If You Have to Have an Answer Right Now, the Answer is No

Years ago, I learned in business, that urgency and fear are frequently used sales tactics designed to rush a potential customer into making a quick decision to buy your product. I still remember the first car my wife and I bought. The salesman told us there was another couple who was probably going to make an offer, and unless we bought the car right then, we might not get it. When he got up to walk away for a minute, my wife turned to me with a stare and said, "You are going to fool around and we aren’t going to get this car!" Thankfully, we didn’t take the bait. We ended up buying the car, but not before we were able to examine it closely, take the test drive, and review and negotiate the terms and the price.

This experience came rushing back to me recently when I saw President Obama using similar scare tactics to push Americans to support a new multi-billion dollar stimulus plan. He said that unless we immediately agree to spend over $800 billion dollars we would turn a crisis into a catastrophe. This is the largest amount of money I can remember taxpayers being asked to fork over in my lifetime. We are in a recession that began around December of 2007. It is a deep recession and job losses are mounting. How deep and how long this recession will last is debatable.

Nevertheless, we are being told that unless we give the government a blank check for nearly $800 billion we will have a sudden disaster. If that is the case, taxpayers had better make sure they understand this "cure" and what it entails. What are we getting in exchange for mortgaging our children and grandchildren’s future? How will this unprecedented amount of money be spent? What are the side effects of the treatment? We have been promised that this process will be transparent and that every dollar will be accounted for and posted on a web site so that every American knows where it is being spent. We are still waiting for this.

Wisdom and experience have taught us never to make a big purchase without fully understanding what we are buying and how much we are paying. In business, we "cost justify" every major purchase. We never make a big purchase without fully researching it to make sure it is what we need.

Our elected officials have passed a lengthy 1,000-page bill that was rushed through so fast that most who voted on it didn’t even have time to read it. Would you mortgage your personal future without reading what you are signing? As this stimulus bill flew through and committed taxpayers to handing over nearly $800 billion dollars to the federal government, it made me stop, pause, and think about the car salesman and other sales people over the years who tried to use this same trick to coerce me into buying something. Usually it was something I didn’t really want or need.

There is irony in this "rush to avoid catastrophe." Remember when President Bush was making the case to invade Iraq? A strangely similar tone was employed. We were told that unless we acted immediately our vital security interests would be compromised. The "weapons of mass destruction" card was played and Americans were pushed to fear this "impending disaster." There was no time to waste! The President used virtually all of his political capital to convince us that we had to act immediately and spend billions of dollars to avoid a catastrophe. How did that work out?

Through the years I have learned a valuable lesson that goes something like this. "If you have to have an answer right this minute, then the answer is No." Apparently, Congress didn’t feel like this principle applied to the stimulus package. Maybe they’re right, but I’m afraid that we are going wake up in the morning and ask ourselves, "What in the world have we done?"

Brad Bradley is the former CEO of Senderra Funding in Charlotte, North Carolina.  He now runs a private investment company and is a member of the CJS Board of Directors.

The CJS Forum seeks to promote an open exchange of ideas about the relationship between faith, culture, law and public policy. While all the articles are original and written especially for the CJS Forum, they do not necessarily reflect the views of the Center for a Just Society.