Stop the can-kicking

He said administrations before his, and maybe American society in general, has put off (kicked) for too long the day of reckoning over entitlement spending and its potential to sink the government fiscally (the can).

Well, the fledgling administration has shown it can kick cans down the street pretty well itself.

Two exhibits for the prosecution:

Exhibit A: This week's speech by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on the administration's approach to what used to be called the Troubled Assets Recovery Plan, now the Financial Stability Program.

Widely anticipated for several weeks, Geithner's speech Tuesday was a dud, so sparce in specifics that the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 300 points - even while he was talking. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal had thoroughly reported on the expected plan for two days before the speech, so anyone who cared already knew there would be some sort of public-private mechanism for valuing and acquiring the bad assets of financial institutions.

Geithner was short on detail about home foreclosure prevention, other than what we already knew - that loan modification was at the center of it.

While details are hashed out, Geithner said, the administration would seek input from the public. Pardon me, but that sounds like more Web 2.0 blather, as if in the crowd lies the answer to this large and vexing problem. The Troubled Asset Relieve Program dates to before election day last year. Now renamed the Financial Stability Plan, you'd think the Obama team would have had enough time to figure out what it wants to do. Aren't they supposed to he warding off catastrophe?

Exhibit B: The appointment of Michele Hathaway to the National Security Council. She is to be acting senior director for cyberspace for the national security and homeland security councils. And she is to lead a 60 day review of the cyber security requirements. Ms. Hathaway was cyber coordination executive for the Director of National Intelligence. She is widely praised.

Besides, there is a big fat report from the Commission on Cyber Security for the 44th Presidency from the Center for Strategic and International Studies. There is more advice going around for cybersecurity than for almost any single thing confronting the government.

So why does the administration need another 60 days to study the issue? What were all those transition teamlets, combing through Homeland Security, the Intelligence Community, and Defense Department doing in the first place?

I say it is time to stop kicking the cans and start stomping on them.

Tom Temin is one of the co-hosts of The Federal Drive and consultant with 25 years of experience in journalism, specializing in technology and government. For 15 years he was editor in chief of Government Computer News. He is known for wearing shoes with heavy soles. Reach him at ttemin@federalnewsradio.com.