299 Days: The Preparation Part 16

In return, state employee unions would take millions of dollars from their members and donate the funds to the politicians who ran the state, and "negotiate" things like pensions and health insurance. It was theft.

But no one cared. Grant could not comprehend why people didn't care that they were being taxed so much, under the threat of going to jail, just so politicians could buy votes and keep their little politician jobs? How was this not obvious? He thought of it this way: If someone came to a person's house and said they needed to pay thousands of dollars a month - and if they didn't they'd be hauled off- so their neighbor can have plenty while they struggled, and they could simply end the monthly knock on the door by voting at the next election, why wouldn't everyone do that?

Because they were brainwashed. They seemed to chant like zombies, "Must fully fund education. Is for the children. State employees are underpaid. Must increase funding...." It was like ma.s.s hypnosis. It started in the public schools. Manda would come home and tell Grant what they "learned" in school and Grant would come unglued.

"So, Manda, what did you do at school today?" he asked her one time.

"In History we learned about the Depression," she said. "What did they say about it?" he asked.

"That some FDR guy saved the country with new government programs," she said. "You need to spend money to get out of a depression. All those people getting the money spend it and that's good for the economy."

Grant gave her a quick overview of why that wasn't true. He found himself quoting Ludwig von Mises to her. It was going over her head.

"Sorry to go off, dear," Grant said, "it's just so frustrating that they're teaching this c.r.a.p."

"That's OK," Manda said. "I just listen to what I need to know for the test. They've been wrong about just about everything in History and especially Social Studies. Remember when they said gun owners were dangerous? You own guns," she said pointing to Grant, "and you're not dangerous. I'm just trying to get a good grade. Don't worry Daddy. I'm not a little socialist." She smiled when she said that.

Manda got it. Grant remembered how appalled she was when he told her that her share of national debt was $150,000. She said, "That's payments I have to make on a house, except I don't get to live in it." Smart girl. She knew more about politics and fiscal matters than 95% of adults in government-loving Washington State.

Grant thought about the federal "stimulus" money that the feds had just stopped handing out to the state. For the bailout of Washington State alone, the feds created several billion dollars of debt just so the Governor and legislators wouldn't have to be uncomfortable around their union friends. What a great trade. An awkward moment at a c.o.c.ktail party is such a horrible thing. Better to put another couple hundred bucks on Manda's $150,000 tab that she'd be paying for the rest of her life, with interest. That actually made sense to these people. And, once again, the majority of voters in the state applauded the politicians doing this for their "leadership." It was surreal. How could this be happening?

Grant wondered if this was really happening with the state, or if he was just getting bad information. He called Jeanie. She was still nice to him. She felt bad that she wasn't being principled but was, instead, keeping her government job. She had been dying to tell someone what was happening and was happy to fill him in.

When he called, he made sure she was in a place where she could talk without her co-workers overhearing. Jeanie described how the Governor called a big meeting of all the agency heads. That included Menlow, even though he was the separately elected State Auditor and a Republican (at least on paper). The state budget flowed through the Governor's Office, so they had control over the money. Jeanie went to the meeting with Menlow.

"It was crazy, Grant," she told him. "These people are absolutely terrified of what's coming. One of them, Montoya at Corrections, started crying. She said prisoners would have to be released. Lots of them. Some pretty bad ones, too." Jeanie was scared. She knew what it would mean for these animals to be in neighborhoods like hers.

Grant felt terrible. Not because of all the cuts; they were inevitable and spending never should have gotten so large that devastating cuts like this were necessary. No, Grant felt terrible that he was enjoying this so much.

What kind of a.s.shole takes pleasure in this? Him. That's who. He couldn't control the warm joyous feeling he was having that this beast of government was wounded. It was wounded and couldn't hurt people as much, anymore. No more ruining Ed Oleos, Big Sams, or Joe Tantoris. The collapse was beginning. It was about d.a.m.ned time.

Then he felt guilty. How could he enjoy this? Seriously, prisoners released to terrorize communities. How was this good news? It wasn't. This was why Grant and a few others had been yelling at the top of their lungs for years that the state can't keep spending more and more money. When the federal stimulus money came in, everyone else cheered. Not Grant. He knew that postponing the necessary cuts would only make the day of reckoning harder. Much harder. Which it was.

The warm joyous feeling wouldn't go away. Grant needed to try to be sympathetic.

"What about state employees?" Grant asked. "What kind of cuts will there be?" He was trying to keep the topic on things that affected her.

