The People's Will Be Damned. What Exactly Is “Politically Acceptable?”

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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/02/26-0

So here we are again, approaching another self-inflicted economic cliff. This time it’s the sequester – a truly stupid idea that will result in a mindless meat clever approach to cutting the budget in order to solve a problem that’s disappearing, using tactics that caused the problem in the first place. Oh, and quite possibly it will plunge us back into a recession.

What is Washington doing? Trying to fix blame, of course.

The truth is, both Parties agreed to this uniquely idiotic idea. Yes, it ultimately comes from the Republican’s decision to play brinksmanship with the budget and the debt ceiling, but Democrats in general and Obama in particular let them make debt and deficits into the all-purpose bogeyman it has become. By failing to confront the myth, they empowered it.

But the Republicans have backed themselves into a corner. They’ve been clamoring for austerity for 30 years as part of their “drown the beast” strategy, and now they are faced with a popular backlash against austerity. Their response has been to blame Obama. Mitch McConnell keeps saying the President hasn’t offered a politically viable alternative to the sequester. Boehner says much the same. Even the less rabid David Brooks has repeated this line. In fact, it’s become one of those cascading talking points that the right wing so often chants in unison, over and over again.