Chairman: “So we’re down to the final two candidates.  Give me the quick summary”.

Assistant: “Well of course we have the current CEO—Barack Obama, who was the surprise winner four years ago when he beat out the favorites and leapt all the way from company marketing spokesman to CEO”.

Chairman: “Spokesman?  He looked real impressive in the last campaign.  I thought he was our Chief Marketing Officer, or at least he was the head of our biggest marketing campaign.”

Assistant:  “Well, not exactly.  Plouffe and Axelrod ran the campaign, Barack was the spokesman”.

Chairman:  “OK. The guy reading the speeches off the teleprompter?  That’s it?  And the other candidate?”
Assistant:  “Name is Mitt Romney.  Comes from Massachusetts”.

Chairman: “OK,  I think there is widespread agreement our biggest problem is fiscal—expenses have ballooned starting with the last CEO & the crisis he faced on his way out, and revenue has been soft.  Plus employment is way down and that leads to the lower revenue and higher expenses.  In addition, I thought we had the security issues under control but that’s flaring up again.  That seem about right?”

Assistant:  “Pretty good summation.”

Chairman:  “OK.  Let’s start with fiscal matters.  What are the numbers from Finance?”

Assistant: “Total debt just reached $16Trillion.  Annual deficits are consistently over $1Trillion.”

Chairman:  “Holy cow! $16T! That’s more than the entire amount of all goods and services we produce in a year!  Didn’t Obama promise he’d cut the deficit in half? What was it before him?”
Assistant:  “He did.  The highest it reached under the last CEO was $468B.”

Chairman:  “And now it’s more than double that amount? Every year?”

Assistant: “Yes”.

Chairman:  “OK, so what’s his plan?”

Assistant: “Well…”

Chairman:  “He has a plan right?”

Assistant:  “He wants to raise tax revenue from the top 1-2% of earners.”
Chairman: “How much?”

Assistant:  “About $60B a year.”

Assistant:  “$60B? And that’s his answer?”

Assistant:  “Well he wants to raise the Capital Gains Tax, nearly double it in fact.”

Chairman: “I thought Finance said that the higher rates lead to decreased revenue.”
Assistant: “That’s correct.”
Chairman:  “He doesn’t know that?  Is he not talking to Finance?”

Assistant:  “I assume he knows that because it came up when he first was a candidate for this job in ‘08.  He told Charlie Gibson of ABC then that he knew the revenue would be lower but he thought it would be “fairer””.

Chairman:  “OK.  What about cutting expenses?”
Assistant:  “Well he said he wants to do that but he’s not been specific.”

Chairman:  “He’s been in this job four years, this is our biggest problem and he’s not yet been specific on how he’d cut expenses?  At least he’s not adding to expenses.”

Assistant: [Silence]

Chairman:  “Tell me he’s not adding to expenses.”

Assistant:  “Well there is the new company health plan.  Initial estimates were it would cost about $700B over ten years but it’s already over $1T”

Chairman:  “$1T?  I thought it wasn’t even rolled out yet?  Good lord.” [Pause]

“So our biggest problem is money, and he’s put in place programs to substantially increase expenses even more, and he has no real serious plan to raise revenue or cut expenses.  I know he came to this job pretty green.  Doesn’t he have an assistant?  Who’s his VP?”

Assistant:  “Biden sir.”

Chairman:  “Biden? OK, never mind.  So tell me about the other guy. Romney. Obviously he’s not had this CEO job.  Has he been CEO elsewhere?”

Assistant:  “Yes.  Founded his own VC company.  Made a fortune turning around companies in bad financial shape.”

Chairman:  “Kind of like the shape we’re in.  Anything else?”

Assistant:  “Turned around an Olympics that was scandal ridden and losing a lot of money.  Did the same with Massachusets.”

Chairman:  “How significant are we talking here? “
Assistant:  “The Olympics were expected to be a hopeless failure just a few months before they opened.”

Chairman: “So he limited the losses?”
Assistant: “No.”

Chairman: “No?”
Assistant:  “Actually turned a profit.”
Chairman:  “Wow. OK.  And Massachusetts?”
Assistant:  “Started with a $2B deficit and ended with a surplus.”

Chairman:  “Impressive.  Can he work with the opposition?”
Assistant:  “Massachusetts is 95% Democratic.”

Chairman: “OK.  Does he have a plan?”

Assistant:  “Yes.  There are some details left out and he of course has to work with Congress.  He said if he identifies the cuts now that will lead to bickering before he even gets the job.  He’s looking for buy-in on the big picture.”
Chairman:  “And that is?”
Assistant:  “He wants to cut current discretionary expenses and reform entitlements to bring long-term costs down.”
Chairman:  “And revenue?”

Assistant: “He wants to reform the tax code—close loopholes and cut rates.  He also wants to boost employment so more folks are paying taxes and not collecting from the government.   Finally, he wants to boost energy production and economic growth which will both boost revenue.“

Chairman:  “Tax Reform has always been a winner in the past—Republicans like it because rates go down and loopholes go down and Democrats like it because it raises revenue.  Sounds like a no-brainer.  Why hasn’t the current guy tried it?”
Assistant:  “Not sure.  Maybe it doesn’t fit his governing philosophy.”
Chairman:  “Which is?”
Assistant:  “He’s big on making things fairer.”
Chairman:  “So we don’t raise the needed revenue, we continue to bleed cash and threaten our very financial viability but some of the more well off are paying more so we’re supposed to feel better?  OK. Listen, I have my 3 o’clock coming up that I need to prepare for.”
Assistant:  “Do you want to go over the foreign policy stuff?”
Chairman:  “Not really.  I think I know enough there—his people wanted to blame that Libya attack and the unrest in Egypt on a film maker.  Then they said the Benghazi attack resulted from a protest, now they’re saying it wasn’t and that they never said it was.  I also heard that on the night of the attack in Libya Obama flew off to a fund raiser?  In Vegas?  Is that right?”

Assistant:  “Afraid so”.

Chairman:  “OK.  We’re done here.  Phone HR, tell them to put the severance package together and get on the phone with Romney’s people.  See how soon we can get him in here.”
Assistant:  “Don’t you want to see more details from Romney’s plan or a couple more years of his tax returns?  There was a report that he pushed a kid back in high school.  Do you want to look into that more?”
Chairman:  Gives an icy stare to the assistant.

Assistant:  “I was just heading down to HR.”
Chairman:  “Good idea.”