The Sequester and the Tea Party Plot

ROBERT B. REICH,

Imagine a plot to undermine the government of the United States, to destroy much of its capacity to do the public’s business, and to sow distrust among the population.

Imagine further that the plotters infiltrate Congress and state governments, reshape their districts to give them disproportionate influence in Washington, and use the media to spread big lies about the government.

Finally, imagine they not only paralyze the government but are on the verge of dismantling pieces of it.

Far-fetched?  Perhaps. But take a look at what’s been happening in Washington and many state capitals since Tea Party fanatics gained effective control of the Republican Party, and you’d be forgiven if you see parallels.

Tea Party Republicans are crowing about the “sequestration” cuts beginning today (Friday). “This will be the first significant tea party victory in that we got what we set out to do in changing Washington,” says Rep. Tim Huelskamp (Kan.), a Tea Partier who was first elected in 2010.

Sequestration is only the start. What they set out to do was not simply change Washington but eviscerate the U.S. government — “drown it in the bathtub,” in the words of their guru Grover Norquist – slashing Social Security and Medicare, ending worker protections we’ve had since the 1930s, eroding civil rights and voting rights, terminating programs that have helped the poor for generations, and making it impossible for the government to invest in our future. READ MORE

The Sequester-The Ultimate Betrayal Of The GOP Base

 (Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)

By all historic accounts, the actual idea for the sequester—the massive front-loaded cuts to the federal budget designed to rip a hole in spending programs near and dear to both Republicans and Democrats—originated in the Obama White House.

By creating a mechanism that would result in huge cuts to a defense budget that has long been sacrosanct to modern day Republicans, along with equally large cuts to the entitlements that Democrats feel duty bound to protect, the Obama Administration believed that it had created a tool that would force a negotiated solution in the effort to get a grip on our debt situation through the balancing of spending cuts with revenue increases.

As a weapon to drive compromise—a concept that has become a four letter word in today’s extreme environment— the sequester wasn’t such a bad idea. Surely, any rational legislator in Congress would understand that reaching a negotiated deal was far preferable to the unacceptably painful results of allowing the sequester to take hold.
Or would they?  READ MORE

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