""""Attention Obozo: You're Fucked! The Washington Post: The 'RATs Have Lost The Sequester Battle (snicker)

[Johnny Asia]

Attention Obozo: You're Fucked! The Washington Post: The 'RATs Have
Lost The Sequester Battle
Recall the Democrats’ original theory of the case: Sequestration was
supposed to be so threatening that Republicans would agree to a budget
deal that included tax
increases rather than permit it to happen. That theory was wrong. The
follow-up theory was that the actual pain caused by sequestration
would be so great that it
would, in a matter of months, push the two sides to agree to a deal.
Democrats just proved that theory wrong, too.

In effect, what Democrats said Friday was that in any case where the
political pain caused by sequestration becomes unbearable, they will
agree to cancel that
particular piece of the bill while leaving the rest of the law
untouched. The result is that sequestration is no longer particularly
politically threatening, but it’s even more
unbalanced: Cuts to programs used by the politically powerful will be
addressed, but cuts to programs that affects the politically powerless
will persist. It’s worth
saying this clearly: The pain of sequestration will be concentrated on
those who lack political power.

Democrats had other choices, of course. As Politico’s Glenn Thrush
pointed out on MSNBC Friday, President Obama could’ve vetoed the FAA
bill while standing
at a Head Start that’s about to throw needy children out of the
program. He could’ve vetoed it from the home of an jobless worker who
just saw her benefits cut.
Democrats could simply have insisted that the powerful can’t get out
of sequestration unless the powerless can, too. But they didn’t — and
they show no signs that
they’ll start.

But that’s game, then. Absent the willingness to accept the pain of
sequestration and use it to overturn the whole policy, Democrats have
no leverage to end it.

It is worth noting how different the Democrats’ approach to
sequestration has been to the GOP’s approach to, well, everything.
Over the past five years,
Republicans have repeatedly accepted short-term political pain to win
the leverage necessary for long-term policy gain. That’s the governing
political principle behind
their threats to shut down the government, breach the debt ceiling,
and, for that matter, accept sequestration. Today, Democrats showed
they’re not willing to accept
even a bit of short-term pain for leverage on sequestration. They
played a game of chicken with the Republicans, and they lost.
Badly.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/04/26/the-democrats-have-lost-on-sequestration/

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Pucker your butt for the Apocalypse!

Johnny Asia, Asshole from the Future

http://johnnyasia.com/