"Never let a good crisis go to waste."  RSS feed
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A strategy known as "Never let a good crisis go to waste" spearheaded by Obama's right-hand man, Saul Alinsky-inspired Rahm Emanuel, has been used to the greatest extent possible by the administration as an agenda advancement tool. "We must act immediately before this emergency becomes a catastrophe" is one of the most oft-used teleprompter phrases that trips the spin alarm for those of us who are hip to the Chicago mob's tactics.
Ironically, if these hard-ballers weren't so selfishly agenda-driven they might actually have salvaged some tangible results from the handling of both real and manufactured emergencies; results that might even have prevented the electorate's ever-increasing distrust for and lack of confidence in their president.
Take, for example, the auto industry downturn that was the result of recession-diminished sales and subsequent massive lay-offs and plant closings -- the impetus for Cash for Clunkers. Due to administrative bungling and a cost underestimation that abruptly ended the three-month program after just a couple of weeks, C4C required a billion dollar bailout-within-a-bailout to rescue it for a few more weeks Where else did they miss the boat with Cash for Clunkers?
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No added incentive was offered to consumers to purchase vehicles from our own bailed-out automakers and so the car companies that realized significant sales increases as a result of Cash for Clunkers did not include GM and Chrysler.
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Bureaucrats were re-assigned to shuffle the program's complicated paperwork so not a single permanent or temporary job was created as a byproduct of the program.
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Clunkers that could have been dismantled and scrapped at local transfer stations were, instead, handed over to junkyards so neither jobs nor additional municipal revenue nor better control over environment-threatening fluids were created.
There are very few additional examples of tangible programs simply because such a large portion of the current president's term has been devoted to the discussion (and little else) of conceptual issues that revolve around social and wealth-redistributive programs like health care and economic/financial reforms and bailouts. Until now, that is.
Currently, there is a very tangible issue on the table that is crying out for outside-of-the-box thinking and thorough examination for the potential to create real jobs and have a positive overall effect on the economy. How the administration deals with the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster and its aftermath will speak volumes about their ability to make a priority of anything more than political change.
Long before there was ever a strategy that says: "Never let a good crisis go to waste" there was the dictum: "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade."
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