So You Want To Be My Latex Salesman?

Seinfeld fans will certainly recognize the title for today's post. It is a sarcastic comment by Jerry regarding George's inability to get anything right. This is the inspiration for today's observations. The following information was all on the front page of USA Today on October 19, 2009:

"Watchdog slams $700 billion bailout" - Neil Barofsky, the TARP special inspector general, stated in this blurb that it is extremely unlikely that taxpayers will ever get back all of the cash the political class gave to banks and other financial institutions in 2008 and that those banks that received the bailout money are still involved in risky financial behavior.

"Bioterror failures criticized in report" - reporter Mimi Hall wrote that a bipartisan commission reported that the Obama administration is failing to address the urgent and immediate threat of bioterrorism. The commission's report says that the White House has left the country vulnerable to bioterrorism and that anthrax spores released by a crop duster could "kill more Americans than died in World War II." Unlike the Clinton and Bush administrations, Obama has no senior staff with a biodefense background.

"Flu vaccine runs a month behind" - Reporter Elizabeth Weise wrote that vaccines for the swine flu will not be available until November which is a month later than first thought with some states not expecting dosages until December. Only two weeks ago it was thought lots of vaccines would be available by the end of October (guess they missed that short term forecast).

All of this bad news about government ineptness was on just one page of the newspaper, imagine if we had gone through the other pages. The sad part of these articles is that no politician seems to be in trouble for these failures. As mentioned before, one of the fifty steps in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" would be to institute a process that would result in politicians being removed from Congressional committee posts for subpar performance. Waste taxpayer dollars on bailouts? Off the committee. Endanger the public with inadequate bioterrorism planning? Off the committee. Short change promised vaccine volumes and endanger the public? Off the committee. Until there is accountability political class performance will not improve.

Given the impotency of the political class in these smaller endeavors, one would have to steal a line from Seinfeld and ask: So you want to manage our health care plans?