Just Say No!

Just say no to comprehensive anything. Put comprehensive in the name and it is a warning of incomprehensiblity. No one will read it, no one will understand it, it won't work and it will cost a ton of tax dollars and debt to feed the back-channel interest groups.

Each day the ramifications of the comprehensive healthcare reform are revealed and there's not a single bloody no-load who has yet to see a doctor under the provisions of the bill. The CBO continues to report on the costs, the docs are still facing a pay cut, and the climate for businesses to continue to provide employee benefits continues to erode.

The financial reform behemoth bill languishes in the Senate and faces failure with the demise of Grand Kleagle Byrd while the disasterous Cap-and-Trade proposal looms increasingly as the tool of our final destruction.

Blanket fixes to deal "once-and-for-all" with major policy issues are fairy tales. There is no such thing. They all have unintended consequences and they all get larded up with unnecessary goodies to get the votes to enact them.

So, here we go again:

Bamster Will Unveil Magic on Migrants Soon

He can't talk fast enough to confound us on the dillemma which Arizona Governor Brewer has lain at his feet. Federal law makes undocumented aliens illegal. There is a long tradition, one which just yesterday was invoked by Chicago Mayor Daley, of local law enforcement cooperating and enhancing federal enforcement. For Daley it is good on guns, for Brewer it is bad on Mexicans. The Messiah must pull a miracle out of his trick-bag.

There's a golden egg in that goose for him. He sees a potential to suddenly assuage the growing Latino demographic in the US with a benevolent amnesty while simultaneously swelling his party's poll numbers with ten or twelve million new voters.

There's a catch, however. The word "amnesty" is a rallying cry for Americans. Ask John McCain how that worked for him. That means there will have to be strings attached for him to get the votes.

So, we get this:

Obama has endorsed a proposal by Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., that would require illegal immigrants, among other things, to admit they broke the law, pay fines and back taxes and perform community service to eventually obtain legal status.

If that looks familiar, it is because it looks an awful lot like McCain-Kennedy's proposal of three years ago. It is wishful thinking of the highest order.

How naive does a legislator have to be to think that 12 million folks will line up at ICE offices to confess to law breaking, pony up a fine and a bag full of taxes, and spend a couple of hundred hours swabbing floors in a local hospital for free?

The answer to rational legislation is a simple one. It is what we all learned early in our careers; the KISS principle. Keep It Simple, Stupid!

Effective policy can be achieved only in small, clear, but positive steps. Deal with one aspect at a time. In Boyd terms, it is an OODA loop. Observe, orient, decide and act. Then evaluate, aka observe again before acting some more. That way lies progress. Comprehensive means chaos.