Forging America: My Campaign Manager is Roosevelt

Chapter 350 - 168: The Rust Belt’s Cold Winter

On the highways of Pennsylvania, this bloodless war had been raging for two weeks.

The state police checkpoints were still there.

Although conscientious police officers like Officer David had let some vehicles pass, even more checkpoints had popped up everywhere.

The pretexts for the inspections were wildly varied.

Counter-terrorism checks.

Road weight capacity tests.

Even agricultural quarantines under the guise of "preventing the spread of invasive species."

Two weeks was enough time for a lot to change.

In Pittsburgh City Hall, Leo sat behind his desk, looking at the latest project progress report in his hand.

Every metric was in decline.

At the South District construction site, the pace of work had slowed by seventy percent due to a lack of steel.

The foundation for the Inland Port had just been laid, but work was forced to a halt due to an insufficient supply of cement.

"Mayor."

Ethan stood before the desk, a financial report in his hand, his expression anxious.

"If the supplies don’t get through soon, we’ll have to announce the suspension of some projects next week. The workers have already started playing cards on-site. We’re still paying them, but this is not part of our plan."

"This is a war of attrition."

Leo put down the report.

"Warren wants to bleed us dry. He wants to watch us run out of money before we can accomplish anything."

"Then what do we do?" Ethan asked. "Should we organize another breakthrough? Or file for an emergency injunction with the Federal Court?"

"No."

Leo shook his head.

"We don’t make a move."

"But..."

"Ethan, you need to understand something," Leo said slowly. "This pain is a two-way street."

"Pittsburgh is just out of materials. We still have money. We have a five-hundred-million-dollar cushion."

"But what about them?"

"Erie’s factories are producing goods they can’t sell, which are piling up in warehouses and tying up capital. Scranton’s cement trucks are stuck on the road burning fuel, losing money every single day."

"And don’t forget what Warren did."

"He cut off Federation funding."

"For the mayors in the Rust Belt who rely on fiscal transfers to get by, this is a fatal blow."

Leo’s gaze was cold.

"Now, we see who blinks first."

"In the past, I would’ve rushed to their aid. But now, I’m going to wait for them to come begging."

"Only when they truly have nowhere to turn will they accept my new rules."

...

「Erie City. City Hall.」

Mayor Ron Smith felt like he was sitting on a volcano.

Because Warren had cut twenty million US dollars in earmarked funds, a huge hole had opened up in Erie City’s budget.

Ron Smith had intended to use that money to cover the pension shortfall for municipal employees. That was the hole.

It was a common fiscal trick: robbing Peter to pay Paul.

But now, the east wall had collapsed.

The crowd gathering in the plaza below City Hall was becoming a complex mix.

To one side were workers, their clothes stained with grease and oil.

The machines in the factory were still roaring and the conveyor belts ran day and night. To meet the orders from Pittsburgh, the blast furnaces burned even hotter than before.

But that was the most bizarre part.

The products couldn’t be shipped out.

Giant I-beams and bundles of rebar filled the warehouses, overflowed into the open-air stockyards, and were even stacked in the factory’s corridors.

Meanwhile, this week’s pay stubs had come in.

The numbers were smaller.

Overtime pay was gone. Performance bonuses were gone. All that was left was a basic wage, barely enough to scrape by.

For these veteran Rust Belt workers, who had weathered countless hardships and survived multiple mass layoffs, this was a more terrifying signal than a full shutdown.

It was a death knell.

They knew the capitalist playbook all too well: first, inventory piles up. Then, wages get cut. Finally, the gates are padlocked and everyone gets the boot.

They didn’t understand anything about interstate highway inspections.

What kind of checkpoint runs for two solid weeks? What kind of police force would block thousands of tons of desperately needed steel, leaving it to rust?

All they knew was that if the factory shut down, and if even this meager basic wage disappeared next week, they would starve.

This fear was turning into a violent impulse. All it would take was a single spark for them to riot.

They had gathered here with one goal: to force the Mayor to go to the State Government and get that damned road reopened.

And beside these burly men stood another, completely different group of people.

A group of elderly men with graying hair, dressed in old suits.

They were Erie City’s retired teachers, retired police officers, and retired civil servants.

They were the backbone of the city, and also Ron Smith’s most loyal voting base.

Normally, they were mild-mannered and conservative. They had voted for the Republican Party their entire lives, firm believers in order and stability.

But today, their world of order had collapsed.

They had taken the pension checks that were supposed to clear this month to the bank, only to be coldly informed by the teller that the municipal account was empty.

"Ron Smith! Get the hell out here!"

A retired deputy police chief was shouting from downstairs with a megaphone.

His voice trembled with the rage of betrayal.

"What did you do with our money? Why is the Federation funding gone?"

In his office, Ron Smith listened to the shouts from downstairs, the bottle of blood pressure medication in his hand tapping a nervous rhythm on the desktop.

’How could he explain?’

’Tell them it’s because he sided with that Democratic Mayor from Pittsburgh, and now he’s being punished by a Republican Senator?’

’Those old-timers would charge right up here and tear him to shreds.’

The phone on the desk rang.

It was Joe Byers from Scranton.