LORENZO, MADISON, LINCOLN, ADAM, REAGAN, SAM, and CHASE are all crowded together in the House chamber.
ADAM
This is not good.
SAM
Seriously, my worst nightmare.
LORENZO
Come on guys, this isn’t that bad. Sure, there’s an economic crisis on our hands and we have no clue how to fix it, but—oh.
CHASE
Yeah. To think, the economy went from great to terrible over the course of these past few months.
LINCOLN
Governor had a press conference today. Blamed all the troubles on, and I quote, an inexperienced and inept state Congress.
REAGAN
They’re talking about us, aren’t they?
SAM
Seems it to me.
LORENZO
Luckily for you all, you still have time to improve upon your public image. I, meanwhile, am loved by all.
ADAM
Actually, there’s some blame placed specifically on you.
LORENZO
On me?! What did I ever do wrong?!
REAGAN
Turns out, the Affordable Chair Act—
LORENZO
LorenzoChair.
REAGAN
—isn’t so affordable after all. And people are furious about your attempts to try to use Congress in a way to change baseball to your own liking.
LORENZO
If the public has turned on me then this whole thing is just a lost cause. What do we do?
LINCOLN
We can’t give up. If we all come together, we can make a bill that’ll fix the economy!
ADAM
And how certain are you about that?
LINCOLN
Not too certain at all. But we can always try.
CHASE
I know it’s my flagship legislation and all, but should we try to scale back on the Affordable Chair Act?
ADAM
That passed 62-38. It’d be awfully tough to scale back on it and a major political loss for you.
LORENZO
How about we just reduce the unemployment rate?
MADISON
And how do you suppose we do that?
LORENZO
Write it into the bill. Reduce the unemployment rate from whatever it is now to 3%.
ADAM
Do you know anything about how economics works?
LORENZO
Not especially.
LINCOLN
From what I hear, everyone wants to make their economy bill the economy bill that passes and saves everyone. We have to come up with something really good to stand out.
SAM
Do we though? If we make it more vague, more representatives will agree with it. Get into the tiny little details and you start to lose people.
REAGAN
Good point.
MADISON
What should we name it?
CHASE
Something simple. The Economy Act.
MADISON
Well put. Nobody can vote against the economy, right?
LORENZO
Put something in there that says the unemployment rate needs to decrease.
SAM
Also, throw in something like lower interest rates.
CHASE
Higher wages, higher income, you know the drill.
LORENZO
Throw in a bunch of money too.
MADISON
How much?
LORENZO
How much is a bunch?
SAM
Eight thousand?
MADISON
Fine, eight thousand dollars per person.
ADAM
That’ll get our approval ratings up too. Who doesn’t like free money?
REAGAN
People who don’t want the government’s debt to skyrocket.
ADAM
Who cares about debt? This is a crisis!
MADISON
So I have pay people money, increase wages, lower interest rates, and some other stuff in here. Does that sound good?
LORENZO
Sure.
LORENZO, MADISON, LINCOLN, ADAM, REAGAN, SAM, and CHASE bring the bill to the floor. Three representatives speak on it.
REPRESENTATIVE #1
This all looks a bit vague. Could you kindly go into more detail?
REAGAN
Um...
LORENZO
So you see, people like money so we decided to give them money.
REPRESENTATIVE #1
How?
Everyone stares in silence.
REPRESENTATIVE #2
And you suppose this bill will pay for itself?
MADISON
Oh yes, it will—
CHASE
You kidding? Of course it won’t!
REPRESENTATIVE #3
Why make it then?
CHASE
As Lorenzo said, people love free money, and I love high approval ratings.
SPEAKER
Let’s vote.
Everyone votes on the bill. It passes, 97-3.
LORENZO
That was a close one.
ADAM
Lorenzo...you realize you only need 50 votes for a bill to pass, right?
LORENZO
Yeah, but everyone who talked about the bill hated it.
REAGAN
Turns out, they’re the only ones who hated it.
LORENZO
Yet another bill passed for King Lorenzo.
LINCOLN
Yeah, it’s nice to finally have a bill passed.
ADAM
Oh that’s right, you haven’t passed a bill until now...
SAM
Your only contribution to the bill was the idea we make one.
LINCOLN
Have to start somewhere. Now if you don’t mind, the session is over so I’m out of here.
Everyone leaves.