Chapter 1015: Unknowingly Became a Substitute (Please Give Me a Monthly Ticket!! Please Recommend!! Please Subscribe!!)

"No, no, no, doctor, although it would be a good thing if you could provide more funds, that's not why I asked you to come." Of course Benjamin was also worried about money, but Trask did A lot has been donated for one item, but Benjamin has not yet reached the point of catching a wealthy person. "I have something more important that you need to do. This matter is even related to the survival of the entire human race."

After hearing what the president said was so serious, Trask calmed down and looked at President Benjamin seriously.

Currently, Trask is the leader of Team X, and he is also the head of the government-funded 'Sentinel' program. The Sentinel Project is a weapon that uses intelligent machines to fight mutants. But for now, Trask has adjusted the purpose of the Sentinel Project and changed the target from mutants to enemies of humanity.

After learning about the vastness of the universe and the weakness of human beings, Trask realized how ridiculous and insignificant his previous views were. After breaking free from the shackles of the past, he instead saw another prospect of the Sentinel Project from mutants, which was to combine the characteristics of mutants to develop super sentinels to fight against threats that threatened the survival of all mankind.

Of course, due to the change in plan goals, many early plans and results needed to be overturned and redone. This was also the reason why Trask had little money. After all, pushing those results and re-researching them would cost a lot of money.

Even if this project is a government investment.

Benjamin's attitude towards Trask is completely different from that towards Steve and Carter. Although Trask is just a businessman, he has cooperated a lot with the government, and anyone who has come into contact with Trask will know that the dwarf in front of him has A giant's vision, and a pattern beyond the reach of ordinary people.

This is a dwarf in body and a giant in mind.

In a word, Benjamin trusted Trask. At least Trask is more trustworthy than Carter and Steve.

Therefore, Benjamin did not play any tricks to compete for the initiative, but directly stated his request.

"You mean SHIELD...how is this possible?" Trask was well-informed, but he didn't expect the president to actually tell him that SHIELD was conducting a secret research that could destroy the world, even a few days ago. The monster siege of the sky is the result of this research... What the hell...

Trask has really come into contact with SHIELD. It's just that the concepts between the two are too different. They even did some things to recruit SHIELD, which got Trask into some trouble. If he hadn't really had a good relationship with the government, he might have been recruited. , so he himself has a very bad impression of SHIELD.

But one thing he also admitted was that SHIELD was indeed committed to protecting the world.

Even if their methods are not so upright. But so what? Could it be that Trask's actions were fair and aboveboard?

As long as the purpose is good, he doesn't care about the process or means.

Now the President tells him that SHIELD... is likely to destroy the world.

Trask could not be shocked.

However, he did not doubt that the president was framed. After all, for such a big matter, how could it be said that it was framed?

"Nothing is impossible. SHIELD has broken away from the control of the federal government a long time ago. They have lost control. They want to bring the whole world under their control... Speaking of which, the federal government also has a role in this matter. They shirked their responsibilities and allowed such an organization to expand unimpeded. They are no longer satisfied with the power they have today, they want more.”

Benjamin actually quite understands SHIELD's approach. No matter what the purpose of any large organization, its own survival and development are the organization's most basic and original desires. Who does this matter? There is nothing to do with running this organization.

When the FBI was first established, it was just a small agency with no one in charge. However, after decades of development, it has long since broken away from the so-called "police" category at the beginning and has become an organization integrating intelligence collection, law enforcement, and violence. A super organization with a series of responsibilities such as machines. Does the FBI need to monitor domestic politicians? Does the FBI need to control politics? Does the FBI need to suppress other intelligence organizations? The FBI and the CIA are not on the same page at all, but they have created a lot of disputes and competitions.

This is the logic of existence of super organizations. Continuous expansion, constant grabbing of power, never-ending.

Fortunately, Hoover is dead, otherwise, the FBI would not know what would have happened.

But understanding is understanding, Benjamin still wants to prevent such a thing from happening. Just like the ecology of nature, once the development of one party is out of balance, the entire ecology will be in crisis. If SHIELD continues to develop, it will definitely threaten the federal government, not to mention that if they do something like that, they are simply making fun of the life and death of all mankind!

