Sequestration next Friday? Repugs say "Bring It On"

[boutons_deux]

Repgus say it's all Barry's fault for not agreeing, caving in to, 100% to Repug extreme austerity and wanting to balance cuts with with tax hikes. Repugs absolutely refuse ANY tax or revenue increases.

America and DC are so fucked and unfuckable.

[boutons_deux]

the silly, dishonest jerks Simpson-Bowles are back with their Cat Food 2.0 austerity

The new, real Simpson-Bowles plan: Less revenue, more cuts (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/02/19/1188315/-The-new-real-Simpson-Bowles-plan-Less-revenue-more-cuts)

http://s3.amazonaws.com/dk-production/images/19866/large/Screen_Shot_2013-02-19_at_1.00.11_PM.png?1361299305
Because that's what Fix the Debt (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/11/14/1161547/--Fix-the-Debt-operates-as-a-front-for-corporate-tax-breaks-and-cuts-in-government-social-programs) is all about, as Meteor Blades wrote. It's "a corporate lobby whose proposals for dealing with the nation's public debt include giving some of the most profitable corporations a tax windfall of $134 billion on their foreign earnings, much of which is now held in overseas tax havens." And how does that work? By making big cuts on the domestic spending side. Here's what the plan (http://momentoftruthproject.org/publications/bipartisan-path-forward-securing-americas-future) says:


Reduce Medicare and Medicaid spending by improving provider and beneficiary incentives throughout the health care system, reducing provider payments, reforming cost-sharing, increasing premiums for higher earners, adjusting benefits to account for population aging, reducing drug costs, and getting better value for our health care dollars (Feb-Dec 2013)
Enact comprehensive, pro-growth tax reform that eliminates or scales back most tax expenditures, with a portion of savings from tax expenditures dedicated to deficit reduction and the additional savings used to reduce rates and simplify the tax code (Feb-Dec 2013)
Strengthen limits on discretionary spending (Feb-Dec 2013)
Reduce non-health mandatory spending by reforming farm subsidies, modernizing civilian and military health and retirement programs, imposing various user fees, reforming higher education spending, and making other changes (Feb-Dec 2013)
Adopt chained CPI for indexing and achieve savings from program integrity (Feb-Dec 2013)



In true B-S fashion, the proposal is heavier on deficit-hysteria rhetoric than concrete policy proposals. How big will those discretionary cuts be? They don't say. Are there any specific policy recommendations beyond the chained CPI for Social Security and veterans benefits? Of course not. This is all about "pro-growth tax reform" that means more corporate tax breaks, and "enacting serious entitlement reform," which of course means starving grandma because, they note, “the aging of the population represents a significant driver of our growing debt.”

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/02/19/1188315/-The-new-real-Simpson-Bowles-plan-Less-revenue-more-cuts?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos %29

[boutons_deux]

You've Heard of the Birthers, Now Meet the Simpson-Bowlers


In the original Simpson-Bowles Catfood Commission plan, the pair sought a whopping $2.9 trillion in budget cuts combined with $2.6 trillion in revenues – a fancy word that mostly describes increasing taxes or eliminating tax loopholes.

Under the new Simpson-Bowles "Catfood Plan 2.0," this pair of crackpots now seek just $1.3 trillion in revenues, meaning they jacked up budget cuts this time around to a staggering $3.9 trillion. While the original Catfood plan had roughly one-to-one spending cuts to new revenue, the new Catfood plan is three-to-one in favor of cuts to revenue.

Simpson-Bowles "Catfood Plan 2.0" calls for $2.4 trillion in new savings over the next 10 years, through "serious tax and entitlement reforms and cutting additional spending." So what are the exact devastating cuts and reforms that Simpson and Bowles want to make in federal government spending?

First, they want to reduce Medicare and Medicaid spending, meaning fewer and fewer elderly Americans will have access to healthcare and medications.

Next, Simpson and Bowles want to enact "comprehensive, pro-growth tax reform" which is really just a fancy way of saying "we want to give corporations even more corporate tax breaks while jacking up taxes on working people."

Of the $2.4 trillion in new savings that the Simpson-Bowles "Catfood Plan 2.0" calls for, nearly $600 billion of it comes from so-called tax reform.

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/14687-youve-heard-of-the-birthers-now-meet-the-simpson-bowlers

[boutons_deux]

Sequester of Fools

But you aren’t interested, are you? Almost nobody is. Messrs. Bowles and Simpson had their moment — the annus horribilis of 2011, when Washington was in thrall to deficit scolds insisting that, in the face of record-high long-term unemployment and record-low borrowing costs, we forget about jobs and concentrate exclusively on a “grand bargain” that would supposedly (not actually) settle budget disputes for ever after.

That moment has now passed; even Mr. Bowles concedes (http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/03/08/bowles-simpson-fiscal-crisis-could-come-within-2-years/)that the search for a grand bargain is on “life support.” Let’s convene a death panel! But the legacy of that year of living foolishly lives on, in the form of the “sequester,” one of the worst policy ideas in our nation’s history.

Here’s how it happened: Republicans engaged in unprecedented hostage-taking, threatening to push America into default by refusing to raise the debt ceiling unless President Obama agreed to a grand bargain on their terms. Mr. Obama, alas, didn’t stand firm; instead, he tried to buy time. And, somehow, both sides decided that the way to buy time was to create a fiscal doomsday machine that would inflict gratuitous damage on the nation through spending cuts unless a grand bargain was reached. Sure enough, there is no bargain, and the doomsday machine will go off at the end of next week.

There’s a silly debate under way about who bears responsibility for the sequester, which almost everyone now agrees was a really bad idea. The truth is that Republicans and Democrats alike signed on to this idea.

As always, many pundits want to portray the deadlock over the sequester as a situation in which both sides are at fault, and in which both should give ground. But there’s really no symmetry here. A middle-of-the-road solution would presumably involve a mix of spending cuts and tax increases; well, that’s what Democrats are proposing, while Republicans are adamant that it should be cuts only. And given that the proposed Republican cuts would be even worse than those set to happen under the sequester, it’s hard to see why Democrats should negotiate at all, as opposed to just letting the sequester happen.

So here we go. The good news is that compared with our last two self-inflicted crises, the sequester is relatively small potatoes. A failure to raise the debt ceiling would have threatened chaos in world financial markets; failure to reach a deal on the so-called fiscal cliff would have led to so much sudden austerity that we might well have plunged back into recession. The sequester, by contrast, will probably cost “only” around 700,000 jobs (http://macroadvisers.blogspot.com/2013/02/mas-alternative-scenario-march-1_19.html#!/2013/02/mas-alternative-scenario-march-1_19.html).

