Sequestration and the “fiscal cliff”

Both parties voted in favor of the sequester. Both parties are responsible. Referring to the thing as the “Obama sequester” is the dishonesty.

Either party, if they had unified control of the government, could have solved the sequester by now, no question. But I think it’s fair to say that one of Obama’s central campaign positions was that the deficit has to be dealt with through cuts and revenues. The people voted, and he won re-election on that message. What’s more, every poll I’ve seen indicates that people prefer a balanced approach, and not the “gut the government” approach that Republicans have advocated.

So, somehow this becomes Obama’s fault for not compromising after being reelected and governing on what the majority of Americans want? That doesn’t make sense.

You do know, do you not, that the Senate is one of the two houses of Congress? Thus, a failure by the Senate to do something is a failure by Congress.

What’s the mystery? Every poll shows a desire for both cuts and more revenues. The Republicans caved on more revenues, letting taxes go up. Guess who hasn’t followed through on their side of the bargain? It’s not some Fox News conspiracy, folks. Boehner raised taxes. It’s time for Obama and Reid to cut spending. If they don’t, it’s “their sequester.”

Lord knows how you think Obama is “governing on what the majority of Americans want” when what they want is spending cuts, and Obama won’t make any.

Nobody has raised taxes; they’ve just let some (not all) of the tax cuts expire, as they were originally scheduled to (though not at the time they were originally scheduled to). And the only reason they allowed that was because they couldn’t obstruct it. Meanwhile, they could have agreed to a budget that had significantly more cuts than revenue increases, and refused it, because they consider any revenue increases at all to be unacceptable.

Remember, Obama can’t cut spending. That’s Congress’s job, and the Republicans in Congress refuse to do it.

Spending already has been cut: the Budget Control Act cut $1.5 trillion in spending from 2011 to 2021. Cite. In April 2011, there was a deal that cut $40 billion just from 2011 spending. Cite. The tax increases from this January total $600 billion over ten years, as you state. It is just so convenient that you forget that budget cuts have already been agreed upon, and more are doubtlessly in the works.

Seriously, do you actually think that no cuts to government have occurred in the last two years, or have you just forgotten? Have you simply not read about defense being cut by $487 billion over ten years? Because it seems like Republicans complain in one breath about defense already being cut too much, and then in the next breath that the Obama tax increases are the only thing that’s been done about the deficit, and therefore more cuts are in order and taxes are completely off the table. The next deal can involve both taxes and cuts; there’s nothing unfair about that.

Leave out “as well as lowering spending.” if you want any hope in Hell of being accurate. Besides Clinton 20 years ago, name a serious spending reduction bill the Dems have brought to the table.

The Budget Control Act, as I mentioned above.

Well I agree the public wants cuts, 70% of them do, a large percent also wanted tax increases on the wealthiest Americans. We’ve gotten the tax increases, but Obama so far has not, to my knowledge, offered any spending reduction plan. Instead he’s just talking about how we need more tax increases. I’m not instantly opposed to even more tax increases if they’re necessary, but this is supposed to be give and take. I get it that Obama is really mad that he can’t just smile at John Boehner and get whatever he wants, and that the House GOP has basically been retarded since 2010–but the simple fact is the Republicans were the last to compromise and now it’s Obama’s turn. The phrase “elections have consequences” cuts multiple ways here, Boehner is just as legitimately in charge of the House as Obama is the White House, and that means Obama has to make some cuts to programs he doesn’t want to cut.

FWIW I think all the defense cuts should go through. It’s very dangerous when we start to say we have to continue spending over $600bn/year on defense just because of all the ancillary jobs it creates. That’s like eating five Dairy Queen large Butterfinger Blizzard’s a day and saying we have to keep doing it to support Dairy Queen jobs.

I don’t know why this keeps coming up. When the Budget Control Act was agreed upon basically everyone agreed it was pretty much terrible and didn’t reduce the 10 year deficit even half as much as was needed. You can’t mention a half-baked law from 2011 that no one can seriously believe implemented the spending cuts we needed as though that’s job already finished time to just do nothing but raise taxes.

I don’t remember anyone on either side of the aisle after that law was signed who wasn’t saying it was a temporary stop-gap measure before the “real solution” came about. The time for the real solution to be worked out should be right now, and should result in an actual U.S. Federal budget being passed before the CR expires in March. It should contain more spending cuts than have already happened and probably more revenue increases (I’d eye specifically certain deductions that have long been used to make marginal rates irrelevant to high AGI individuals and perhaps copy something from Romney’s play book and institute a cap on total deductions in a year.)

