Washington’s Suicide Pact

How Congress is careening toward the worst of all worlds: massive job losses and an exploding deficit.

Ezra Klein
WashPost

The headlines out of Washington probably have most casual observers convinced we’re embroiled in another of our annual slapfights over the budget, and maybe the deficit. That’s not the case. What’s actually going on is a lot stranger, and a lot more perilous.

Right now, Republicans and Democrats are going to the mat over a bill to keep the federal government’s lights on through the end of the fiscal year—a “continuing resolution,” in Washington’s customarily inelegant parlance. And this fight is little more than sparring practice for April or May, when we’re scheduled for an unnecessary and dangerous brawl over whether Congress will raise the debt ceiling. Only after that, during the summer, will debate begin over the budget for 2012. What you need to know about each of these bills is that they’re “must pass” legislation: a breakdown in negotiations or collapse into gridlock could mean economic catastrophe, with our fragile recovery shattered amid the market chaos of a government shutdown or, worse, a default on our debt.

What I wish I could tell you is that all this wrangling is likely to produce what economists say we need: growth now and a plan to tackle long-term deficits soon. But the reality is quite the opposite, I fear. There’s a good chance politicians will destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs this year without doing anything at all about our long-term deficit problems. There’s a win-win on the table here, but there’s also a lose-lose—and it looks like Washington may choose the latter.

(More here.)