But the looming mess remains a monument to the power of truly bad ideas — ideas that the entire Washington establishment was somehow convinced represented deep wisdom.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/22/opinion/krugman-sequester-of-fools.html?hp&_r=1&

[Winehole23]

the silly, dishonest jerks Simpson-Bowles are back with their Cat Food 2.0 austerity

reality is what's in the cat bowl, boutons.

if policy hastens austerity somehow, have no doubt it was already waiting in the wings, with or without policy's permission.

[boutons_deux]

reality is what's in the cat bowl, boutons.

if policy hastens austerity somehow, have no doubt it was already waiting in the wings, with or without policy's permission.

the austerity will come not from explicit policy, but from not regulating finance, enabling Banksters Great Depression 2.0

Where do you see, Mr Doubtless, austerity waiting in the wings?

[Winehole23]

the austerity will come not from explicit policy, but from not regulating finance, enabling Banksters Great Depression 2.0the problem imho is the lack of any political will to resolve large financial institutions when they fail. regulation is important, but secondary to the socialization of financial risk inho.


Where do you see, Mr Doubtless, austerity waiting in the wings?At the moment I can clearly see two jackasses on a bulletin board. Past that, things start to get fuzzy.

you're much the better fortune cookie.

[Winehole23]

strike that: bitter

[boutons_deux]

"Where do you see, Mr Doubtless, austerity waiting in the wings?"

[TeyshaBlue]

"Where do you see, Mr Doubtless, austerity waiting in the wings?"


TB thinks he can DICKtate responses on an Internet forum. GFY, dickless.

lol hypocrite much?

[TeyshaBlue]

delicious sauce is delicious

[boutons_deux]

TB :lol

I'm asking, not "mocking" or "dicktating". learn2contextualize :lol

[TeyshaBlue]

TB :lol

I'm asking, not "mocking" or "dicktating". learn2contextualize :lol

I was asking:

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=207242&p=6263744&viewfull=1#post6263744

I simply copy and pasted your response.

Again. Hypocrite much?

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Is there a quote for this?

I really do not feel like reading through shazspam and the OP was just boutie characterization.

[TeyshaBlue]

It's boutastic.

[Winehole23]

"Where do you see, Mr Doubtless, austerity waiting in the wings?"I don't foretell the future. I'm not a bitter fortune cookie.

[Wild Cobra]

Repgus say it's all Barry's fault for not agreeing, caving in to, 100% to Repug extreme austerity and wanting to balance cuts with with tax hikes. Repugs absolutely refuse ANY tax or revenue increases.

America and DC are so fucked and unfuckable.
Why do you always lie?

Revenue can be increased without tax increases. It's called increasing the tax payer base. More tax payers equal more revenue. Get people off their duffs, and working!

[boutons_deux]

Why do you always lie?

Revenue can be increased without tax increases. It's called increasing the tax payer base. More tax payers equal more revenue. Get people off their duffs, and working!

You're an ideological maran.

[boutons_deux]

Macaca Jindal at it again

Top Republican: Obama Should Avoid Looming Budget Cuts By Delaying Health Care To Millions

JINDAL: Just delay the Medicaid expansion, delay the health care exchanges so they can work with states on waivers, on flexibility. You can save tens of thousands of dollars there and you’re not even cutting a program that’s started yet — just delaying.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/02/24/1631421/top-republican-obama-should-avoid-looming-budget-cuts-by-delaying-health-care-to-millions/ (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/02/24/1631421/top-republican-obama-should-avoid-looming-budget-cuts-by-delaying-health-care-to-millions/)

How about a Congressional vote to KILL the suicidal Sequester Bill? nah, too adult, too responsible, too serious. Show Down political theatre is FUN, AND it allows the Repugs to prevent Congress and the Exec from actually governing the country forward, from solving problems.

[boutons_deux]

Governors Issue Warning on Impact of Cuts

Governors in both parties warned on Sunday of the potentially damaging consequences across the country if President Obama and Congress do not agree on a plan to avoid across-the-board spending cuts that are scheduled to take effect beginning on Friday.

With the prospect of a last-minute agreement in Washington increasingly unlikely, the governors said the scheduled cuts would have a grave impact in a wide range of areas, including the military, Border Patrol and the overall economy.

“The effects will be significant, and people will feel them,” Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado said on the CBS News program “Face the Nation.”

“There’s been so much uncertainty,” said Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona, who also appeared on the program. “It’s really going to hurt our economy.”

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/governors-issue-warning-on-impact-of-cuts/?partner=rss&emc=rss

What a great way to run a country! Leader and example for the planet! :lol

[Winehole23]

Congress passed it, Obama signed it. there's plenty of blame to go around for this contrived crisis.

[Winehole23]

the calculation that Republicans would be unwilling to countenance cuts to defense turns out, apparently, not to have been correct.

[boutons_deux]

Many Repugs have said they want to except defense from cuts, so as no to endanger The Most Kick-Ass-Military Country Ever! :lol

[boutons_deux]

Congress passed it, Obama signed it. there's plenty of blame to go around for this contrived crisis.

But it's the Repugs who absolutely REFUSE any tax increases, no "balanced" deficit reduction.

[boutons_deux]

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/ryan-debt-e1361600184481.jpg


VIEWPOINT: The Debt Everyone Is Freaking Out About Does Not Exist

If we stopped adding to it tomorrow, the debt as it stands would pose essentially zero threat to the country’s fiscal health, as the ongoing growth of the economy would send our debt-to-GDP ratio dropping like a rock.

So the debt that’s got everyone worried is the part we haven’t yet incurred. And that debt, by definition, does not exist. It’s not a certainty, it’s merely a projection by the Congressional Budget Office. And trying to model how the federal budget, not to mention the entire American economy, will behave years or even decades in the future is a devilishly treacherous business.


For instance: one of Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) favorite talking points in 2011 was that the computer simulations CBO uses to model the economy crash when they attempt to account for the debt load in 2037. Imagine trying to model the 2011 economy in 1985. Things you’d never see coming include (among other things) the Internet, fracking, massive advances in computing power, the renewable energy boom, three wars, a massive recession, and Harry Potter. And predictions can be hard even over shorter time frames. In 1995, CBO predicted the deficit in 2000 would be well over $200 billion. We ran a surplus of $236 billion.


In fact, Ryan plastered dramatic graphs of debt going out 75 years onto everything in sight while stumping for his last budget. Forget predicting 2011 in 1985. That’s like predicting 2011 in 1940.

The entire purpose of health care reform, whether we keep Obamacare or get Ryan’s preferred replacement, is to change those trends by changing the structure of health care markets — how we buy, sell, and deliver care. That should slow health care cost growth, making it less expensive for the government to pay for health care through Medicare and Medicaid.


