Mark Steyn: Inaugural Disaster

National Review Online ^ | January 19, 2009, 5:00 p.m. | Mark Steyn

[kellynla]

In just about his last act as president, George W. Bush has declared Washington, D.C., a federal disaster area.

No, seriously. I’m not setting up some lame-o punchline here, like we used to do a decade back in the good old Monica days: “President Clinton today declared his pants a federal disaster area,” etc. What happened last week was that the Bush administration formally declared a federal emergency in the District of Columbia.

So what was it? An ice storm? A hurricane?

No, it’s the inauguration of his successor. The inauguration is scheduled to make landfall on Tuesday and wreak havoc all night long, as Category Five conga lines buckle highways round town and emergency busboy crews find themselves overwhelmed as they struggle to clear drained champagne flutes. So the mayor, Adrian M. Fenty, put in a request for more federal money, and, apparently, the easiest way to sluice the cash to him no questions asked was for the president to declare a state of emergency in the District and funnel however many extra gazillions he wants through FEMA—the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“I don’t know if anybody’s ever done that,” said Dana Perino, the White House press secretary.

Indeed. One reason why nobody’s ever done that before is that a presidential inauguration is not (to be boringly technical about it) an “emergency.” It’s penciled in well in advance—in this case, so well in advance that for years Democrats have been driving around with “1-20-09” bumper stickers on the back of their Priuses. Emergency-wise, that’s the equivalent of Hurricane Dan Rather wrapped around a lamppost in his sou’wester hanging there in eager anticipation every night for half a decade. Generally speaking, changes of government are “emergencies” only in the livelier banana republics, where this week’s president-for-life suddenly spots the machete-wielding mob scrambling over the palace walls so nimbly he barely has time to dial the Liberian branch of FEMA and put in a request for extra Portapotties and a rope-line management team.

The proposition that a new federal administration is itself a federal emergency is almost too perfect an emblem of American government in the 21st century. FEMA was created in the 1970s initially to coordinate the emergency response to catastrophic events such as a nuclear attack. But there weren’t a lot of those even in the Carter years, so, as is the way with bureaucracies, FEMA just growed like Topsy. In his first year in office, Bill Clinton declared a then record-setting 58 federal emergencies. By the end of the ’90s, Mother Nature was finding it hard to come up with a meteorological phenomenon that didn’t qualify as a federal emergency: Heavy rain in the Midwest? Call FEMA! Light snow in Vermont? FEMA! Fifty-seven degrees under cloudy skies in California? Let those FEMA trailers roll!

The Cato Institute’s James Bovard was struck by the plight of Vernon, Connecticut, a town ravaged in the winter of 1995–96 by, er, slightly more snow than they’d expected. So FEMA sent them a check for $40,023. Vernon had 30,000 people, and its town snow-removal costs that winter were $258,000. “That’s just $8.60 per person,” Bovard pointed out, “less than a 12-year-old charges to shovel out a driveway after a good snowfall.”

So why did they need “federal emergency” aid? Because the town had budgeted only $104,516, and so claimed to be “overwhelmed” by the additional costs. Town officials could have asked the good burghers of Vernon to chip in an extra five bucks apiece. But why bother when FEMA’s so eager to give you a warm bath in the federal love nectar? The town government wised up pretty quickly. The next winter, they set the snow-removal budget at just $69,383.

So a “federal emergency” is no longer a nuclear strike on Cleveland or even a Category Three hurricane, but now a snowfall in New England and an inaugural ball at the Mayflower Hotel. As Mister Incredible shrewdly observes to his kid in The Incredibles, when everybody’s special, nobody is. Likewise, when everything’s an emergency, nothing is: We live in a permanent state of routine emergency.

The metastasizing of FEMA teaches several lessons—the first and most obvious being that any new government program, agency, or entitlement will always outgrow whatever narrow purpose it was created for. Which is why we small-government types are wary of creating any new ones in the first place. Thus, an itsybitsy bit of inconsequential government tinkering on the periphery of the mortgage market expanded to the point where federally mandated home loans to the uncreditworthy came close to collapsing not just the U.S. property market but the global financial system.

If you had suggested in the 1970s a new federal agency to cope with municipal snow removal in Connecticut, you’d have been laughed out of the room. But, with government, mission creep isn’t a bug but the defining feature. In mid-September, the “bailout” was a once-in-a-lifetime emergency measure to save the planet. A mere four months later, it’s the new baseline. If your congressman’s lousy boondoggle has got six zeroes on the end, it’s an earmark: Boooooooooo! If it’s got twelve zeroes, it’s a “stimulus”: Hurrah!

I’m not worried about “change” so much as creep. The Obama administration doesn’t have to do anything terribly transformative—overnight socialization of health care, etc. In fact, it doesn’t have to do anything at all. It could just sit there, and America would still drift remorselessly, incrementally left, inch by inch. Eventually, you reach a tipping point: At some point in the next four years, we will reach a situation where the majority of Americans pay no federal income tax but are able to vote themselves more goodies from those who do. The most basic of conservative principles is that if you reward bad behavior you get more of it. We now have a government offering trillion-dollar rewards for bad behavior to the financial system, to the housing market, to the auto unions, and to individual voters. And the heirs to those Connecticut town meetings that Tocqueville regarded as the best form of government ever devised by man now underbudget their snow-removal costs secure in the knowledge that the Feds will pick up the tab.

