It's March first and the dreaded deadline for some kind of fiscal resolution is upon us. Sadly, the Neocons in Congress remain as frozen statues, unwilling or unable to act to resolve the crisis that will result in deep budget cuts that could have devastating effects on government operation.
Keystone Politics sums it up nicely:
"Everybody's going to hate it when the sequester cuts 700,000 jobs, so Republicans are, understandably, trying to win the blame game."The problem for them is that it's completely their fault.
"Think back to why we have the sequester. The sequester cuts were supposed to kick in only if the Supercommittee negotiations failed. Think back to why the Supercommittee negotiations failed. It failed because Republicans were negotiating in bad faith, with Pat Toomey trying to pretend a huge regressive tax cut was a deficit reduction plan. Think back to why we did the Supercommittee. The Supercommittee was the price Republicans demanded in exchange for raising the statutory debt ceiling.
"The fake debt ceiling crisis of 2011 was the origin of this whole thing. If Republicans hadn't held the debt ceiling hostage for policy concessions for the first time ever ("Boehner Rule") then there would be no sequester cuts."
So there you have it. Today the President said, in plain language, that these "dumb cuts" didn't have to happen, but Senate Republicans voted down Democrats' proposals to reduce the deficit through selected spending cuts and -- gasp -- closing tax loopholes for oil and gas companies and implementing the so-called Buffett Rule.
Oh my -- we can't stop giving our taxpayer dollars to the rich oil companies, now can we?
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