GOP Wins Big in War Over Spending Cuts

Last week perhaps the biggest policy war in the country was quietly settled with the outright defeat of one side – the Democrats.

Despite President Obama, their standard-bearer, and their apparent control of the Senate, the Democrats lost their struggle with the Republicans over whether to reduce the deficit by spending cuts or higher taxes on the wealthy.

They lost quietly and without complaint.

The two parties have long been unable to find a compromise on how to cut an additional trillion dollars or more from federal spending over the next ten years.

In an effort to force the parties to make a deal, Congress agreed to the sequester, a cut in federal spending that would affect all programs to the same degree.  Obama and Congress thought that the prospect of such reductions, affecting everything from defense to food kitchens, would be so unacceptable that an agreement would have to be reached.

Wrong.  The parties did not agree, and on March 1, the across-the-board cuts went into effect.

Obama and the media waited for the public outcry.  It never came, probably because this year’s sequestration cuts of $85 billion were not large enough to hurt.

But then, one of the reductions did hurt.  When some air traffic controllers had to be furloughed, flights were delayed.  Travelers were unhappy, and the media displayed pictures of disgruntled crowds at airline terminals.

Then, the Republicans saw their opportunity.  In the House of Representatives, they easily passed a bill allowing the head of the Federal Aviation Administration to shift funds from some agency services to air traffic control, ending the plan for equal reductions for all functions.

Senate Democrats, eager to avoid any blame for travelers’ delays, went along without a single negative vote.  So did Obama.

The result was that the GOP achieved a cut in spending, while avoiding some of its unpleasant consequences.  That almost certainly means that for this fiscal year at least, no serious attempt will be made to end the sequester and come up with a compromise.

GOP Sen. Susan Collins hailed the deal as a triumph of bipartisanship, when it really was a straight GOP victory.

The Republicans are likely now to be in a position to force spending cuts without giving ground on tax increases.  As a result, the deficit may be somewhat reduced, though not enough, and public services will have to be scaled back.

The GOP policy of maintaining as much of the Bush tax cuts as possible and repealing as much as possible of the social welfare programs sponsored by Democrats seems to be working.

It was probably not by chance that the trigger for the GOP to modify the sequester was air traffic control, which mostly affects middle- and upper-income people and not cuts to welfare or other low-income programs.

The Republicans have masterfully employed their control of the House and their almost constant use of the filibuster in the Senate to set national policy.

Contending with the GOP, a party widely thought to have been rebuked by the voters in the 2012 elections, Obama and Harry Reid, the Democrats’ Senate leader, have given ground.

They have been faced by Republicans, who ignore polling data showing they are held in low repute by the electorate and show remarkable determination and discipline in pushing their policies.

In contrast, the Democrats seem to like holding office more than using their control to take some political risks to achieve gains for their policies. 

In a television interview last week, a top Reid aide, when asked about what makes a politician successful, answered: “Getting re-elected.”  Absent was any sense that accomplishing something for the country while in office was a sign of success.

Europe, which adopted austerity as the way of overcoming recession, is beginning to realize that slashing spending imposes too heavy a penalty on people and that some government spending is needed to stimulate the economy.  The United States is moving in the opposite direction.

Reducing taxes has not yet stimulated more business investment that in turn would create more jobs, as the GOP maintains.    

While what government can do is limited, because of the size of the deficit, its spending cutbacks have slowed recovery, at least according to most economic commentators.  Government’s historic role in pushing growth has been ignored.

Voters may be impatient with both parties for their failure to find workable compromises that would, over time at least, both reduce the deficit and provide some stimulus to the economy.

But why should the GOP compromise when it’s winning?