It is truly amazing that Congress appears to be totally helpless to avoid the sequester. And it really comes down to one thing. The Republicans can’t bring themselves to compromise. It’s basically a refusal to acknowledge the result of the election. The Democrats campaigned on a balanced approach to the budget that acknowledged the Republicans’ fervent ideological desire to shrink the size of government. It’s not like the Democrats, on their own, would do anything like what they are offering the Republicans. Most amazingly, even the Republicans would not insist on such draconian economy-killing cuts if they were in total charge of the government. Yet, in the minority, they insist on budget policies more extreme than they would enact on their own.
The result will be chaos and disruption, a predicted loss of 750,000 jobs, a significant drop in GDP, broken contracts, furloughed workers, food shortages, loss of federal law enforcement power, military unpreparedness, long lines at airports, and more and stupider things as well.
The only way to avoid it all is for the Democrats to cave to every demand.
How much longer must this country endure the GOP?
