Slow Down the Political Response to a Perceived Crisis

by William A. Niskanen William Niskanen is chairman emeritus and a distinguished senior economist at the Cato Institute. He served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Reagan administration. Added to cato.org on February 9, 2009 This article appeared on Cato.org on February 9, 2009 Repeating his plea for the fiscal stimulus plan on February 5, President Obama said that "The time for talk is over. The time for action is now, because we know that if we do not act, a bad situation will become dramatically worse. Crisis could turn into catastrophe for families and businesses across the country." This is the fifth time in my adult life that the president has asked for or asserted unprecedented authority on an expedited basis with little or no congressional review. Each of the prior occasions turned out to be a disaster. read the rest of the article at Slow Down the Political Response to a Perceived Crisis on Cato.org.