As I understand it, the GOP has five basic goals in the budget talks:
1) Cut the deficit.
2) Cut entitlement spending.
3) Protect defense spending, and possibly even increase it.
4) Simplify the tax code by cleaning out deductions and loopholes.
5) Lower tax rates.
The White House is willing to cut a deal with Republicans that will accomplish 1, 2, 3 and 4. But Republicans don’t want that deal. They’d prefer the sequester to that deal. That means they will get less on 1, basically nothing 2, 4, and 5, and they will actively hurt themselves on 3. So, rather than accomplishing four of their five goals, they’re accomplishing part of one. Some trade.
I have an explanation for this phenomenon. The main goal of the Republicans right now is to sabotage everything they can in hopes of creating a narrative of constant disasters happening during this presidency. They know that the next presidential election will be their very last chance to save their party in its current format, so they have started working on their campaign already. A budget is small potatoes compared to that huge goal. So the things Klein enumerates can easily be sacrificed to keep the scary concept of a sequester in play.
This is a war of narratives, and we need to remember that the Democrats consistently fail to present a coherent narrative of anything. This has historically been a problem of all progressive movements that I’m aware of.
Thank you, Rob F., for the link.
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