I know that many of you believe I'm nothing more than a Rovedrone who recieves his missives direct from the White House Communications Office, but there have been several days when I have wanted to slap the President, and they've been piling up of late. Now, let me be clear: I'm still an optimist on Iraq (for reasons why, click this link and just keep scrolling), and I'm not of the species that seems to want to blame the New Orleans Water Park on FEMA. I've yet to see anything from a source I trust that indicates that FEMA did anything different in regards to Katrina than they did with regard to any other natural disaster in living memory, and I'm pretty well convinced that the caterwauling to that end is a cynical manipulation by a bored press and a frustrated opposition upon discovering that the Cindy Sheehan and Hokum and Wailing Circus wasn't going to be the spark that lit the Bonfire of Bush's Vanities.
So what am I cheesed about? Well, quite frankly, it has to do with Big Government Conservatism once more rearing it's ugly head: Bush using Katrina and Rita as an excuse to give Federalize all emergency management operations, and turning the relief effort into a mini-Great Society for Southern Lousisiana. This is dumb for several reasons:
1. Katrina devestated the Southern parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and even portions of Alabama. Only in Lousisiana was this disaster met with chaos, looting, and people sitting in football stadiums without food, water, or a place to go. Assuming that the time and competence of the federal response was the same in all places, where do we conclude that the system broke down? That's right, with the Mayor of NO and the Governor of LA, who panicked and ran away. Federalizing the problem rewards the crony regime in Louisiana for abdicating their responsibilities. This isn't just my spin: the Washington Post is sick of Louisiana's politicians and their naked pork-grab. It's time to post blame where blame is truly due.
2. Federalizing also diminishes the accountability of emergency management at the local level. It's real basic: where is your vote most valuable? At the local, state, or federal level. If you said c), you might consider remedial math. A vast federal bureaucracy, answerable to Beltway politicians, is NOT going to act in the best interests of the victims of Katrina.
3. Bush's proposal is already alienating the very people who put him in power, myself included. I held my nose and voted for Bush in 2000, because I found nothing monstrously offensive in him, whereas Gore made me ill. I voted with more confidence in 2004, because I saw some real accomplishments (cutting taxes, Afghanistan), and the promise of more (Social Security and tax reform, Iraq), while the Democrats couldn't come up with any alternative proposal other than "not Bush". But now the silly sonofabitch is acting like LBJ or FDR on a bender. He's caving to media pressure and losing his base while gaining NO support from the other side. C'mon, does anyone think the Left will credit Bush for doing exactly what they would expect and demand a Democrat to do in the same situation? Forget it. Bush *cannot* win support for anything he does from the other side. It won't happen. He can only win by governing from his side of the aisle. This is NOT doing that.
4. Bill Clinton, in his much-ballyhooed "criticism" of Bush, said one very astute thing (which was bound to happen eventually, because Clinton is a smart guy). He pointed out that in the history of the Republic, we have never financed a war with foreign money. In World Wars 1 and 2, we financed it with massive bond issues. LBJ spent the 60's surplus (created by that radical supply-sider, Jack Kennedy) on Vietnam. But both our Iraq campaigns have been underwrote by international bankers. Although the defecit is smaller than earlier feared, this is still not a good thing. Maybe a new set of Liberty Loans wouldn't have worked (although I don't know why not), but finding some way to offset spending for the WOT would have put is in a much better position, I think, financially and otherwise (you can't help thinking that people buying war bonds would have given them a greater stake in our victories abroad). But we didn't do that, and now we're proposing more mammoth spending projects underwrote by the rest of the world. Somehow I don't think this is going to "improve our position," or whatever.
5. Speaking of Bill Clinton, even he didn't think that Hurricane Andrew was cause for a federal takeover of disaster relief, nor did he respond thusly to any of the other natural disasters that took place during his Presidency. Somehow, he didn't think it necessary. Somehow, Florida et al. managed to recover under the existing system. Now, what does a good conservative like myself say of someone who wants to fix a mechanism that isn't broken?
We thus have a proposal that is 1) morally irresponsible, 2) likely to be ineffective, 3) politically stupid, 4) financially dangerous, and 5) probably unnecessary. It's a Super Hat Trick, boys and girls! All thanks to a guy who's moved as far away from Jefferson's idea of government as anybody in the Democratic Party.
Incidentally, if anyone would like to think that based on this rant I'm ready to applaud Nancy Pelosi and her bold pork-renumeration, I have but this to say: show me the money. If the Democrats suddenly become the let's-cut-spending party, I'm willing to pay attention, and even reward them. Being a conservative, I believe in competition, and for one party to have a monopoly on the fiscal restraint position means that they're never in a position to actually provide any. I wouldn't mind seeing that change. But given their history and constituency, I don't believe it's anything other than a temporary pose. And I'm still hoping that the revolt among GOP backbenchers gets somewhere. But for the moment, we all seem to still believe in the money fairy, and that does us as much damage as our much-maligned "dependence on foreign oil".
No comments:
Post a Comment