But CBO really doesn’t have the tools to model those kinds of structural changes. Its analyses are generally limited to hard spending cuts or revenue increases. CBO Director Doug Elmendorf told Ryan as much during a hearing, which Ryan took to mean his premium-support scheme for Medicare might work better than CBO estimated. But the point applies equally to Obamacare’s reforms, for example.

Yet we’ve already cut non-defense discretionary spending to 40-year lows, endangering all sorts of investments in America’s infrastructure, health, safety, communities, and future productivity. And that’s before the sequester kicks in. This massive failure to invest or aid saps the economy’s skills, education, networks, and future prospects. The longer unemployment and stagnation drags on, the more damage we do to Americans’ abilities to prosper, and the less we’ll be able to grow the denominator over the coming years.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/02/24/1626801/debt-does-not-exist/

[ElNono]

bring it on

[spursncowboys]

It's pretty sad how this was supposed to be such a bad cut that it would keep it from happening

yAYCiZG90Wg

[spursncowboys]

bring it on
+1

[Winehole23]

But it's the Repugs who absolutely REFUSE any tax increases, no "balanced" deficit reduction.is the GOP required to accede to Obama's position?

[Winehole23]

seems to me neither side is bargaining in good faith, unless posing for the camera and spinning the blame game to reporters somehow count.

[Drachen]

But it's the Repugs who absolutely REFUSE any tax increases, no "balanced" deficit reduction.

Didn't they already put through some tax increases? I seem to remember something of the sort happening on December 31st or something.

[boutons_deux]

Didn't they already put through some tax increases? I seem to remember something of the sort happening on December 31st or something.

yes, minuscule tax increases, not anywhere near the $Ts they are demanding now in medicare/SS/etc cuts for the 47%. Completely out of balance.

Great to see how cutting govt funding will throw 100Ks out of work and crater the weak recovery, proving AUSTERITY in the Banksters Great Depression is a horrible, sociopathic strategy.

And private enterprise will not pick up the slack, will not grow due to sequestration, will disprove definitively the fundamental VRWC bullshit that cutting govt will cause the economy to grow.

[boutons_deux]

The Great Sequester Lie


http://readersupportednews.org/images/stories/alphabet/rsn-I.jpgn a column on the budget, to maintain credibility with Beltway elites, I am supposed to claim the impasse is both parties' fault. It isn't. The conventional wisdom is that Republicans won't support any more tax increases and Democrats won't support any more spending cuts. That's half right.

House Democrats have proposed some sensible spending cuts: like doing away with the billions we spend subsidizing oil companies. With gas nearing $4 a gallon, does anyone really want to send taxpayers' money to the welfare queens of ExxonMobil? House Dems would also enact the Buffett rule (I prefer "Romney rule"), ending the obscenity in the tax code that lets hedge-fund managers pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries.
Not to be outdone, Senate Democrats have proposed $110 billion in spending cuts and tax increases: again, reducing oil subsidies (though not as much as the House Dems), ending the deduction businesses take for moving jobs overseas and trimming the defense budget and farm subsidies.

Finally, the White House boasts of having eliminated 77 government programs, including 16 at the Department of Education, 10 at Health and Human Services, and 4 at Labor. The president's budget calls for $30 billion in cuts to farm programs and $25 billion in savings from the post office.

The Republicans, for their part, did allow the Bush tax cuts to expire on income over $450,000, but they seem to have dug in their heels on the Romney rule and oil subsidies. They are blaming President Obama's "failed leadership" for the sequester and arguing that it was the White House that first proposed the gun-to-the-head approach. As the kids say, whatevs. The Democrats have come to the table with spending cuts. Will the Republicans join them and support some tax increases? Um, no. "Just last month," House Speaker John Boehner said, "The president got his higher taxes on the wealthy, and he's already back for more." True. But there is still some very low-hanging fruit on the revenue side. Republicans ought to at least embrace the Romney rule-if for no other reason than to punish Mitt for running such a lame campaign.

Meanwhile, some congressional Republicans are taking a break from complaining about government spending to complain about the lack of government spending. As Politico has reported, Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker is worried about cuts to the Army Corps of Engineers, Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins is fretting over potential job losses at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, and John McCain has continued his longstanding opposition to a sequester, bringing it home by telling his fellow Arizonans, "They make the Apache helicopter in Mesa, Arizona. If they cut back, it would have to be affected there."

I would take it further. The new Tea Party senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, says, "I think we have to be prepared to go so far as to shut the government down if we don't get some serious policies to stop the out-of-control spending to tackle the debt." OK, let's start by shutting down federal spending in Texas. Federal funds account for 32 percent of the Lone Star State's budget. Oh, and how about Fort Hood? At 340 square miles, it is the biggest Army base in the free world and the largest single employer in Texas. All that federal spending must be sapping the souls of my fellow Texans. So let's move Fort Hood to, oh, say, Nevada. Sen. Harry Reid actually believes in federal investments, and the Nevada desert might provide good terrain for Fort Hood's tanks.

This could be fun. Oklahoma so hates Obama's big spending that every single county in the state voted for Mitt Romney. Oklahoma has twice the percentage of federal employees than the U.S. average, and Okies get $1.35 back from Washington for each dollar they pay in taxes. So close the massive FAA center in Oklahoma City. Move it to Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco district, where they love big government.

Two years ago I made a similar argument about Kentucky, calling on Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul to put the Bluegrass State in detox for its addiction to local pork. No such luck. But perhaps the principle can apply to the sequester: enforce it only in states whose elected representatives won't support the taxes needed to fund the spending they want.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2013/02/25/begala-the-great-sequester-lie.html

[boutons_deux]

is the GOP required to accede to Obama's position?

is Barry required to accede to Repugs shitty austerity cuts for the 47% with no cuts for the 1%, oilcos, etc, etc?

[101A]

But it's the Repugs who absolutely REFUSE any tax increases, no "balanced" deficit reduction.

What happened two month ago? Remind me...

I know I have less take home. Is that a mirage?

[Trainwreck2100]

does anybody know where they keep coming up with different names for this shit?

[boutons_deux]

What happened two month ago? Remind me...

I know I have less take home. Is that a mirage?

Barry caved and raised income rate on 400K bracket, instead of 200K.

[Drachen]

Barry caved and raised income rate on 400K bracket, instead of 200K.

He didn't cave, he compromised. In fact the reality was substantially closer to his number than to the republicans' number.

[Winehole23]

is Barry required to accede to Repugs shitty austerity cuts for the 47% with no cuts for the 1%, oilcos, etc, etc?nope.

