Now we have arrived at the day most thought would never come.If you caught Levin's program last night, about midway through the program he listed out all the parts of government that were exempted (SS, Medicare, military pay, etc.), in other words unaffected, and continued to run smoothly during government shutdowns under both Reagan and Clinton. Obama's got it even easier with sequestration, and, like the executives of the past, his branch controls what to cut and where to cut. But as Erickson points out, and so have many others, Obama wants to make these cuts the most painful on average Americans to insist upon his faulty ideological philosophy that he knows best, cuts don't work, and that we mustn't interrupt the federal spending spree. He can continue to blame Republicans all he wants, but we'll see if he's able to get away with that when his executive branch directs the cuts before the American People.
In the run up to today, President Obama resorted to a campaign of fear mongering. He decided to make sequestration a blunt instrument. Instead of using his executive discretion to make careful cuts, he found ways to make the cuts appear disastrous, spooky, and painful for the American people. In the last week it would have come as no surprise to hear the president, given his increasing hyperbole about sequestration, to claim it would cause both erectile dysfunction and hospitals to finish off the infirm and elderly without so much as a visit to a death panel.
But the hyperbole did not work. Sequestration has arrived.
In all the talk, chatter, punditry, and hyperbole, one thing has been forgotten. This fight has never been about where to make cuts, but whether to make cuts at all. House Republicans offered several plans to alter the cuts. The Democrats would never consider them. The Democrats, instead, preferred raising taxes and, in sequestration, got one of their long held wishes of defense cuts.
The Democrats were never serious about real spending cuts, which is why the president could be so unserious at his campaign style rallies claiming sequestration would cause furloughs for teachers, policemen, and fire fighters, none of whom are even employed by the federal government.
The game now is predictable. Democrats will try to make the sequestration cuts as painful as possible on the American people. They will stop spending in areas that will do maximum harm and inconvenience to the lifestyle of the American citizen. They want Americans to think any cuts in spending at all are too disruptive.
The president and Democrats do not have to do this. They could make reasonable cuts. But if they do they will show spending cuts are possible without major disruption, pain, and inconvenience. That would give away the game.
The truth is, though, inescapable. Today the sun came up. Americans went about their daily lives. The federal government was open for business. The mail ran. The Mayans were not right.
Americans are reminded that Washington can, in fact, cut its budget and the world will not end. The only better reminder of this would be a government shutdown. We can only hope.
Beyond all the rhetoric and hysteria, though, sequestration is simply a first step in the right direction.
Related links: Happy Sequester Day: Small Spending Reductions Have Taken Effect
Obama Blames Republicans Again for 'Dumb' Sequester Crisis: 'I am Not a Dictator, I am the President'
