World Doesn't End, Obama Hardest Hit

The sequester apocalypse evolves into a 'slow grind.'



'Just to make the final point about the sequester," said President Obama at his press conference Friday, "we will get through this. This is not going to be an apocalypse, I think, as some people have said." That's a relief, but it is also a major walk-back, since the "some people" who have been predicting apocalypse are the President and senior members of his Administration.

Normal Americans awoke Friday to find that the veneer of civilization had not fallen away. If the federal government does end up spending $44.8 trillion over the next decade instead of $46 trillion, they may not notice at all. This may explain Mr. Obama's morning-after concession that "what's important to understand is that not everyone will feel the pain of these cuts right away," and that the gruesome cuts that the President had been invoking are now merely "a slow grind that will intensify with each passing day."

One reason the grind may intensify is that Mr. Obama spurned GOP offers Friday morning to grant him even more executive discretion than he already has to prioritize federal spending. Or as his own Simpson-Bowles commission put it, he could always choose among the "patchwork of thousands of duplicative programs, nearly impossible to track and even harder to evaluate for effective outcomes." This he does not want to do.

What he is trying to do instead is implement the sequester as rudely as possible so that he can extract another tax increase. As the President put it, the problem is that Republicans have adopted "an iron-clad rule that we will not accept an extra dime's worth of revenue."

But not so iron clad that the GOP didn't reluctantly consent to 6.2 trillion dimes in tax increases only this January in return for zero dimes of spending restraint. Mr. Obama wants Republicans to commit political harikiri by doing it again. Asking the other party to commit suicide is not typically a good basis for bipartisan accord.

Mr. Obama pitches his tax increase as "tax reform" and merely cutting "tax loopholes" and "tax breaks for the well off and well connected." He also said he doesn't want to "raise tax rates." But the Senate Democratic bill he endorsed on Thursday included the "Buffett rule" that is effectively a minimum tax of 30%, which means another increase in the tax rate on capital gains and dividends. Real tax reform means reducing rates in return for closing loopholes. Mr. Obama wants to raise rates instead.

The President also stuck to his line that the sequester cuts will hurt the economy, even suggesting that any slowdown in growth in the months ahead is all the sequester's fault: "As long as the sequester's in place we'll know that that economic news could have been better if Congress had not failed to act."

Investors seemed to take a different view. Stock prices rose on Friday.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...Opinion_LEADTop

Quote: Cedric wrote in post #2

---

Quote: W-Girl wrote in post #1

---

"As long as the sequester's in place we'll know that that economic news could have been better if Congress had not failed to act."

---

This is an illustration of just how easy it is to lie about the macro-economy.

When future "economic news" sucks (as it surely will) how will anyone be able to prove that it wasn't because of the sequester?

---

Quote: kazy wrote in post #3

---

Why isn't the anyone saying; "we'll know that the economic news could have been better if the President had spent more than a mere 7 minutes working with Congress on a solution"

---

Quote: Cedric wrote in post #6

---

Quote: W-Girl wrote in post #4

---

The Sequester is only a gimmick that the POS is setting up to BLAME the Republicans....

---

But it does point out how the Dems seem to always be thinking several moves ahead.

All too often, Democrats are playing chess while Republicans are playing checkers.

---