"No raises this year," she said. "No increases for the pensions. Furloughs for five days a year."

"How much will that save?" Grant asked.

"The Governor's Office thinks $98 million over two years," Jeanie said.

"That's a drop in the bucket when you're looking at $5.7 billion," Grant said.

"That's all they think the unions will tolerate," Jeanie said.

Taxes would go up - way, way up - but there was a limit to what people could pay.

Jeanie added, "The state can't borrow any more money." Grant, who had become an expert on the state const.i.tution from all the cases he worked on, knew why. The const.i.tution limited state borrowing to 9% of tax revenue. Revenue was down, way down, and 9% of it wouldn't come close to the $5.7 billion.

Grant said, "The State of Washington has maxed out its credit card." That was quite an astounding statement.

It got worse. The $5.7 billion deficit and maxing out of the state's credit card was just the present problem. The problem for the next few years was the pensions as a huge wave of state employees would start retiring and collecting their pensions. The amount of the actual shortage in the state pension system was a closely guarded secret, but the rumor was that the deficit was about $20 billion, which was about two years of the state's entire discretionary spending. In just a few years, the pension checks would start bouncing, unless taxes were raised to levels so high that no one in their right minds would get up and go to work. There was no way to avoid this. Unless, of course, pension benefits were drastically reduced. Everyone knew that wouldn't happen. Retired union state employees were a huge voting block. The politicians would never do it willingly.

But, future events would force their hand. It was inevitable. Those greedy politician b.a.s.t.a.r.ds created this system, knowing it would fail. They knew it, but they'd be out of office by the time it all fell apart.

After a long contemplative pause, Jeanie said, "Just about everyone I know is a state employee. Jim is. I am. Just about everyone in my neighborhood is."

"Same in my neighborhood," Grant said. He started mentally going up and down the houses on his street. He didn't know most of his neighbors' names, but, strangely, knew what agencies they worked for. The people on his cul-de-sac were the director of the Office of Women and Minority Business, the a.s.sistant state treasurer, a recently retired a.s.sistant director of the state education department, a biologist with the state game department, the soon-to-retire budget head of the Department of Ecology, and an administrative appeals judge. The only two private-sector families on the cul-de-sac were his family and the Spencers. That was it. Obviously, Olympia was different than other places because it was the state capitol. But still.

Grant started to think what would happen if the state had to lay off a third or half of them or if paychecks started to bounce. What would the people on his street do?

They would freak out. Big time. They would be stunned at first, and then they would get angry at the taxpayers who hadn't allowed taxes to keep going up to fund their jobs. Grant remembered Sean, the Governor's legislative director's statement, "That's our money. We need it."

The people in Grant's neighborhood would get desperate, because all they knew how to do was government work, and if they were unemployed then several hundred thousand others would be too, and the tiny number of private-sector jobs left would have long lines of applicants. If the state checks stopped coming, these people were totally screwed. They would a.s.sume that there would be government programs for them like mortgage a.s.sistance and utility bill reductions. But that wasn't likely. If there wasn't enough money to pay state employees, there wouldn't be enough to give everyone handouts. This was real. The State of Washington could collapse.

There was that joyous warmth again. Collapse is what is needed. Not wanted, but needed. Grant thought about the years of work he and people at WAB had done to predict that spending was out of control and that something needed to be done or the sudden and drastic cuts would be devastating. No one listened. In fact, they mocked people like him sounding the alarm.

A collapse would be awful, but there was no political way to trim spending and get the government back into the role it was supposed to have: doing a few things well, like police protection, but not becoming bigger than the private sector. However, the system was dysfunctional. It was out of control. Some furloughs and no raises was all the system could do to plug a hole of half the money it could spend. It couldn't borrow any more money.

Grant whispered, "It's finally happening."

Jeanie was still silent on the other end of the phone.

He felt like he was watching a car crash, but smiling at the same time because he told the driver a thousand times not to drive on the wrong side of the road. He was feeling horror and "I told you so" at the same time. Like the impending car crash, Grant couldn't do anything about it; not a thing. All he could do was be sure that he wasn't in the car when it crashed. He couldn't save the people who had decided to do really stupid things over and over again. He had tried.

All he could do was watch. Then it would be up to him to render first aid and clean up the wreckage. He would clean up after the mess because he had to, but the whole time he would be shaking his head and muttering, "Dumb a.s.ses."

