last year. And I’m small potatoes.”
“I know,” he said with a deep smirk. “First thing we looked into.”
“Well, then let me say this again. You aren’t going to change it.”
“You don’t think so?”
“No,” he said, rushing to the desk to slam his hands on the surface. “It’s not meant for change like that. No one, and I mean no one would let it! If people got taken out of their seats, more would get elected and become like them.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
“We need to do what’s been done for the last couple centuries. Rig it. We can take out all the old guard, sure. I can probably get you information on everyone in my party. Get them all out. Make sure it’s not only mine, though. Hate to admit it, but there’s some good people over there across the aisle.”
“How do you know?”
“Because they hate me.”
He laughed and said, “Okay, fair enough. Go on.”
“A slow go of it, so suspicions wouldn’t be raised in Congress, sure, but out there, with the public, it would cause mass confusion and panic. All of it would crash, the market, the economy and all. We find the worst offenders and get them out in handcuffs, and the others, afraid of prison and public humiliation, would go on their own or change.”
Sitting again, he became like a wild man, and all of his own thoughts would spill out of his mouth if he weren’t careful. “You’re never going to change the world, it’s not possible, but to get the worst of them out, it would be a start. We enact legislation to curb lobbyists and to set things right. Break the PACs, that would be the best start.”
“It’s possible?”
“It is, if we get the money out of politics, enact term limits, so the new members wouldn’t become so comfortable eventually that they’d start it all up again. And make laws that no one can own stocks at all, if they are in Congress.”
Hill was nodding along, sure, but he’d taken out a pad and paper to write things down that Lee was throwing out there. “Good, yes, I agree with all of it.”
“Transparency up to the top. Like what’s supposed to be for the president, we assure with all of them. No interest in companies that can in any way benefit from their place in making laws.”
He thought of all the things he’d seen where things were the worst and spouted them out to Hill for two hours.
By the time they were finished, both were exhausted, but excited in a way he hadn’t felt in his life.