Leadership Series: Cover Your Behind

Obviously, covering one's behind is not a characteristic of good leadership.  The Treasury Secretary of the United States has written a classic "cover your a__" letter and posted it as if it represents some form of wise guidance.  We look at this letter and his behavior and, because of his leadership failure, refer to him derisively as "little Timmy."

“If Congress failed to increase the debt limit, a broad range of government payments would have to be stopped, limited or delayed, including military salaries and retirement benefits, Social Security and Medicare payments, interest on the debt, unemployment benefits and tax refunds. This would cause severe hardship to American families and raise questions about our ability to defend our national security interests. In addition, defaulting on legal obligations of the United States would lead to sharply higher interest rates and borrowing costs, declining home values and reduced retirement savings for Americans. Default would cause a financial crisis potentially more severe than the crisis from which we are only now starting to recover.

For these reasons, default by the United States is unthinkable.”

Pretty serious stuff coming from little Timmy. No social security payments. Declining home values. Reduced retirement savings. Wait a minute. We’ve been spending like drunken sailors and we have badly declined and declining home values and our retirement savings, at least those of us who work in the private sector, have been badly hit. What about you government guys? Are you forgetting something? Won’t this mean your paychecks are not issued? Why didn’t you mention that? Maybe you are thinking that some of us might just think it’s about time your paychecks are not issued. And why didn’t we hear anything from little Timmy earlier when there still was a long way to go until we hit the debt ceiling? You know, something like, “Hey guys, let’s stop spending so much. Let’s stop borrowing so much. Then we won’t have to raise the debt ceiling.” Where was little Timmy then?

You see, in some places, they call this form of thinking, forward thinking. Looking out a bit. Some even call it strategic planning or strategic thinking.

So what to make of little Timmy’s plea for more debt?

Well if you read on here is what little Timmy has to say, “President Obama is strongly committed to working with both parties to restore fiscal responsibility, and he looks forward to working with Congress to achieve that critically important objective.”

Here is the reference for the entire letter: http://www.treasury.gov/connect/blog/Pages/letter-to-congress.aspx

So little Timmy says that the president wants to restore fiscal responsibility. That sure sounds great. But it seems that maybe some are not really sure that he is working really hard to get there. And it seems that there is a rather large and vocal group in the Senate and the House of Representatives who are not quite sure that this is the time to restore fiscal responsibility. It always seems as if these folk feel it is okay to postpone that fiscal responsibility stuff until tomorrow and then the next tomorrow.

So, what to do?

If default is unthinkable and the president wants to restore fiscal responsibility there are really only two ways to accomplish both.

Reduce spending.

Raise taxes.

Are those things unthinkable too?

Let’s see. We can reduce spending and raise taxes or do some of both and then not raise the debt limit. Makes sense to us. What do you think little Timmy? Are there ever any alternatives in your world? Do you believe in prioritizing little Timmy? Or do you just like to wait until the last minute and then write ridiculous “cover your little Timmy behind” letters?

This is not leadership folks. This is silliness and it is destroying our country. Little Timmy is not qualified to dry cars at the local car wash and we mean no disrespect to the folks who work hard and are good at drying cars at the local car wash.

Real leaders would never write a letter like little Timmy's cover his behind letter.  Little Timmy is an embarrassment.  So is the man he works for.