There was a truth in federal politics—
No position was the best position!
If someone insisted on his position as firmly as he insisted on his faction, he could never appear on the stage of Congress! What they needed was not a stubborn ideologue, but a politician who could be flexible while holding to his bottom line!
The "insiders" who had begun wavering in their positions because the Speaker was about to resign and they were preparing to vote on the power that would soon fall into their hands immediately stopped wavering.
They understood Slem's influence better than anyone else, because federal fiscal appropriations every year were handled by Congress!
Unless the Presidential Palace intervened forcefully, Congress had the Budget Review Committee, which reviewed the budgets for various projects, and the Appropriations Committee, which actually allocated the money.
Congress controlled the nation's spending. That was one of the reasons Congress was the highest political stage in the country!
No matter who you were, if you wanted to accomplish anything—whether for fame, profit, or to genuinely help the people in your district—you needed money! The State Government had state-level tax revenue and would retain part of it, but that portion could not satisfy its needs for urban construction.
State Government tax revenue accounted for only twenty-five to thirty-five percent of total tax revenue. The rest was national tax revenue, along with a small portion of local taxes.
If a locality wanted to develop rapidly, it had to apply upward for a budget.
For example, when Senator Landon had been mayor of Sabine City, he had launched a Cheap Apartments project.
Property developers and the municipal government jointly funded the construction of Cheap Apartments with relatively complete supporting facilities. These apartments were rented to the poor at extremely low prices.
Then, after