[boutons_deux]

Why Everything Republicans Are Saying About The Sequester Is Wrong (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/02/26/1638861/why-everything-republicans-are-saying-about-the-sequester-is-wrong/)


1) We need spending cuts to get the economy going. The GOP claims that government spending is out of control and reason that reducing spending would spur greater economic growth. But government expenditures have grown at its slowest pace since the Eisenhower administration under President Obama and the latest projections from the Congressional Budget Office show that the nation’s deficits have shrunk by trillions of dollars (http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/budget/news/2013/02/05/51991/weve-made-remarkable-progress-toward-reducing-the-deficit/), and the debt is close to being stabilized as a percentage of the economy. Austerity measures have dragged down economic growth (http://thinkprogress.org/tag/europe/) in Europe and some economists argue (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/02/22/1626851/sequester-deficit-reduction/) that sequestration won’t actually lead to substantial shrinking of the deficit, since fiscal contraction caused by sequestration is likely to slow economic growth, reducing tax revenue and preventing meaningful deficit reduction.

2) Agencies need more flexibility to avoid cuts in crucial services. After backing sequestration mechanism — the across-the-board cuts that were designed to force lawmakers to reach a comprehensive deal to reduce the deficit with additional revenue and spending reductions — Republicans are now considering legislation that would leave President Obama and federal agencies with the responsibility of carving out waste and unnecessary spending while preserving critical government services. In reality, the problem isn’t one of authority. Programs will see their budgets cut by anywhere between 2 and 10 percent (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/09/14/the-sequester-cuts-in-one-graph/) and most will be unable to salvage services and only target inefficiencies. The Republican replacement is just another effort to implement spending reductions without also increasing revenues.

3) The federal spending will still be higher next year. This claim is technically true, but only because the sequester target the growth of government programs: they will grow at a slower pace as a result of the spending reductions. This is simply how federal budgeting works. The sequester will reduce spending as percentage of the economy, lowering discretionary spending (http://bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/2013/02/sequester-need-to-know) to historic lows.

4) These are very modest cuts. The reductions may not mean much for wealthy Congressman, but states will lose funding (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/02/25/1633041/sequestration-leadership-home-states/) for education, job training, health care, and a plethora of other services, jeopardizing assistance for low-income and middle class families alike and threatening the economic recovery. The cuts will also undermine everything from border security (http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/284713-napolitano-cuts-will-make-us-more-vulnerable-to-terrorist-attack) to the screening of containers. Estimates show that the sequester would reduce 2013 gross domestic product (GDP) growth by half a percentage point, and would cost the economy close to one million jobs (http://bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/2013/02/sequester-need-to-know) in the next two years.

5) Democrats have rejected the GOP’s sequester replacement bills. Republicans in the House passed a sequester replacement bill in the last Congress that doesn’t raise any new revenue and includes cuts in domestic programs (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/02/15/1599731/sequester-replacement-table/) like food stamps, Medicaid, and the social services block grant (which, among other things, funds Meals on Wheels). The GOP has not introduced a replacement bill in this current Congress and refuses to consider the Democrats’ balanced approach of higher revenues and more spending cuts.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/02/26/1638861/why-everything-republicans-are-saying-about-the-sequester-is-wrong/

[boutons_deux]

Fear, intimidation, lies is how the Repugs/VRWC rolls

GOP Senator: Boehner Would Lose Speakership If He Agreed to Raise Taxes

A conservative senator is warning House Speaker John Boehner that he could lose his speakership if he agrees to hike taxes as part of a deal to replace the sequester.
“I don’t quite honestly believe that Speaker Boehner would be speaker if that happens,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) told Fox News in a report that aired Monday. “I think he would lose his speakership. That’d would be my own personal opinion.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/ron-johnson-john-boehner-could-lose-post-88079.html

[boutons_deux]

Lakoff: Why Extreme Conservatives Like the Sequester

But pointing out Republican-caused harms to millions of people — many of them Republicans — does not sway the ultra-right. Why? Democratic pundits say that Republicans want to hurt the president, to show government doesn’t work by making it not work, and to protect “special interests” from higher taxes. All true. But there is an additional and deeper reason. Ultra-conservatives believe that the sequester is moral, that it is the right thing to do.

Progressives tend to believe that democracy is based on citizens caring for their fellow citizens through what the government provides for all citizens — public infrastructure, public safety, public education, public health, publicly-sponsored research, public forms of recreation and culture, publicly-guaranteed safety nets for those who need them, and so on. In short, progressives believe that the private depends on the public, that without those public provisions Americans cannot be free to live reasonable lives and to thrive in private business. They believe that those who make more from public provisions should pay more to maintain them.

Ultra-conservatives don’t believe this. They believe that Democracy gives them the liberty to seek their own self-interests by exercising personal responsibility, without having responsibility for anyone else or anyone else having responsibility for them. They take this as a matter of morality. They see the social responsibility to provide for the common good as an immoral imposition on their liberty.

Their moral sense requires that they do all they can to make the government fail in providing for the common good. Their idea of liberty is maximal personal responsibility, which they see as maximal privatization — and profitization — of all that we do for each other together, jointly as a unified nation.

They also believe that if people are hurt by government failure, it is their own fault for being “on the take” instead of providing for themselves. People who depend on public provisions should suffer. They should have rely on themselves alone — learn personal responsibility, just as Romney said in his 47 percent speech. In the long run, they believe, the country will be better off if everyone has to depend on personal responsibility alone.

Moreover, ultra-conservatives do not see all the ways in which they, and other ultra-conservatives, rely all day every day on what other Americans have supplied for them. They actually believe that they built it all by themselves.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/lakoff-why-extreme-conservatives-sequester

[TSA]

At least some respected people on the left are calling out the bullshit.

BOB WOODWARD, WASHINGTON POST: I'm not sure the White House understands exactly what happened in all of these negotiations at the end of 2011 with the sequester and the super committee and God knows what because they were really on the sidelines. But I think it's possible to take one example here where President Obama came out and acknowledged that we are not sending the aircraft carrier Truman to the Persian Gulf because of this budget agreement.
JOE SCARBOROUGH, CO-HOST: Right.
WOODWARD: Joe, I mean, this will resonate with you, I think. Can you imagine Ronald Reagan sitting there and saying, “Oh, by the way, I can't do this because of some budget document,” or George W. Bush saying, “You know, I'm not going to invade Iraq because I can't get the aircraft carriers I need,” or even Bill Clinton saying, “You know, I'm not going to attack Saddam Hussein’s intelligence headquarters” as he did when Clinton was president “because of some budget document?” Under the Constitution, the president is Commander-in-Chief and employs the force. And so we now have the president going out because of this piece of paper and this agreement, “I can't do what I need to do to protect the country.” That's a kind of madness that I haven't seen in a long time.

