The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified."
– President Barack Obama, Inauguration, 1/20/09
This is considered to be ….working?
Oil Spill Timeline from RightChange on Vimeo.
(H/T: The Campaign Spot)
The Progressive ideology posits that Big Government is THE answer to our problems, that simply by getting the brightest and smartest people into Government, they can "guide" us to a social utopia. That a competent Government can smooth over the ills of everyday life. Really? Not if you read this:
According to state disaster relief officials, Alabama conceived a plan — early on — to erect huge booms offshore to shield the approximately 200 miles of the state’s coastline from oil. Rather than install the relatively light and shallow booms in use elsewhere, the state (with assistance from the Coast Guard) canvassed the world and located enough huge, heavy booms — some weighing tons and seven meters high — to guard their coast.
But … no sooner were the booms in place than the Coast Guard, perhaps under pressure from the public comments of James Carville, uprooted them and moved them to guard the Louisiana coastline instead.
So Alabama decided on a backup plan. It would buy snare booms to catch the oil as it began to wash up on the beaches.
But … the Fish and Wildlife Administration vetoed the plan, saying it would endanger sea turtles that nest on the beaches.
So Alabama — ever resourceful — decided to hire 400 workers to patrol the beaches in person, scooping up oil that had washed ashore.
But … OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) refused to allow them to work more than 20 minutes out of every hour and required an hourlong break after 40 minutes of work, so the cleanup proceeded at a very slow pace.
The short answer is that every agency — each with its own particular bureaucratic agenda — was able to veto each aspect of any plan to fight the spill, with the unintended consequence that nothing stopped the oil from destroying hundreds of miles of wetlands, habitats, beaches, fisheries and recreational facilities.
When will Socialistic Progressives ever realize that the phrase "well, we just haven’t been led by the right people yet" will never come true. All this points out is that MORE local control, not less, in this case, may well be better than a highly centralized, but "stove-pipped" Federal bureaucracy.
(H/T: Betsy’s Page)
