It never fails to amuse me; the media declare that something is a crisis and much of Washington just ignores them. The latest "crisis" is the looming sequestration which will, according to the media, practically destroy the ability of the federal government to do anything. America will be left "defenseless against its enemies", children will starve, and all manner of folks will be made homeless. So what does the president and Congress do? They go on vacation.
The truth is that the sequestration cuts are actually quite minor. I went through the numbers the other day on this forum. Suffice to say that the cuts are actually about two percent of previous spending which is less than the increase already in the numbers from last year. This will hardly leave us defenseless or result in anyone starving or homeless. Another indication that the cuts are not that big a deal is the lack of any real attempt by the Democrat controlled senate to stop them. Oh, we have seen vague proposals from some Democrats about measures that could change the situation, but there has not been even a single bill offered to actually make such changes. By the time the senate returns from vacation, it will have less than a week to come up with a measure to head off the sequestration. The House already passed two different bills to achieve this result, but the senate has not even bothered to consider them.
One thing is different this time around, however, from all of the prior manufactured crises: the GOP is not in a mad scramble to stop the so-called crisis from unfolding. What that means is that it is much harder for the Democrats to sustain a crisis atmosphere or to insist that their solutions must be accepted even before all the details of those solutions are known. The Democrats are actually being put to the task of making real proposals and then justifying them. It is a daunting chore for the Democrats who so far seem unable to deal with it.
Maybe the best thing would be if Congress and Obama just stay on vacation for another week. After all, it seems to be working fine so far.
The truth is that the sequestration cuts are actually quite minor. I went through the numbers the other day on this forum. Suffice to say that the cuts are actually about two percent of previous spending which is less than the increase already in the numbers from last year. This will hardly leave us defenseless or result in anyone starving or homeless. Another indication that the cuts are not that big a deal is the lack of any real attempt by the Democrat controlled senate to stop them. Oh, we have seen vague proposals from some Democrats about measures that could change the situation, but there has not been even a single bill offered to actually make such changes. By the time the senate returns from vacation, it will have less than a week to come up with a measure to head off the sequestration. The House already passed two different bills to achieve this result, but the senate has not even bothered to consider them.
One thing is different this time around, however, from all of the prior manufactured crises: the GOP is not in a mad scramble to stop the so-called crisis from unfolding. What that means is that it is much harder for the Democrats to sustain a crisis atmosphere or to insist that their solutions must be accepted even before all the details of those solutions are known. The Democrats are actually being put to the task of making real proposals and then justifying them. It is a daunting chore for the Democrats who so far seem unable to deal with it.
Maybe the best thing would be if Congress and Obama just stay on vacation for another week. After all, it seems to be working fine so far.
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