[TSA]

At least some respected people on the left are calling out the bullshit.

BOB WOODWARD, WASHINGTON POST: I'm not sure the White House understands exactly what happened in all of these negotiations at the end of 2011 with the sequester and the super committee and God knows what because they were really on the sidelines. But I think it's possible to take one example here where President Obama came out and acknowledged that we are not sending the aircraft carrier Truman to the Persian Gulf because of this budget agreement.
JOE SCARBOROUGH, CO-HOST: Right.
WOODWARD: Joe, I mean, this will resonate with you, I think. Can you imagine Ronald Reagan sitting there and saying, “Oh, by the way, I can't do this because of some budget document,” or George W. Bush saying, “You know, I'm not going to invade Iraq because I can't get the aircraft carriers I need,” or even Bill Clinton saying, “You know, I'm not going to attack Saddam Hussein’s intelligence headquarters” as he did when Clinton was president “because of some budget document?” Under the Constitution, the president is Commander-in-Chief and employs the force. And so we now have the president going out because of this piece of paper and this agreement, “I can't do what I need to do to protect the country.” That's a kind of madness that I haven't seen in a long time.

[boutons_deux]

"madness that I haven't seen in a long time."

The madness is on the tea bag sucking Repug extremists who absolutely refuse to raise revenue with taxes.

and the bullshit is in Woodward's totally unrelated, trolling examples of Presidential actions

[DarrinS]

crisis du jour

[PublicOption]

slowly,with a recovering economy and growing tax base the deficit will decline IT ALWAYS DOES.

Talking about the deficit SO MUCH is a way the rich people can trick the middle class into saving them(the rich people) from paying more taxes......Note to middle class.....DON'T FALL FOR IT.

[spursncowboys]

Honest question: So all these "cuts" are based on how much money it will cost right? For instance part of our budget includes all the GWOT funding for two wars because Congress hasn't disallowed spending on it? Therefore would this just be less of a increase in our annual budget and not a real cut?

[boutons_deux]

Bucking Responsibility: GOP’s History Of Demanding Obama Identify The Spending Cuts They’d Support (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/02/28/1650571/four-times-the-gop-has-demanded-spending-cuts-but-refused-to-name-specifics/)


the GOP has often turned to demanding spending cuts without actually naming specific cuts they want, as they attempt to extract painful cuts without taking any of the blame:


1. BUSH TAX CUTS: In 2010, when Republicans wanted to extend the Bush tax cuts, they refused (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA-16iVxBJA&feature=player_embedded) to name actual spending cuts they would support to offset the $4 trillion cost. Instead, Republican lawmakers only detailed programs that were off-limits (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2010/11/03/173612/gop-cant-cut/) and said cuts would have to be across-the-board.

2. FISCAL CLIFF: During negotiations to avert the so-called “fiscal cliff” at the end of 2012, Republicans again struggled to specify exactly how they would cut spending. GOP Conference Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, asked to detail specific spending cuts, could only offer that the GOP was “looking at the spending (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/12/05/1290691/top-house-republican-speechless-when-asked-for-specific-fiscal-cliff-spending-cuts/)” and “the growth in government.” The House GOP’s plan to avoid sequestration that time around ultimately made deeper cuts to popular programs so that they could protect the defense budget.

3. DEBT CEILING: Republicans again demanded spending cuts to increase the nation’s borrowing limit last month, and again they had a hard time saying exactly what spending cuts they wanted. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) offered the most honest response yet, saying the GOP couldn’t offer specifics because that would be unpopular (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/01/15/1448961/fox-news-host-fed-up-debt-ceiling/). “[A]s soon as a specific is put out there, it is attacked by the spending piranhas on the other side,” King said, ignoring that the “spending piranhas” also include the American people.

4. ENTITLEMENTS: Throughout these budget battles, Republicans have blasted Obama for not putting forward plans to cut entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security, ignoring that Obama’s health care law cut Medicare (a fact the GOP was eager to remind Americans of during the November election). But even as Democrats made it clear that they would not support further cuts to entitlements, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) held a press conference to beg them to take the lead (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/11/29/1255381/boehner-entitlement-cuts/). Boehner’s party, perhaps learning from the backlash it has faced when it offered plans to cut Medicare in the past, refused to specify how, or by how much, it would cut entitlement programs.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/02/28/1650571/four-times-the-gop-has-demanded-spending-cuts-but-refused-to-name-specifics/

Obvious chicken shit Repug strategy: Demand that only the Dems name the cuts, then the Repugs blame Dems for the cuts when the invevitable backlash arrives.

[boutons_deux]

At least some respected people on the left are calling out the bullshit.

BOB WOODWARD, WASHINGTON POST: I'm not sure the White House understands exactly what happened in all of these negotiations at the end of 2011 with the sequester and the super committee and God knows what because they were really on the sidelines. But I think it's possible to take one example here where President Obama came out and acknowledged that we are not sending the aircraft carrier Truman to the Persian Gulf because of this budget agreement.
JOE SCARBOROUGH, CO-HOST: Right.
WOODWARD: Joe, I mean, this will resonate with you, I think. Can you imagine Ronald Reagan sitting there and saying, “Oh, by the way, I can't do this because of some budget document,” or George W. Bush saying, “You know, I'm not going to invade Iraq because I can't get the aircraft carriers I need,” or even Bill Clinton saying, “You know, I'm not going to attack Saddam Hussein’s intelligence headquarters” as he did when Clinton was president “because of some budget document?” Under the Constitution, the president is Commander-in-Chief and employs the force. And so we now have the president going out because of this piece of paper and this agreement, “I can't do what I need to do to protect the country.” That's a kind of madness that I haven't seen in a long time.

Woodward is "extreme left" :lol:lol:lol because he took down your beloved criminal, nasty Tricky Dick Nixon and led to imprisoning 40 lawyers in Nixon's Exec? :lol

[boutons_deux]

Ben Bernanke, Hippie

We're just a few weeks away from a milestone I suspect most of Washington would like to forget: the start of the Iraq war. What I remember from that time is the utter impenetrability of the elite prowar consensus. If you tried to point out that the Bush administration was obviously cooking up a bogus case for war, one that didn't bear even casual scrutiny; if you pointed out that the risks and likely costs of war were huge; well, you were dismissed as ignorant and irresponsible.

It didn't seem to matter what evidence critics of the rush to war presented: Anyone who opposed the war was, by definition, a foolish hippie. Remarkably, that judgment didn't change even after everything the war's critics predicted came true. Those who cheered on this disastrous venture continued to be regarded as "credible" on national security (why is John McCain still a fixture of the Sunday talk shows?), while those who opposed it remained suspect.

