The President and the Sequester: Third Time Not the CharmSo the old Pope Benedict XVI and the United States government will take a sequestered place in the world as the week ends. So nice to know we are keeping up with the Vatican, ruled by wise men. Only thing is, stateside Democrats and Republicans can't agree on when the sequester's spending cuts start — Friday or Saturday? That's how farcical our $85 billion debacle is. It's a massive amount of blood money, between friends or enemies, to lose from a wounded patient's circulation. Austerity is not what the doctor ordered for the greater good. Nor could the sides agree on who started this whole thing. Sorry, but I believe author Bob Woodward on Washington palace politics. In "The Price of Politics," he lays the sequester like a skunk at the White House door — telling readers that Jack Lew, now the new treasury secretary, suggested this forceful budget sword hanging over the parties. The idea was the blunt cuts would be so unthinkable that neither side would let the ax fall. As a general famously said of the stalemated war in Iraq, "Tell me how this ends." That's the question for both weary sides in the sequester. But Republicans on Capitol Hill have done their brand of calculus — elementary, really. Anything to hurt the president can't be all bad. At the same time, leading Hill Democrats are secretly angered at the situation room drama, at scrambling to shelter and brace constituents for the coming storm. Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski pointed out our national weather service and possibly ships at sea may be adversely affected. Conduct unbecoming for a superpower. Meanwhile, the party leader walks to the well, once again, for a bitter draught of partisanship. Wasn't his nickname "No Drama Obama?" The U.S. government has more than a few good women, but the main players are House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and leading man Barack Obama.
While Boehner sweats and strains to control his unruly House caucus, McConnell's the smooth political operator who's shocked, just shocked at "the president's sequester proposal" and the "culture of irresponsibility around here." But this is the third time the Obama's presidency has come too close to the edge of economic peril, and it's not the charm. If his momentum stumbles on gun control, immigration and climate change — the stuff of legacies — because of the sequester, that tragedy would be his own doing. Let's review the tea party election of 2010, in which Republicans took over the House, spooked Obama and hobbled him since, even into a victorious second term. Eighty-seven House Republican freshmen showed up in town two years ago, loaded for big game. They were hostile to anything federal and unschooled in the intricate workings of the world economy. The prospect of defaulting on the Treasury's full faith and credit was not a big deal. They enjoyed the brinkmanship of breaking Obama's sangfroid cool during that steamy summer, when he turned 50 in August. It was his un-finest hour, because he blinked and lost big at the table. He felt he had to give, so high were the sterling stakes to meet our borrowing obligations. One price he paid was the recessionary Bush tax cuts stayed in place. But the beleaguered president managed to wring an agreement in the deal to have the next debt ceiling hit after the 2012 election. Yet he set us up for this week of terrible uncertainty. After squeaking past the debt-ceiling crisis and averting the "fiscal cliff" on the first of the year, the American people see the president come to another pretty pass. The sequester is not just about the sequester, but a showdown on whether Obama can lead the country in the direction he chooses in the next four years. To find out more about Jamie Stiehm, and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2013 CREATORS.COM 
|
 |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