Grant started thinking about the part about him not being in the car when it crashed. He had taken steps, at the risk of his wife finding out and being furious, to take care of his family and shield them from the coming collapse. He thought about the food, the cabin, the guns, and the network of people with vital skills. His family was taken care of because he got off his a.s.s and did it. He was a man. He took care of his family. That made him smile.

Chapter 32.

You Done Good In the middle of this budget crisis and political gloom, Grant had an escape; his cabin. He went out there every chance he got.

The only thing better than being at his cabin was being there with friends and family. Manda came out all the time and Cole was out there pretty regularly. Lisa came out when they had family friends out.

Grant loved having his friends out there, but limited the ones he invited. He didn't want too many people to know where the cabin was. He certainly didn't show them the food and ammo.

One of his first "guy's weekend" guests was Steve Briggs from Forks. Grant wanted to show Steve how cool the cabin was, and drink a lot of beer.

Steve came out one glorious June day. It was seventy-five degrees and sunny.

When he drove up, Steve rolled down his window and said "Whoa. You done good."

Grant gave him the tour and they sat in comfy lounge chairs on the deck and drank for a few hours. They had a long conversation about Forks, all the Civil Air Patrol stories, leaving Forks, and the time Steve saved Grant's life on Goat Island.

During their conversation, the topic turned to the seemingly inevitable collapse. It all started when Steve said the same phrase he said in Forks years earlier that got Grant prepping.

"This is a false economy," he said when he was talking about how all the car parts at his store were made in China and arrived through a just-in-time inventory system. This was Grant's opportunity to have "the conversation" with Steve.

"What happens if the stock market crashes or whatever and people don't have Doritos?" Grant asked.

Steve smiled. "If the s.h.i.t hits the fan, and Forks isn't safe, we come here. You probably have a firearm or two for me." Perfect. Steve got it. "And if Olympia or this place isn't safe, then you come to Forks. I've got a firearm or two for you."

"Roger that," Grant said as he finished off his umpteenth beer. G.o.d, it was great to have friends like Steve. The next day, when Steve left, Grant felt that they were even closer friends than when he had arrived.

Chip was another friend that Grant knew he could trust, and he wanted to invite him to the cabin.

He went into Capitol City Guns and, when Chip was out of the earshot of the others, Grant said, "Hey, man, you need to come out to my cabin. Free beer. There's something I want to show you. How about Sunday?"

"Sounds great," Chip said.

"Don't let this out," Grant said. "I don't advertise that I have this place."

"Why might that be?" Chip asked. "This wouldn't be a hideout, would it?" He was grinning.

That Sunday, Chip drove up in his truck. "This is perfect," he said to Grant. "How cool. Very nice." That was music to Grant's ears.

"Let me give you the tour," Grant said.

Chip motioned to the back of the truck. "I need to get my friends inside." Chip pulled out two cases of beer. "They don't like the warm air. They need to be somewhere cooler."

This was going to be a good day.

They brought the beer inside. Chip looked around. "This place is nice. A guy could live here year round no problem."

"Yep," Grant said with a big smile.

Grant opened a beer for Chip and one for himself. He looked Chip right in the eyes and said, "Can you keep a secret?"

Chip looked back at him very seriously and whispered, "You're gay, too?" And then laughed.

"No, something even more socially frowned upon," Grant said.

"I'm a *survivalist.'"

"No s.h.i.t," Chip said, pretending to be serious. "You mean all those ARs, AK, and Glocks. All the stories about how corrupt the government is. All your excitement about having a *bug out location?'" Chip faked surprise and said, "You are a survivalist? Who saw that coming?" He laughed. "So let's see the stash, Bunker Boy."

Grant showed him the food in the storage shed. "Impressive," Chip said. "I recognize some of those cases of MREs. I'll get you some more when Special Forces Ted comes by. I like to see that they have a nice home like this."

Grant showed Chip the bas.e.m.e.nt and took him down to the beach. They sat in the chairs on the bulkhead and drank beer. Grant brought down a half rack in an iced cooler. They peed off the bulkhead into the water. "That's livin'," Grant said. Chip nodded and concentrated on relieving himself.

After they were good and buzzed, Grant decided it was time to have "the conversation" with Chip. It would be the short version, since Chip already knew what was going on.

"Chip, when the s.h.i.t hits the fan," Grant started to say.

"I'm coming here," Chip said, finishing Grant's sentence. "I'll bring all the food and gear I can. Done."

That was easy.

