My Depiction of What Obama Faces During his First Term as President

I started writing this story in a letter to a friend, and liked it enough to post on this blog. The content does not directly address the issue of health care, but does address the larger, more critical issue of reclaiming our government. Since the days of Reagan, the conservative right has deliberately set about dismantling our government in an attempt to fulfill their self proclaimed prophecy that all governments fail. They have tried for over twenty years to destroy the public belief in government. They will fail. Our government is alive and well, and with time and a lot of input from the public will recover and thrive.

Here is my allegorical depiction of what Obama faces during his first term in office.

President Obama, his Chief of Staff, and the Secretaries of each department in government walk into the White House, and into each building of each Department: Defense, Justice, Health and Human Services, Agriculture, etc. They can hear the sound of people working, but cannot see what they are doing. The rooms are all dark, and no one can find their desks. The wall switches don't work, their are no batteries in the emergency exit lights, the flashlights don't have light bulbs. When the President, his Chief of Staff and the Secretaries go down to the service areas of each building, they discover the circuit breaker panels have locks on them, and they cannot flip on the breakers. When they manage to find light bulbs for the flashlights (every department contracted from a different company and therefore each required a different bulb), and the key to the lock on the circuit breakers, they find to their dismay that the circuit panel legends have been scratched out. They flip the first breaker only to realize there is no power. The President calls the power company and is informed that the generators are broken. When the President asks the power company what they did with the money the government paid them, the power company mumbles that it suffered losses, and whines about global competition, and unstable markets. The President calls the Federal Reserve and asks them to cut a check to give to the power company to pay to fix the generators. With a jolt the first light flares to life. Through a painful session of trial and error, the President and his crew map out what circuits turn on the lights to each room in each building.

Finally, the legends are redrawn, and the President and his Secretaries are finally able to see what work transpires inside the once dark government buildings. They notice that the people in the various Departments have worked for so long in the dark, it takes time for their eyes to adjust. They have learned to move around the rooms by feel, and even when the darkness has been lifted, they tend not to "see" what actually surrounds them. They move from place to place by habit. The President and Secretaries move the offices around just to force personnel to recognize their environment. The people grumble. Some cannot adjust and leave the buildings, while others begin to thrive and interact. Just as the whole affair begins to operate smoothly, the power company calls the President and tell him its time to pay the bill.

People, who have come from their homes far away, gather outside Washington. They can see the flickering of lights inside the city. They catch glimpses of the magnificent buildings for an instant before the city returns to darkness. Slowly, each monument, the museums, the Mall, and the Departments lights up one after the other, until after fits and starts, we see the city brightly illuminated. The people see the bustle of movement within the Department buildings. The President had told the people that the city would shine once more, but to actually witness the event... The people call the Congress, and begin asking questions. "Why were the lights turned off for so long? Why did not the city have lights before today? How long will this last? What do we need to do to keep the lights on?"

The Congress, unused to hearing from the people outside the city, call the President. The tell him that the public likes what it sees in Washington. The President says he already knows. The President tells Congress that the power bill is due, and the Federal Reserve is nearly tapped out. The power company had failed to upgrade their systems over the years, and the President had to use the money in the Treasury to repair the generators. The Congress panics. They blame the President. The President reminds them that he just walked into the city and found it dark. They tell the President that the people will never go for sending more money to the government. "No," says the President, "they will not go for spending more money if it will be wasted." The President assures Congress that he will see to it that the new generators produce clean, reliable power, and that everyone he and his Secretaries supervise uses the energy wisely and efficiently. He gently reminds Congress that they alone have the responsibility of correcting the mistakes of the power company, and for finding the money to the pay the power bill.

