"And when I'm elected President of the United States," the candidate said to the adoring crowd, pounding the podium with every word, "I'm going to take on those greedy greeting card companies, and make them offer cards at a price that people can actually afford!"
The cheers were so loud that no one could hear the rest of the candidate's speech. No one would have believed that the exorbitant price of greeting cards would become the biggest issue of 2016. But the candidate was the first to grasp the importance of affordable greeting cards to working families, and rode the resulting public response right into the White House.
In the weeks between the election and inauguration, the President's transition team drafted legislation that certain member of Congress would be introducing on the first day of the new administration and new Congress. This particular representative owed his re-election to the President's endorsement during the campaign season, which was made at great political risk to the President since the representative had been implicated in a "dollars-to-doughnuts" gambling ring.
With the legislation introduced, the first hundred days was marked by an intense effort to get enough votes in the House and in the Senate to guarantee the passage of the greeting card bill, which had been quickly nicknamed "Hall-Markdown." Conservatives quickly formed a cabal against the bill and would not even allow the bill to be brought to a vote. Any time someone tried to call the bill to a vote, these obstructionists would sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" very loudly, so that no one could hear what was going on.
Finally one of the bill's co-sponsors - a Congressman who as a child had been forced to make his own cards out of McDonald's place mats because his parents worked for minimum wage and had to choose between food on the table and store-bought greeting cards - thought of hosting a combination pancake breakfast and gun show several miles away, and while the opposing representatives were stuffing their faces, the bill passed easily with only one "Nay" from a Congressman who did not eat gluten.
The bill was stymied in the Senate as well. One Senator who had accepted campaign contributions from several greeting card companies tried to filibuster the bill, but the President's supporters broke the filibuster by telling the filibustering Senator that it was snowing outside, and then seizing the floor when the excited Senator ran to the window.
Even on the President's desk the bill had trouble. It passed the Senate just before 5 p.m. and was placed on the President's desk late that night for signature, long after the President had retired to binge watch Season 3 of "Game of Thrones." The President met with foreign policy advisers early the next morning, and placed a thick confidential memo titled "More Middle East Stuff" on top of the greeting card bill and did not see the bill until just before it was set to expire along with all the President's reward points.
At the eleventh hour the bill was signed into law where it was officially codified as the "Affordable Card Act" and ushered in new era of fairness and level playing fields. No longer were people charged $5 or $6 or $7 for a birthday or Mother's Day or Father's Day card. The Act created a new class of cards that cost only $0.99 apiece, the price proudly emblazoned on the back of each card next to a tiny picture of the President and the words, "You can thank me at the polls!"
I should know. I received one of these Hall-Mark-Down cards the other day. And I don't know quite how to say this, but the card just didn't have the panache of the expensive ones.