"I will have a special role for you and this place," Grant said. He pointed back up toward the cabin. "You know that unfinished bas.e.m.e.nt. It could store a lot of stuff. If they ever try to outlaw guns and you *lose' some of yours, you could keep them here."

"Way ahead of you partner," Chip said. "Already thought of that when you showed it to me. All I need is a spare key."

"There's one under that big rock," Grant said pointing to a rock near the bulkhead.

"Roger that," Chip said. He paused, realizing the implications of what they were saying. He didn't want to dwell on it. He didn't want to acknowledge to himself how serious this was. He wanted to think things would be OK and Grant's cabin would just be a place to sit on the beach and drink beer, not a hideout when s.h.i.t hit the fan.

Chapter 33.

Conditions Worsen That summer, things changed quickly. In just a few days, everything that had been building suddenly erupted.

As bad as things were in Washington State, they were worse in California. Their spending was totally out of control. The state had so much debt that it couldn't possibly pay it back.

Finally, reality caught up with the utopians running California. When their latest bond issue didn't sell, it was time, finally, to make cuts.

A third of state employees were laid off. Half of the prisoners were released. They tried to limit the releases to "non-violent" criminals. But many of them went on horrific rampages. Of course, gun ownership was restricted in California, so the criminals didn't have to worry much about decent people stopping them. Too many Californians found out that the ban on magazines holding more than ten rounds was a real problem when four gang bangers were busting down their front door. Those extra few rounds would have come in handy.

There weren't many police around, either. Many had been laid off. It was a summer of crime and disbelief in California. Most people were so oblivious in California that they had no idea what was coming.

One of the biggest shocks was when the welfare payments stopped coming. With the ma.s.sive budget cuts, many people lost welfare all together and those who still got it had much less on their prepaid debit cards. The well-organized welfare groups started ma.s.sive protests, and many turned violent. Push-and-shoving kind of violence, maybe a few broken windows at government buildings. That was all (in the beginning).

Grant was glued to the TV watching the California protests. Everything was playing out exactly like he thought it would, which scared him because that meant he knew what else was coming.

It was happening so fast and people were so glued to the TV. Many went to work one day and so much happened by the time they got home that they felt like they couldn't keep up with the all the new events.

Grant didn't even try to talk to Lisa about all this. She might get mad at him again for being an alarmist. Besides, he didn't want to "overreact" and lose credibility with her. The California crisis was the elephant in the room in the Matson household. Grant would turn off the TV when Lisa was around. He didn't want her to know how closely he was following it.

He could watch all the TV he wanted at WAB. No one was getting any work done there. People at the office just stood in front of the TV in Tom's office. They were in shock. While they knew the spending was unsustainable, they still couldn't believe a collapse appeared to be happening. WAB people didn't want to say out loud what they feared. It was weird. It was the biggest news since 9/11, but no one was talking about it much. They were trying to appear calm. They weren't doing anything to prepare; they were just sitting there in shock.

Watching the news at WAB, Grant looked at crowds of welfare protestors on TV. Quite a few of the protesters were minorities. Many of them seemed to be here illegally. Some people were tempted to make this a racial thing.

But the racists were wrong. Grant thought about the whole country, not just California. He realized that just about everyone, including whites was dependent on the government one way or the other. Contractors needed government projects. People of all colors were on "disability" and didn't work. Accountants, most of whom were white, made a living by navigating clients through the bizarre maze of the state tax laws. Engineers were hired to prepare useless environmental impact statements for every little construction or home remodeling project. Farmers collected subsidies. And on, and on, and on.

Not only were the racists wrong, they were part of the problem. The government benefitted by having everyone divided. It wasn't a conspiracy; it was simple politics. Racists, of all colors, fit right into the agenda of dividing people. When the Mexicans were mad at the whites, and the whites were mad at the blacks, who hated the Asians, everyone became distracted by their racial grievances. The color of a person's skin was so much easier to focus on rather than complex things like baseline budgeting or unfunded pension liabilities. It was much easier for one group to say to their people, "Hate those other people." Politicians and fear mongers could use hate to motivate people to keep fighting each other. It wasn't just white racists, of course. Mexican and black racists very effectively stirred up hate against whites. By fighting each other, people weren't looking at the big picture. They were overlooking the out-of-control spending and taking the easy way out of everything. When things got hard, there were new government programs, and new cushy government jobs. People were taking the easy way out so much that they nearly quit being Americans. It was almost like the country decided it didn't want to be America anymore.