Extra, Extra! News Flash: Congress Hijacked!!!

Yes, the United States Congress has been hijacked. That’s right – emotionally hijacked. In the midst of the AIG executive bonus pay for incompetence, the House and Senate passed bills to tax the bonus pay at 90 percent. Keep in mind Congress was aware of these legally binding bonuses for incompetence in fall of 2008. Congress or Treasury (there’s a lot of finger pointing at each other) placed a grandfather clause for inclusion of bonuses in the recently passed budget. It’s not surprising that the press and the public read the legislation with OUTRAGE! Congress has now responded like a five alarm fire, because they passed the budget without reading it and slipped in the bonus exemption. This sounds more like a Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy escapade.

Emotional hijacking, in this case, occurred due to lack of critical thinking and deliberation of the issues that would impact the American economy. The American people are now faced with a gargantuan leadership void in the midst of this financial debacle. It has been one knee jerk reaction after another between the White House, Treasury, and Congress. To be emotionally intelligent one needs to be aware and knowledgeable rather than acting with political expediency. Hasty and uninformed decision making renders political leadership and moral leadership as oxymoron.

One of the hallmarks of sound leadership is being emotionally and socially aware. Psychologist Daniel Goleman says that emotional intelligence is more important than having a lot of smarts. Emotional intelligence provides a steadiness on a well-planned course of action in the face of crisis. Steady at the helm of American leadership on the rough sea of this financial fiasco is not what we are experiencing. From my Navy days, you turn the ship into the raging stormy waves in order to avoid being capsized. So far, the sea change of waves overwhelms Congress.

The famous theorem of the great philosopher Forrest Gump, “Stupid is as stupid does,” has been proven by Congress. The bills to tax the bonus pay are most likely unconstitutional. If the bonus pay tax becomes law, then a serious threat to American democracy exist. That means that Congress would have set the precedent to change law with penalties being retroactive and overriding any previous law at the whim of an emotional hijacking. Greed is the cause of the financial crisis.
However, it is a lack of moral leadership that is at the root.

I have suggested to my graduate students that perhaps Congress should enroll in our Graduate Certificate in Leadership and Ethics. What do you think? What about a grassroots campaign to get rid of all senators and congressmen/women who served more then ten years? Where will we find moral leadership?