PETE BUTTIGIEG

My Rabbit Could Do a Better Job

The Administrative State

Our government is too large, unwieldy and expensive.  The biggest factor in this is the unelected, administrative state that has grown vastly beyond the Constitutional limits.  Many departments need to be abolished, but some are clearly necessary. Transportation is one of them.  We know this because in the past few years, we’ve seen what life is like without it…courtesy of having a dilettante in the Secretary’s seat.

A Little About Mayor Pete

Mayor Pete’s career has been positively highlighted when he shot to national recognition in his 2020 presidential campaign. But looks aren’t always what they seem.  His military experience came about with a direct commission in the reserves—no intense training, no academy work.  Many career military officers consider this being a “pomerania prince.”  His “work” consisted of paperwork at the Great Lakes, IL naval station.  He did spend five months in Afghanistan, but mostly in a secure office, not overly taxed with work.

As mayor, he claimed to have transformed South Bend, but not everyone agrees with this rating. South Bend has become more segregated in his term of office, with homeless and poor everywhere.  Pronouncing many buildings as “nuisances” where the owners simply didn’t have the money for repairs, he tore down a lot of housing. He did have some accomplishments, but many minority residents didn’t believe him ready for the prime-time of being President.

His career includes absolutely no experience in any facet of transportation, and yet, Biden gave him the top job; he’s earned an F in that position.  Normally, we don’t hear much from this secretary; even during the air traffic controller strike (and Reagan’s firing of them), there was little disruption.

The Major Transportation Disasters

Like most things in Biden’s term, transportation is a disaster across all modes.  Caving to the unions, a supply chain crisis occurred in October, 2021, affecting the ports and container ships.  Los Angeles is one of the major ports for Asian ships; the unions have resisted automation and don’t operate 7x24.  This is not true for many Red states.  Ships were stuck for more than a month and truckers are overworked, trying to handle alternative routes.  Rail yards were clogged as well, and miscreants tried to trash the trains.  While this was happening, Mayor Pete was taking two months of parental leave, but apparently didn’t leave anyone smart in charge to handle the issues.  While parental leave is valuable, it is only essential for a woman recovering from a rough delivery.  His absence caused the problem to get worse.  Most people would return to work in this situation. Haven’t all of us given up our precious free time when our company needed us?

Pete failed to handle the threatened nationwide rail strike; Congress had to step in.  The Biden administration “deal” was rejected by the union, forcing Congress to step in to solve the problem.  Then we had Christmas, 2022.  Weather caused serious delays and cancellations, but given that the FAA hasn’t updated their air traffic control systems, flights can’t be dispatched efficiently when there are weather problems.  As weather improved, we had the shutdown of an essential system to keep pilots informed; flight delays and stoppage ensued until the numnuts who screwed up an essential file got it fixed.  The budget for Transportation has always been huge and the recent largess from Biden’s spending spree should have allowed improvements to have been made.  Perhaps we don’t need so many employees there since they don’t manage the critical tasks.

Finally, we have East Palestine, Ohio.  The derailment and subsequent decision how to handle the toxic release has caused residents immediate and most likely, long-term harm.  Who can trust the air and water?  A few years down the line, many may incur major health issues.  Mayor Pete’s response?  Wait 10 days to respond and then weeks after the disaster, he finally visited the site.  In the meantime, he went to a conference to complain that there  are too many White men working in construction. 

Pete tried to blame Trump for a rule governing train breaking systems (passed during Trump’s term), but that rule didn’t apply to this kind of train anyway.  Here is one comment by House Oversight and Accountability Chair James Comer.  “This incident is an environmental and public health emergency that now threatens Americans across state lines,” Comer wrote to Buttigieg. “Despite the U.S. Department of Transportation’s responsibility to ensure safe and reliable transport in the United States, you ignored the catastrophe for over a week. The American people deserve answers as to what caused the derailment, and DOT needs to provide an explanation for its leadership’s apathy in the face of this emergency.”

Finally, Mayor Pete is having to explain why taking private jets for brief meetings that he could have done by phone or Zoom was a rational choice.  He claims it was cheaper—not cheaper than meeting in Washington, calling people or setting up a web call.  Also, his travel would have been cheaper on commercial airlines.  Yet he claims he is environmentally responsible.  I can’t wait to see how this investigation comes out.

What’s Needed

I would recommend an audit of the Dept of Tranportation to understand where the money is going.  Perhaps then, we could clear out the deadwood, including the leader and put the money towards modernization of entities like the FAA. In addition, it’s time to break the union in Los Angeles and look at other government transportation unions who no longer serve their paymasters (us) or the public.  And fire Mayor Pete.  He wasn’t great as a mayor and he’s clearly in Peter Principle territory.  For those who don’t remember, the Peter principle is a concept in management developed by Laurence J. Peter, which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to "a level of respective incompetence": employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent, as skills in one job do not necessarily translate to another.  Of course, when was he competent?