"is" not "was"

The generally reliable LeBron messes up this morning by proclaiming that "The Sequester Was A Really Good Idea"

But the truth is that the Sequester still IS a really good idea.

People, I love the sequester. We are actually getting a slowdown in the rate of military spending (and perhaps an actual cut this coming year). We are actually getting a slowdown in the growth of overall Federal Spending. The deficit is coming down, and the economy is finally showing some signs of life.

Alas, it appears that it lasted exactly one year. Yikes. Even Gram-Rudman lasted longer than that!

Next year, according to the budget control act, discretionary spending was supposed to be $967 billion. But now Paul Ryan appears to be signing off on $1.05 trillion. After all, what's $38 billion among friends? They may even put 2015 up to $1.05 trillion as well which would be another $19 billion or so.

Remember that while in some years some numbers did go down temporarily, overall spending rose a fair amount under the terms of the Budget Control Act (sequester). But we could only take one year out of the 10 before the charade of discipline disintegrated.

At least maybe this will shut the yaps of all the "stimulus now, discipline later" advocates. It is nigh unto impossible for any kind of long term budget discipline to last.

Heck, this is not even a future congress undoing the actions of a previous congress. It's the same stupid bunch of hacks that enacted the thing!

So please pay no attention to the "offsetting cuts down the road", that's just smoke for the marks. Spending discipline is again over, the Republicans stand for absolutely nothing, and even Tyler has gone over to the dark side.

Bondage

Showing all the skillz that made his debt crisis resolution plan such a rousing success in the 1980s, James A. Baker the III graces us with an editorial on reaching a fiscal grand bargain.

In the piece he points out that, "it is very difficult to create effective mechanisms for spending constraint. That is because one Congress cannot bind the actions of future Congresses."

So far so good JBIII! Looks like you've been reading your KPC. So we've got to do it simultaneous and up front, right? All a Congress can get done is what they themselves can do.

Well his next paragraph starts, "I propose an enforcement mechanism linking the revenue increases and spending cuts that make up the grand bargain"

......

WTF?

Are there somehow multiple competing ghost writers on this piece?

Does JBIII think he has the super-power of binding future Congresses?

Will the WSJ really publish anything by anyone who knew Ronald Reagan?