But the Republicans - humorously, if you can still find humor in this - have not yet blinked here, which is why the Obama administration is shamelessly
rolling Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano out this week to make sure Americans everywhere know that terrorists will be crawling through their children's bedroom windows as early as next week if the Republicans don't back down on this budget thing. ("I don't think we can maintain the same level of security . . . with sequester," she said, adding that the impact will grow over time, like "a rolling ball.")
In a comically blunt use of reverse race-baiting politics, Napolitano added that she would have to furlough 5,000 border patrol agents if the sequester cuts took place, essentially threatening Republican voters with an influx of immigrants from Mexico if a deal isn't reached.
We hated it when George Bush threatened us with the specter of terrorist attacks to get what he wanted politically, so we ought to be hating this, too, although fortunately it hasn't gotten quite to Bush levels yet - I'm assuming we're still weeks away from Obama himself going out to the Rose Garden to tell reporters that unmanned terror drones will be spraying poison over New York City if the Republicans don't give him his budget deal.
The Republicans, meanwhile, are banking on the notion that $85 billion in annual cuts isn't all that much (and considering that
the Fed doled out more than that to Citigroup alone in just one month of 2009, their argument makes some sense) and the country will barely notice the damage if we have to go over this particular waterfall. The political capital they may lose with the Pentagon in (potentially) letting this happen is an interesting side issue, but one most Americans probably aren't losing much sleep over.
The whole situation reminds one of a family so dysfunctional that its members can't communicate except through desperate acts. Mom keeps getting found passed out next to empty bottles of aspirin or mouthwash, Dad keeps getting pulled over for DUIs with hookers in the passenger seat, sis listens to death metal and is saving up for a bus ticket to meet some 40-year-old in Montana she met on the Internet - but you'd never know it on most days because nobody in this family talks.
This is kind of the same thing we're seeing in D.C. Both parties understood that the debt situation had to be addressed. But neither side could think of a way to work with the other party to get that done in a way that didn't outrage its base. So what we ended up with is an insane gamble: The two sides created a system of automatic cuts that may or may not happen, and both parties are now banking on their ability to manipulate the media to blame the other side for any fallout that may occur if those cuts take place.
In other words, instead of getting together and creating an actual budget that both sides would have to sign off on and own, they created a budget-cutting mechanism that each side will try to pass off as the creation of the other.
Obama Unmasked: Did Slick Hollywood Handlers Create the Perfect Candid (Google Affiliate Ad)Polls show that most Americans will overwhelmingly blame the Republicans if a deal is not reached, which probably makes sense, since the Republicans were the ones who first drew the line in the sand. But the Republicans are acting like they don't care about these polls, which is also interesting.
They may be gambling that cuts will take place and they will be proved right by the lack of a catastrophic consequence, which will lead to them later on being celebrated for showing such backbone. They may be gambling that they can convince Americans that it was actually the Democrats who refused to compromise and enter real dialogue.
Whatever it is, the whole thing sucks. It's like being permanently stuck in the NFL lockout story. Do we really have to do this every three months for the rest of eternity?http://www.sott.net/article/259025-Sequestration-cuts-crisis-makes-me-want-to-strangle-both-sides
