Chapter 434: Chapter 203: Budget Deficit
The hearing entered its sixth hour.
The air in the hearing room had grown thick and stale.
The spotlights overhead were still stark white and glaring. Leo drank the last drop of water from the paper cup in front of him.
His throat was burning, and his vocal cords felt painfully dry.
For the past six hours, he had been like a sparring partner thrown into a boxing ring, taking a barrage of heavy blows from the Republican senators.
"Regarding the exemption clauses of the *National Environmental Policy Act*..."
"Regarding labor standards for interstate logistics..."
"Regarding the privacy and security of supply chain data..."
Every question was a carefully designed trap. If he revealed the slightest weakness in his answers, tomorrow morning’s headlines would tear him to shreds.
But he hadn’t fallen.
The two-hundred-page Q&A prep script had done its job.
Leo’s brain was like a precision machine, overclocking in this high-pressure environment, transforming dry data and obscure clauses into airtight answers.
Senator Brian Cole, seated in the center of the horseshoe-shaped dais, looked increasingly grim.
He had originally thought that a few hours in this pressure cooker would be enough for the rookie mayor from the Rust Belt to have a mental breakdown or start rambling incoherently.
But he had underestimated Leo’s resilience.
The young man had not only withstood the technical grilling but even had the energy to counter-attack on certain questions.
"Enough."
Cole snapped the folder in front of him shut.
The sound instantly roused the spectators, some of whom had been drifting off.
The reporters, with their sharp instincts, sensed that the warm-up was over. It was time for the main course.
Cole waved to an aide behind him.
The aide immediately handed him a thick report.
Printed on the cover was a dark blue crest—the logo of the Free Market Traditional Foundation, a well-known Washington think tank.
"Mayor Wallace."
Cole said.
"In your answers just now, you repeatedly emphasized that your plan would generate revenue, create jobs, and achieve a so-called ’closed fiscal loop’."
Cole stood up, clutching the report.
"But math doesn’t lie."
"This is an independent actuarial report from the Free Market Traditional Foundation. Their top economists used the data model you provided to run their own, more rigorous calculations."
The entire room fell silent.
All the camera lenses zoomed in, focusing on the report.
Cole opened the report and read the conclusion directly.
"The report indicates that your project has severe structural flaws. Due to an over-reliance on government subsidies, the low operational efficiency of that so-called ’workers’ cooperative,’ and potential cost overruns during the Inland Port’s construction..."
"This bill will not only fail to be profitable."
Cole stared at Leo, enunciating each word.
"It will, over the next ten years, create a deficit black hole for the Federal Government of up to five billion US dollars."
"Five billion US dollars!"
Cole raised his voice, his words echoing through the hearing hall.
"This is a bottomless pit. You are trying to use American taxpayers’ money to fill Pittsburgh’s fiscal hole. You are trying to use the hard-earned money of Kansas farmers to subsidize your inefficient Union friends."
"We cannot use taxpayer money to fill your hole."
Cole slammed the report down on the dais.
"Here is the proof."
A commotion erupted in the spectator gallery.
Reporters began furiously typing on their keyboards, the sound of camera shutters a continuous chatter.
For fiscal conservatives, the word "deficit" was like waving a red cape in front of a bull.
If this "five-billion-dollar deficit" accusation stuck, then no matter how perfect Leo’s performance had been, the bill would be shot down on the spot by the Appropriations Committee.
Cole leaned forward, his hands on the table, looking down at Leo from his elevated position.
He was waiting.
Waiting for Leo’s panic, for his rebuttal.
The moment Leo opened his mouth to question the report’s data, Cole would immediately bring in his prepared team of economists to drown Leo in a flood of complex, professional jargon.
Leo sat in the witness chair.
He looked at the report that had been slammed on the table, his face showing no surprise.
It was as if time was flowing backward.
...
「Eight hours earlier.」
Washington, in Sanders’s office at the Senate Office Building.
Daniel Sanders took an unmarked manila envelope from his locked drawer.
The envelope was thin and felt light.
"Take this."
Sanders pushed the envelope toward Leo.
"What is it?" Leo asked.
"It’s something I got in a trade with Isaac Larson, the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee," Sanders said. "For this, I agreed to keep my mouth shut on the Iowa ethanol subsidy bill and promised to support his re-election at the next caucus meeting."
