Failure is Not an Option

Watching the raucous debate over President Obama’s proposed stimulus package rage on Capitol Hill you might just throw up your hands in disgust and say, as President Ronald Reagan often did, “There you go again”.

Democrats are accusing Republicans of using tax cuts for the rich as the magic bullet that will kill the recession. Republicans are pointing the finger at spend-happy democrats who would sacrifice the nation on the altar of socialism. And the public just hopes they can all get along well enough to help them survive this historic economic meltdown.

So it that sense it is politics as usual. New Deal Democrats honestly feel the government has a responsibility to help those less fortunate, and that spending will also boost the economy as more people join the workforce. Conservative Republicans honestly feel the less government the better. People who take handouts will come to rely more on government aid than personal initiative.

But I argue that this time around it should not be politics as usual, because just as Nero supposedly fiddled while Rome burned, doing nothing but argue ideology could doom our economy. This country is going through an economic earthquake that requires all its politicians and citizens to put aside their petty differences and work together to repair the damage in the spirit that made our country great.

Even former President Bush’s conservative consigliore Karl Rove is calling on fellow conservative Republicans to get on board or risk becoming irrelevant. There is no magic solution, but sacrifice by everyone is certainly a good way to start.

California is $42 billion in debt, with the lowest bond rating in the country. Yet its public employee unions are threatening to recall democrats in their state legislature who vote for wage and benefit give-backs. They should quit their self-interested picketing and get on board. California Republicans who are threatening to recall legislators who vote for tax increases should also temper their ideology and get on board.

And let’s quit the blame game. It serves no useful purpose. Wells Fargo was forced by media attention to cancel all incentive awards trips. So that teller who worked so hard to be recognized for superior performance will not be rewarded, and the hotel workers who would have been paid to welcome them will instead be laid off.

Corporations that use private planes as business machines are being forced my media-inflamed public outrage to sell the company plane at a loss. Now plane manufacturers from Boeing to Cessna are laying off thousands of workers. And charter companies, faced with an estimated 50 percent drop in business, are putting thousands of pilots out of work.

As to those much-maligned Wall Street bonuses, some were certainly excessive. But let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater. As the Wall Street Journal wrote in a recent headline titled “Greed is Good”, “Wall Street bonuses are getting a bad rap, but they’re an important and useful part of the financial services industry. Taking them away could hamper the economic comeback”.

On that topic, it is understandable that government set salary caps for senior executives whose companies take government bailout money. But as Carl Icahn wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “The real problem is that many corporate managements operate with impunity-with little oversight by, or accountability to, shareholders. Instead of operating as aggressive watchdogs over management and corporate assets, many boards act more like lapdogs”.
I might add to that by asking where those lapdogs were when the CEO’s they supposedly hired were taking excessive risks with mortgage backed securities.

I know. I’m back playing the blame game. But until we change the attitude in corporate boardrooms from acquiescence to authority, we will never “return capitalism to its roots” as Icahn argues.

We do live in perilous economic times. We rely on foreign lenders to fund our leaking ship of state. We have some $56 trillion in liabilities and unfunded retirement and health care obligations. That amounts to $483,000 per U.S. household, according to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. We can only print so much money before we run out of paper, and run out of rescue plans.

It’s time we put aside our differences and focus on how best we as Americans can right our ship of state, not just for ourselves, but our children and grandchildren. And we can start by remembering that when you point your finger at someone else, three more are pointing back at you.

(Brian Banmiller is a national Business Correspondent for CBS News Radio, free lance writer and public speaker. The former television business news anchor in San Francisco can be reached at brian@banmilleronbusiness.com .)