Deficit Complaints

When discussing the Tea Parties, I often read commentators complain that “the Tea Partiers criticize spending now, but where were they during the Bush years?”

I think this graph explains it pretty well:





Note how in the last year of the Bush presidency, the deficit was a tick over 400 billion dollars. That's pretty bad. But Bush was a piker compared to Obama's projected 1.75 to 1.85 trillion. Although 2008 was bad, 2009 is clearly in OMG! territory.

The 3AM Call

During the recent presidential election campaign, the candidates' readiness for office was judged by their hypothetical response to an national emergency. Campaign spots asked voters to imagine the president being awakened at 3am to respond to a crisis. Which candidate would handle the emergency best? When asked in an interview “How would you respond to the 3am call?”, what should a presidential candidate say?

I think the best answer would be “I would activate the pre-arranged response for that emergency situation.”

If you have to scramble to decide how to respond after-the-fact, it's too late. In both government and business, the job of executives and managers includes disaster planning. Not only must the plan exist, but it must be up-to-date and clearly communicated to participants. When needed, participants should engage in practice drills.

Most of us have participated in fire drills, tornado drills, or earthquake drills (familiar to those in California), so the idea of disaster planning is not a foreign concept. I am sure that in the bowels of government there are people whose whole job is to think up “what if” scenarios and come up with a plan. Heck, there probably is a plan about how to respond to an unknown disaster.

Responsible leaders, whether they be in government or private business, should anticipate crises or disasters and plan ahead. A wise candidate would point out that fact.