The Congress, caught between two forces eager to see change, the President and the people outside Washington, must now adjust. For years the power company has been telling Congress what to do. They assured Congress and the people that they would make care for the generators and protect the city, but instead they spent the money they were given recklessly. To insure that no one asked questions, the power company made certain that at least one generator remained in good repair and that the lights in Congress were always turned on, but the rest of the city and those surrounding it were allowed to sink into darkness. Whenever certain members of Congress, concerned by the darkness within the city, wanted to see the generators, they offered them a job at the plant. If those certain members of Congress kept asking about the generators, the power company threatened to cut off the lights back home.

All this was possible because the last President liked working and living in the dark. The former leader so reviled the light, that whenever any light shown for even a brief instant, he fled to his home far away, and let the power company deal harshly with any would dare to bring the revealing rays of light into the city. To make certain no one working for him accidentally turned on the lights, he made certain his Secretaries were unable to distinguish a wall switch from a stem cell. His minion, and friend in the shadows, the Vice President, set about wrecking the circuit breakers in hopes of eradicating the light forever. While some members of Congress held the man in great esteem, others prayed for an end to his reign, and in silence planned for the future.

Time passed and the future arrived. Now the President knows the power company lied. The people know the power company lied. The people want the city to be illuminated. They want the people in the buildings to bustle about doing their work, but they don't want the power company to once more take over the city. Congress tries to find a way to pay the power bill, keep the power company in check, and keep the people happy. Meanwhile the President, his Chief of Staff and the Secretaries continue to train the people working in the Department buildings. The President tells the Congress that they will have to do their jobs and find a way to pay the bills to keep the buildings lit. Some Congressman have faith that the President will keep the power bills low by running his offices efficiently, and they tell the people that their money will be well spent.

Other Congressman continue to heed the voice of the power company in hopes that the city will be plunged back into the cradle of all concealing darkness. The power company tells these Congressman and the electorate they serve that the power was turned off in the Department buildings because the people in them were wasteful. "These people," the power company confides, " sucked up all the power, and refused to turn off the lights, and conserve electricity." The power company tells Congress that the money should be paid directly to the power company with no questions asked just as they have always done. Then the leaders of the power company hire some of the people who once worked in Congress, and some of the people who couldn't adjust to working in the light, and instruct them to talk to the people outside the city, and tell them that if the power is turned back on in the Departments, there will be no power back home. The government will waste the power. Worse yet, the surge from all the wasteful overuse will destroy the power stations back home. To further fan the flames of fear, they explain to the people that, if they send their money to the government, the government will use the money to buy up all the power and then ration it out to the people. Some might die. Only the power company can manage the distribution of power. They want power to flow straight from the plant to the people. Some of the people grow fearful and continue to support the power company. Those people turn on the others and attempt to spread their fear.

But the majority of the people refuse to believe the people paid to speak for the power company. They ignore the fearful wailing of those who do believe. Instead they seek truth. They question Congress. "The city has been dark for years, and yet we have been paying you to pay the power company? Where is our power? We can see it in the bright lights on the hills around the city, and in the mansions in the cities, but every time we tap into it, the grid collapses. Why are the generators always broken, and why are we expected to pay to fix them when they could have been fixed using a portion of the profits? We have to fix our houses, our cars and ourselves using only what we take home in a paycheck." The questions keep coming, and Congres begins to fear the people more than they fear having their lights turned off. "Why do the people in the brightly lit buildings in the hills around the city pay less, when we continue to pay the same for less?" Finally the people realize that the power company is the problem. "We will pay for the power. You provide that and deserve to be paid, but you can't control its distribution. If a smaller power company wants to offer us a better price, we don't want you running them off."

The Congress legislates the will of the people, and the power company can no longer do as it pleases. Meanwhile, the President, the Chief of Staff, and the Secretaries have spent their time wisely restaffing and retraining the people in the buildings of the Departments. One by one, the Departments begin to function efficiently, and the people begin to receive their power. The power company dissolves once more into many companies, and more jobs become available. The generators are no longer housed in one building, under one management, but have popped up all over. No one company can threaten to shut off the power to so many again.

Still, on a beltway, just outside the city, heads are bent together in discussion, and they plan...