The Governor's wife

'Governor, we net eighty thousand new students every year. So we need a billion more each year just to tread water. Even with this budget, we'll still be drowning before the next biennium.' The speaker blew out a breath. 'It's what they call, unsustainable.'

'Twelve billion, that'll gut public education.'

'We could cut football,' the speaker said, 'stop building those fancy high school stadiums.'

'Cut football? In Texas?'

'We could drain the rainy day fund.'

'The tea partiers would go apeshit, vote us out.'

'We could apply the sales tax to services. We've got law firms in Houston and Dallas grossing a billion a year and not paying a dime in taxes.'

'Then they'll go apeshit,' the lieutenant governor said.

'So?'

'So it'll never get out of the Senate.'

'Why not?'

'Every one of my senators is a lawyer.'

'Can't school districts raise their local property taxes?' Bode said.

The speaker shook his head. 'Everyone's already maxed out the tax rate, and home values keep falling. Taxes are plummeting and costs are skyrocketing. Not a good scenario for the future of education.'

'We've already got the highest dropout and lowest graduation rates in the country.'

'First in executions, last in graduations,' the lieutenant governor said. 'The state motto.'

Bode ignored him. 'What else can we do?'

'Reform the property tax,' the speaker said. 'Eliminate the exemption for private country clubs and ag. We've got ranchers and farmers sitting on land worth millions, but paying a few hundred bucks in taxes. Urban taxpayers are subsidizing rural taxpayers.'

Bode shook his head. 'Not politically doable. Those ranchers and farmers would torch the Capitol.'

'We could pass that real-estate sales reporting bill, make the closing agents report the price of all property sales.'

'Which does what?'

'Right now, there's no reporting, so there's no comps for commercial property. Buildings worth a hundred million in Dallas and Houston are on the tax rolls for a fraction of that, so developers are paying only a fraction of what they owe in property taxes. Across the state, we're talking billions in lost school taxes.'

'The business lobby will say we're raising taxes,' Jim Bob said.

'We're collecting taxes due. Homeowners are paying at one hundred percent market value, but developers are paying at twenty-five percent. That's not fair.'

'This is politics,' Jim Bob said. 'Not preschool.'

The speaker looked to Bode; he just shrugged, as if to say, The Professor's the boss on all things political.

'Then we fire teachers and close schools.'

'How many schools?'

'Hundreds.'

'Any in Austin?'

The speaker nodded. 'My wife's on the school board. They're talking five hundred teachers and nine schools.'

'You know which ones?'

'Matter of fact, she sent me an email yesterday, begged me to raise taxes and save our schools.'

'Wives are naive like that,' Jim Bob said.

The speaker opened his laptop and tapped the buttons.

'They'll have to close Oakwood, Barton, East Austin-'

'Shit. That's Lindsay's school. She volunteers there. I read to those kids.'

'You read to kids in East Austin?'

Bode nodded. 'Ms. Rodriguez-she's the teacher-she's working her butt off, trying to educate those kids. They close her school, what happens to the kids?'

'Bused to another school.'

'What about the teachers?'

'Fired.'

Bode downed another shot of bourbon.

'Christ, closing schools, firing teachers, making women get sonograms to have an abortion-if a mistress wasn't enough, this'll make Lindsay divorce me for sure.'

'Oh,' the speaker said, 'we can all forget about conjugal visits next session.'

'Hell,' the lieutenant governor said, 'I ain't had a hard-on since nineteen-eighty-nine. June.'

'Thanks for sharing,' Jim Bob said.

'Prostate?' Bode said.

'Yep. They yanked it out, left me insolent.'

'Impotent,' Jim Bob said.

'That, too.'

'You miss it?' Bode said.

'My prostate?'

'Sex.'

The lieutenant governor sighed. 'Every day.'

'Can we focus here?' Jim Bob said.

'Hell, Governor,' the lieutenant governor said, 'might be a good time to jump ship and make a run for the White House. Course, going from governor of a broke state to president of a broke country ain't exactly a promotion.'

'You gonna do it?' the speaker said.

'Thinking about it.'

'Can you beat Obama?' the lieutenant governor said.

'I beat Oklahoma.'

'Governor,' the speaker said, 'you'd be leaving us at a bad time.'

'Texas wasn't broke when George W. was in the White House,' the lieutenant governor said.

'Now we're broke because he was in the White House,' the speaker said.

'If Bode gets elected president, our budget problems are over. We'll be rolling in federal funds.'

'I'll give all of New York's money to Texas.'

'That ain't cheap,' the lieutenant governor said, 'running for the White House. It ain't like here in Texas where one John Ed Johnson can fund your campaign.'

'Can you say Super PAC?' the Professor said. 'Supreme Court threw out the limits on contributions to political advocacy groups. Freedom of speech. So all the candidates are forming Super PACs, shadow campaigns collecting hundreds of millions. This election, money's gonna decide who wins.'

'Money can't vote,' the speaker said.

'The hell it can't. We're going to round up twenty billionaires contributing fifty million each.'

'Twenty times fifty,' the lieutenant governor said. 'That's a hundred million.'

'A billion. You gotta carry the one.'

'Oh.'

The speaker shook his head. 'The country's broke, but rich folks are still willing to bankroll a presidential campaign.'

'Money's made in Washington, Dicky, because that's where the laws are made.'

'Still, twenty billionaires…'

'Nineteen. John Ed is number one.'

'He's in?'

'He is if he wants his condemnation bill signed by the governor. Speaking of which, we need you boys to get