The president will appear on Wednesday at ultra-liberal Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, (which is not the site of the “Don’t Tase Me, Bro” incident) to unveil his economic agenda. This is almost the definition of preaching to the choir, but it is just the beginning of a campaign to prepare for Debt Ceiling Fiasco 2.0.
The Republicans, particularly in the House, are still behaving as if losing the 2012 presidential election gives them a mandate to radically downsize the federal government. The results have been less than optimal.
This month, the International Monetary Fund trimmed its forecast for economic growth in the United States to 1.7 percent in 2013 and 2.7 percent in 2014. It reduced both by 0.2 percentage point from its World Economic Outlook forecast in April.
The I.M.F. said the reductions were in part a response to the automatic spending cuts that resulted from the failure of the White House and Congress to agree on a fiscal deal, which it said had offset healthy private demand.
In other words, sequestration is an unforced error that is needlessly hurting our economy and causing higher than necessary unemployment.
There isn’t much the president can do about it in terms of substance, but he can try to make sure that the Republicans are not rewarded politically for their economic malfeasance.
There are no signs, however, that Speaker Boehner has the wherewithal to avoid destroying our credit rating by refusing to pay for the bills Congress has racked up. The president has to try, but I see no cause for hope.
At this point, President Obama has to envy Harry Truman, because all he had to deal with, was a "Do Nothing" Congress.
At least by doing nothing, they were not doing evil.
The House Conservatives are determined to have their way, no matter the consequences.
‘They’d rather rule in Hell, than serve in Heaven.’
And if they’re the last ones standing on the pile of smoking ashes that once was America, then they’ll plant the flag on the pile of rubble, and declare "VICTORY!!!"
Party over country.
PARTY UBER ALLES!!!!!
I had to up-rate you for the Dead Kennedys reference. 😉
Whatever sequestration is, it is not “unforced”. It was a deliberate policy on both sides. And both sides thought it to their advantage for it to go forward.
They aren’t nihilists; that’s much to complimentary. The GOP are frauds–elected to govern but believing that government should not exist except as a piggy bank to support them and their cronies. The biggest scam on voters in history.
The problem is that the way the sequester is being played by the departments, especially the DoD is to perpetuate the boondoggles and put pain on the programs that have proven to work.
And it seems that red state folks are not yet blaming the Republicans for the pain that their are beginning to feel.
Meanwhile victims of the sequester, like the city of Detroit distract attention from the Republicans’ starve the beast strategy. Although their staffs suffer, the members of Congress are doing peachy keen still.
Neither side thought sequestration would kick in, which means that I am 100% correct to call it an unforced error. The Dems for trusting the Republicans, and the Republicans for trusting themselves.
I disagree. I think the dems knew very well sequestration would kick in, and were hoping its gut punch to military interests would provide the impetus to resolve it quickly.
In addition, they knew that allowing default would be drastically worse (and minting a trillion dollar coin, while technically feasible, would hand the republicans enough propaganda for a decade). They believed the GOP was willing to default. I think that’s a reasonable assumption.
It was the least bad option in the view of the dems, so that’s why they picked it. When you have vandals running the House, there will be issues on which there is no truly positive choice.
At this point, the GOP hangs on to the sequester because it sabotages the economy. Destroying Obama and his modest recovery is more important to them than the military industrial complex, who they have calculated won’t truly threaten GOP campaigns. Perhaps they know this because the military is so astoundingly overfunded. While rank and file workers may be hurt, the monied interests will still be fine.
The idea that the GOP would piss off Wall Street, the Chamber of Commerce, and the military/intelligence community was totally foreign in 2011. You give the Dems way too much credit for clairvoyance.
It was unlikely. But I don’t doubt that Democrats thought it would kick in, and the military cuts would push the GOP to fold. The Dems had already shown they believed the GOP would default, so I have no trouble believe they thought it would take a little shock to make them re-evaluate and remember that it would be unlikely for the GOP to piss of the donors.
So yeah, mistake, but on a different part.
On the other hand, have the donors punished republicans for this?
Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, Boo, at least it’s an ethos.
Indeed.
And what about nihilists appealing to fairness?
Right. DoD is sequestering permanent civil servants, cutting their pay by 20% while exempting contract employees who should be the first to go. But that choice is the administration’s, so I blame them for bowing to the MIC.
Although I understand THD’s point, I take today’s “conservatives” to indeed be radical nihilists, out to destroy the New Deal, but not the New Militarism, which even faux-Liberserative Paulites love. Gilded Militarism is their utopia.
But the question now is whether Obama will (finally) allow the effects of “conservative” governance to be realized. Will he force the country to take the deadly medicine of these insane snake oil salesmen, or will he cut another deal with them, ala the catastrophic sequester. Will he (again) negotiate our solvency, as he said he wouldn’t? He is a two term prez now and electorally immune.
So you won’t extend the debt ceiling, Repub lunatics? Fine, we won’t. And let the chips fall where they may. The GOoP is filled with egomaniac radical nutjobs who (as low-grade “conservative” white males) think they know everything, and certainly more than, say, Nobel laureate econ profs or Fed chairs. Show the country what it means to be “governed” by rightwing clowns, cretins and cranks. It means financial calamity, market crashes and economic chaos. That’s “conservatism”, if only the nation were forced to experience it.
A house divided against itself cannot stand, so give the wheel to crazed Repubs Thelma and Louise–they are the freely and fairly (ha-ha) elected House majority, after all….the Crying Boner isn’t the only one too drunk to drive. Let’s see what “conservatism” really means, circa 2013. And let Orrin and McFool and Lindsaypoo shit their pants.
I really don’t understand why they haven’t decided that what we really need to do is repeal the Constitution. A real conservative would want to go back to the Articles of Confederation.
Yes, he can’t do it all himself, and there’s no magical bully pulpit, but sitting around waiting for the Republicans as currently constituted to come to their senses is a fool’s errand, and at long last the President is acting as if he knows that.
Considering the results of the 2012 election (Democratic President re-elected, Democratic Senate majority expanded, Democrats outpolled Republicans in the House by more than a million votes), it’s astonishing (heh) that the popular media continue to treat the Republicans as if they had won something. A little consistency in pointing out the waning Republican fortunes can’t hurt, might even help.
That is, if the Democrats are interested in advancing the agenda that the American people elected them to enact. And that has by no means been much in evidence over the last nine months.
They are carrion birds. Their plan is the destruction of current society upon which they will wet their beaks in the chaos.
“We should not be judged by how many new laws we create, we ought to be judged on how many laws we repeal.”
— John Boehner, July 21 2013
IOW, “We should not be judges by how few people we help; we should be judged by how many people we have hurt.”