the political system is indeed broken, but the constitution is pretty clear:
the legislative branch appropriates the spending, the executive branch does the spending.
the legislative branch writes the checks, the executive branch goes to the store and picks the items off the shelf.
the legislative branch makes the shopping list, the executive branch chooses how closely it follows the list.
if the executive branch makes too many bad choices, the legislative branch writes smaller checks or stops writing checks to that store altogether.
even the check writing process is clearly defined:
the house has the checkbook, and the senate has general veto power over its use.
the house writes a budget or a spending bill, and the senate approves it, or makes changes to it and it goes to conference committee.
lately, tho....the senate has been unwilling to do their job and approve a budget of any sort. even the president's proposed budget failed 99-0 in the senate.
sure, the house is writing budgets the senate and the president won't go for, but they aren't preventing the senate from doing their jobs and creating a committee bill to work towards some sort of compromise. the senate hasn't passed a budget in nearly four years.
in the case of the sequester, the president was tired of congress not writing a budget (or accepting his) so he designed a plan that sucked so bad for both sides that surely they would do something else. the house did several something elses, but the senate and the president refused almost all of them. the one thing both the democrat senate and the democrat president did accept was the republican house's January1 compromise on the increase of the top marginal tax rate on the highest earning taxpayers, in exchange for pushing the sequester cuts off two more months. they had been offering "loophole and deduction" revenue increases, but the president demanded rate increases.
the president got what he wanted, he got the rate increase. and he got it without having to cut spending...despite his demands of a balanced approach.
the week before the sequester, he demanded the "loophole and deduction" increases he refused two months before in exchange for unspecified spending cuts. if he didn't get them, he promised all hell would break loose when his sequester went thru (sounds like the stimulus argument, doesn't it?). as sequester approached, and as he promised an apocalypse, people noticed that the sequester was only 44 billion out of 3800 billion and sought ways to minimize the impact, since it was aimed directly at government employees. he was offered the explicit ability to aim those cuts (since the implicit ability outlined in the constitution wasn't good enough, i guess), he refused it. he was offered other plans to cut that money from other places and programs, he refused it. ground level members of his administration directly asked for permission to push their cuts into places it wouldn't hurt....and HE SPECIFICALLY DEMANDED THAT THEY ALLOW THE DAMAGE HE WAS PROMISING TO OCCUR.
you can choose to place the blame of a failed political system wherever you like, there is more than enough to go around.
but it's fairly clear where the sequester blame belongs.
remember too....the political system that could not find 44 billion dollars to cut that wouldn't furlough jeff and his kind in late february created 51 billion dollars it didn't have to spend on Hurricane Sandy relief in late january.
they'll all get together and agree to spend money they don't have in the budget, but they aren't as willing to agree on not spending money they already budgeted for.... that should tell you everything you really need to know about DC in general.
Team OK-Speed
Regularly losing in Class A
Soon to start losing in Class C
