Either Way, Obama's the Loser

Either Way, Obama's the Loser

Less than a week into $85 billion worth of across-the-board federal spending cuts, the mainstream media are following a careful script: Both Democrats and Republicans are to blame, they tell us. President Obama proposed the cuts and the GOP went along. It's political poison for everybody in Washington.

Don't you believe it.

If the cuts -- actually, reductions in the rate of spending growth -- end up hurting a lot of people, Obama will be blamed because sequestration bears his signature.

If the cuts end up being relatively painless, Obama will look foolish because he and his administration have predicted catastrophe. For weeks, they've warned that teachers will be pink-slipped, hardened criminals will roam free, government services will end and the nation will be all but defenseless.

Obama already is softening the doomsday talk. "The longer these cuts remain in place," he said the other day, "the greater the damage to our economy."

Oh. So the sky isn't falling. It's just inching a little lower.

 And perhaps not even that. All along, the greatest worry has been about the effects on the military. But some hard-right conservatives aren't fretting. U.S. Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan., crowed that sequestration is "the first significant tea party victory." In his Feb. 24 column, George Will dismissed sequestration as a phony crisis and noted that Defense Department spending on civilian personnel had ballooned 21 percent in 10 years.

DOD civilian personnel who will feel the sequester first; they're set to lose one day's pay each week for 22 weeks. Economic boosters are afraid that will impact small town businesses. The furloughed workers might not spend as much in area stores, which means the stores' bottom lines will suffer, which could cost more jobs.

Maybe that will happen. Maybe it won't. Nobody knows for sure.

What is certain is that however the military responds to the spending cuts, however defense workers tighten their belts and however local and national economies are affected, President Obama has come across as panicky and prevaricating. He's the one sure loser.

REPRINTED FROM THE NORTHWEST FLORIDA DAILY NEWS

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