And, even more remarkably, a very similar story has played out over the past three years, this time about economic policy. Back then, all the important people decided that an unrelated war was an appropriate response to a terrorist attack; three years ago, they all decided that fiscal austerity was the appropriate response to an economic crisis caused by runaway bankers, with the supposedly imminent danger from budget deficits playing the role once played by Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction.

Now, as then, this consensus has seemed impenetrable to counterarguments, no matter how well grounded in evidence. And now, as then, leaders of the consensus continue to be regarded as credible even though they've been wrong about everything (why do people keep treating Alan Simpson as a wise man?),

while critics of the consensus are regarded as foolish hippies even though all their predictions - about interest rates, about inflation, about the dire effects of austerity - have come true.

So here's my question: Will it make any difference that Ben Bernanke has now joined the ranks of the hippies?

Earlier this week, Mr. Bernanke delivered testimony that should have made everyone in Washington sit up and take notice. True, it wasn't really a break with what he has said in the past or, for that matter, with what other Federal Reserve officials have been saying, but the Fed chairman spoke more clearly and forcefully on fiscal policy than ever before - and what he said, translated from Fedspeak into plain English, was that the Beltway obsession with deficits is a terrible mistake.

First of all, he pointed out that the budget picture just isn't very scary, even over the medium run: "The federal debt held by the public (including that held by the Federal Reserve) is projected to remain roughly 75 percent of G.D.P. through much of the current decade."

He then argued that given the state of the economy, we're currently spending too little, not too much: "A substantial portion of the recent progress in lowering the deficit has been concentrated in near-term budget changes, which, taken together, could create a significant headwind for the economic recovery."

Finally, he suggested that austerity in a depressed economy may well be self-defeating even in purely fiscal terms:

"Besides having adverse effects on jobs and incomes, a slower recovery would lead to less actual deficit reduction in the short run for any given set of fiscal actions."

So the deficit is not a clear and present danger, spending cuts in a depressed economy are a terrible idea and premature austerity doesn't make sense even in budgetary terms. Regular readers may find these propositions familiar, since they're pretty much what I and other progressive economists have been saying all along. But

we're irresponsible hippies. Is Ben Bernanke? (Well, he has a beard.)

The point is not that Mr. Bernanke is an unimpeachable source of wisdom; one hopes that the collapse of Alan Greenspan's reputation has put an end to the practice of deifying Fed chairmen. Mr. Bernanke is a fine economist, but no more so than, say, Columbia's Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate and legendary economic theorist whose vocal criticism of our deficit obsession has nonetheless been ignored. No, the point is that Mr. Bernanke's apostasy may help undermine the argument from authority - nobody who matters
disagrees! - that has made the elite obsession with deficits so hard to dislodge.

And an end to deficit obsession can't come a moment too soon. Right now Washington is focused on the idiocy of the sequester, but this is only the latest episode in an unprecedented run of declines in public employment and government purchases that have crippled our economy's recovery. A misguided elite consensus has led us into an economic quagmire, and it's time for us to get out.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=1032783&f=28&sub=Columnist

[boutons_deux]

Boehner Halts Talks on Cuts and House GOP Cheers

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/01/us/politics/house-republicans-cheer-boehners-refusal-to-negotiate-on-cuts.html?hp&pagewanted=all&_r=0

[boutons_deux]

The Sequester Explained

Where did the whole idea of sequestration originate?

It goes back to 1985. The tax cuts of Ronald's Reagan early years, combined with his aggressive defense buildup, produced a growing budget deficit that eventually prompted passage of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act. (http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/ROHO/projects/debt/1985grammrudmanhollings.html) GRH set out a series of ambitious deficit reduction targets, and to put teeth into them it specified that if the targets weren't met, money would automatically be "sequestered," or held back, by the Treasury Department from the agencies to which it was originally appropriated. The act was declared unconstitutional in 1986, and a new version was passed in 1987.

Sequestration never really worked, though, and it was repealed in 1990 and replaced by a new budget deal. After that, it disappeared down the Washington, DC, memory hole for the next 20 years.

What about the 2013 version? Where did that come from?

In the summer of 2011, Republicans decided to hold the country hostage, insisting that they'd refuse to raise the debt ceiling unless President Obama agreed to substantial deficit reduction. After months of negotiations over a "grand bargain" finally broke down in July, Republicans proposed a plan (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/us/politics/26fiscal.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0) that would (a) make some cuts immediately and (b) create a bipartisan committee to propose further cuts down the road. But they wanted some kind of automatic trigger in case the committee couldn't agree on those further cuts, so the White House hauled out sequestration from the dust heap of history as an enforcement mechanism. It would go into effect automatically if no deal was reached.

In the end, no immediate cuts were made, but a "supercommittee" was set up (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/08/meet-the-super-committee/243495/) to propose $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction later in the year. To make sure everyone was motivated to make a deal, the sequester was designed to be brutal: a set of immediate, across-the-board cuts to both defense spending and domestic spending, starting on January 1, 2013. The idea was that everyone would hate this so much they'd be sure to agree on a substitute.

Needless to say, no such agreement was reached. (http://cybercemetery.unt.edu/archive/deficit/20120113174127/http://www.deficitreduction.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=fa0e02f6-2cc2-4aa6-b32a-3c7f6155806d) So now we're stuck with the automatic sequestration cuts.

How big is the sequester?

You'd think this would be an easy question to answer. In fact, it's surprisingly complicated! Are you ready?

The basic amount of the sequester is $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years. But when you reduce spending, you also reduce interest on the national debt. This means that we only need $984 billion in actual program cuts. And since it's for ten years, naturally that means we divide by nine to get annual spending cuts of $109 billion. (http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3635) For FY2013, this comes to $12 billion per month, because there are only nine months from January (when the sequester begins) through the end of the fiscal year in September.

But wait! The fiscal cliff deal in January delayed the sequester until March 1, (http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/01/politics/fiscal-cliff-5-things) so it also lopped off two months of cuts. This means that the total amount of spending cuts for this year clocks in at $85 billion.

So what gets cut?

The sequester is split evenly between defense spending and domestic spending. The domestic half has two parts: Medicare and everything else. For Medicare, the sequester

http://www.motherjones.com/files/blog_sequester_cuts.jpg

at their usual rate, but they'll only receive 98 cents on the dollar. According to the Congressional Budget Office, here's how the whole thing nets out (see Table 1-2 (http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/43907-BudgetOutlook.pdf)):


Defense: $42.7 billion
Medicare: $9.9 billion
Other domestic: $32.7 billion


Aside from Medicare, how are the other cuts divvied up?

