http://www.azcentral.com
Solving problems: The way it's done by D.C. politicians
Sept. 10, 2005 12:00 AM
This just in from Washington: Now is not the time to play the blame game.
Don't point fingers. Don't rush to judgment and for God's sake, don't ask if anyone is being held accountable for the biggest screw-up in American history.
This, from the city where dodgeball is a way of life. Where hide and seek is the game of choice, only nobody is ever "it." advertisement
"I think one of the things that people want us to do is to play a blame game," President Bush said Tuesday when asked whether his administration was slow to respond to Hurricane Katrina. "We've got to solve problems. We're problem solvers."
Which is why you might want to figure out what went wrong, so you can find the nitwits responsible and kick their sorry hind parts to the curb before LA falls into the ocean or San Francisco slips into the Earth's core, but I digress.
As I think on it, it's probably not a good idea just now to engage in the blame game. To do so would only transform the corridors of power in Washington and Louisiana into echo chambers, given the breathtaking depths of incompetence shown at every level of government, from the New Orleans mayor who had no plan of evacuation for the poor, to the Louisiana governor who waited days before calling in the National Guard, to the feds who delivered an Abbott and Costello "Who's on First?" routine rather than a rescue operation. Then there's Congress. Who do you think created some of those "bureaucratic impediments" we keep hearing about?
And so I agree. Let's not play the blame game just now. Let's instead play:
Pass the Pigs. A new twist on an age-old congressional game in which our leaders dream up new ways to spend our money, slathering sizable chunks of lard onto anything within their reach. The recently approved transportation bill, for example, included $24 billion in pork for 6,371 projects that have nothing to do with building the nation's transportation network and everything to do with building these porkers' re-election chances. So let's change the rules. Instead of passing our money to the pigs - spending $223 million on a bridge in Alaska to spare residents a seven-minute ferry ride, spending $2 million on a parking garage for a Catholic college in San Antonio, spending $2.4 million on a pedestrian bridge over an artificial lake in Tempe, ad infinitum, ad nauseam - let's put it toward the astronomical bill for rebuilding Louisiana and Mississippi.
The Price is Right - Or Maybe Not. If we're not going to put a stop to the pork then let's slash the 18.4 cent-a-gallon federal gas tax that pays for it.
Talking Fib Finder. Handy little device that will get at the truth of how gas prices can rise 30 cents a gallon in a few hours. Especially when you consider that our gas comes from California, not Louisiana.
Duck Duck Goose. It may look like a children's party game but really it's a new human relations procedure in which we tap personnel for top echelons of government using the time-tested duck duck goose method. Sound crazy? At present, the guy in charge of the nation's emergency management used to run an Arabian horse association. What have we got to lose?
Red Light, Green Light. Green light: Helping an American city and, more importantly, its citizens to their feet. Red light: Sen. Jon Kyl's bill to repeal a federal death tax on multimillionaires, a tax he says is unfair and economically unsound.
Pin the Tail on the Donkey. And on the Elephant. And on everyone trying to make political hay out of tragedy. Once we nail them all to the wall, maybe we can actually find a way out of this mess.