Therefore, it must be suppressed, or even... destroyed!

"Is that so..." Trask didn't expect SHIELD to have developed to this point. A secret agency originally born out of the federal government has threatened the existence of the federal government, and even threatened the existence of the entire human race. It really needs to be controlled!

"I understand, Mr. President, what do you want me to do?"

"Team X, I need them to be ready. This time the target is SHIELD. So, I now authorize Team X to leave the Pentagon and become a federal agency, tentatively named Agent X, and be directly responsible to me. Your mission is to recruit personnel and start investigating SHIELD! When necessary... destroy it by force!"

...

In fact, on this day, Benjamin not only met with Carter and Trask, but also the FBI and CIA, but they only targeted a very small number of groups, and all of these groups were screened.

As a mature politician, Benjamin never intended to put all his eggs in one basket. He would not allow the Shadow Bureau or Agent X to develop into a second SHIELD.

Benjamin has already planned to completely split the assets of SHIELD and divide them among several agencies at the same time to achieve balance.

This is also the usual method of the old Americans, not to allow power to be concentrated.

Create more checks and balances.

It turns out that this is very effective, but it is a bit bloated. But it doesn't matter, the United States can handle it.

And SHIELD knows nothing about it. No, they are not completely ignorant. At least they know that the federal government has been doing nothing recently, but the relevant intelligence is very scarce. There is no way to know what the federal government is doing.

But combined with the current situation, the intelligence analysis of SHIELD has concluded that the federal government is taking some major actions for post-disaster reconstruction.

Nick Fury instinctively felt that there was something wrong with this conclusion, but he couldn't say where the problem was.

After all, he couldn't have imagined that in just one day, SHIELD would suddenly turn from the role of the world protector to the world destroyer... This span is too big, even if Nick Fury's imagination is big, he couldn't think of this step.

After all, he has always believed that his and SHIELD's cause is correct. Just like Hitler always believed that his cause is just.

Paranoid people are easy to succeed. But at the same time, they will turn a blind eye to many things because of paranoia.

For example, he doesn't know that his role has changed.

Nick Fury feels bad because of the lack of intelligence, especially the lack of intelligence against the White House, which makes him feel very irritated.

That's right, SHIELD has been monitoring the White House.

In Nick Fury's SHIELD, the White House president, the most powerful position in the world, is a target that must be strictly guarded. If the White House does not make a decision, it will cause shocks in the world. For the sake of world peace, the president must be monitored to prevent some unnecessary crises.

This is reasonable, right?

After all, SHIELD is the guardian of the world. It needs to be responsible for the world.

In the eyes of SHIELD and Nick Fury, no one in the world does not need supervision, except themselves.

But soon, the president's speech in Congress dispelled some of Nick Fury's doubts.

The president is going to levy taxes!

The United States has always advocated liberalism, likes to praise the free market, and throws everything to the market. For example, the first reaction of the US government to the big school shooting incident was not to ban robbery or strengthen the school security level, but to introduce the free market and let insurance companies enter!

If you praise liberalism, then the big government will naturally become an obstacle, and the free market does not need government intervention.

Those capitalists wish the government would not care about anything, and it would be best if the government head played poker every day in the White House like a long time ago. (Harding II and his famous poker cabinet in the United States were notorious for not caring about anything and only taking bribes)

As for tax increases?

Ha? Basically, any tax increase in the United States will receive extremely fierce opposition, except for tax increases on the rich.

Of course, this kind of thing is nothing to the rich. Because the rich in the United States always have ways to avoid taxes, the kind that is legal.

Many people like to talk about American rich people doing charity, saying that Americans will do charity when they have money. Thus, they despise their own country's people who are rich but unkind, and even if they do charity, it is a show, and the double standards are flying.

These people are either stupid or bad. In the United States, charity is a business!

Because it can avoid taxes.

