“You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste. It’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid.’’
Soon after Obama gave Rahm Emanuel the nod for Whitehouse Chief of Staff, Emanuel made this interesting statement in an interview. In effect, Emanuel was giving us a page out of the President's future playbook. If someone had told us how many different crises the President, and the world in general, would face in Obama's first eighteen months of office, we might have believed them. For example, if you knew where to look, the housing bubble bust and ensuing financial storm were visible on the horizon years before Bush left office. I can remember having conversations about this with my dad back in 2006. But what I did not expect were the extreme reactions that we have seen from federal govt's around the world.
Emanuel's quote seems to paraphrase something Machiavelli is reported to have said, “Never waste the opportunities offered by a good crisis." Hillary Clinton has even picked up this theme in the last year in her work at the State Dept. The NY Times reports that Clinton told the European Parliament: “Never waste a good crisis. And when it comes to the economic crisis, don’t waste it when it can have a very positive impact on climate change and energy security.”
One church in NYC added their own adaptation to Emanuel's saying: "It can be turned to joyful transformation." Can you imagine Rahm Emanuel saying the words "joyful transformation?" Apparently the church leader who came up with this is out of the country and could not comment for the NY Times by Katherine Seelye. The Assistant Minister said, "We’re trying to rewire the way we make connections to each other. We’re trying to help them make the best of a very difficult situation.” That church has set up co-ops where the congregants can barter services and goods to make up for income lost to unemployment.
Here are a few crises, the govt responses, and my thoughts on them.
1) Health care insurance and access reform: Health insurance needs reform. We get that. But when the govt pays for your health care, they can mandate what you put into your mouth. It seems like a stretch that the govt would find a way to keep you from eating certain things, but recent laws in NY limiting trans fats are just the beginning. It would be impossible to regulate you, so they regulate business instead.
2) Wall Street criminality: The govt takes over Wall Street banks and can determine the salaries they offer their employees. Or the govt decides when large banks are making choices that might damage the economy. What happens when the person making these decisions is anti-capitalism? If his larger plan is to convert more of our society towards socialism, would that influence the way he handles these banks?
3) Automaker financial problems: GM and Chrysler take money from the govt to pay their bills. Now that the govt owns part of these companies, it has a vested interest in the competing automakers losing money. How can govt officials conduct an unbiased Congressional hearing against the competition? BTW, their solution to vehicle safety is to place little black boxes in every car. That way, the govt can monitor your car's need for recalls. Or they can monitor where you are driving, what speed you are driving, and could shut down the computer systems that run your car if they wanted. I admit that is also a stretch, but not a huge one. Also, the means to infuse cash into the economy was the same agent for progressing their energy policy. Hillary Clinton, what?
4) Historic oil spill: As a result of this most recent BP oil spill, no one in Congress is willing to consider new explorations in off-shore drilling. Obama sent a SWAT team, in case of a terrorist attack; this is a reasonable suspicion and reaction. However, sending the entire Dept of Justice was logical? Another consequence of this spill will be tighter regulations on oil rigs. Apparently there are not many actual regulations, and BP was voluntarily complying with the govt's suggested safety measures. While I have a hard time believing that there were not many legal requirements for these oil companies, this is what I read. By failing to govern themselves successfully, the oil and gas industry will find the day of suggestions to be over.
5) Charitable giving: Obama wants to get rid of the tax incentive associated with charitable giving. Families and communities have failed to care those around them; as a result, Obama would like to put all of those people in need on the dole of the govt, remove your ability to give to various organizations, and force you to pay taxes to fund these entitlement programs. This is why Bill Clinton, the Millionaire, has a niece on Food Stamps. Why should he share his wealth with her when the govt can take care of her? Or why Obama's relative who is in the country somewhere awaiting deportation lives in a shack. Why should Obama, whose wife alone made over $400K in her last few years of working before his Presidential campaign, give money to a relative? They must qualify for govt services.
We should learn to govern ourselves with the freedom we have been granted, so that the govt does not step in to take away that freedom by deciding how we should live. If we would be honest in business, if we would take care of those around us who are in need, if we would take care of our bodies as well as our fiscal health, the govt would not need to step in with further regulation.
This is analogous to flying a kite. We cannot fly a kite without a string. That string might be seen as limiting our ability to fly wherever we would like, however high we would like, but it allows us to fly. If we decided not to use that string, or if we misused that string and flew our kites into electrical wires, you can see the parallel to not being a good citizen, lacking honesty, hard work, common sense. Having the govt come in to help us fly our kite, or live our lives, is similar to having a rod attached to the bottom of your kite and attached to the ground. Your kite is flying, but only when and where the rod allows.
The rest of Emanuel's quote was, “In 1974 and 1978 we never dealt with it, and our dependence on foreign oil never changed.” The majority of the country believed Obama when he campaigned on Hope and Change, on transparency, on lifting the middle class, on eliminating fraud and lobbying in the political process. Not very many people believed him when he said he wanted to fundamentally transform America. Apparently, if we understand Rahm Emanuel correctly, the writing was on the wall before Obama even took office. It is too bad we didn't believe him.