Leo picked up the envelope and started to open it.
"Don’t," Sanders said, stopping his hand. "Don’t look at it now."
Sanders stared into Leo’s eyes, his expression serious.
"This is the unofficial preliminary score that the Congressional Budget Office rushed out late last night."
"Do you know what this means?"
Leo nodded.
"Cole will definitely use the deficit as his main line of attack," Sanders said. "The Republicans love using reports from those think tanks they keep on a leash to scare people. They’ll paint your project as a monster that devours taxpayer money."
"When he pulls out that report during the hearing, that’s when he’ll bare his fangs."
"And this envelope..."
Sanders patted the back of Leo’s hand.
"...is the stone that will shatter his teeth."
"Remember, Leo, even though this is an unofficial score, in a hearing of this level, it carries far more weight than a report from some fly-by-night think tank."
"Don’t pull it out unless you absolutely have to."
"You need to wait. Wait until he’s pinned the ’deficit’ label on you, wait until he’s played all his cards, wait until he thinks he’s already won."
"Then you show him this."
...
「Back to the present.」
The clamor in the hearing hall continued.
Leo slowly reached into the folder in front of him, his fingertips brushing against the rough surface of the manila envelope.
Leo took out the envelope.
The movement was slow, but under the gaze of dozens of cameras, it was exceptionally clear.
Cole’s eyes were drawn to the envelope. His brow furrowed slightly as a sense of foreboding rose within him.
Leo ignored the stares from all around.
He methodically tore open the seal and pulled out the thin, two-page document from within.
At the top of the document was the seal of the Congressional Budget Office.
"Senator."
Leo spoke.
"I respect your ’civilian’ mathematicians."
Leo deliberately stressed the word "civilian."
"I also respect the academic freedom of the Traditional Foundation."
"However," Leo said, standing up.
He held the document in his hands, raising it to his chest for all the senators on the dais—and the cameras behind him—to see.
"In this room, in this hallowed hall where the nation’s budget is decided..."
"...there is only one body that has the final say on calculating the federal deficit."
"And that is the Congressional Budget Office."
The color drained slightly from Cole’s face.
’A CBO score?’
’How is that possible? According to procedure, the CBO score shouldn’t be out for at least another two weeks.’
He had already spoken with the relevant people, asking them to scrutinize it carefully to delay the process.
’How did this kid from Pittsburgh get his hands on it?’
"This is the unofficial preliminary score from the Congressional Budget Office, delivered just this morning."
Leo’s voice echoed through the hearing hall, each word like a slap in the face.
"According to the CBO’s official projection model..."
Leo glanced down at the figures on the document.
"Thanks to an expanded tax base from reshoring the supply chain, and increased industrial efficiency from lower energy costs..."
"...the *National Strategic Supply Chain Resilience Act*, while requiring an initial investment of two billion US dollars..."
Leo looked up, staring directly at Cole’s face, which was starting to turn red.
"...will, over the next decade, bring additional fiscal revenue to the Federal Government."
"It will not only *not* create a deficit."
"On the contrary, it will *reduce* the federal deficit by one point two billion US dollars."
"Furthermore, it will directly create forty thousand long-term, tax-paying jobs."
The room was dead silent.
Only the sound of camera shutters grew more frantic.
A surplus of 1.2 billion US dollars.
This was a world apart from the five-billion-dollar deficit Cole had claimed.
One was an officially certified, profitable project; the other was a money-losing boondoggle cooked up by a partisan think tank.
In the political logic of Washington, there was no choice to be made.
The CBO’s numbers were truth. They were law.
Leo, holding the document, took a step forward.
"Senator Cole."
"You said earlier that data doesn’t lie."
"Well, now you have two completely different sets of data before you."
"One is from an official agency that serves Congress; the other is from a private think tank with a clear partisan bias."
"Are you telling me that you trust that think tank over the Congressional Budget Office?"
The other senators on the dais began to whisper among themselves. A few Democratic Party members couldn’t help but crack gloating smiles.
The Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Larson, sat nearby, pretending to take a sip of water to hide the smirk on his face.
Leo gently placed the document on the table.
"I believe we have discussed the issue of the deficit quite thoroughly."
Leo sat back down in his chair and adjusted his tie.
"If the committee has no further questions on this matter, shall we move on to the next item on the agenda?"
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