TruthOut10
Active Member
- Dec 3, 2012
- 627
- 100
Now that Republicans have delayed the debt ceiling for three months, their next point of attack, they say, are the deep spending cuts in the so-called sequester. House Speaker John Boehner told the Wall Street Journal editorial board that the sequester is as much leverage as were going to get. He meant that to sound reassuring to conservatives. But I cant figure out why theyre reassured.
The problem with the GOPs plan to use the sequester as leverage is evident as soon as you stop using the vague term sequester and instead call the policy what it is: A bunch of very dumb but extremely Democrat-friendly spending cuts.
To understand the problem Republicans are going to have using the sequester as leverage, you need to understand the bargain they made when they created it. The policy dates to the final days of the 2011 debt-ceiling fight. Both sides realized that the only way out of that mess was to kick the can down the road. So they formed the supercommittee, a bipartisan group of legislators charged with finding $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction.
The problem with the supercommittee was obvious: If Congress couldnt agree on a deficit-reduction package, why should the supercommittee have any more luck? The sequester was meant to be the answer to that question: If the supercommittee failed, the sequester would cut the deficit by $1.2 trillion automatically, but it would do it in such a mindless, blunt way that neither party would be able to live with the consequences.
Republicans think the sequester gives them leverage. They?re wrong.
The problem with the GOPs plan to use the sequester as leverage is evident as soon as you stop using the vague term sequester and instead call the policy what it is: A bunch of very dumb but extremely Democrat-friendly spending cuts.
To understand the problem Republicans are going to have using the sequester as leverage, you need to understand the bargain they made when they created it. The policy dates to the final days of the 2011 debt-ceiling fight. Both sides realized that the only way out of that mess was to kick the can down the road. So they formed the supercommittee, a bipartisan group of legislators charged with finding $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction.
The problem with the supercommittee was obvious: If Congress couldnt agree on a deficit-reduction package, why should the supercommittee have any more luck? The sequester was meant to be the answer to that question: If the supercommittee failed, the sequester would cut the deficit by $1.2 trillion automatically, but it would do it in such a mindless, blunt way that neither party would be able to live with the consequences.
Republicans think the sequester gives them leverage. They?re wrong.
