It has been a very good year for the company, its various
spokesmen tell me. Yes, everyone else may be hurting but orders for
their product are up, they are expanding capacity and they are
hiring workers too. Even relations with the unions are good. The
future — well, their future anyway — is bright.
I learn this while sipping wine at a reception the company
is throwing at its swank northern Virginia offices to mark its good
fortune. What is the point of being successful if you cannot brag
about it to reporters? And when have reporters ever turned down an
open bar?
The only thing that can spoil the good times, I’m told
repeatedly, is Congress.
No, burdensome regulations are not the issue. Nobody at
the party is worried about that. And nobody talks about the economy
sliding further downhill either because it lacks a “jobs bill” or
some such.
No, they are worried that Congress will stop spending. You
see, this company’s business is defense-related. And now that the
so-called “super committee” has failed they are facing the prospect
of the first serious cut-backs of the post-9/11 era thanks to the
automatic “budget sequestration” provisions.
Assuming they do kick in. The company and its lobbyists
are not going to take this lying down. They are already working on
members of Congress to undo the cuts one way or another.
They are not exactly rolling a boulder up a hill either.
As one explains to me, it is just a matter of explaining to
individual lawmakers how much the cutbacks will damage the economy
in their home state. And, hey — guess what? — the company has
operations in almost every state in the union.
Is the lawmaker an anti-war lefty? No problem, just talk
to the workers’ unions and get them to talk to the lawmakers. The
lobbyists will be happy to set that up. “We’ve always gotten along
great with the unions,” one tells me.
Is the lawmaker a Republican? Again, no problem. Heck, it
is even easier. Even self-proclaimed budget hawks turn out to be,
well, hawks when it comes to defense. Several are already publicly
on their side. Defense is apparently the only area of government
spending that is done with pinpoint accuracy and there is no fat to
cut away.
If the lawmakers are stubborn, well, just warn them that
without the procurement the U.S. will lose its cutting edge in
defense. The engineers and other mechanical experts will move on to
other fields. After all, these are highly skilled, highly
sought-after people. Our defense technology could fall a generation
behind other countries without them. What red-state Republican
wants to run against that ad?
“But is that really so?” I asked, sipping on my wine. Why
can’t the engineers just be hired back if it turns out we need
them? It is not like they are moving to China, right? Don’t we just
have to offer them a good salary?
No, no, no, I am told, it is not that way at all. But even
after my host explained it to me I am not certain I completely
understood or believed him. Then again, what do I know? I am not an
engineer, just a lowly writer.
The only roadblock this time is Congress’s 60-odd caucus
of Tea Party members. “We’ve been working on them for a year now,
but they are a tough nut to crack,” one of the company employees
tells me.
Indeed, for the first time at the event the mood darkens
when those radicals are mentioned. That their obsession with
getting the federal budget under control could extend to defense
has caught the company off-guard and its Washington team is not
sure what to do.
None of the usual lobbying ploys seem to work on them, one
sighs.
I expect that the company will find a way, though. We’ve
seen this before, haven’t we?
The Gingrich Republicans rode into town in 1995 with lofty
goals of shrinking the federal government. They barely made a dent
before the revolution faded. These days Gingrich is trying to
convince people that the $1.6 million he got from Freddie Mac was
not a lobbying fee.
As I walked back to my car later that evening, I passed
several homeless people wrapped in blankets and hoping to score
some change from passers-by. I didn’t have the heart to tell them
that that is not how begging is done in Washington.
