In another and now-routine indignant case of right-wing austerity-scoffing, Charles Krauthammer this morning does an outstanding job of misleading his readers. He opens:
"The worst-case scenario for us," a leading anti-budget-cuts lobbyist told The Post, "is the sequester hits and nothing bad really happens."
Think about that. Worst case? That a government drowning in debt should cut back by 2.2 percent--and the country survives. That a government now borrowing 35 cents of every dollar it spends reduces that borrowing by two cents "and nothing bad really happens." Oh, the humanity!
Krauthammer's is excellent snark, but it's possible only because he toys with what the lobbyist told the Post in full:
"The good news is, the world doesn’t end March 2. The bad news is, the world doesn’t end March 2," said Emily Holubowich, a Washington health-care lobbyist who leads a coalition of 3,000 nonprofit groups fighting the cuts. "The worst-case scenario for us is the sequester hits and nothing bad really happens. And Republicans say: See, that wasn’t so bad."
In other words, austerity's needless, inevitable pain might not only be deceptively deferred, but actually compounded in other near-term budget talks by the GOP's pretend obliviousness to even elementary economics. It's a perilous and ruthless strategy.
As the NY Times' Timothy Egan brilliantly frames it today in another, though representative, context: "This crop of gerrymander-bred lawmakers governs by putting people at risk to make political points."
Thus just one of the profoundly unconservative elements in contemporary conservatism, as practiced by the pseudoconservative Krauthammer & Co.: the jettisoning of genuine conservatism's Hippocratic oath, "First--and if nothing else--at least do no harm."
Prudence. Caution. A sensitivity to empirical consequences. Those are out, and in the Republican Party as dead as Burke. What's in is a fevered addiction to risk--with other people's lives.
The 'sequester" is politics, not a homework assignment for the high school debate club.
Americans love to believe that we have an inate anti-authoritarian streaak that immunes us from following "strong men". This is a lie.
No matter what we say or what is written in the constitution, Americans of all stripes believe that the president is the boss of the federal government (a.k.a. congress). This is why Obama will prevail.
As long as he is appropriately humble, and as long as he offers a fair and balanced plan, Americans will expect and then demand that congress follows his lead. Hell, even Republicans (however disingenuously) continually demand that the president lead.
Posted by: Robert Lipscomb | March 01, 2013 at 08:19 AM
Perhaps, Robert. But what the crazies in the GOP House mean by "leadership" is:
1) Give us everything we want without our telling you what it is (that is to say, dismantle the entire progressive program, from TR forward);
2) Ram it through the House by violating the Hastert Rule, so we can say it wasn't our idea, and blame it on the Democrats;
3) Commit seppuku in the Rose Garden during prime time.
Posted by: shsavage | March 01, 2013 at 08:56 AM
That's why I never call them conservatives. I call them radical reactionaries.
The Democrats are the real conservatives here.
Posted by: RT | March 01, 2013 at 09:05 AM
@shsavage: I agree with your characterization of the GOP House. More specifically, the Tea Party wing tends to come from gerrymandered districts that are solidly Republican, and therefore reward extreme right politicians.
That is not the whole of the GOP. The other part of the GOP is trying to hold offices in districts that are center-right. The independents in these districts are likely true conservatives with an innate hostility towards radicalism of any sort.
So, look for the the next few weeks to mirror a national election where the "persuadables" reach some critical mass and swing one way or the other. Then the GOP congressmen in center-right districts will feel the heat.
Obama's Organizing For Action machinery is ready willing and able to supplement this effort.
Posted by: Robert Lipscomb | March 01, 2013 at 10:01 AM
As they should RT. On a lighter note I had great fun exploring Keith Koffler's site referenced below. I especially like all the videos of black women with whom he seems fixated. It's such a gas I am seriously considering ordering one of his promotional items, the cufflinks with his monogram. Seriously though, what kind of parent would name their child Keith Kenneth Koffler?
Posted by: Peter G | March 01, 2013 at 10:38 AM
Like button.
Posted by: Jaylemeux | March 04, 2013 at 12:43 AM