Are the Republicans Winning the Sequester Fight?

    Not surprisingly, that is the narrative they are telling. However, you got a fair amount of the MSM repeating their talking points. Politico came out with two pieces assessing things one month into sequester one about the Republican theory of sequester, one about the Democratic theory.

    Nothing in either piece suggests the Democrats are doing anything but losing. In the Republican theory, they start this piece not by what the Republicans are saying about it but Politico's own clear editorializing that the GOP is winning it going away:

     "To figure out why Republicans are winning the sequester wars, look at two numbers.

Federal employees have so far taken no furlough days. And the stock market hit an all-time record earlier this month, with the Dow closing Thursday at 14,578.

       Amid all that, it’s pretty hard for most of the public to understand what the Democrats were talking about, with all their gloom-and-doom chatter earlier this year.

       Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/sequestration-republicans-theory-of-the-case-89446.html#ixzz2OwsoPgt4

        It's pretty much a slam dunk then. Certainly if all the Dems can do is hope the Dow stops rising they are not in very good shape. Still the question remains, if the sequester is no big whoop why do the Republicans keep decrying the cuts when they happen in their own states?

        "GOP party leaders are now putting the blame on Obama for implementing the spending cuts in a political manner by hyping some of the most damaging outcomes.

        Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/sequestration-republicans-theory-of-the-case-89446.html#ixzz2OwwtCTvD

       The Republican strategy on sequestration has been a brand of anti-sequester NIMBYism. There's nothing wrong with them but not in my state and no cuts to anything important, ignoring that the definition of a sequester is that it's indiscriminate and largely senseless. 

        "multiple Republicans are complaining about the cuts hitting their own districts, variously calling them “unwise,” claiming they raise concerns about “safety,” that they betray a “troubling lack of priorities,” and risk having “devastating impacts on entire communities.” Meanwhile, news accounts from around the country are demonstrating that the sequester is beginning to do real damage."

         http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/03/28/republicans-decry-sequester-cuts-then-hail-sequester-as-a-victory/

         So how do you square this anti-sequester NIMBYism with the claim that the Democrats are being alarmist? It's rather shocking how much Politico spun these sequester pieces in the GOP direction. The first line quoted above in the Republican theory declared the GOP the winner. 

          No such thing happens in the Democratic theory piece. Here's how they lead off this one:

           The public has largely tuned out the Democrats’ repeated warnings about mid-air plane crashes, troop deaths and mass illness from tainted meat if the sequester cuts stay in place.

But Democrats aren’t dropping the threat of disaster, seizing now on the line they think can beat the Republicans: law and order.

            Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/sequestration-democrats-theory-of-the-case-89447.html#ixzz2Ox0Mmz82

           Overall, the Democratic theory of the case seems to be to hope we get bad news. No mention of the Republican NIMYism.  They then finish it off with more GOP triumphalism:

            "Conservatives also note the private sector and many state and local governments have already had to absorb spending cuts during the recent recession; now it’s only right for federal funding to dry up too."

           “What’s unthinkable and horrible is if we don’t address our spending problem and we actually have a debt crisis,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).

Added Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), “And that’s not a hypothetical."

             Wow. Politico actually allows these erroneous ideas to be the last word. The idea that because state and local governments have been cut back the federal government has to have similar cuts is like saying that it's not fair that my lungs have cancer but not my pancreas, so lets go see if we cant infect my pancreas with cancer. Because one part of the body is sick we want to infect other parts? In fact the sequester is felt a lot at the state level. 

              And the "coming debt bomb" is something more than hypothetical?  Yet they left these declarations without comment. Overall, if the sequester is here to stay for the short term it also means that Dems don't have to give way on entitlement cuts and do get the military cuts-though it's a little broader and indiscriminate than you would want. The CR did give the President some latitude on what to cut.