The GOP’s Sequestration Trap

[unhappycamper]

http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/02/19/the-gops-sequestration-trap/

The GOP’s Sequestration Trap
Feb 19 2013 @ 12:15pm

Tomasky suspects that Republicans will suffer politically if the sequestration cuts go into effect:

(I)t sure isn't going to be looking very responsible to people, as the March 1 sequestration deadline approaches, for Republicans to be going before the cameras and saying that the cuts are unfortunate but necessary medicine, or whatever formulation they come up with. They've wanted these spending reductions for two years. It hardly matters much who invented the mechanism for the cuts. What matters, as the Republicans will find out, is that the people don't want them.

I believe that is indeed Obama’s long game here. The precedent is the Gingrich government shutdown, which stopped his revolution in its tracks and gave Bill Clinton new political life. When cops are furloughed, when scientists complain about research cuts, when the military-industrial complex revs up its lobbying engines, I just don’t see how the sequester works politically for the GOP. It exists entirely because of their fixation on immediate austerity – despite the awful consequences that policy option has spawned in Europe.

But I don’t particularly like the Dems’ and Obama’s approach either. It may be politically savvy – they are going to target all sorts of populist tax loopholes for the very rich as an alternative to cuts, without making a serious effort to reform the insanely complex tax code as a whole. I’m working on a post on the sequester – and why, however crude and dumb, it may well be the least worst option in front of us. Stay tuned.

[Demeter]

1. The GOP is trapped in a snare of their own devising AGAIN

They will have to Man Up to cancel it. I doubt that they actually can or will Man Up, since there's nothing of the Hero in the GOP, and to their mind, admitting error is equivalent to admitting unfitness.

The LAST thing the GOP wants is to cut military spending...that's like cutting off their manhood! But the alternatives for them are just as bad. And the Democrats aren't stepping in to take them off this particular hook, for once.

On the other hand...I don't think there's anything clever or effective in Obama's strategy. Exploiting the GOP's rigidity is the only path he has open. Unfortunately, it's not going to do any good in the long or the short run for anyone, least of all the People.