The point, Martin, is that the GOP is claiming that “taxes already went up” as if that achieves the “balanced” part. But spending has been cut by far more than revenues increased already. So, going forward, we need both (as you correctly concede).

The fact is that the budget deficit will be far lower this year than it was when Obama took office. And it will almost certainly continue to drop. The day the GOP acknowledges this (and the fact that a large part of the reduction came from spending cuts) will be a great day indeed.

That said, I agree that a return to regular budget order would be nice - I just don’t see it happening with this House and this President.

And I will not have you maligning Butterfingers Blizzards - that’s downright un-American.

Of course I haven’t forgotten. But those cuts weren’t sufficient. It took the deficit from “wildly insane” down to just “crazy.” Now, there is no “next deal.” We’re still on the deal from this winter. It’s time for Obama to pony up his part of the bargain- cut spending only.

Oh, come on. You can’t expect anyone to believe that. You want to play that game? Fine. Nobody cut spending, because the spending hadn’t happened yet. They just allowed the spending plans to expire. Ta-da! No cuts!

Now do you want to be serious for a moment?

Who says the two need to be in line, dollar-for-dollar? If we cut $10 for every raised $1, that’s balanced. $3 to $1 certainly isn’t.

There ya go. That’s what needs to be done. You don’t need to raise rates or create new taxes when you can just crack down on avoidance.

A guy you may have heard of, last name rhymes with gainer. I’m sure you’ve heard of him, his being the effective head of your party and all. It’s also the very concept of what a compromise is: what you give up must be seen as equal to what you get for both sides.

But, if I were to concede they don’t have to be in line (which I don’t), your argument still falls apart, as past laws caused a decrease in expenditure, and past laws now caused a increase in revenue. So either both sides have done their duty, or neither side has actually made new law that covers things. It is balanced either way.

Yeah, it sucks being on the other side, doesn’t it? It sucks being the party being made to cave in to the other’s demands. But this wouldn’t be necessary if you guys hadn’t done it before. Right now, the general populace is at best equally disgusted at both parties and at worst actively hates your party more. Either way, the Republicans are not representing what the populace wants, so the Democrats have had to strongarm them into it.

What “his part of the bargain?” Seriously, what on earth are you taking about? You’re writing these things like there is some quid pro quo: first, spending cuts. Then, tax increases. Now it’s time for only more spending cuts. After that is it time for tax increases again? Who invented this negotiating strategy? Did a kindergarten teacher suddenly get put in charge of Washington DC?

Besides, Republicans didn’t actually want to raise taxes in January. The only reason the bill passed is because Democrats voted on it, and Grover Norquist gave a pass to have a minority of Republicans hold their nose and vote for it. Your non-existent “now it’s our turn” version of the world would seem to assume that Republicans actually signed up to this deal at some point, and there’s zero evidence that they have.

Even if it is fair to alternate spending cuts and tax increases, lets just skip this stupid procedure of “whose turn is it this time?” And go right to balanced solutions to ending sequestration and lowering the deficit further.

But everyone knows what’s really going on: some people only want spending cuts and will grasp onto whatever argument is helpful at any given moment to make their case. If the next deficit deal was cuts only, it doesn’t take a genius to know that the perfidy will assert itself, and tax increases won’t be on the table ever again.

Republicans signed on to the deal in January, unless you’re ignorant of how the House works you know that no vote would have happened at all on that package if Boehner had not allowed it–and Boehner himself voted for it. Nancy Pelosi had a discharge petition going around for weeks (the mechanism that can force a vote over the Speaker’s objections if a majority of House members agree) and it had nowhere near the support it would have needed to pass. The Republicans were not voting unless their leader in the House opened a vote, which he did. Only 85 of them voted on the final legislation, but there was no political reason for all of them to vote for it–it just makes them more vulnerable in 2014 and with Democratic support there was no need for all the Republicans to vote. However, if a large portions of those House Republicans who voted for it were seriously opposed to Boehner he never would have won the Speakership in such a lopsided manner. The GOP came to the bargaining table to end the fiscal cliff, it’s a fiction to claim otherwise.

Thirty-six percent of the House Republican caucus voted for the bill. Thirty-six percent. Delivering one out of every three votes in your party’s caucus is “coming to the bargaining table?” Get real.

