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Jun 18, 2008

Government score card

I was talking to a buddy the other day and we started talking about how the new administration has been doing. I'll be using some of his observations here and some of my own.

Here's the way I score it:

Oil prices -1 Although there's not much to do about the price increase, announcing a day early to "surprise" everyone, or whatever the logic was, didn't go over well at all.

Diaoyutai
-1 The government was really slow to react and then went overboard with the rhetoric, thanks to a few dumb questions from legislators. Relations with Japan were not improved by the government's statements. But at least the presidential office managed to cancel a planned visit to the islands by legislators.

Green card issue -1 Given all the hoopla over Ma's own green card, the failure to anticipate attacks on cabinet members who had green cards at some point in the past, some quite recently, was a major oversight (even though I consider a green card a non-issue). Had the government publicly announced the relevant peoples' card status and the cancellation of them, instead of having the issue sprung on them, it would have been much better.

Cross-strait relations +1 Although there are legitimate complaints about the lack of cargo flights in agreements so far, things are progressing more or less exactly as the government promised on this front. So, I think whether you agree with what they're doing or not, they get a point for accomplishing their goals .

Whoops, almost forgot one:

Construction projects 0 The KMT effort to inject a bunch of money into locals with a special supplementary budget is a wash because of the credible accusations that blue regions knew about and could prepare their monetary requests earlier than green-controlled counties. But plenty of people were happy to see the money flowing again. So I give them a zero.

Feiren adds:

-1 to the Liu admin for approving those coral ships

Total score so far: -3

1 comment:

skiingkow said...

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I would score the "cross-straights relations" a bit differently simply given the fact that PandaMa has told us that "sovereignty is not important" and for the cessation of U.S. arms sales.
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