[ed. I suspect the only thing that will get Washington's attention is Wall Street.]
Barring the biggest Washington miracle since Dolly Madison ferreted paintings out of a burning White House in 1812, sequestration—the automatic, across-the-board cuts to defense, discretionary and certain health programs totaling $85 billion in the 2013 fiscal year, and $1.176 trillion over the next decade—will take effect March 1. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that these cuts will cost 750,000 jobs in 2013, and reduce gross domestic product for 2013 by up to 0.5%. The effects stand to be disastrous: that much is clear. But when it comes to the politics of the sequester—and the gamesmanship involved—very little is as it seems.
The White House has over the past month consistently given the impression that the president’s hands are tied, that the sequester—if not averted—will simply ripple through affected government agencies with no exceptions, and that the cuts will quickly hit hard in every state, with the administration powerless to stop the madness.
This isn’t quite true.
There are in fact measures that the president’s Office of Management and Budget could unilaterally take to at least mitigate the effects of the sequester in the near term. (More on this later.) But the agency is unlikely to take those measures. Why? Because making clear the impact of forced austerity may offer the best hope for discrediting and reversing it.
When faced with closures of national parks, shutdowns of government offices, delays in needed services like the disposition of federal benefits, and long lines at the airport due to a reduction in TSA personnel and air traffic controllers, the thinking goes, perhaps Congress will get moving on a less painful solution. “If they’re trying to put pressure on Congress, they’ll want the cuts to be felt pretty quickly,” says budget expert Stan Collender of Qorvis Communications.
So we have a cock-eyed scenario where the White House may well want to ramp up economy-strangling cuts quickly, in an inversion of the normal order. Unlike the Hippocratic oath, the watchword here is “first, do some harm.”
The question is, will it work? Can Obama—provided he decides not to hold the sequester’s pain at bay—make the pain come fast enough? Unfortunately for this plan, the picayune clockwork of government is likely to get in the way. A combination of complex budget rules, sequestration limits, and the ordinary instincts of agency heads may slow down the effects of the sequester and leave the public with thee mistaken impression—for a crucial couple of months—that austerity doesn’t really bite.
The White House has over the past month consistently given the impression that the president’s hands are tied, that the sequester—if not averted—will simply ripple through affected government agencies with no exceptions, and that the cuts will quickly hit hard in every state, with the administration powerless to stop the madness.
This isn’t quite true.
There are in fact measures that the president’s Office of Management and Budget could unilaterally take to at least mitigate the effects of the sequester in the near term. (More on this later.) But the agency is unlikely to take those measures. Why? Because making clear the impact of forced austerity may offer the best hope for discrediting and reversing it.
When faced with closures of national parks, shutdowns of government offices, delays in needed services like the disposition of federal benefits, and long lines at the airport due to a reduction in TSA personnel and air traffic controllers, the thinking goes, perhaps Congress will get moving on a less painful solution. “If they’re trying to put pressure on Congress, they’ll want the cuts to be felt pretty quickly,” says budget expert Stan Collender of Qorvis Communications.
So we have a cock-eyed scenario where the White House may well want to ramp up economy-strangling cuts quickly, in an inversion of the normal order. Unlike the Hippocratic oath, the watchword here is “first, do some harm.”
The question is, will it work? Can Obama—provided he decides not to hold the sequester’s pain at bay—make the pain come fast enough? Unfortunately for this plan, the picayune clockwork of government is likely to get in the way. A combination of complex budget rules, sequestration limits, and the ordinary instincts of agency heads may slow down the effects of the sequester and leave the public with thee mistaken impression—for a crucial couple of months—that austerity doesn’t really bite.
by David Dayen, Pacific Standard | Read more:
Photo: Alex Brandon/AP via NPR
