The Process Misdirection

Boehner blames conservatives for not trusting the process.  

There a lot of jokes out there about engineers and with good reason.  For all their skills with a slide rule they are not very bright.  I offer two examples of their lack of foresight and one that shows I’m right. In 1869 John Augustus Roebling took up the challenge to build the Brooklyn Bridge.  He died.  His son picked up the gauntlet and completed the bridge in 1883.  It still works.

In 1922 Congress came up with the concept of the Hoover Dam. Construction was begun in 1931, the foreplay lasted longer than the construction project. The dam was completed in 1935. There is still a lake behind the dam and electricity is still be generated.

Back in simpler times performance measures were so much easier.  Is there a bridge there?  Do you see a dam?  Does it hold water?  We’re done. Suddenly those engineers were out of work.

In 1964 President Lyndon Baines Johnson embarked upon the “Great Society”. This was not a construction project.   Nothing has been build, nothing has been completed and nothing has changed except the performance measure.  Now we are embarked on a process.   Coming up on fifty years, with no positive outcomes, but we have a process and we have followed the process.   A social worker employed in 1964 is now retired, their child also employed as a social worker is now retired and their grandchild is in mid career and nothing has been accomplished.  Stupid engineers.

I don’t expect an honest answer, from some quarters,  but compare and contrast which Presidential Initiative did more for Civil Rights, Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway Authorization or LBJ’s Great Society?