Sinecure: Well-Paying Job Requiring Little Work

By Jason O'Neil

This is a novel about a college professor turned politician in order to gain the maximum retirement benefits prior to what he predicts will be the self-destruction of the American economy, perhaps even the democracy.
Iowan Dr. Ray Small, a professor of political economics at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, uses sophisticated, automated models to determine the convergence of the downward spiral of the American dollar with calls for the repayment of foreign loans to the United States in gold combined with an unsustainable Welfare State. His prediction of a stock market crash happens five and a half years in the future.
With his wife, Anita, also a tenured professor at Cornell College, he plots a retirement package based upon three terms as a congressman from Iowas 2nd District which is bordered by the Mississippi River. The professor gets elected and re-elected based upon a platform of anti-dumping of foreign tractors, reinstatement of the use of fertilizer, and flood protection from the giant river.
The book is filled with scenarios about the perks of congressional life. It sarcastically portrays the role of unions in the Democratic Party. And the congressman keeps his retirement plan secret until the end of his fifth year when he becomes eligible for a horn-of-plenty of retirement benefits. He retires a multimillionaire to his sanctuary farm while the American economy crumbles. In the end, the reader is left quite angry, about the Sinecure profession high pay for little work of Congress.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524644116

Jason O'Neil

JASON O’NEIL has published 23 books on subjects such as the invention of new classes of vehicles, debunking Global Warming caused by man and the elimination the Slavery of Socialism in America. He is active in the community of Annapolis, Maryland.

Book preview

© 2016 Jason O’Neil. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/05/2016

ISBN: 978-1-5246-4412-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-4410-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-4411-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016916524

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Table of Contents

1. Tenure

2. Front Porch

3. Café D’marie

4. Announcement

5. Campaign

6. John Deere

7. Purina And Alcoa

8. Scandal

9. Weekend

10. Victory

11. Georgetown

12. Freshman

13. A Small Day

14. Town Hall

15. Settlement

16. Golf Course

17. Freshmex

18. Campaign 2

19. Budapest

20. Levee

21. Flood

22. Union

23. 19th Hole

24. Thanksgiving

25. Collapse

26. Rocking Chair

1

TENURE

O N A COLD winter day, Professor Ray Small of the Department of Political Science at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, stepped up to the podium and announced, Students, this will be the last class I teach at Cornell. My wife, Anita, as you know, is a professor at the Center for Law and Society here at Cornell. We are now both tenured after 22 years of faithful service to this quality institution and have decided to retire. At this point we’re not sure what is ahead of us. All we know is that we’re stepping down as teachers.

A voice at the back of the lecture hall spoke up: Dr. Small, we’ll miss you! The students applauded in agreement.

The professor continued, As you know, here at Cornell we teach one course at a time for 18 days as part of our immersion system of teaching. We’ve covered a lot of ground over the past two weeks. But now I want to end this course with a very difficult topic: the death of American democracy. Some of you will be selected to be Washington interns during the next semester, and you’ll see for yourself what I mean. It’s a sad subject with which to end this course, but I feel I must alert you to a frightening reality which may help you to make career decisions in the future.

At this point Dr. Small projected the following quote on the screen in the front of the hall:

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury.

From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.

The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.

"This quote is attributed to a British professor, Alexander Fraser Tytler, around 1800. Back in the late 18th century, men in England, France, and the American Colonies conceived a new type of regime that would prevent the tyranny of the absolutist monarchies that reigned at the time. They devised a balance of power between governmental institutions and a periodic election in order to purge the system of excessive corruption and entrenched power. The democratic form of government employed those principles and flourished over the next two centuries.

"But now, in its third century of existence, America is producing dysfunctional, indeed self-destructive, forms of governance. The United States has been deadlocked in the monumental issue of budget deficits versus entitlements, unable to cut spending or raise taxes. And worse yet, 80 percent of the welfare money is absorbed by the bureaucracy and doesn’t even get to the poor while the debt keeps growing. Future generations are being sacrificed to the present generation. The resulting frustration can lead to economic depression and political upheaval, even racial or class riots.

"I don’t mean to scare you. But it’s a very scary prospect that we will discuss over the next four days. You will be asked to develop a one-page thesis and solution to the situation. There can be no one solution, but your creativity and logic will be graded.

"And please keep in mind that in a democracy all things are decided by competitive self-interest. For example, if a city council decides a light rail is needed, the citizens are taxed. But the truth about the real cost is obscured by personal self-interest before the community’s interest. The money supply seems infinite. As a result, the underestimated cost is a debt which, like a can, gets kicked down the road. At some point the unfunded liabilities become unsustainable and the system collapses.

Your assignment will be to develop a plan, process, or solution that prevents, not delays, the day of reckoning. Congress can’t do it. But maybe a fresh idea coming out of these cornfields will be a useful antidote for what ails our nation.

2

FRONT PORCH

T HIRTY-TWO MILES EAST of Mount Vernon on Old Highway 30 is the small farming community of DeWitt. About 2 miles east of State Highway 61 is Humeston Road, and about a half-mile north on Humeston Road is the 400-acre farm of Brady and Cathy Small. A quarter-mile gravel road leads to the farmhouse, a series of white one-story rooms added on in different directions as finances allowed. A red metal roof holds the architecture together; one can only imagine the clamor inside during a summer hailstorm. The house and guest house are surrounded by a half-acre of grass enclosed by a white picket fence. Red brick sidewalks ring the modest abode, and visitors are greeted by four rocking chairs on the covered front porch.

Ray and Anita enjoyed a sumptuous turkey dinner as if out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Afterward, the four Smalls took their seats in the rocking chairs to enjoy a glass of elderberry wine and review current events. Brady Small was proud to report that the corn harvest would set a farm record. Cathy and Anita looked at email photos of Ray and Anita’s daughter, Emily, at summer camp in Wisconsin.

Brady Small, who was not a man for small talk, asked his son, Ray, now that the two of you are retired, what are you going to do?

Glad you asked, Ray replied. Anita and I have talked it over, and she supports me running for Congress.

Congress? the proud parent asked rather quizzically. That seems like a pretty big leap for a college professor.

"Well, Dad, it’s not