×
×
homepage logo
LOGIN
SUBSCRIBE

On sequester, Congress does what it does best: Nothing

By Staff | Mar 1, 2013

Once upon a time, the mere mention of the word “sequestration” seemed enough to send shivers down the spines of our elected leaders.

House Speaker John Boehner pledged that he was going “to do everything I can do to ensure that we don’t go there.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said: “Make no mistake: We will achieve the more than $2 trillion in deficit reduction … The sequester was designed to be painful, and it is.”

And President Barack Obama vowed “not to turn off the pressure” until Congress came up with a plan to reduce the federal deficit by at least $1.2 trillion.

That was in November 2011, around the time the “supercommittee” failed to reach a deficit-cutting agreement that would have taken sequestration’s across-the-board cuts to defense and domestic programs off the table.

But a not-so-funny thing happened as Congress approached what was once a dreaded March 1 deadline – nothing.

No urgency. No negotiations. No agreement.

Oh, there were two perfunctory Senate votes on the Eve of Sequestration. A Democratic-backed bill consisting of alternative savings and new taxes fell nine votes short of the 60-vote threshold, 51-49, while a Republican proposal to grant the president flexibility in implementing the cuts was rejected outright, 62-38.

Then the House and Senate did one of the few things they can agree upon: They went home.

As a result, barring any further action, federal agencies will have to cope with $85.3 billion in spending cuts through the end of the fiscal year Sept. 30. Over the next nine years, the across-the-board cuts would approach $1 trillion.

Given the lack of urgency – the first face-to-face meeting between the president and congressional leaders wasn’t scheduled until Friday, the day sequestration begins – one can only conclude that both sides saw political advantages to not reaching a deal.

For Obama and his fellow Democrats, it’s that Americans will vent their anger at Republicans if and when the dire predictions trumpeted by the president in campaign-style stops across the country kick in: federal worker furloughs, teacher layoffs, airport delays, national park closings, etc.

For Republicans, it’s an opportunity to seize the higher ground as the party most committed to reducing the deficit and the debt – without raising taxes to boot. This was particularly important after conceding to higher taxes on the wealthy during this year’s “fiscal cliff” deal.

How voters will react at this point is difficult to say, in part because polls suggest they weren’t any more engaged in this process than the people they elected to represent them.

A national survey of 1,000 adults conducted by the Pew Research Center and The Washington Post from Feb. 21-24 – just days before the deadline – found that only 25 percent were following the issue “very closely.” To give that some context, 40 percent of Americans said they were paying attention to the fiscal-cliff talks “very closely” back in December.

Frankly, after enduring all the “coulds” and “mights” that have been bandied about in recent weeks, perhaps that’s understandable.

Or maybe voters are just taking a breather as the White House and Congress move methodically toward the nation’s next twin crises: the March 27 expiration of the continuing resolution temporarily funding the government, and the mid-May deadline to revisit that pesky debt ceiling.

Newsletter

Join thousands already receiving our daily newsletter.

Interests
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *