I just had the opportunity to phone in to a D.C. NPR program in which Rep Mario Diaz Bellart, a Republican from Florida who sits on the national Budget Committee, was fielding questions about national security versus economic security. I asked him what kind of hard data he had to understand the situation and, essentially, how he knew Congress wasn't just being stampeded by companies unwilling to inherit the harvest of their own bad management.

He tapdanced around like mad and essentially said there was no set of hard data, that they had to rely on the analysis by experts. He also did not answer the question, and he left me with the impression that he rerally did NOT know whether this was a curveball stampede act or a genuine national emergency.


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