The sequester legislation requires the cuts to come evenly from every budget account. This means everything (with a few exceptions) gets cut the same amount. This is an especially stupid way to cut spending, since everyone agrees that some programs are more important than others, but that's the way it is. If you really want to torture yourself, you can read this OMB report, (http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/legislative_reports/stareport.pdf) which contains 224 pages listing the sequester amounts from every single agency in the United States government. It's followed by another 158 mind-numbing pages of agency accounts that are exempt from the sequester.

But as stupid as this is, don't get too excited about it. It's only for FY2013, which lasts seven more months. After that, although the total amount stays in place ($109 billion, split evenly between defense and domestic spending), congressional appropriations committees have much more flexibility about how to juggle the cuts.

Aren't we still in a recession? What are these cuts going to do to the economy?

Technically, we're no longer in a recession, but there's no question the economy remains weak. A big bunch of dumb spending cuts is about the last thing we need.
That said, the actual impact of the cuts is hazy. Among private forecasting firms, (http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/2013/0227/Sequester-harm-to-economy-Maybe-for-longer-than-you-think)Macroeconomic Advisers figures the sequester will cut GDP by 0.7 percentage points, while IHS Global Insight puts it at 0.3 percent. Back before the sequester was delayed, CBO estimated (http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/11-08-12-FiscalTightening.pdf) 0.8 percentage points. Given a consensus growth forecast of about 2 percent for this year, this is a fairly substantial headwind. In terms of jobs, it will probably increase the unemployment rate by about half a percentage point. This is why Fed chairman Ben Bernanke (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/27/bernanke-of-hippo/)basically told Congress on Tuesday that they were nuts to let the sequester proceed.

That's all sort of bloodless. How about some horror stories? You know, three-hour waits at airports because of TSA cutbacks, food poisoning epidemics thanks to USDA cutbacks, that sort of thing?

The White House has been making a lot of hay over its 50-state breakdown of cutbacks. California, for example, will lose 1,200 teachers, 8,200 Head Start slots, 49,000 HIV tests, $5 million in meals for seniors, etc. You can see the forecasts for your state here. (http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/02/22/what-sequester#states) Aside from that, WonkBlog seems to be the go-to site for alarmist coverage of the sequester. Brad Plumer has the impact on R&D spending here. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/post/the-coming-randd-crash/2013/02/26/3f061a2e-8036-11e2-a671-0307392de8de_blog.html) In an interview with Ezra Klein, former NIH director Elias Zerhouni says it will be a "disaster for research." (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/21/former-nih-director-the-sequester-will-set-back-medical-science-for-a-generation/?wprss=rss_ezra-klein) Suzy Khimm interviews a former Homeland Security official here (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/post/former-immigration-officials-sequester-means-more-smugglers-fewer-business-deals/2013/02/27/7880ed78-8118-11e2-a671-0307392de8de_blog.html?wprss=rss_ezra-klein) who says smuggling will increase. And MoJo's own Zaineb Mohammed lists six ways the sequester will hurt the environment here, (http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/02/how-sequester-will-impact-environment) including higher risk of damage from wildfires.

That's terrible! Does anyone have a plan to avoid the sequester?

Sure. Sort of. President Obama (http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/deficit_reduction_table_bucketed_r8.pdf) has proposed a substitute that includes about $1.1 trillion in spending cuts and $700 billion in new revenue. It was dead on arrival because Republicans are flatly unwilling to consider any plan that includes higher taxes. Back in December, Republicans in the House passed a bill that would have kept all the domestic cuts and replaced the defense cuts with yet more domestic cuts, mostly to anti-poverty programs. It was DOA too, for obvious reasons. House and Senate Democrats have plans as well.

But the truth is that there's probably no deal to be made. Republicans won't accept tax hikes, Democrats won't accept any bill that's exclusively spending cuts, and neither party is willing to just kill the sequester outright, which is the most sensible option. For now, all that's really happening is that both sides are barnstorming the country blaming the other guys. Obama seems to be winning that battle at the moment. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/02/27/republicans-are-losing-the-spending-argument/)

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/03/the-sequester-explained

[boutons_deux]

The Sequester and the Tea Party Plot


Imagine a plot to undermine the government of the United States, to destroy much of its capacity to do the public's business, and to sow distrust among the population.

Imagine further that the plotters infiltrate Congress and state governments, reshape their districts to give them disproportionate influence in Washington, and use the media to spread big lies about the government.

Finally, imagine they not only paralyze the government but are on the verge of dismantling pieces of it.

Far-fetched? Perhaps.

But take a look at what's been happening in Washington and many state capitals since Tea Party fanatics gained effective control of the Republican Party, and you'd be forgiven if you see parallels.

Tea Party Republicans are crowing about the "sequestration" cuts beginning today (Friday). "This will be the first significant tea party victory in that we got what we set out to do in changing Washington," says Rep. Tim Huelskamp (Kan.), a Tea Partier who was first elected in 2010.

Sequestration is only the start.

What they set out to do was not simply change Washington but eviscerate the U.S. government -- "drown it in the bathtub," in the words of their guru Grover Norquist --

slashing Social Security and Medicare,

ending worker protections we've had since the 1930s,

eroding civil rights and voting rights,

terminating programs that have helped the poor for generations,

and making it impossible for the government to invest in our future.

Sequestration grew out of a strategy hatched soon after they took over the House in 2011, to achieve their goals by holding hostage the full faith and credit of the United States -- notwithstanding the Constitution's instruction that the public debt of the United States "not be questioned."

To avoid default on the public debt, the White House and House Republicans agreed to harsh and arbitrary "sequestered" spending cuts if they couldn't come up with a more reasonable deal in the interim. But the Tea Partiers had no intention of agreeing to anything more reasonable. They knew the only way to dismember the federal government was through large spending cuts without tax increases.

Nor do they seem to mind the higher unemployment their strategy will almost certainly bring about. Sequestration combined with January's fiscal cliff deal is expected to slow economic growth by 1.5 percentage points this year - dangerous for an economy now crawling at about 2 percent. It will be even worse if the Tea Partiers refuse to extend the government's spending authority, which expires March 27.

A conspiracy theorist might think they welcome more joblessness because they want Americans to be even more fearful and angry. Tea Partiers use fear and anger in their war against the government -- blaming the anemic recovery on government deficits and the government's size, and selling a poisonous snake-oil of austerity economics and trickle-down economics as the remedy.

They likewise use the disruption and paralysis they've sown in Washington to persuade Americans government is necessarily dysfunctional, and politics inherently bad. Their continuing showdowns and standoffs are, in this sense, part of the plot.

