Jamelle Bouie notes that the Repub real target was never lower deficits at all but lower spending. Of course, just as the point of their new obsession with scandals is not about truth and oversight but just to hobble the President politically and as a bonus, maybe hobbling Hillary in 2016-assuming she runs, and the conventional wisdom assumes that she will.
What's notable about the last week is how little we've heard about the deficit-that has come down a lot and is continuing to shrink. Similarly we heard nothing about the drop in healthcare costs-recall that a large part of the impetus for the supposed need for Medicare "reform" was the rising cost of healthcare. Well it's not rising anymore, it's actually falling. Yet where is the coverage of this? Give Nancy Pelosi credit for being one of the few to point this out.
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/pelosi-credits-obamacare-for-lowering-deficit-health-costs
Another point that got no attention last week is that the sequester is really taking a bite: we now have over 800,000 federal workers in furlough.
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-defense-furlough-most-civilians-20130514,0,5299264.story
These furloughs are in the Department of Defense as well which is one of the few government agencies the GOP claims to appreciate. Of course,nothing this morally and intellectually bankrupt party says can be taken at face value
With the scandal feeding frenzy they have moved on. As Bouie points out, with all the deficit reduction already done, there really isn't much of a need for a GB these days anyway:
"This morning, Reuters noted that the odds of a “grand bargain” on taxes and spending between Democratic and Republican lawmakers are rapidly diminishing — because the deficit is falling. “A sudden improvement in the outlook for the government deficit over the next decade has alleviated some of the pressure on lawmakers to act,” Reuters observed. Likewise, Washington’s obsession with scandals — and the GOP’s attempt to wring political advantage from them — has taken the focus off of debt and spending.
"Compare all of this to the “grand bargain” proposed by President Obama in his negotiations over the debt ceiling two years ago. The proposed deal — which was ultimately killed by conservative House Republicans — included Medicare provider cuts, $800 billion in new revenue, and discretionary spending cuts of $1.2 trillion over the next ten years."
What's notable about the last week is how little we've heard about the deficit-that has come down a lot and is continuing to shrink. Similarly we heard nothing about the drop in healthcare costs-recall that a large part of the impetus for the supposed need for Medicare "reform" was the rising cost of healthcare. Well it's not rising anymore, it's actually falling. Yet where is the coverage of this? Give Nancy Pelosi credit for being one of the few to point this out.
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/pelosi-credits-obamacare-for-lowering-deficit-health-costs
Another point that got no attention last week is that the sequester is really taking a bite: we now have over 800,000 federal workers in furlough.
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-defense-furlough-most-civilians-20130514,0,5299264.story
These furloughs are in the Department of Defense as well which is one of the few government agencies the GOP claims to appreciate. Of course,nothing this morally and intellectually bankrupt party says can be taken at face value
With the scandal feeding frenzy they have moved on. As Bouie points out, with all the deficit reduction already done, there really isn't much of a need for a GB these days anyway:
"This morning, Reuters noted that the odds of a “grand bargain” on taxes and spending between Democratic and Republican lawmakers are rapidly diminishing — because the deficit is falling. “A sudden improvement in the outlook for the government deficit over the next decade has alleviated some of the pressure on lawmakers to act,” Reuters observed. Likewise, Washington’s obsession with scandals — and the GOP’s attempt to wring political advantage from them — has taken the focus off of debt and spending.
But there’s something else that makes a “grand bargain” on the deficit unnecessary — the fact that Obama and Congress have already taken three major actions to deal with the deficit."
"The 2011 Budget Control Act slashed spending by $1 trillion over the next ten years, including a cut to Medicare provider payments. The fiscal cliff deal, passed at the beginning of this year, included a tax increase for income over $450,000, raising $617 billion in new revenue from 2013 to 2022. It also included a hike in the estate tax, a permanent fix for the Alternative Minimum Tax, and additional unemployment benefits. And the sequester — which is the result of the Budget Control Act — involves large cuts of nearly $90 billion for nearly every year between 2014 and 2022."
As Bouie suggests, in a sense, one can say mission accomplished. "Compare all of this to the “grand bargain” proposed by President Obama in his negotiations over the debt ceiling two years ago. The proposed deal — which was ultimately killed by conservative House Republicans — included Medicare provider cuts, $800 billion in new revenue, and discretionary spending cuts of $1.2 trillion over the next ten years."
"In other words, the “grand bargain” Republicans rejected two years ago was ultimately passed in several installments beginning in 2011, and ending this January. Not only has Congress accomplished its goals with regards to deficit reduction — the Congressional Budget Office projects a $642 billion budget deficit for fiscal year 2013, down $200 billion from its projection at the beginning of the year — but Congress and the White House have achieved the impossible and cut a grand bargain that will affect federal spending for the next decade. Indeed, put in those terms, it’s something of a real accomplishment."
As Boule says, this just underscores that the GOP never gave a fig about deficit reduction anyway.
Still, those aren't the best terms to put it in. The sequester has been a real meat cleaver to the economy that we hardly needed right now-and there are real human costs to the furloughts and cutbacks to programs for the poor and middle class. There were much better ways to cut $1.2 trillion dollars in deficit reduction than the sequester-better yet, there should have been less focus on deficit reduction in the first place in the middle of a recession.
Here was a piece by Bouie last week with a quote from the Boston Fed:
"This morning, Eric Rosengren, chief executive of the Boston Federal Reserve, cautioned lawmakers against further fiscal retrenchment, lest they slow the recovery. As he said at the Global Interdependence Center’s Central Banking Conference in Italy: “Given the economic realities I would urge policymakers to consider scenarios where some elements of fiscal rebalancing take effect only after the economy has more fully improved.”
As Bouie says, this deficit reduction has come at the expense of the economy:
"But this rapid deficit reduction is far less of a boon for most Americans, who have to live in an economy that’s been largely stalled by Congressional inaction. At 7.5 percent, unemployment is still too high, and there’s little sign of rapid improvement. According to most projections, joblessness won’t reach pre-recession levels for another three years."
"Congress’ push for deficit reduction has a lot to do with this. As noted in the New York Times last week: “The nation’s unemployment rate would probably be nearly a point lower, roughly 6.5 percent, and economic growth almost two points higher this year if Washington had not cut spending and raised taxes as it has since 2011.”
So should one celebrate the scandals as distracting lawmakers from further deficit reduction? There are those who make this case that Social Security is now safe.
I disagree with this however as I think it was safe anyway-I don't see chained CPI in the cards anyway.
The trouble is that the sequester is a very blunt instrument of deficit reduction and we really do need it replaced with something better-there isn't much that would be worse. Again, though, we're dealing with an opposition that does nothing in good faith.
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