Boehner and a minimum of Republicans voted for it because they had no choice: hold their nose and let the bill squeak by, or be held responsible for creating the next recession by killing a bill that was supported by 90% of the Senate. At least Senate Republicans had the courage to vote for the thing: the credit for compromise and negotiation clearly belongs to Mitch McConnell. Not one House Republican lifted a finger to make that happen.

In the poker world, Boehner had a 2-7 off-suit and folded. That’s fine, it happens. But you’re trying to make it out like mucking his hand was an act of principle – nay, even charity – for letting Obama take this one pot. Your argument is laughable on its face.

Just wanted to add my perspective as a 27-yr veteran of the fed gov’t with one of the biggest agencies. Our office has been told next to nothing about what might happen and how it might affect us.

That’s pretty understandable, because it is not at all uncommon for various “deadlines” to loom such that we’re not sure whether or not the doors will open tomorrow. Nearly every time some BS last minute deal occurs, rendering all the preparation and worry unnecessary. Of course in the process there has been however much downtime from people talking about what might happen, making unneeded plans, etc.

Last time the sequester was looming (was that in December?) I think they said worst case scenario would have folk furloughed 10 (or was it 20?) days. Honestly, it seems most folk intentionally turn a blind eye to this kind of bullshit. Otherwise, you can drive yourself crazy, trying to make sense of how you are regularly told to do more with less. And sure, there are some goldbricks around, but in general, the vast majority of folk I see are putting in a pretty full day’s work.

I’ve always been a top producer in every job I’ve held. And the simple fact is I don’t see myself cranking up my effort to make up for any 10-20 days for which I’m not getting paid. And if the top producers aren’t planning on stepping it up, I’d suggest there is little chance the more average workers will step up. If you want me to reduce the quality of my product to crank out more, I’d be happy to.

I’m all for reducing spending. But it would be nice if politicians and the public would acknowledge that you can’t keep cutting spending while providing/receiving the same services. And I can’t figure out how it works that each person gets to continue enjoying all of the public services they personally appreciate and value, with cuts only going to the programs and services OTHER FOLK benefit from.

And I’m fine with cutting all manner of programs and staff - from the military to social security and back again. But then don’t go whining about those folk being unemployed and not spending the $ they aren’t earning. And staff is a minute fraction of my Agency’s budget.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve got a good gig - as do many many gov’t employees.
But as stupid as this process looks from outside the government, my experience is that it looks just as stuipid, unnecessary, and undesireable from within. Meanwhile, the vast majority of government employees I encounter are just trying to do their jobs. I don’t think either the Dems or Repubs have shown any willingness to make any real spending reforms, or to even provide reliable commentary on the need or desirability of such reforms.

It seems to me the only reason anyone agreed to this sequestration plan was because it was the only way to get the Republicans in Congress to agree to a debt ceiling increase that was needed to prevent us from defaulting on our debts. So how is that Obama’s fault, exactly? Are you saying he wouldn’t have gladly signed a bill to increase the debt ceiling that didn’t include sequestration? Are you saying that failing to raise the debt ceiling, and actually allowing the U.S. government to default, was a viable option?

I can’t see any way to spin this in which sequestration wasn’t rammed down Obama and the Democrats’ throats by the Republicans in Congress.

Lest anyone doubt what tim314 is saying, Slate has posted a copy of the PowerPoint presentation Boehner used to sell the 2011 debt-ceiling deal to his skeptical caucus. At the time of the crisis, Obama wanted a “Grand Bargain” that included both spending cuts and tax increases. But Boehner couldn’t control his nutso no-new-taxes caucus. So Jack Lew proposed the sequester as a way to make a spending-cuts-only deal then (to appease Boehner’s base), while keeping the hopes of a balanced Grand Bargain alive for a future vote,

Yes, it is.

I’ve never ascribed any motivations to Boehner, but if I had I’d say he can read polling data as well as anyone and the public was widely blaming the GOP for this and the absolute refusal of the GOP to agree to any form of tax increase over the past few years had painted them into a political corner.

But Boehner delivered the legislation, you seem obtusely ignorant of that. The vote never happens without Boehner. It doesn’t matter how many Republicans voted for it or not, because without Boehner (and tacit support from the GOP at large–for without that Boehner would not be the speaker), the vote never would have happened. I’ll repeat–the Democrats had no hope of attracting anywhere near enough Republicans to force a vote without Boehner bringing the legislation to the floor. Boehner runs the House, Boehner is a Republican, Boehner brought the legislation to the floor.