We’re now told that the problem with the last New Deal is that it was too small, so Obama’s new New Deal has to be even bigger. That’s like telling New Orleans that the problem is they’re not far enough below sea level so they need to dig deeper. If Washington is now a federal disaster area, it would be nice to think of Barney Frank and the gang waving from the roof of the Capitol until they can be evacuated somewhere safe, like one of the outlying South Sandwich Islands or Charlie Rangel’s vacation property in the Dominican Republic. But, alas, Washington is one of those disaster-relief cases where they get the relief and the rest of us get the disaster. As the incoming president has said, this is the worst crisis since . . . oh, at least the great Vernon, Connecticut, snowfall of 1996. To facilitate the stimulus, I urge him to declare every American his own individual federal disaster area.

[Nephi]

A fitting last act to symbolize the Bush legacy. And some people still call him a conservative.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

"The inauguration is scheduled to make landfall on Tuesday and wreak havoc all night long, as Category Five conga lines buckle highways round town and emergency busboy crews find themselves overwhelmed as they struggle to clear drained champagne flutes."

Well, as Michelle Obama leads a conga line to the beat of "Love Train" it will be interesting to see how many of the celebrity talking heads who thought Palin was too "vulgar" join in.

This is a liberal Titanic heading at full steam for the icebergs.

[Aquamarine]

Washington is one of those disaster-relief cases where they get the relief and the rest of us get the disaster

COL!
(crying out loud)

[Kylie_04]

Excellent read.

[Bokababe]

"A fitting last act to symbolize the Bush legacy. And some people still call him a conservative."

Ping!

[WOSG]

Was it not a disaster?

The Barack Era: bailouts, boondoggles, big Government, bad economy.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

.. when everything’s an emergency, nothing is: We live in a permanent state of routine emergency.

Unreal..... and excuse me, once the non-emergency is over can you come back to Galveston and see if you can help out those folks just a bit, pretty please?

[shoutingandpointing]

What’s that old joke about “The difference between this place and the Titanic is the Titanic had a decent band?”

Somehow, today it just doesn’t seem as funny as it usually does.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Springsteen doing concerts for Obammunism is going to get old after a while. So will Obama’s Oprah act. The followers will be confused and disappointed when utopia fails to arrive.

[henkster]

Mark Steyn, as always, is brilliant.

Only one disagreement: Mr. Steyn says sometime in the next four years we will pass the tipping point where those not paying taxes will outnumber those who do.

The real tipping point was passed in November, 2008. Ever since 2000, the floodgates had been creaking. In November they burst.

[SMARTY]

“At some point in the next four years, we will reach a situation where the majority of Americans pay no federal income tax but are able to vote themselves more goodies from those who do.”

Nightmare scenario...but inevitable

[RazzPutin]

No representation without taxation.

Only income tax payers should be allowed to vote.

[paulcissa]

"A fitting last act to symbolize the Bush legacy. And some people still call him a conservative."

YIKES! Was either Bush ever a conservative? I think not.

[SMARTY]

That... or ONLY taxpayers should be allowed to vote on tax issues.

THAT would be a giant step in the right direction.

[Swede Girl]

Yes, the euphoria will fade when reality hits.

[zeugma]

ABP, but Steyn doesn’t lose much in the reposting :-)

[synbad600]

I think the Ann Coulter rule should apply to Mr. Steyn as well:

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

It all comes down to whether it passes
the oak-leaf cluster of Peggy Noonan's Estrogen Test.

If she's having a bad day, he's finished as a circus-tent carnival messiah.

[shoutingandpointing]

“Springsteen doing concerts for Obammunism is going to get old after a while. So will Obama’s Oprah act. The followers will be confused and disappointed when utopia fails to arrive.”

—

What? Utopia? (feverishly shuffling papers) No one told me Todd Rundgren was going to be there! (/s)

You raise a good point. I figure this “infrauduration” was simply the Woodstock 2 that the old hippies' and their friends’ kids and grand kids couldn't pull off a few years back.

As such, this was like any other A-list big-names music fest. The only difference being that those concertgoers in attendance today did not have to stroke Tickets-r-Us the usual $200+ for a SRO slot at the back of the throng. Instead, they bought their admission by making a one-time-only-but-for-all-Eternity bargain with Old Scratch hissssssssssself.

I can hardly wait for the live bootleg to hit the streets. (/s) -

Hiss own will turn on him soon enough when he fails to deliver what they thought he was selling. Back in the fall, he stood before them and said "you pick me and I'll tell you what I'm going to do to fix your world." They said, "COOL! and picked him. Today, he stood before them and said, "You picked me and now I'll tell you what I'm going to do to fix your world." Again, they said, "COOL!" And he said, "Fix your world." I do not think the words have registered yet. Give it time.

These dimbulbs are VERY work-averse. They'll be in the streets and then some when he makes good on his threat to conscript a few Zedillion of these fine one-worlder plant-munching yoots and makes them volunteers in the ranks of his community service army.

(lawn chair? check; grill? check; brats? check; camera? check; popcorn? check; iced tea? check; Fritos? check. . . .)