Republicans can't see the forest for the trees ( Archived) (32)

The "Fiscal Cliff" battle that the Tea Party faction of the party created has been lost,
but the amazing part is they still don't know it. In fact, they don't even know when it was lost. They seem to believe that they are still in a war but the war ended long ago. It ended in 2011 when they agreed to "sequestration", The Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA) established a 12 member Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (or “super committee”) charged with reducing the deficit by an additional $1.2 - $1.5 trillion over ten years. The BCA also included a sequestration hammer should the super committee fail, a provision intended to “force” the super committee to act.

Despite the threat of sequestration, the super committee failed. Announcing its inability to reach an agreement on November 21, 2011, the members of the bipartisan committee stated that "after months of hard work and intense deliberations, we have come to the conclusion today that it will not be possible to make any bipartisan agreement available to the public before the committee's deadline."

So, as established in the BCA, sequestration was triggered when the super committee failed to reach an agreement. Sequestration generates automatic cuts for each of nine years, FY 13-21, totaling $1.2 trillion. Without Congressional action to prevent sequestration, the first round of cuts will take place Jan. 2, 2013.

The 2013 cuts apply to “discretionary” spending and are divided between reductions to defense ($500 billion) and non-defense ($700 billion).
They made a deal with Obama to raise the debt ceiling in return for sequestration and probably tax hikes on the wealthy to take effect in Jan 2013. I assume they were so sure their campaign to make Obama a 1 term president that by then they would control all 4 branches of Gov and then they could do whatever they wished like massive spending cuts for the poor and tax cuts for the rich.
Surprise

Now the Republicans are in a no win situation because they don't want to be blamed for triggering another recession which most experts say will happen if sequestration can't be avoided and Obama, who doesn't have to worry anymore about re-election, and who has total support of his base to let tax cuts for the rich expire needs only to keep the heat on the speaker of the house to win the whole ball of wax.

Republicans clearly sense that they are being outmaneuvered in the fiscal talks by the Obama administration, unable to stop the inevitable rise in tax rates for the rich. But they have one last card to play and they intend to use it, knowing it will endanger economic progress: They are threatening once again to default on the credit of the United States if President Obama doesn’t do their bidding.

Party officials say that if they do not reach an acceptable deal with the White House this month, they will wait until the country reaches the debt ceiling early next year, then refuse to lift it until they get their way on cuts to spending and taxes, The Times reported on Wednesday.

Apparently, they learned nothing from the debacle of 2011, when they first tried this extortionate tactic. The nation lost its AAA credit rating, stock values plunged, and the approval rating of Congress sank to historically low levels. Republicans portray themselves as spending hawks, but that episode cost the Treasury $1.3 billion in higher borrowing costs in 2011, according to the Government Accountability Office. Last week, the Bipartisan Policy Center estimated that the 10-year cost of higher interest rates was $18.9 billion.

Come on Tom I expected more from you than that.
BTW, if we go off the "cliff" (god I hate that expression) Your state of FL and mine VA stand to lose a lot of military jobs. Damn shame having so much of our economy tied to the mil.