Friday, March 01, 2013
Those deadbeat dads are proud of their failure
I keep reading various pundits who are insisting that President Obama shares some (all, most) of the blame for the sequester. And that he's not working with the Congressional GOP to get to a solution.
Well, call me silly for noticing, but the last few times he's tried working with the Congressional GOP, they've either caved or just said "No" to any suggestion that isn't what they want exactly - and then some. (In fact, even when The Prez arguably caved to the Republicans, they were the ones who insisted he hadn't because he didn't give them what they wanted and more.) They're like tired little children when Mommy won't buy them yet another ice cream. Cranky and partizan, they claim to be as pure as the driven snow in both motive and means. I can't help notice that they refuse to discuss their motives and do their level best to avoid appearing responsible for their means.
The Congressional GOP agreed to the poison pill of the sequester. Once you've voted for it - does it really matter who came up with the idea? So what if it came from The White House? At least someone over there was trying to come up with something! Which is more than anyone can say about the Congressional GOP. In politics, failure is an orphan. For the sequester, it has more than a few deadbeat fathers.
Carolyn Ann
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I was reading somewhere that these tragically deep spending cuts aren't actually cuts at all... they are simply cuts to the planned spending increases.
ReplyDeleteI guess to put it in common terms, it's like planning on increasing your clothing budget next year, but having to reduce that increase... say that you buy six new outfits each year, and next year you were planning on buying 9 new outfits, but having to settle for only 8. You're still buying 2 more outfits than you did last year... but politicians see that as buying one outfit LESS.
Thinking of it in those terms, it seems obvious that all of the fear-mongering by politicians over the sequestration is just that... fear-mongering.
But yeah, I do agree that the Republicans trying to blame it all on the President are being very disingenuous (as if that's anything new).
They're a bit of a mix; some of it cuts on projected spending, some of it actual cuts to actual spending and some of it no one has any idea what it is or why it's there. And then there's those tanks... (The army doesn't want them, the Pentagon thinks they're too expensive, but the maker has bits made all over, so no Congresscritter will stop the program. A bit like the F22 - highly advanced, tremendously expensive, not usable in war and it can't be cancelled because bits are made all over.)
DeleteI think Ali Belshi got it right the other day: the business community, particularly in the shape of the US Chamber of Commerce, worked hard to get right-wing, very pro-business legislators elected and then complains when those same legislators won't compromise.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteHere you go, a list of what will get cut:
DeleteThink Progress, The Dumbest and Most Devastating Sequester Cuts
Interesting how Think Progress only lists the cuts themselves, and not the projected increases before those cuts.
DeleteI've not come across it as yet, but I imagine the argument will go along the lines of "projected increases are the lowest in forever"! Or "they're keeping pace with inflation!" (which is untrue).
DeleteWhat I suspect is that the cuts come from a mix of projected increases and actual expenditures. But no one actually knows because the formula for what gets cut and what doesn't is... "Vague". Very vague. Which is what allows the Prez to say "The sky is falling" and the Republicans to argue that it already has. (For them, it has.)
Actually... Your point got me thinking, Angel. So I did a bit of looking up stuff. :-)
DeleteThe cuts are indiscriminate in affect; their effect is, as a result, unknown. The only area that is protected from cuts are soldiers on the front line, or in front-line supporting positions. In 2013, they actually are, in other words, cuts to real expenditure. It's afterwards, 2014 and so on, that they become more abstract and start to get into the "cuts to projected increases".
The thing about it is that many people think government expenditures are increasing at some phenomenal rate - they're not. They've actually declined in the last few years. (It's why pundits on the right are starting to argue that fiscal promises need to be included in deficit calculations. Because the annual deficit is going down, they need something to hang their doom-and-gloom hat on.
If you then argue that the cuts are to projected increases - when no such increase has actually been proposed (Congress, don't forget, hasn't had put forward a budget in 4 years and doesn't have any to propose), you can also argue that you're being fiscally responsible. Which is what the GOP is doing. But with "continuing resolutions" being the main funding mechanism for the Federal government, there can't be any increases - spending is held at, basically, 2009 levels.
The argument, in essence, shows that no one actually understands the sequester. Because it's vague in what it intends to achieve, but specific in how it's going to achieve those goals (only arcane, irrational, political compromise could produce such a bastard of a bill!), no one can understand it!
The one thing it does show is how unlike business the Federal gov't is. In businesses, I know, there can be budget cuts at pretty much any time. The Fed (and no state or municipality) has no such expectation or ability to adapt; hence, any cuts tend to be significantly more egregious than they arguably should be. It also shows the astounding weakness in the GOP arguments about govt' - that it should be more efficient, but they don't provide the means or leadership to achieve that, and it also shows the problems of the Dem's lack of argument: the current left wing position is a de facto response, reaction, to the Right. And, finally, it also underscores the silliness of the "gov't should be more like business" argument: no one ever says how more like business it should be, nor which business model it should emulate.
Personally, I think the whole thing is both less dire, in some areas, and more dire, in others, than anyone thinks it is. People getting furloughed for no reason is not a good idea; cutting pork-barrel projects (of which there are still some) is a good idea. Cutting back on infrastructure projects is a bad idea, while forcing gov't departments to re-evaluate their approach to what they're supposed to be doing is a good one (it won't do that, of course). And so on.
One thing I did notice: no corporate tax break is affected by the cuts. Can't think why...
The thought also occurs that some of the doom-and-gloom brigade (Robert Samuelson comes most immediately to mind) are predicting that budgets will rise, and that the cuts will come from their predicted budget increases.
Delete