[Vision2020] Dire Consequences and Denial

[Art Deco]

  [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/>

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February 22, 2013
Dire Consequences and Denial By CHARLES M. BLOW

It’s crunch time.

The sequester’s automatic, across-the-board spending cuts are set to go
into effect on Friday, and there is no plan as yet to stop it.

America, this is your feeble government at its most ineffective and
self-destructive.

The White House favors a balanced plan that would include spending cuts and
some tax increases for the wealthy. Republicans reject any solution that
includes tax increases.

These are two fundamentally different perspectives, only one of which is
supported by a majority of Americans.

A Pew Research Center/USA Today
survey<http://www.people-press.org/2013/02/21/if-no-deal-is-struck-four-in-ten-say-let-the-sequester-happen/>released
Thursday found that only 19 percent of Americans believe that the
focus of deficit reduction should be only on spending cuts. Seventy-six
percent want a combination of spending cuts and tax increases, with more
emphasis on the former than the latter.

But the impasse could have dire consequences. A
study<http://www.aia-aerospace.org/assets/Fuller_II_Final_Report.pdf>last
year by Stephen S. Fuller, a professor at George Mason University,
estimates that the sequester could cost 2.14 million jobs and add 1.5
percentage points to the unemployment rate. Fuller’s analysis was cited in
a Congressional Research Service report prepared for members of Congress.

What’s more, the sequester would reduce military spending by $42.7 billion;
nonmilitary discretionary spending would drop $28.7 billion, in addition to
a mandatory $9.9 billion reduction in Medicare, according to the
Congressional Budget Office.

In anticipation of the very real possibility that the sequester could come
to pass, some Republicans are leaning on the shoulder of an old friend:
denial.

This week on CNN, Senator Rand Paul
pronounced<http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/02/20/rand_paul_sequester_a_pittance_that_nibbles_at_the_edges.html>the
$85 billion in mandated cuts a “pittance” and a “yawn” that is “just
really nibbling at the edges.” He also called President Obama’s warnings
about the sequester’s impact “histrionics,” “ridiculousness” and
“emotionalism.”

What a perfect segue to Rush Limbaugh, who took to the air this week to
denounce predictions about the sequester’s effects as a “manufactured”
crisis, saying<http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/02/21/for_the_first_time_in_my_life_i_am_ashamed_of_my_country>that
“for the first time in my life, I am ashamed of my country.”

Limbaugh continued:

“In truth, we’re gonna spend more this year than we spent last year. We’re
just not gonna spend as much as was projected. It’s all baseline budgeting.
There is no real cut below a baseline of zero. There just isn’t. Yet here
they come, sucking us in, roping us in. Panic here, fear there: Crisis,
destruction, no meat inspection, no cops, no teachers, no firefighters, no
air traffic control. I’m sorry, my days of getting roped into all this are
over.”

Those not denying the crisis are hoping to exploit it.

Karl Rove, writing<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323549204578315781210543360.html>in
The Wall Street Journal on Thursday, called the president “a
once-in-a-generation demagogue with a compliant press corps” who will
subject the American people in the short term to a “slew of presidential
photo-ops with those whom he claims will lose jobs.” Mr. Rove advised House
Republicans to “pass a continuing resolution next week to fund the
government for the balance of the fiscal year at the lower level dictated
by the sequester — with language granting the executive branch the
flexibility to move funds from less vital activities to more important
ones.”

Rove supports the steep cuts but wants to allow the president “flexibility”
in applying them. That Rove is as slick as an eel. In other words, he wants
to force the president to rob Peter to pay Paul and take the flak for
making all the tough choices.

Another Pew Research
Poll<http://www.people-press.org/2013/02/22/as-sequester-deadline-looms-little-support-for-cutting-most-programs/>released
this week found that although many Americans favor cutting
government spending in the abstract, most don’t agree with cuts to specific
programs. “For 18 of 19 programs tested, majorities want either to increase
spending or maintain it at current levels,” Pew found. “The only exception
is assistance for needy people around the world.”

Ah, foreign aid, the tired old whipping horse that would do virtually
nothing to reduce the deficit, as it accounts for a paltry 1 percent of the
federal budget.

Rove’s plan to shift to the president the burden of choosing where to bring
down the ax is Rove’s way of getting Republicans “to win public opinion to
their side.” That is a roundabout way of acknowledging that right now
they’re losing. A Bloomberg
poll<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-21/obama-rated-at-3-year-high-in-poll-republicans-at-bottom.html>released
this week found the president’s job-approval rating at its highest
level and the Republican Party’s favorable rating at its lowest since
September 2009.

Furthermore, the Pew/USA Today survey found that if a deal isn’t reached in
time, about half the public will blame Congressional Republicans while
fewer than a third will blame the president.

And if the sequester happens, we’ll all lose. It will be a disaster for the
job market and the economy. But no one can accuse these politicians and
pundits of caring about such things as long as their own jobs are secure.

•

I invite you to join me on Facebook
<http://www.facebook.com/CharlesMBlow>and follow me on
Twitter <http://twitter.com/CharlesMBlow>, or e-mail me at
chblow at nytimes.com.


-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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