Friday, March 01, 2013
I was wrong, but I'm glad
Well, I was wrong about the 'sequester' nonsense. I haven't thought much about it, because I don't have enough spare blood pressure to let partisan shit contaminate my mind. I simply assumed that Congress or the Pres would prevent it from happening. Why did I assume that? Because we DESPERATELY NEED to decrease spending AND increase taxes. A solid 20% on both sides of the ledger would be about right. Failing that, any move that brings the budget a tiny bit closer to balance, or even DEMONSTRATES that moving toward balance is POSSIBLE, is a small good thing. So the sequester is a micro-good thing.
And that's where my assumption went wrong. I assumed, on the basis of 25 years of consistent data, that DC would NEVER LET A GOOD THING HAPPEN, no matter how small or inconsequential. Since the late '80s, DC has operated on one Prime Directive: DO ONLY EVIL, AND DO A WHOLE FUCKING LOT OF IT.
But I underestimated a newer Prime Directive, which is DO NOTHING AT ALL.
In this particular case, doing nothing accidentally allowed an eeentsy-weeentsy picosmidgen of good to happen, at least for a few days. Not worth cheering, because the whole mess is still malignant.
A secondary effect might be worth cheering, though. It appears that the sequester is making military people and defense contractors angry with the Repooflicans, and making Official Victim Classes angry with the Dems. If this meaningless event serves to disconnect a few mechanical votebots from the Party Machines, it might force politicians to pay a few nanoseconds of distracted partial halfway semi-attention to actual Americans. Remains to be seen.
¶ 3:47 AM 
