Oh, what a lovely game of 'chicken' ...
The Republicans’ budget roulette
By David Ignatius, WashPost, Wednesday, August 15, 3:10 PM
The politics of “sequestration” illustrate the talent of congressional Republicans, led by Rep. Paul Ryan, for being on both sides of the budget issue: They play a game of “chicken” with federal outlays, demanding a balanced budget without tax increases, and then insist that it’s the Democrats’ fault if there’s a crack-up.
This fiscal impasse will be a dramatic backdrop for the fall presidential campaign: As Election Day approaches, the clock will be ticking on across-the-board cuts of about 10 percent for the Defense Department and 8 percent for the rest of the government that will take effect Jan. 2 if nothing is done. Each side says it wants a compromise, but the voters will have to decide who can deliver a bipartisan solution that avoids a fiscal catastrophe and gets the country moving again.
Ryan, the likely GOP vice presidential nominee, and his party want to look like responsible budget-cutters. But from the evidence in the sequestration fight, this will be a hard case to make convincingly. Whipsawed all last year by Tea Party activists, Ryan and the House Republicans were insistently unyielding. They often looked like wreckers more than fixers.
Sequestration was meant to be the economic equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot. It was tacked onto the 2011 Budget Control Act as a way of forcing a compromise by the ill-named “supercommittee” that was supposed to come up with a long-term deficit-reduction plan. If it couldn’t make a deal, then the deliberately irrational, across-the-board process of sequestration would ensue — with the heaviest burden falling on the defense and intelligence programs meant to keep the country safe. Of course, there was no deal, and the sequestration meat grinder started whirring.
(More here.)
The politics of “sequestration” illustrate the talent of congressional Republicans, led by Rep. Paul Ryan, for being on both sides of the budget issue: They play a game of “chicken” with federal outlays, demanding a balanced budget without tax increases, and then insist that it’s the Democrats’ fault if there’s a crack-up.
This fiscal impasse will be a dramatic backdrop for the fall presidential campaign: As Election Day approaches, the clock will be ticking on across-the-board cuts of about 10 percent for the Defense Department and 8 percent for the rest of the government that will take effect Jan. 2 if nothing is done. Each side says it wants a compromise, but the voters will have to decide who can deliver a bipartisan solution that avoids a fiscal catastrophe and gets the country moving again.
Ryan, the likely GOP vice presidential nominee, and his party want to look like responsible budget-cutters. But from the evidence in the sequestration fight, this will be a hard case to make convincingly. Whipsawed all last year by Tea Party activists, Ryan and the House Republicans were insistently unyielding. They often looked like wreckers more than fixers.
Sequestration was meant to be the economic equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot. It was tacked onto the 2011 Budget Control Act as a way of forcing a compromise by the ill-named “supercommittee” that was supposed to come up with a long-term deficit-reduction plan. If it couldn’t make a deal, then the deliberately irrational, across-the-board process of sequestration would ensue — with the heaviest burden falling on the defense and intelligence programs meant to keep the country safe. Of course, there was no deal, and the sequestration meat grinder started whirring.
(More here.)
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