For John, BLUF: next week is talk. The week after is action, but the type and magnitude is yet to be determined.
Writing in The Washington Post, Lori Montgomery and Paul Kane, ask, "The big sequester gamble: How badly will the cuts hurt?"
The sub-headline is "With the ax set to fall on federal spending in five days, the question in Washington is not whether the sequester will hit, but how much it will hurt."
The Wash Post writers have a mythical Ms Emily Holubowich, a Washington health-care lobbyist, state:
The worst-case scenario for us is the sequester hits and nothing bad really happens. And Republicans say: See, that wasn’t so bad.We just don't know what will happen. It could be like the mine tip collapse at Aberfan—a sudden collapse that engulfs us all.♠ Or, it could be just a small ripple in the economy—big to those directly impacted, but unnoticed by others.
It would appear we are like Admiral Christopher Columbus, sailing into unchartered waters.
On the other hand, the US Congress could pull a rabbit out of the hat and kick this can down the road for another month or so.
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
♠ Aberfan is just outside Merthyr Tydvil, from where some of my forefathers came.
Let it go, let it go, let it go. The gnashing of teeth over $85M is pathetic. It portends a complete unwillingness to inflict much greater cuts, cuts that are arguably necessary for the fiscal survival of the nation.
ReplyDeleteBlame?? Oh there is a lot of that to spread around. A pox on both our Congressional houses....AND the WH. But most especially, on the American people who have insisted for generations that the government take care of them. Well, they are about to get it.......good and hard.