Barrett: Fair or not, spill is now shorthand for Obama's presidency

The president's straw-grabbing response to the oil spill inspires no confidence, but I have to admit it's hard for me to pile as much of the blame on him as others think he deserves.

The fact is, it's a big mess with no ready fix. We're all grabbing straws.

Calls for the government to seize BP's assets and "take control" are, of course, disturbing. But more than that, they're silly: The feds rarely have a clearer idea about how to run things than the industries that have actually been running those things. Heck, we'd have a BP-scale disaster every other Tuesday if Harry Reid were in charge of deep-water drilling. But unlike nebulous health care, where it may be years before the catastrophe of federal dominion becomes obvious, taking over BP would make government ineptitude instantly apparent as the oil kept right on spilling.

Still, whatever path the president may take, he is suffering a teeth-rattling PR hit. A new Public Policy Polling survey of Louisiana residents asks, "Who do you think has done a better job in helping Louisiana to deal with crisis: George W. Bush or Barack Obama?"

The results? Half say President Bush did a better job - presumably with Hurricane Katrina since no other overriding Louisiana crisis was evident during his time in office. Only 35 percent say President Obama has performed better.

Yes, a caveat applies: We're in the midst of the oil spill and we're not in the midst of Katrina. That's bound to affect comparisons.

But unjust though it be, Katrina is the yardstick by which many Americans measured Mr. Bush's presidency. It would be a colossal irony if Mr. Obama, author of so many dreadful policies, were sunk by a crisis he really couldn't do much to solve.

Congressional pathology

Never assume members of Congress will let you keep your income just because they lack good ideas on how to spend it.

Consider this eye-opener, under the category Snatching Debt from the Jaws of Solvency.

To get an $8,000 federal tax credit for buying a house, you had to sign a sales contract by April 30 and close the deal by June 30. Those deadlines were not written in Sanskrit nor buried in limestone caverns under St. Louis. They were widely proclaimed, and responsible home buyers managed to meet them.

But 54 Democrats, four Republicans, one "Independent Democrat" and one (acknowledged) socialist in the Senate have voted to extend eligibility to purchases completed by Sept. 30. They fear that about 180,000 buyers will not make the annoyingly well-publicized original deadline. The senators plainly believe this sluggishness is the fault not of those home buyers but of taxpayers, since they want us all to foot the bill for making sure each buyer gets his 8,000 smackers - a rough total of $1.4 billion.

One doesn't know what to think - which is convenient, since a thinking constituency is not high on lawmakers' wish list. But let's disappoint them by using our noggins anyway.

First, Washington does not owe tardy home buyers an extension, because it did not deceive them about the deadline.

Second, leaving the law as is would not hurt the housing market, because the buyers in question have already signed the blame contracts. If stimulating home sales was the purpose of the tax credit, doling out credits to people who are already locked into purchasing cannot be called stimulus in any universe where the rules of logic aren't viewed as optional.

What's more, by doing absolutely nothing - just letting the existing law sit there - Congress could shave a quick $1.4 billion off our $13 trillion national debt and score political points with the legions of Americans who are properly terrified by that volume of red ink.

So what explanation remains? Pure, brute instinct. Some in Congress have given away other people's money for so long, for so many worthless purposes, that it is now conditioned reflex. It is mere happenstance, as they see it, that you earned your pay, and that has little bearing on the question of whether you may keep it.

If the definition of a pathological liar is someone who lies reflexively, even when he doesn't gain anything by it, what do you call a lawmaker who spends tax dollars even when it will be of no benefit to him or the overwhelming majority of taxpayers?

I can think of no other way to put it: We are ruled, in part, by people who suffer a subtle kind of madness.

To reach Steve Barrett, call 423-757-6329 or e-mail sbarrett@timesfreepress.com.

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