Joe Klein has a piece today in Time magazine in which he explains why Congress will do a budget deal this year. Even after reading the usual distortions of the media for years, this latest column is a scream. Klein writes it as if the actual facts can just be ignored and he can make up new ones to suit his purpose. Let me illustrate:
According to Klein, an important signal that a budget deal may be in the offing was the passage in January of a measure that withheld the pay of the House or the Senate if that body failed to pass a budget resolution. According to Klein, the impetus for this measure was that constituents were getting tired of the status quo and the business community wants an end to the budget deadlock. This brought the Republicans and the Democrats to the point of reluctantly passing budgets.
I wonder if Klein is on drugs. He has forgotten what happened just three months ago. When the fiscal cliff deal was hammered out, the Republicans insisted that they would not agree to any deal unless the Senate Democrats were forced to pass a budget in 2013. The withholding of the pay of the senators absent a budget resolution was the agreed method for forcing the Senate to act. In other words, it was not constituent unrest or business community pressure that got the Senate Democrats to finally approve a budget; it was the House GOP that did that.
Another push for a budget deal, according to Klein, is the agreement by both Republicans and Democrats that the sequester has to be undone. Strange, isn't it, that almost no one is now out there pushing to overturn sequestration. The slight reduction in the increase in federal spending wrought by sequestration was portrayed by president Obama and "journalists" of Klein's ilk as the end of the world as we know it. Now that the reductions are in place, there are few if any impacts to the public (except for the closing of the White House Tours). The sequester has disappeared as an issue.
So Klein is spouting nonsense. There may be a deal this year, but it is unlikely given the views of each side. Obama and the Obamacrats want more and more spending along with more and more taxes. Republicans want less spending and no rise in taxation. Right now, we will see spending rise at a reduced rate due to sequestration and no additional taxes. That already seems like the compromise result.
According to Klein, an important signal that a budget deal may be in the offing was the passage in January of a measure that withheld the pay of the House or the Senate if that body failed to pass a budget resolution. According to Klein, the impetus for this measure was that constituents were getting tired of the status quo and the business community wants an end to the budget deadlock. This brought the Republicans and the Democrats to the point of reluctantly passing budgets.
I wonder if Klein is on drugs. He has forgotten what happened just three months ago. When the fiscal cliff deal was hammered out, the Republicans insisted that they would not agree to any deal unless the Senate Democrats were forced to pass a budget in 2013. The withholding of the pay of the senators absent a budget resolution was the agreed method for forcing the Senate to act. In other words, it was not constituent unrest or business community pressure that got the Senate Democrats to finally approve a budget; it was the House GOP that did that.
Another push for a budget deal, according to Klein, is the agreement by both Republicans and Democrats that the sequester has to be undone. Strange, isn't it, that almost no one is now out there pushing to overturn sequestration. The slight reduction in the increase in federal spending wrought by sequestration was portrayed by president Obama and "journalists" of Klein's ilk as the end of the world as we know it. Now that the reductions are in place, there are few if any impacts to the public (except for the closing of the White House Tours). The sequester has disappeared as an issue.
So Klein is spouting nonsense. There may be a deal this year, but it is unlikely given the views of each side. Obama and the Obamacrats want more and more spending along with more and more taxes. Republicans want less spending and no rise in taxation. Right now, we will see spending rise at a reduced rate due to sequestration and no additional taxes. That already seems like the compromise result.
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