The budget hysteria is in full tilt. I think I have seen this before. No reason to recap the mess here. Suffice it to say, the government is on shutdown plus 15 today and the debt ceiling is fast approaching. Congress and the Administration needs to start acting like adults.
Over the weekend, Democrats, including the President railed about the catastrophic consequences of bumping the debt limit, misusing the word “default”. This term is at best disingenuous rhetoric, it is inaccurate and it is a scare tactic.
The President either does not know what is a default, (perhaps by never having been in business), does not understand the concept or does not mind not leveling with the public. Of course, his tactic works to the uninformed, which would include most of the press. There will be no default on October 17th or anytime thereafter but hey don’t let the truth get in the way. The government I guess could become a deadbeat but not a defaulter.
Since the Administration has shown its distain for the House of Representative and vice-a-versa, the action has shifted to the Senate.
In the Senate there is an emerging proposal to extend the Treasury Department’s borrowing authority until Feb. 7, reopen the government and fund federal agencies through mid-January. In addition, and this is where it gets silly, there would be a round of talks over broader budget issues to replace automatic spending cuts (aka the “sequester”).
Sheer nonsense. First of all, there does not have to be any framework to talk about anything. Secondly, this smells exactly like the Super Committee without teeth, an idea which failed and gave rise to the sequester. Thirdly, the Democrats have no intentions of cutting any federal spending at all. Nada, none. Democrats do want to increase taxes. Hence, the parties cannot be further apart.
Reopening the sequester is total surrender for the Republicans. The sequester has been the only anti-federal spending provision that has actually done something. Lastly, this is a short term “fix”. In a matter of months the parties will be exactly where they are now. Kick the can down the road again, although in this case the can is rusted and beat up.
While the Senate moves bit by bit, the House is trying to come up with an alternative plan, much in the same framework as the Senate but adding a few more tweaks and restrictions than the Senate proposal. No real alternate plan yet, and not sure if it can pass but almost definitely the Senate plan cannot pass either.
So, what started out as a way to thump the Affordable Care Act by Republicans (such effort has been largely abandoned) has become a useless, futile and inane staring game by both sides that has continued for a lot of reasons- obstinacy, fecklessness, honest differences of opinions, partisan warfare, name calling, power, election politics, lack of leadership and on and on.
The public is growing tired of all of this. This should not be a chest beating exercise but it has. Mistakes and miscalculations have been made on both sides. Time to get it resolved and move on.
One thing is for sure, the trust is gone, Mr. Obama will never get any new initiatives through the House, ruining his plans for more big government expansion in his last 3 years unless the Republicans continue to fight the wrong battles and give up the only weapon they possess, the sequester.
As I like to say, you did it to yourself.
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