Remember a couple weeks ago, when Timothy Geithner announced the plan to fix the economy? The day before, the President had demurred when asked to provide some details, saying he didn’t want to step on the Treasury Secretary’s toes. Huh? Okay, maybe he hadn’t been briefed yet, or didn’t want to talk about something that complicated without some notes. Only…the next day, Geithner didn’t announce a plan. He announced a plan to create a plan. The market didn’t exactly freak, but it sure dropped.
Yesterday (Feb 23), the President held a “Fiscal Responsibility Summit” at the White House, a bipartisan affair attended by over a hundred economic and political leaders. The idea was to come up with a plan--well, I thought that was the idea. The attendees split into "breakout groups" and…well, apparently, all they did was talk. President Obama facilitated a wrap-up discussion when the summit was over, asking key members of various groups to “outbrief” their team’s results. It became painfully obvious that none of the members had any idea what to do, none of them had any actual plans, and none of them seemed to even grasp the concept that they needed to come up with a plan. It was just an academic roundtable.
Memo to the President: Sir, we need a plan. We don’t need talk about creating a plan--I have now officially lost track of the number of times you’ve said, “We’re going to come up with a plan.” It usually involves a vague pronouncement that someone is going to do that.
Excellent. When?
The campaign is over. It’s been over for months. During the campaign, during the transition, and during your short time in office, you’ve kept promising us that there’s going to be a plan. I’m starting to question that. I’m starting to think Senator Reid was including you when he said, “No one knows what to do!” That really worries me, because delegating every bit of planning, and not holding your planners accountable, indicates you still think this is an academic exercise--that you're still the editor, instead of the author.
Mr. President, you’re not at Harvard any more. It’s time to start governing.
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Lest anyone think I'm only interested in attacking the left, allow me to correct that impression. Senator McCain was the first person the President called on, and his response made me wonder if maybe it was a good thing he lost.
ReplyDeleteSenator, please--we know you have heartburn with military procurement. Here's a crazy thought--you're in Congress: you created the problem with the acquisition rules, and you can FIX IT. But, you can't FIX IT by just TALKING about it. You need a plan with actual steps!