ERMUSR MISC 01-10-2006 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Was Incompetence Solely to Blame? B~~ Jina Miller e may never completely know the underlying reasons for the ineffective government response to Hurricane Katrina. Most certainly, there is no single explanation; the list is undoubtedly long and the interrelationship among these reasons and their negative impact on each other impossible to accurately sort out. Yet, one theme seems to consistently emerge in the media-namely, that government incompetence is largely to blame. To be certain, this impression has not been formed in a vacuum.Then FEMA j Director Michael Brown's comments ~, ;hat he saw no reason for the agency to e concerned about a lack of ice simply to keep pop and beer cold while completely neglecting the real purpose of helping preserve medicines and bodies from decay, did little to instill confidence in the government's response. Neither can it be said that all of the inaction and poor judgment was limited to federal officials alone. To many, aspects of the New Orleans police response during the height of the crisis seemed confused and disorga- nized, or worse. It would be easy to dismiss such poor performance solely because of Hurricane Katrina's uniqueness. How- ever, although an anomaly, it probably served more to illuminate underlying problems than to create them. That conclusion seemed reaffirmed more recently as numerous similar problems arose following less severe Hurricane Wilma. One publicly popular explanation for these shortcomings is incompetence. In questioning the level of emergency preparedness in Minnesota, the editor ~f 7ivin. Cities Business Monthly bluntly onveyed that sentiment in a recent article, "Politicians have a penchant for appointing unqualified individuals to positions of government leadership." Many would undoubtedly agree with that indictment. While a grossly unfair and unfounded accusation in general, government is not immune from hiring and retaining unqualified employees. Indeed, it may have been a contributing factor in the New Orleans experience. And, while that is undoubtedly also eyually true in the private sector, government must be held to a higher standard.The actions of a rude or incompetent banker are not likely to have the same consequences for the public as those of an unqualified police sergeant or engineer. Dismissing all that went wrong after recent disasters as solely attributable to government incompetence, though, is also simplistic and shortsighted. At its heart, the failure in New Orleans was more about our lack of willingness to address true public priorities.The failure of the flood control system had been predicted and solutions were known; the cost for the perceived political benefit was apparently considered too high given other competing needs. The communications system in New York didn't fail following 9/11 because "somebody should have known," but rather because other priorities had previously seemed more important. Such examples may be the failure of elected officials to make the tough resource allocation decisions, but not entirely. We as citizens expect our elected officials to make the right deci- sions (by our definition), but we often miss the comiection between meeting those priorities and the need to pay for them. Ask taxpayers whether the city council should hold the line on taxes or increase them to fund a reserve for future road maintenance and it is not hard to predict the answer. Much the same analysis probably explains the decision not to make the improvements to the New Orleans' levy system. IVovrMae~ic-Drcenn~sFa 2005 M 1NNESO"rA ~, 1TI BS A recent television news story about high gas prices is illustrative. In analyz- ing the component costs of a gallon of gas, the reporter noted that taxes accounted for 1H percent.The remaining 72 percent, she said, went for buying the crude oil, refining, and marketing. Her conclusion? Government should be encouraged to at least temporarily reduce fuel taxes. There was no men- tion of similar actions by oil produc- ers and refiners, or of their exorbitant profits. Nor was there recognition that fuel taxes could not be reduced without some consequence. We have every right to expect seam- less, frugal, quality public services with a minimum number of unsatisfactory results. But, we must also expect to pay for them. Not all of the most important priorities arc short term, nor is it easy to compare the value of buying a new fire truck now as opposed to putting that money in a fund for a future fire station. It may just be that both should be done. As with any catastrophe, it will be years before an objective assessment of government performance after Katrina will be truly possible. In the end, I suspect the verdict will be that government did many things well, but that the collective public sector response in some key areas was woefully inadequate. In part, that may have been caused by a relatively few bad apples or unquah- ficd bureaucrats. But, simply changing the players will not prevent the results from being predictably the same should future catastrophes occur. We must, as a country, find a better way to identify those services and priorities critical to the common good and then be willing to also pay for them, popular or not. ~ ~im Miller is executive director of the League of Minnesota Cities. Phone: (651) 281-1205. IJ'-mail: jmiller@lmrac.org.