THE SENATOR

As the chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, he wields unparalleled influence over U.S. federal spending and budget management.

"Hey, look at this," he tells me, pointing toward his groin.

He has stuck his pointer finger through the zipper hole of his pants to make it look like a penis. He wiggles the finger around and laughs heartily.

"Made you look! Now, what the hell are we supposed to be talkin' about?"

It's actually hilarious that people thought replicators would lead to the government getting smaller.

The people shouting about how "everything is free now" have no fucking clue what they're talking about. I mean, what, you think just because you don't have to pay old man McDonald for a hamburger anymore, that means humanity somehow no longer requires governance? Fuck off.

I mean, my god, some of the voters actually think that half our budget is food stamps or something. Fucking idiots. Even before the crash, food assistance was barely over 1% of federal spending. People have never had any idea how their government operates. They'll go to the polls and vote every year thinking that they have to stop the poor from draining all the money out of the system. Those same people never blinked an eye whenever we increased defense spending by billions.

You want a brief list of all the things you still need the government to do in a post-rep world?

I'm gonna give it to you?

You ready?

Fucking everything but food stamps and the department of agriculture.

The State Department budget? Still going strong. Transportation? Same. HUD? Yes. Justice, labor, transportation, commerce, treasury, energy? You. Fucking. Bet. Medicare and Medicaid? Still yes, although with drug prices at zero, those budgets are getting cut.

Oh, and, national defense? (Laughs.)

Do not get me started. Everything we cut from the entitlements programs is going straight into DOD and the Department of Homeland Security.

What, you thought all that money was gonna go to the teachers? Grow up. The entire budget for education and job training has almost never gone over 2% of total spending, and that ain't changing now.

By the way, we've still gotta make our interest payments on our national debt. And no, not to China. They only held 5% of our debt anyway. Hell, 27% of the total debt is intragovernmental. That's money that one federal agency owes to another federal agency. Literally, money we owe to ourselves. A good chunk of the rest is owned by our own Federal Reserve, especially now that they've once again had to bail out the banks and the corporations.

The numbers I'm sharing with you are public, you know. And yet nobody can figure out the basic truth, which is that it's business-as-fucking-usual in America.

People thought this crash would be different. It was gonna change the world, bring about the end times, heaven on earth. "The Good Crash," they called it.

But the reps just aren't going to change that much. Least of all how the federal government operates.

Isn't there a revenue problem? I would think that with the unemployment rate being as high as it is–

The unemployment rate is going to drop back down to near-zero in a few years. You know why? Because it only tracks people who are actually trying to get a job.

The labor force participation rate is the real one to watch. Before the crash, it was barely above 55%. That was the baseline for the economy we were running. We don't know what the new baseline is. But we think it's probably somewhere between 30% and 40%.

People need something to do to stay busy. And they still need money for housing, for water and gas, for entertainment, for health care, for their phone bill, for the satellite TV package with 6,000 channels that they never watch. Consumer spending has only dropped by about half, and it's rising again. Unless you cut your spending by 100%, you still need a job, and that means you're still paying federal taxes.

Oh, and by the way, people really still think we weren't going to re-open the markets? That's a joke. Plans are already in place. Wall Street will be roaring again by the time your book hits the presses. Or whatever the digital equivalent of going to print is.

With a little tweaking here or there, and a little more deficit spending, we're gonna be just fine.