“Sorry,” says Maddy, leaning back in her chair. “Burton should have let you know. I’m meeting Senator Lewis and Senator Lopez tonight. They’ve both been solid noes for the Grand Bargain, but now they’re softening. I called a late meeting so I can wrestle them over the line.”

“You want me there, Maddy? I can lighten the mood, tell some football stories. Lopez played semipro ball in Houston, you know. Or I can talk about my fitness council.”

Maddy sits up and folds her arms across her chest. Cole knows that posture. It means trouble is on the way. It means she’s protecting herself. “Thanks, Cole, but that could backfire. You know Lewis opposed the expense of your fitness council from the beginning.”

There’s something going on, Cole can feel it. Something besides a negotiation with two low-ranking senators.

“What is it, Maddy?” he asks. “What are you worried about?”

Maddy exhales slowly. “Burton got a phone call today,” she says. “Investigative reporters are digging around. Our Grand Bargain might get exposed before we’re ready to reveal it. And that will be the end of it. The end of my presidency. We can’t let that happen.”

CHAPTER
9

After Cole leaves, Maddy rests her elbows on top of the Resolute desk in the Oval Office.

She’s thinking.

About the Grand Bargain.

The plan, she hoped, would ensure that the US government could meet its ongoing obligations to the people, seize future opportunities, and maintain the capacity to address any threats.

Right after the midterm elections, Maddy had called a fifteen-minute meeting with the director of the Office of Management and Budget. It turned into what was essentially a two-hour TED Talk. The director’s message became Maddy’s obsession:

“Madam President, a character in a Hemingway novel said that you go bankrupt two ways—gradually, then suddenly.

“Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid—America’s entitlement programs—have grown to consume half the federal budget as people live longer and health costs rise. Those programs, along with Social Security’s disability benefits, make life bearable for millions of people. But they aren’t sustainable in a country that strongly opposes both cutting benefits and raising taxes enough to pay for them.

“The required spending to preserve the economy and get people through COVID on top of big tax cuts has increased the national debt to ninety-eight percent of the national income. It is projected to reach one hundred and thirteen percent in ten years. Without prompt action, the government will be paying so much interest on the debt, there’ll be little left for anything else.

“Madam President, the latest quantum computers at MIT’s Sloan School are producing numbers that disprove our long-held assumptions about how much time we have to make tough national-finance decisions. We don’t have years. We might not even have months. We’re going under, and quickly.”

It was a wake-up call.