The President's Ledger

THE PRESIDENT'S LEDGER describes what can happen when a country's president, with the help of a few abused war veterans, a long awaited honest attorney general and a rare sense of justice can achieve. The newly elected president finds himself in the midst of financial and military crisis. His predecessor, the winner of two fixed elections, had managed, with help from both political parties, to bankrupt the banking industry, the country's economy and the Social Security Trust Fund in the space of only a few years.

The Chief Executive, an African American, is hated by many of the opposition party members mostly because of the color of his skin and is disrespected by others because of his serious lack of experience. He is really not prepared for the presidency and must learn on the job. Initially he fails to criticize fanatics in his own party and loses credibility in the eyes of the opposing party. He encounters a healthcare crisis of increasing complexity. The country's manufacturing base is collapsing under the absurd burden of having to provide healthcare for most of the country's citizens. Added to this is the unfortunate fact that more than forty million people cannot afford health insurance and in reality, the insurance industry cannot afford to insure sick people.

Meanwhile, Medicare and Medicaid are run by various lobbies, raping and pillaging the elderly and the disabled to the tune of as much as two hundred billion dollars a year. Clearly, however, the Federal Government bureaucracy is forbidden by Congress to manage the system competently, nor would they allow them to properly manage a national single payer system. The President, clearly not a business man, nevertheless, decides to create a ledger, evaluating potential credits and debits in an effort to fashion the most efficient temporary national healthcare system possible. Eventually as THE PRESIDENT'S LEDGER begins to take on a life of its own, he realizes that his entire presidency needs to be evaluated in the same way as healthcare.

To make matters even worse, the overwhelmed Chief Executive has inherited a country embroiled in two needless wars. The wars were funded by emptying the Social Security Trust Fund. Wasting most of the expenditures on political contributions, mercenaries and carpetbaggers, precious little is leftover for the troops body armor or medical needs.

While the conservative news media largely ignores the mistreatment of the troops, the liberal media is reluctant to over publicize their plight for fear of an insurrection by the more severely abused veterans. It is in a military hospital that three wounded comrades meet, two of them thirsting for revenge while the third does his best to save his "clients" from certain self destruction.