[Mb-civic] GREAT PIECE: In Charge, Except They're Not- E. J. Dionne - Washington Post Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

In Charge, Except They're Not

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
The Washington Post
Friday, March 24, 2006; A19

Is President Bush the leader of our government, or is he just a 
right-wing talk-show host?

The question comes to mind after Bush's news conference this week in 
which he sounded like someone who has no control over the government he 
is in charge of. His words were those of a pundit inveighing against the 
evils of bureaucrats.

"Obviously," said the critic in chief, "there are some times when 
government bureaucracies haven't responded the way we wanted them to, 
and like citizens, you know, I don't like that at all." Yes, and if you 
can't do something about it, who can?

Bush went on: "I mean, I think, for example, of the trailers sitting 
down in Arkansas. Like many citizens, they're wondering why they're down 
there, you know. How come we've got 11,000?"

Bush was talking about 10,777 mobile homes ordered up to provide housing 
for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. As Rep. Mike Ross put it in an 
interview, most of these "brand-new, fully furnished homes are sitting 
in a hay meadow in Hope, Arkansas," and are "a symbol of what's wrong 
with this administration and what's wrong with FEMA."

Ross, a Democrat whose district includes that hay meadow, has been 
running a one-man crusade since December to get the homes moved to where 
they could actually provide shelter for those left homeless by the 
storm. The Federal Emergency Management Agency let the homes sit there 
because its regulations don't permit the use of such structures in a 
flood plain.

That raises at least two questions: Why did FEMA spend anywhere from 
$300 million to $430 million -- the numbers are in dispute -- to buy 
homes that didn't meet its own regulations? Alternatively, why can't it 
alter its regulations at least temporarily to use the homes where they 
are desperately needed?

Nearly three months after Ross first complained about the homes sitting 
in the field -- and nearly six weeks after Fox News reported the story 
and CNN broadcast an extensive account -- Bush seemed perplexed. He 
insisted that he was asking Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff 
to get to the bottom of the deal.

"So I've asked Chertoff to find out," Bush said. "What are you going to 
do with them? I mean, the taxpayers aren't interested in 11,000 trailers 
just sitting there. Do something with them. And so I share that sense of 
frustration when a big government is unable to, you know -- sends wrong 
signals to taxpayers. But our people are good, hardworking people."

Hold on: The president of the United States runs the "big government" 
he's attacking. This is mysterious. If Bush's "good, hardworking people" 
aren't responsible for the problem, the villains of the piece must be 
alien creatures created by some strange beast called Big Government.

Ross reports that 300 of the homes were finally moved last month and 
that 5,000 are supposed to be moved soon to Katrina victims. That still 
leaves a lot of homes. FEMA has said they will be stored for future 
disasters.

This episode is important because it is representative of a corrosive 
style of politics. Bush and many of his fellow Republicans have done a 
good business over the years running against the ills of Big Government. 
They are so much in the habit of trashing government that even when they 
are in charge of things -- remember, Republicans have controlled the 
White House and both houses of Congress for all but 18 months since 2001 
-- they pretend they are not.

And when their own government fails, they turn around and use their 
incompetence to argue that government can never work anyway, so you 
might as well keep electing conservatives to have less government. It's 
an ideological Catch-22. Even their failures prove they are right.

On the same day Bush was pushing off accountability for the mobile home 
fiasco, another politician was giving his voters some very bad news -- 
and taking responsibility for fixing the problem.

Gov. Jon Corzine of New Jersey announced that his state's fiscal 
situation was a mess, and he proposed a budget that simultaneously 
raised taxes, cut programs and walked away from some of his own campaign 
promises. "New Jerseyans believe that telling the truth is always better 
than hiding from it, even when it hurts," said Corzine, a Democrat. "And 
boy, does this budget hurt."

I'll leave it to New Jersey's budget experts to parse the details of 
Corzine's fiscal plan. But it's definitely bracing when a politician 
skips all the rhetoric about big or small government and just tries to 
fix the thing.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/23/AR2006032301133.html?nav=hcmodule
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