Good politics usually results in good public relations, and vice versa – which is what congressional Republicans are learning the hard way in their ongoing battle with the White House over sequestration.
Whether all of this will result in good policy remains to be seen. But for the moment, as we hurtle toward the March 1 deadline when sequestration of the federal budget kicks in, it looks as though the Democratic president, Barack Obama, is cleaning his GOP foes’ clocks once again.
Republicans aren’t learning the lessons of the November 2012 election, which is that voters rejected their ideas in favor of the president’s. As the distinguished columnist Roger Simon noted the other day, the GOP has fallen into the classic insanity trap of doing the same thing repeatedly while hoping for a different result.
Ain’t gonna happen, folks.
If sequestration occurs – resulting in massive across-the-board budget cuts in virtually federal programs – a lot of folks are going to lose their jobs and a lot more Americans are going to suffer the loss of government services they want and on which they depend. Who’ll get the blame? Congressional Republicans who are being led by their noses by the extreme elements of their party who care little about what government can do for people. Their aim is to cut government spending no matter what.
It’ll happen all right if sequestration kicks in. But the cost could be catastrophic to rank-and-file Americans – such as yours truly – who are going to see their retirement investments take a dive when the stock market reacts badly to the sequestration. No one will be happy about that result.
Meanwhile, the president continues to stick it to his adversaries by blaming them for the lack of a deal to prevent the budget cuts from occurring. Congress enacted the sequestration law in 2011 as a way to deter this kind of brinksmanship from recurring. Instead, it’s becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
And why is that? Because Capitol Hill has been overrun by political lunatics.