JOE BIDEN: Man, the wingnuts smoked us in midterms.
OBAMA: Yeah, they kicked our butts all right. Hey, I’m craving a cigarette. Anybody got one?
BIDEN: A cryin’ shame, Boss. Like you said last week, Boehner’ll drive the budget bus while we’re sittin’ in back scratchin’ our . . . .
OBAMA: Didn’t say that, Joe. Said I was “itching for a fight.”
DAVID AXELROD: Besides the veto, only one real option’s left to you come January, sir: creative new abuses of your executive powers.
OBAMA: Agreed. Listen up, everyone. Assume gridlock and suggest end runs around Congress on savings and revenue. Janet, you start.
NAPOLITANO: Disband the INS and employ drug traffickers to police our southern border, sir; they know the territory and consider human smugglers scum.
DAVID PLOUFFE: That would save us a bundle and show you’re serious about stopping uncredentialed landscapers infiltrating from Juárez and Tegulcigalpa, Mr. President.
OBAMA: No good. Streisand has her Shangri-La estate in Malibu where half those people eventually wind up. I lose her, I lose Hollywood. Besides, why stop the flow of irregular expatriates who’ll vote for me when I eventually amnestitize them? Uh, Energy?
STEVEN CHU: Sell Venezuela drilling rights off the coasts of Florida and California, sir. Sean Penn will be OK with that. With any luck, Chavez blows a well and sets the industry back fifty years. Your hands would be clean.
OBAMA: Yeah, but suppose we’re unlucky and the wells produce? Gasoline is closing in on four bucks a gallon right now. Last thing I want is more product and lower prices. Valerie?
JARRETT: You haven’t responded to China’s offer to lease California and build mega-manufactories staffed by restive Muslims from Xinxiang, zir, I mean, sir.
OBAMA: I dunno. The Chinese say they just want “Made in the USA” tags on their stuff. Sounds harmless enough, but something smells wrong. Stall them. Hillary?
CLINTON: Sarkozy called, sir. He’ll accept return of Jefferson’s 1803 Louisiana Purchase and refund our $15 million payment, minus a 20% restocking fee.
OBAMA: Eh. So far, nothing floats my boat. What else you got? Tim?
GEITHNER: McConnell and Boehner laughed at my proposal that Treasury assume management of the trillions sitting in IRAs, sir. Too bad. The investments we might have made in America’s future!
BIDEN: Wienies. Argentina’s government had the guts to take control of the country’s private pension funds. Argentina! A tinpot regime shows the world’s most progressive declining superpower how to do it.
OBAMA: Tim, what about the windfall tax revenue you promised from this year’s one time Roth IRA conversion deal?
GEITHNER: The public never bought into it. Frankly, sir, only an idiot would pay taxes proactively while you’re in office.
LARRY SUMMERS: Mr. President, why not go after the Roth trove itself? Most of that money’s owned by the richest 40%, people who don’t need the funds but invested in Roths to help their children and grandchildren evade responsibility for the fix we’re bequeathing them.
BIDEN: Won’t work, Larry. The Hill will never legislate a surtax on Roth withdrawals.
OBAMA: Larry’s not talking some measly 10% surtax, Joe. Yes, I want it all, Larry. How do we do manage that?
SUMMERS: Go Argentina one better, sir: citing fiscal eminent domain, nationalize Roth accounts. Holder can drag out the court fight through 2012.
OBAMA: Brilliant! With more money than g-d, I‘ll buy off enough have-nots to win reelection. By the time the case gets to the Supremes, Scalia and his friends will be in the minority.
GEITHNER: Related matter, sir: Barney Frank wants a firewall around Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before the Republicans take over the House Financial Services Committee.
PETE ROUSE: Barney’s right, sir. It took years of neglect for Fannie and Freddie to become so bureaucratic and wasteful. Republican oversight could undo our achievements in months.
OBAMA: Good point. Eric, put together the paperwork: I’m appropriating those organizations and placing them in trust with Treasury. Tim, recharter the two as “Fannie Mae I” and “Freddie Mac the Knife,” the government’s fully owned “tough love” lenders [snort]. I’ll ask budget hawks Paul Krugman and John Kenneth Galbraith to serve as CEOs.
AXELROD: Galbraith’s dead, sir.
OBAMA: True. But when critics say his agency reeks of corruption, we’ll have a counter.
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