Sequester Day

Well here we are. And there we go. I doubt many of us really imagined that there would be a sudden out break of sanity in Washington. We haven’t ben disappointed. The war raging down there has produced another epic failure. It looks as if the sequester will go into effect.

So what happens now?

Well not much … and a lot.

Not much if you think that a drop of about 0.5% in GDP doesn’t matter. That’s the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of the damage a sequester would cause. When you slash government spending, you slash demand. When you slash demand, you cripple the economy. Period. So, the CBO tried to give us all fair warning. That estimate was published back in November in those heady days when there was a glimmer, just a faint glimmer, that Congress could get off its duff and do something sensible. Oh well.

That drop in the economy will make unemployment leap. The CBO thinks we may crawl back up to an unemployment rate of 9.1% by year’s end.

Not that anyone cares.

And no one does care.

Voters don’t care that the economy will get clobbered. They are so tired of the mess in Washington that they’ve tuned it out. The endless brinkmanship and false crises of the past two years have made everyone so sick and tired of Congress that people seem to want to pretend nothing will happen. It all seems so remote after all.

Some of you don’t think government jobs are ‘real’ jobs. Really? So a shipyard worker working on the government’s dime is not doing a ‘real’ job, whereas a shipyard worker working on a private sector cruise ship is? If you believe that, you’re nuts. Truly nuts.

Some of you think we have been swamped by a surge in government spending under Obama. You imagine a kind of creeping socialism that is hobbling our good old private enterprise system. Really? Government spending has been declining. Read that again: government spending has been declining. As in going down under Obama. If you believe otherwise, you’re nuts. Truly nuts.

Then there’s some of you who dismiss the entire mess by arguing that both sides are guilty and that there is some equivalence in the stupidity down there. Really? So Obama’s plan which includes both spending cuts and a few tax increases – a balance more towards cuts – is the same as the Republicans no tax at any price and all cuts proposal that slashes social programs alone? One is balanced. The other is biased. They are not equivalent. If you think they are, you’re nuts. Truly nuts.

We live in a strange and unfamiliar world. I come across a lot of people who haven’t fully absorbed what’s going on. They prefer to see all our crises through politics as usual prism. Both sides are being silly these people say. So we have to punish both equally. And, if only the President would reach out and try to compromise.

He has reached out. He has bent over backwards. His compromise is enormous. He has given away a great deal. He has received nothing back. Not one thing. Except dishonesty and ridicule.

This is not politics as usual. There is an insurrection afoot. The Republican party is divided – about two-thirds to one thirds. That two-thirds is the extreme group. They have an extraordinarily radical agenda. They want to re-make America. But they are a minority. They get out-polled every time they make themselves clear. This means they cannot get what they want through the front door of majority rule. So they go through the backdoor of hostage taking and threats. They simply say no. They object. They create alternative facts. And they cry foul even when there’s no foul.

So determined is this group to slash government spending that they don’t mind at all if unemployment soars or the economy tanks. Their goal is to cripple the government and then to use its dysfunction as an excuse to defund it more. These are the people who want to eliminate Social Security and Medicare. These are the people who think unemployment assistance is a prop for laziness. These are the people who have no qualms in firing teachers, police and fire personnel so as not to pay taxes. These are the people who think our rotten infrastructure is just fine. They think government funding of research is unnecessary. They think government is just useless and can do nothing right.

And they’ve carried this fight to Washington.

They are not the heirs to Reagan. Even he was more pragmatic than this group. He modified his position when reality intruded on his idealism. This lot won’t compromise no matter how much reality bites. They have their own reality.

So, when someone says that the economy will suffer from the cuts. They say nonsense. They say if we get government out of the way the economy will soar. It is, in their mind, an economic truth. The less government, the more the private sector will do.

That there is no evidence anywhere to support this contention – nowhere – doesn’t matter. It is a badge of honor. It is a matter of faith. And like all faiths it brooks no discussion and tolerates no ‘fact’ based contradiction.

The impasse we have arrived at is simply a war of ideologies. It is ripping the country apart. It is corroding the economy. It is destabilizing our future.

The opening shot in this war was fired by the extreme right. It is not a war anyone else sought or even imagined possible.

And it is a war that will continue to undermine our society until people like you and me realize that we are the only people who can stop it.

We must pay attention. We must stop pretending it doesn’t matter. We must apportion blame. We must punish the perpetrators. That is what democracies do. We must take sides. We must make a stand.

And if you think this sequester stupidity will pass, I beg to differ. This is just the beginning. The real fight is in about a month when Congress has to pass legislation to fund the government. That budget fight is looming ahead. It will make this crisis look small.

This is no way to run a grown up country.

But it is the way we run ours.

Doesn’t that hurt?