Word: inertia
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Another reason for the inertia is the official bias in favor of war veterans, who now hold more than half of all federal jobs, and 65% of the highest paying ones. This preference dates back to 1865, when a grateful President Lincoln pressed for a law that would favor those who "have borne the battle." Veterans of any war are entitled to a crucial extra five points on the civil service exam. If disabled vets pass the test, they automatically go to the top of the hiring list no matter how many others have scored higher...
...affairs. Yet the good has far outweighed the bad. Half-assed answers are not necessarily better than no solution at all. Congressmen and the nation's economic elite their help in solving the biggest problems of the decade. Carter realizes this, and despite his efforts to resist the traditional inertia of national politics, he is getting pressure from all sides to be sensible, compromise and hold hands with the corrupt...
...THESE PRESSURES subcommittee inertia of the kind seen this fall with intra-member feuding, blocked communication channels, and presidential de-emphasis, and you've got "no developments to speak of." If there is going to be progress, public opinion must be mobilized first. The best way to do that is to have a visible public commitment by a president...
...question of rent control and its off-shoot, condominium conversion, has fueled the election fires somewhat, creating much more heat than light. Since Clem has taken on the role of a fence-sitter, the council has left the future of rent control in a state of inertia. During one of the council's rhetorical debates of the subject, Graham said, "This doesn't mean very much at all because we don't have five votes for anything." Whatever the outcome of tomorrow's election, there will finally be five votes in the council to decide the issue of rent control...
Whatever the plan's shortcomings, even its critics give Carter the highest marks for focusing national attention on the problem, for ending the period of inertia and corridor infighting within the Administration, and for opening an intense, even vehement, national debate...