The more that I inspect the 2014 outlook for sequestration, the more I believe that incumbent lawmakers will take an absolute pounding in the midterms if they don’t spend a lot more money. People are going to be furious.
Yes, to a large degree, there will be a blame game between the two parties, but I think it will be about why we can’t spend more money, not less. In particular, the hit to military readiness will be hard for Republicans to explain, even to their own base. And how can the Republicans plausibly argue that they haven’t fixed the sequester because the Democrats were unwilling to compromise?
They keep thinking that budget negotiations are a trap that will force them to increase revenues. I think that they desperately need that trap. The consequences of their ideology and of losing the presidential election are rapidly coming to a head.
I think the simplest way of looking at this is that the government is almost to the point where it will simply start breaking. Airports won’t be able to operate. Military divisions won’t be able to deploy. Massive inefficiencies will develop and become obvious. Manpower issues will make it hard to certify the safety of food, mines, and bridges. The government is no position to meet it’s legal obligations with the sequester level of funding in 2014.
Money cannot be moved around anymore.
So, once again, we can have a functional majority in the House, but it can’t be a Republican majority. These next six months are going to be messed up.