What is the President's response? He still wants a so-called "grand bargain" of "balanced" spending cuts (including cuts in the projected growth of Social Security and Medicare) combined with tax increases on the wealthy. So far, though, he has agreed to a gross imbalance -- $1.5 trillion in cuts to Republicans' $600 billion in tax increases on the rich.
The President apparently believes Republicans are serious about deficit reduction, when in fact the Tea Partiers now running the GOP are serious only about dismembering the government.

And he seems to accept that the budget deficit is the largest economic problem facing the nation, when in reality the largest problem is continuing high unemployment (some 20 million Americans unemployed or under-employed), declining real wages, and widening inequality. Deficit reduction now or in the near-term will only make these worse.
Besides, the deficit is now down to about 5 percent of GDP -- where it was when Bill Clinton took office. It is projected to mushroom in later years mainly because healthcare costs are expected to rise faster than the economy is expected to grow, and the American population is aging. These trends have little or nothing to do with government programs. In fact, Medicare is far more efficient than private health insurance.

I suggest the President forget about a "grand bargain." In fact, he should stop talking about the budget deficit and start talking about jobs and wages, and widening inequality - as he did in the campaign. And he should give up all hope of making a deal with the Tea Partiers who now run the Republican Party.

Instead, the President should let the public see the Tea Partiers for who they are -- a small, radical minority intent on dismantling the government of the United States. As long as they are allowed to dictate the terms of public debate they will continue to hold the rest of us hostage to their extremism.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/sequestration-tea-party_b_2788453.html?view=print&comm_ref=false

[boutons_deux]

A Graphic Guide to the Sequester

There's been a lot of talk of the looming budget cuts that, without a last-minute deal,must go into effect by 11:59 p.m. ET tomorrow night (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/02/27/the-tale-of-the-sequester-start-time/?wprss=rss_politics). Obama will meet with congressional leaders on Friday (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/white-house-releases-state-by-state-breakdown-of-sequesters-effects/2013/02/24/caeb71a0-7ec0-11e2-a350-49866afab584_story.html) to discuss how to avoid the worst consequences of the sequester.

What is the sequester, and how big is it? Here's our quick graphic guide, from the budget terms you need to know, to how it could impact your home state.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/03/01/1654501/oil-subsidies-century/

[DarrinS]

Lol, thinkprogress. Lol, Krugman.

[boutons_deux]

:lol DarrinS, shooting blanks, as always.

Krugman, Stiglitz, etc have been right about economics in the past 10 years, so I'm betting their right on how the sequester will bring on austerity to USA, INCREASING the deficit due to lost tax revenue.

[boutons_deux]

The sequester won't last. Here's why.


So the bottom line is this: For all the handwringing about the sequester, many of its effects are likely to be undone before they ever bite. I suspect this is no accident. Budget wonks knew exactly what would happen when Congress agreed to delay the sequester from January 1 to March 1 rather than March 28.


A month’s worth of sequester will be disruptive to business. And federal agencies will be spending weeks adjusting to cuts that may never happen instead of doing their real work. But it will give political cover to tea party Republicans, who can claim a fiscal trophy. And give Democrats (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/U.S.+Democratic+Party) the opportunity to blame the GOP (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/U.S.+Republican+Party) for a potential parade of horribles, from airport delays to toxic meat. But, soon enough, it will be just another footnote in Washington (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Washington%2c+DC)’s shameless tale of fiscal irresponsibility.


http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Tax-VOX/2013/0301/The-sequester-won-t-last.-Here-s-why?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+feeds%2Fcsm+%28Christian+Scie nce+Monitor+|+All+Stories%29

[LnGrrrR]

What happened two month ago? Remind me...

I know I have less take home. Is that a mirage?

That was a sunset effect though, and happened automatically. It's not like the Republicans agreed to raise taxes. Saying they "agreed" to tax increases is like saying that someone agrees to having their knees broken when they don't pay a mob loan. It's technically correct, but not done with great willingness.

[rjv]

hard to take obama seriously about his concerns for our national debt, and how to repair it, when his own "job czar" (jeffrey immelt) is the CEO of GE and tied to a special interest faction headed by billionaire pete peterson. this 'fix the debt' group has as one of its goals, the eradication of social security. the CEO's, such as immelt, that support the lobbying efforts of peterson's special interest group are at the same time, underfunding workers' pension plans while securing and increasing their own. meanwhile, obama continues to refer to some of the plans created by the simpson-bowles commission, even though every candidate that simpson and bowles endorsed (because they found them to be friendly to their plan) lost in the most recent election, which clearly suggests the american people are not in favor of their recommendations. so who is obama really listening to? who is he more concerned about appeasing? will the wealthy interest groups decide our economic fate using their 'zombie plans' that have essentially been voted down or will the president actually defer to the interest of the american people. i am skeptical that he will defer to the latter.

[boutons_deux]

It's hard to take the Repugs seriously about the national debt with St Ronnie doubled it, and dubya tripled it.

[boutons_deux]

Sequestration NIMBYism Grips GOP

Unwilling to team up with Democrats to replace sequestration with a mix of spending cuts and tax increases, and unable to pass a cuts-only sequestration measure on their own, Republicans’ official position is that they’ve made their peace with enduring, across-the-board spending cuts in perpetuity.


But now that those cuts are creating real consequences, individual members are experiencing buyer’s remorse. The only problem is, until they change their underlying position on replacing sequestration, the only thing they can do about it is whine.


Call it sequestration NIMBYism.


“It seems difficult to say with a straight face that completely eliminating a source of revenue for the National Park Service is a smart, targeted cut,” said Sen. John Thune (R-SD), a member of GOP leadership.

Sequestration is intended to be indiscriminate. It requires federal agencies to reduce spending by a certain percentage on each of their programs and activities.


That means all House and Senate members are likely to see some consequences in their districts and states. But when those consequences materialize, Republicans either blame the administration or plead for special treatment.


http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/03/sequestration-nimbyism-grips-gop.php

Repugs refusing to eat their own dog's lunch :lol

[boutons_deux]

This more along the line the Repugs had in mind, fucking over OPK, Other Peoples' Kids

Poor Kids Booted from Their Preschool Programs Thanks to Sequestration

The early childhood education program Head Start provides educational opportunities specifically to low-income kids. But 70,000 of those students will lose the opportunity to be in the program as a result of the drastic reductions in funding triggered by sequestration.


http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/poor-kids-booted-their-preschool-programs-thanks-sequestration?akid=10186.187590.QehW9d&rd=1&src=newsletter809825&t=3

[boutons_deux]

So Repugs don't like just tiny bit of govt austerity, their 0.0x whatever sequestration cuts that they ridiculed as easy and insignificant? :lol

And they want to pass Ryan's much deeper austerity? :lol

Of course, the corrupt multi-millionaires in Congress are Constitutionally protected from austerity.