GOP is Fine With the Sequester: Or is it?

     We've certainly heard enough tough talk about how this is their leverage-it really is, rather than the fiscal cliff and debt ceiling, both which turned out to be fake leverage-and that they would rather just lock in these tough cuts to discretionary spending. If it means that the military also gets deep cuts, they're prepared to deal with it.

      I'm less than convinced. Tom Cole talks a good game:

      "There’s no way in the world House Republicans would agree to raise any new revenue in order to avoid the upcoming automatic spending cuts known as the sequester, a senior GOP lawmaker said Tuesday afternoon."

       “I’m all against raising any additional revenue on this. Look, these are written into law,” Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), a deputy majority whip, told TPM between votes. Cole said there are other, preferable ways to make the sequester cuts that he is open to, but new revenue will not be part of the equation.

       “We just had additional revenue for the federal government, so I don’t see any way in the world the sequester won’t happen either as written or renegotiated or reallocated cuts. But I don’t see any revenue coming in the picture.”

        "His comments, which echo the hardline position articulated by Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) recently, came shortly after President Obama’s televised remarks Tuesday afternoon calling on Congress to “delay the economically damaging effects of the sequester for a few more months” if it cannot agree to a comprehensive solution by the March 1 deadline.

       http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/02/tom-cole-sequester-house-republicans.php?ref=fpnewsfeed

       Yet today, Speaker Boehner admitted to strongly disliking the sequester which he says takes a "meat ax" to the economy.

      "Speaker John Boehner signaled the growing GOP discomfort at his weekly news conference: “Let me make clear: I don’t like the sequester.” Boehner’s words are a sign that, while some Republicans are comfortable with steep and immediate reductions in federal spending, leadership would prefer to avoid them."

       “I think it’s taking a meat ax to our government, a meat ax to many programs and it will weaken our national defense,” Boehner said. “That’s why I fought to not have the sequester in the first place. But the president didn’t want to have to deal with the debt limit again before his reelection.”

       Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/sequester-some-in-gop-want-out-87295.html#ixzz2KBUeGr6U

      That hardly sounds like wanting to "lock in the cuts" and to seeing them as your leverage. Many in the GOP are like Boehner in while insisting that they will let it happen if they don't get the deep cuts they want, also making a point of not wanting them.

      “I think it’s taking a meat ax to our government, a meat ax to many programs and it will weaken our national defense,” Boehner said. “That’s why I fought to not have the sequester in the first place. But the president didn’t want to have to deal with the debt limit again before his reelection.”

        As the quote above points out, this is at variance with what they've said they wanted in the past, where they make it sound as if they almost relish the cuts. In a way it's a very good thing. It means that logically they are willing to negotiate a way to avoid them so quickly like the President called for yesterday.

        To be sure most all of the ideas they've suggested so far are non-starters. They've listed 10 ways to do this and all of them are bad. All of them look to cut into Medicare and/or Social Security. Again, they forget the Kristol Premise: elections have consequences.

        Still that they are willing at all to do something is a good sign. They have to start out with a terrible proposal-or the Tea Party House members-who really do relish the cuts-will balk.

        The final deal will be some point between the President's proposal he talked about yesterday and the deep GOP entitlement cuts with the final deal much closer to the President. That's my prediction.

         However, assuming I'm right-as I was about the fiscal cliff and debt ceiling deal; immigration and even gun control are looking pretty promising right now as well-nevertheless, the GOP can't let the Tea Party think anything like that right now. So they have to poise as being willing to see the cuts if Obama won't do the kinds of things to Medicare that Mitt Romney ran on.
          
         At the end of the day, though, it's doubtful they are so opposed to tax increases that they'd rather see the deep military cuts. They don't sound like it:

         "But there is a growing recognition among the House GOP of just how bad things can get if the cuts take hold."

          "Rep. Buck McKeon, the California Republican who chairs the Armed Services Committee, met with Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno, to discuss the sequester on Wednesday. McKeon also huddled with Marine Gen. James Amos, who laid bare some scary statistics."

          “They will start to have to cut readiness,” McKeon said, describing his meeting with Amos. “We should be OK through this year, because what he does, he makes sure that the troops that are deployed are fully trained, fully equipped and he was quite focused on the troops that were next to be deployed. They will be fully trained and equipped. And after that, it will start dropping off.”

           "But McKeon declined to answer what would be worse: tax increases or the sequester.
“It would seem to me by this time the president should start understanding what the problem is,” McKeon said. “He’s dealing all around the fringes, but he’s not dealing with what the problem is.

           "The problem is mandatory spending. We can cut all discretionary spending — eliminate the Defense Department, eliminate all discretionary spending, everything that we vote on to spend money and we’d still be running a deficit of a half-trillion a year.”

            Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/sequester-some-in-gop-want-out-87295_Page2.html#ixzz2KBYGDmcP

            Basically they are still after that magic bullet-the famous leverage the GOP is always talking about. Surely there is some magic bullet, some threat they can hang over our heads and demand that the Democrats agree to destroy Medicare-ie, the plan Romney had run under.

            First the leverage was the fiscal cliff, then the debt ceiling. Now it's the sequester. What's next?