Many people say that American rich people will not leave money to their children, but will only leave their life experiences and wisdom to future generations. This is pure nonsense! If this is really the case, how did those rich families come from?

The real situation is that in the United States, inheritance and property gifts are subject to heavy taxes! Direct inheritance means paying a large sum of money to the government! (The famous Rockefeller family, in order to let his son inherit the property, "gifted" all his property to his son before the property gift tax was officially levied, so he didn't pay a penny of tax. In addition, there was already an inheritance tax at that time, and it was getting higher and higher. Nowadays, the inheritance tax is about half, half of all assets, including real estate, artworks, etc., all appraised and half levied)

So family funds and charitable funds have become the best "inheritance".

Because there is no need to pay taxes. (No inheritance tax and property gift tax, but the fund generates income and still has to pay taxes)

So many parents of the second generation of rich people will say that I will not leave a penny to my descendants, and all the money will be donated to the charitable foundation I established, so that they can become free and hardworking people, etc., but it is hard to say what professions those second generation of rich people will do in the future. They must be the actual controllers of the charitable foundation.

So it is very, very difficult to tax the rich. Because it is impossible to collect the money.

So why did Benjamin do this?

Raise taxes on the middle class? That will affect his career!

Raising taxes on the rich will not only not make much money, but will be targeted by the rich class, which is not worth the loss.

The answer was soon announced.

Tax traditional energy!

And increase the tax heavily!

The petrochemical industry will be taxed at a rate of 25%! This is a simple increase!

This was unimaginable before!

After all, the energy industry is related to national security, and any tax increase will cause turmoil.

But a magical thing happened. Except for the major traditional energy companies that reacted violently, everyone else was emotionally stable and even cheered loudly for the president.

When Nick Fury saw this, he immediately understood that the president was going to take action against the traditional energy interest groups.

This is not a trivial matter.

At the same time, Nick Fury also admitted that this action seemed dangerous, but in fact it was not as difficult as imagined.

First of all, the president talked about environmental protection.

This is politically correct, especially after the Atlanteans went to war with the land people because of environmental protection.

Secondly, traditional energy is outdated. After China announced that the micro-controlled reactor had been successfully tested and planned to promote it at the fastest speed, the importance of traditional energy such as oil has further declined. The structure of the petrodollar no longer has a foundation. After all, some major countries have begun to get rid of their dependence on oil.

After the intervention of the Stark Group, the new energy industry in the United States has made great progress. At this stage, more than half of the power grids in the United States have begun to connect to new energy and no longer rely on fossil energy for power generation.

After that, the Stark Group launched new energy vehicles, new energy aircraft and other projects.

Once again, the decline of the status of traditional energy has been aggravated.

So the national energy security does not need to rely on fossil energy.

Secondly, domestic political forces also support this matter. Not to mention the new energy interest groups, they wish all traditional energy would die! Secondly, other interest groups, because of the difficult times faced by the country, must also pull out a fat pig to slaughter and recover blood. At this stage, the United States is crying for money everywhere!

As if they were afraid that these traditional energy groups would not die fast enough, Congress even proposed to launch an environmental investigation... It's basically self-evident who this is aimed at.

In this way, a large fine will be issued, and it will be another large sum of money!

Benjamin didn't use this to confuse SHIELD. Although SHIELD is important, it has not reached this point yet. Taxation is the key point, and SHIELD is just a by-product.

But this effect is surprisingly good.

Although Nick Fury has some doubts, he is really relieved. As for the collapse of the White House intelligence network, even if he is unhappy, what can he do? Go and argue with the president?

This can only be solved slowly, and at the same time he must be careful to prevent the White House from linking this matter to SHIELD.

This is bad.

Nick Fury found that everything has not been going well recently.

So... he is more eager to see the plan!

He needs to take concrete actions to dispel other people's doubts about SHIELD. After all, SHIELD's performance in several consecutive crises... is really unsatisfactory.

As for the controversy surrounding Project Insight... Nick Fury believes that as long as Project Insight is launched, all the controversy will just be controversy!

[If you like this novel, I hope you will share it on Facebook. The author will be grateful. ]